I think that so many people tune out politics that they have no idea what is happening. I worry that they would think that this is all just Democratic Propaganda. I shudder to think that as Liz Cheney said, "sleepwalking into a dictatorship". I know people will wish that they had been paying attention after the fact.
The fact that authoritarianism has been the historically dominant form of human government proves nothing aside from our lack of confidence in ourselves combined with a fundamental laziness about making decisions. If the morbidly rich and their tool tfg prevail, the world will slide into an authoritarian hellscape miserable for the many and a delight for the few. Should our species go that route, for me, that means it will have failed. It will have surrendered what could have made it worthy. Were it not for the fact that the means of our self-extinction will likely take most other life on earth with it, I would be all for it in that event. Maybe I still would. After all, the cockroaches have been waiting billions of years for their chance to rule, and might well be better at it.
I have taught many of the political theorists, including Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. And you are right. But in my most cynical, darkest moments, I think there’s no theory or ideology, per se, that the power-hungry embrace. I think I comes down to “how much money can I make from this thing they call the state?”
Brilliant! But the money is just evidence/symbol of the hegemony. A lot is being made now of the idea that the oligarchs "reconciling" with Trump are motivated by fear of taxes. But I think fear of regulations are even paramount. Pesky interference: zoning, and stupid worries about useless wildlife, and water pollution, and little people downwind, and an apartment building collapsing now and then, or a town being blown up or door blowing off a plane. What a bunch of petty hassles! Rachel Maddow went into detail about Trump's magical bonder; hello! Funny how the (SEC? Justice?) investigation into massive predatory lending and collections practices evaporated when Trump was Pres. To those people, the government is a waste of legal fees and "compliance" personnel.
Democracy is indeed under attack across the world and the underdog supporters are losing ground more and more every year. We have to keep fighting as quitting is not an option, unless you like slavery and indentured servitude. Those are coming back more as well. Just ask the domestic workers from the Philippines. There are hundreds of people being kidnapped and coerced into slavery in south east Asia all the time now. Vietnam (I think) just pulled of a rescue mission in Cambodia and Laos, as I recall.
The bottom line is that feudalism is coming back and if those of us who would be considered in the serf or slave caste of that ancient system don't fight back, our grand children will end up with lives very much like our ancestors endured back in the middle ages.
Indentured servitude has never left, except for gig workers, and small business owners, or tradesmen. One you sign an employment contract, especially with a company that has benefits, you are in essence an indentured servant for life
An indenture is a legal contract. Property sales in the early days of our nation were by Indenture.
The early settlers in Virginia were either adventurers of purse (i.e. investors or scions of investors in the London Company of Virginia...Virginia Company) craftsman-"freemen", like carpenters and mercenaries like Capt John Smith, or indentured servants. adventurers of purse could gain a 50 acre patent from the King for every passenger whose voyage he paid, once tobacco plantations were established the fee for passage of an indentured servant was `150 lbs of tobacco.
The duration of the indenture varied over time, and according to the skills of the indentured, most common was 7 years, after which he was provided a musket, a sack of seed corn, and a mule.
In the interim indentured servants were treated harshly, worse than slaves, and slavery was not recognized until 1654 in the case of Johnson v. Casor. Anthony Johnson, a former indentured servant, became a planter and had his own indentured servants, but was a cruel task master, and an indentured servant named John Casor ran off to a neighboring plantation. Johnson sued for possession of Casor,claiming that he was his property, the court agreed, but it wasn't until 1661 that slavery was the law of the land, and an anti miscegenation law was passed.
In late August, 1619, 20-30 enslaved Africans landed at Point Comfort, today's Fort Monroe in Hampton, Va., aboard the English privateer ship White Lion. In Virginia, these Africans were traded in exchange for supplies.
These poor souls were not enslaved, they were indentured to established planters, and when the indenture was fulifilled they were freed. Thus the likes of the black planter Anthony Johson and Edward Mozingo https://www.amazon.com/Fiddler-Pantico-Run-African-Descendants/dp/1451627483, the story of an African warrior and his white descendants.
If those who make the decisions for our democracy want to fulfill their Constitutional purpose, we need them to collaborate with our fellow citizens to build and maintain a role model education system (among other things). Without it, we now have tens of millions of poorly educated citizens who are incapable of critical and analytical thinking, and especially vulnerable to authoritarianism, fear and rage.
And that makes them perfect marks for the Russian-run grifters we have in our government today. A democracy will only thrive if we have enough folks who choose to learn what’s going on in the world and the skills to discover it. And since money is speech and corporations get to exploit the rights of our citizens, any efforts to have a role model education system available to all of us will be thwarted by those who benefit from our collective ignorance and stupidity, and our devolution into autocratic rule will be assured. We must end the powers of corporate personhood with a supermajority of competent elected officials and it would be very helpful if we could do it this year.
You are correct about the need for education. That may be one of the reasons that Project 2025 seeks to eliminate public schools. Betsy DeVos with her nonsense charter schools (on the public dime) damaged the education of our youth. The people I have been living among didn’t complete high school. All of them fall into the “neurodiverse” category - ADHD, Aspergers etc. Without education they are much more susceptible to the sophisticated propaganda machine of Heritage.org/Morbidly rich/Putin backers. We need a strong public education system again. One that helps everyone. People learn differently but they can all learn to decipher truth from lies.
The challenge in Nov. is highly systemic. Trump and DeJoy sabotaged the Census, at the same time the software for cherry-picking voters became brilliant. It's too late to worry about the "citizens who are incapable of critical and analytical thinking," only mechanical, on the ground mustering and enabling of those who are aware can overcome the obstacles. Elias, Palast, Abrams and maybe local Democratic Party offices can help check, and double check registration, polling place, technical mail ballot rules. I think I just heard on MSNBC that mail ballots in No. Carolina need to be notarized? Seriously? It's insane.
Authoritarian regimes that were previously Democracies cannot help but be resentful and resistant . And if they are not , I question their current mental health.
People that wish to be dominated, find out that it’s not exactly a compassionate arrangement.
Remember how absolutely not caring the Republicans have become . They are happy to create all kinds of devious policies to undermine democracy and the will of the people.
They don’t care.
They care about money and power and domination of others .
Being on the other side of that is not a reasonable or pleasant way to live.
Freedom is a higher value and must be pursued in spite of the prevailing political winds .
We have these prevalent winds because Trump and his followers have sold their souls to other dominating authoritarians . Putin, Orban, and many others are not “ nice, fair, or reasonable” people.
Remember the Republicans sent for the kit of authoritarianism , having invited Orban to address the Republicans Conventions over the past several years. They suck up to Putin in fear .
And spend the rest
Of their time falsely investigating the current administration and family members . But do not function as a Congressional body .
We must fight this mess on every level . For ourselves, children and grandchildren .
Democracy, democracy, democracy. Minus the fact that we’re reduced to elections for accomplishing “representative government,” I do appreciate the representative aspects of our constitutional republic; our rule of law for civic peace and order.
Civic peace and order are things we’ve enjoyed so long we expect them, and take the completely for granted. And we forget where they came from (at least in our society). Those don’t come from democracy. They come from civic law & order.
I favor representative government. But functional democracy is contingent on a constitutional republic. It’s our rule of law - our constitutional republic at stake here. How it goes - so goes our democracy.
We need to wake up and get serious about protecting our constitutional republic. If we actually do that - the democracy related aspects will take care of themselves.
If we don’t do that, nothing is going to save our “democracy” anyway.
Two signs that we are now in very dangerous territory. One is that the courts, which are supposed to protect our Constitution and rule against people who blatantly break the law, have now chosen to protect Trump. Justice Thomas and Judge Cannon are already tilting the next election towards Trump.
The second huge threat is that Russian propaganda and lies are now being told by members of the US House. We have been altered to this danger by Chairman Michael McCaul Republican head of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Trump and his Congressional lackeys are falling in line with Putin. We don't know how much financial aid they are getting.
Another excellent lesson Thom. It pains me to think that the authoritarians may yet seize the day, but in so doing they will wake up with a hangover like a binge drinker, and bemoan the fate that they brought down upon themselves.
The standard of living that the world enjoys, was not brought by authoritarian governments and rulers, be they sectarian or secular. But by the freedom of choice enjoyed by Democratic governments, with the USA leading the way.
Should the dictator Trump actually take over America, the quality of life for all of us peons will degenerate, not overnight, for there is enough fat in the land for the social animal to live off. and not just America but the world.
On the plus side, we won't see the Saudis and Emirates rushing to send their brats to the U.S. for education and using their money to corrupt our educational institutions and government.
As the quality of life degenerates so will the consumption of fossil fuels, and maybe the mammals will gain a decade or two of reprieve before the anthropogene extinction.
“On the plus side, we won't see the Saudis and Emirates rushing to send their brats to the U.S. for education and using their money to corrupt our educational institutions and government.”
What do you mean exactly? How exactly are these students corrupting our educational institutions and government?
I’ve taught hundreds maybe thousands of students from KSA, UAE, and other parts of the Middle East as well as China at US colleges and universities over the years. If anything, those students took back to their respective countries a lot of our best values and ideas.
The vast majority of international students put US students to shame in terms of their seriousness about their education and willingness to learn.
Here I go. Call me Islamophobic if you wish, but then I am also Christophobic and Judeaphobic for the same reason. The Abrahamic religions are patriarchal, homophobic, misogynistic, intolerant, triumphalist. Well Judaism isn't triumphalist. But of them all, Islam is the very worst and most extreme. There are 57 Islamic ethnostates in the world, and all of them are ruled, at least to some degree, by the tenets of the faith, aka Sharia. Even Malyasia which declares itself a tolerant democracy, is not tolerant nor a democracy if you are female or gay..
If you have read my other comments, you know that I have been trying to warn people about Dominionism,
Christianity and Islam share one goal, World Domination, but of the two Islam is the most successful as it already controls 57 Countries.
There is misogyny, intolerance of infidels, non believers and LGBT in all religions, but none so institutionalized as in Islamic countries.
All of those "liberal" Islamophile students, would have a different opinion were they living in an Islamic country, and the women were reduced to conformist dress, and LGBT were forced into hiding.
And what are these "foreign exchange" students from Islamic countries doing, for one they are enjoying the freedoms of western culture, but also presenting a false Idea of Islamic culture. Saudi and Emirate money are buying chairs and professors, and the students are doing the same with their peers.
As regards bringing back a lot of our best values and ideas, They are left at the airport.
I spent about three years on a forum called Liberty Forum, it was started after Dubya's invasion of Iraq. I thought at first by a billionaire libertarian, all of the mods were libertarians, but on reflection I see Arab oil money.
There were a lot of Muslims, a couple of converts (they were the most radical), and a Saudi troll farm, with as many Saudi's as there were pages.
I don't know if they still have phrae, but you can have multiple conversations or pages open at a time, this one's screen name was Kudzu, supposedly a female who had lived and grown up in a compound in Saudi Arabia, but had an amazing ability to respond immediately to any comment about the Kingdom or Islam, within seconds on many pages at once.
I made an acquaintance with one young man, a student in Montreal, he told the truth about Islam, and what the sahih (verses) in the Quran meant, his father was tracked down (his father lived in the Kingdom), he was threatened, the father in turn threatened the son, and the son apologized claimed some lame excuse and then went silent.
It was then that I was motivated to study Islam, I studied the Quran, owned three copies, even the copy of the one Thomas Jefferson kept in his library, the haddiths and the biography of Muhammad by ibn Ishaq. These are the sources that Mufti's and Ayatollahs use to issue fatwa's and for judicial rulings.
So why do you think that universtity students and some professors are all up in arms and activists over Gaza, and could care phucking less about the slaughter of Ukrainians by Putin.?
Because of Islamic student activism, and the fact that many professors and deans owe their income and position to oil money.
I turn on the TV, watch BBC America, even MSNBC, and am bombarded with HAMAS propaganda and figures when are thrown out without caveat,, but when Israel posts a video, it iis caveated as unverified.
So we now have, taken as gospel, by the media and idiots, 35,000 Dead in Gaza. The figures are from the HAMAS "Ministry of Health", and they don't even bother to tell you that, they call it Palestinian Ministry of Health.. And they don't advise the viewer that all figures from HAMAS are exagerrated propaganda. Of course they are.
And no one bothers to mention that among those killed, up to half are HAMAS terrorist/soldiers. A battalion in the west is about 500 troops, HAMAS has 5 brigades, and 30 battalions total, then there is Islamic Jihad, which has its own battalions, participated in Oct 7 and has it's own hostages.
These troops aren't wearing uniforms and helmets, most are in civilian clothing, thus when killed, HAMAS claims that Israel killed a civilian.
I know that international students return to their countries, but that has nothing to do with the disruption that they are having on our politics. I really don't give a rats about Israel. I am not a Jew and am, according to the lights of Zionists, and anti semite, but they are agitating for Trump, that isn't there goal, but they are loyal to the Ummah above all else. The Ummah is the world wide community of Muslims. If Wayne Co, MI goes for Trump it will be because of the Muslims who sat out the election, voted third party, or even voted for Tump out of protest of Biden. If Michigan goes for Trump, then it is pretty well assured that Trump will be #47.
As regards having a relationship with students/young people from the middle east. Bear in mind that when you are a guest in the home of a another, you present and behave differently than in your own home.
I am not painting people with a broad brush, but painting a culture (Islam) with it's own brush.
My father was a retired Marine, he was part of the 5th Amphib, that liberated Roi Namur, Saipan and Tinian, he landed in Pusan to drive the North Koreans back, survived the Chosin Reservoir and caught a chicom mortar between the lefs at Hwonchan dam, he would get together with friends, retired MSgts and a Col) to drink and play cards. Nicest, most sentimental men you could meet, not one of them an a hole, but put them in uniform, in a unit , and faced with a mission and stand out of their way.
I am a retired special ops officer. I too am at heart a pacifist, too sentimental at times, but in charge of my team and given a mission, the mission will be accomplished.
I don't know if you get the drift.
There are 8 billion people on this planet and growing, you have no choice but to paint with a broad brush, because you don't have time to evaluate and make exceptions case by case.
I have said many times, that if someone tells me up front that they are a Christian, I grab my wallet, turn on my heels and walk away... I am painting with a broad brush and for good reason..personal experience.
You are usually pretty good at sourcing. I have been curious about the extent to which Hamas is still shooting back in Gaza? But I wonder what is your source for: "up to half are HAMAS terrorist/soldiers. A battalion in the west is about 500 troops, HAMAS has 5 brigades, and 30 battalions total, then there is Islamic Jihad, which has its own battalions, participated in Oct 7 and has it's own hostages." Thanks.
The matter of credibility is important. It doesn't seem to bother those quoting these figures that these numbers come from Gaza's Health Ministry, controlled by the terrorist organization Hamas, which has a track record of blatant lying and a clear interest in inflating civilian casualty numbers while concealing its own combatant casualties. According to the IDF's estimates, approximately 12,000 Hamas fighters have been killed so far in the fighting.
It's crucial to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization whose data is misleading and easily disproved. The claim that 70% of the dead are women and children is easy to refute since, if the IDF eliminated 12,000 Hamas fighters, almost all of whom are men, then accordingly that would lead to the conclusion that every man killed in Gaza is a Hamas member (and more), including the elderly, as the remaining 30% who are not women and children are by definition men. Moreover, 12,000 military casualties constitute 36% of the 33,000 reported to have been killed, meaning that there are about 2,000 of the Hamas casualties claimed by the IDF as killed (6% of 33,000) who should be categorized as women and children. This strengthens the argument that many of those categorized as children killed are actually young Hamas fighters and/or that Hamas just lies.
Additionally, it appears that in Gaza people don't die unless it's in a war. The natural mortality rate in the West Bank and Gaza, according to World Bank data, stands at 0.4%. Applied to the six months since the war began, this rate would be 0.2% out of a population of 2.2 million, meaning 4,400 individuals died in circumstances unrelated to the war, to Israel or to the conflict; however, they are of course counted by Hamas as war victims.
It's highly probable that all these deaths are civilians, mostly elderly and sick individuals, not fighting-age combatants. Moreover, the actual natural death toll is likely much higher, with many dying due to lack of proper health care resulting from the war's strain on Gaza's health care system. These thousands are also war victims in the war instigated by Hamas and other terror organizations, who exploit humanitarian facilities for military purposes, thus making them military targets, which lead to them being attacked. Had they stayed civilian, these places would have not only provided care for the civilian population in Gaza, but would have also offered refuge for many.
These numbers alone reduce the civilian death toll in Gaza caused by Israeli attacks to at most 15,000 and probably even less, meaning less than half of the casualties are civilians. In modern warfare history, a ratio of less than 1:1 between combatants and civilians is considered a very low civilian casualty rate. In the Vietnam War, the ratio was 1:3, in the Chechen Wars 1:4.3, in NATO's war in Serbia 1:4, and in the Iraq War, civilian casualties accounted for 77% of deaths. However, it's crucial not to stop here, as even 15,000 civilian deaths are a significant and tragic number that must be acknowledged.
I’ve signed up to attend the town hall with Field Team 6 this afternoon. Are you free to join me? Use this link to sign up: https://mobilize.us/s/E5DAXt
Yes and yes! How many "get it" that we are voting for our own quality of life thanks to rational government? One could go on for pages, but just look at Texas divorcing itself from the National power grid and then failing it's citizens during yet another Big Freeze? Then there was half the town blown up from a plant that hadn't been inspected in years, ho hum. The primary fallacy is that government is the enemy.
Another great article by Hartmann. But I have to take issue with a phrase in the article:
"and the party is using Trump’s “stolen election” [LIE] to undermine and ultimately end democracy at the state level."
It is concerning that Trump's brush with treason is conveniently reduced to a stolen election lie. It's like saying you found a tree in the forest. I wish journalists would be a little more accurate and descriptive. Here is how I would write that phrase:
Trump's massive, ongoing, coordinated stolen election CONJOB involving THOUSANDS of CO-CONSPIRATORS and MILLIONS of LIES.
I gotta read Thom's book. I think we didn't actually have "democracy" until the Voting Rights Act became law in 1965. I think we pretty much lost it in Shelby County v. Holder, 2013.
I don't presume to speak for humanity, but Americans worked through evolution in applying the Constitution. IMHO we no longer are relegated to "place" a/k/a "states" as that term was defined in the Articles of Incorporation or the Constitution and the 10th Amendment is relegated to scraps due to the supremacy clauses.
The Voting Rights Act supposedly ended racial discrimination in voting. At our founding only white male landowners could vote. The Constitution made slaves count as 3/5 of an elector, and the Electoral College gave states outsized power.
That power was vested in the Senate. The Constitution originally provided for the election of senators by individual state legislatures. In the years following the Civil War, that system became increasingly subject to bribery, fraud, and deadlock. As Congress took on a greater role in shaping an industrializing nation, those with a major business stake in that development believed they could best exert their influence on the U.S. Senate by offering financial incentives to the state legislators who selected its members.
The 17th Amendment changed the method to direct election, in an attempt to reduce the influence that that large corporations and corrupt state legislators played in selection of senators.
Our founders were not ideologues, and the first thing they did was amend the Constitution. In reading their arguments and the Federalist Papers, Al Levine (a/k/a Alexander Hamilton) and his followers favored a loose interpretation of the Constitution, which meant they believed that the document permitted everything that it did not expressly forbid. This contrasted sharply with Thomas Jefferson's strict interpretation. This is ironic because Jefferson was a Deist and not a fundamentalist.
Hobbes alleged that we are naturally cruel and competitive. Reminds me of the insurance company defense in PI cases, "Man, born of woman, comes into the world in pain and from the moment of conception begins to die." Extrapolating, to any reasonable degree of inference therefore, choose Fascism and choose a life of pain leading to hell.
The idea that it is natural and inevitable that humans move toward authoritarian forms of government is nonsense and self serving BS from those who want authoriatarian govt. If you haven't read it yet read The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by Graber and Wengrow. In it the authors show (based on new findings in archealogy and anthropology) that for most of human history (including prehistory) we may have experimented with authoritarian govt but eventually came to our senses and got rid if it. That included several large cities of 20,000 plus population managing themselves just fine without oligarchs, kings, high priests etc. Early on Native Americans had trouble believing europeans bowed down to some idiot in a funny suit. They intensely valued their freedom. Their leaders had to lead by being eloquent and persuasive or they would be ignored (with no consequence).
George Lakoff (cognitive scientist)(Whose Freedom?) shed light on a second issue here . In this country (and others?) there is a battle between what Lakoff refers to as the strict father model (very authoritarian) and the nurturant father model (very democratic, inclusive etc). These books are well worth reading.
Thanks! Made a note. I am of the generation for whom Riane Eisler was such a revelation, casting the issue in gender distinctions. I am not sure that the relative virtues of this social unit or that can be easily categorized. I humbly propose that the issue front and center in America now: how shall the reproduction of females be regulated? isn't the definitive consideration in any given culture.
I understand this analysis of human historical social models as a choice between adherence to abstract religious forms, which includes all capitalist politics, or creative cultural communion.
We need more research on the recent global epidemic of children being diagnosed with ‘mental illnesses’, ranging from autism to sexual or physical dysmorphia, as a reactive structural intolerance by political systems of individual’s emotional intelligence and cultural sensitivity.
Jeffersonian Democracy was an explosion of success around the world which took notice. The economic royalist believed it would fail quickly and they could take over so no big deal with the experiment. They had to turn around and pretend they believed in democracy when it was an undeniable success. In fact they turned around and claimed to be the protectors of democracy while doing all they could to undermined its true values and functions. They have a program to undermine America and end democracy around the world. They will fail as they always do in the long run. All we need to do and undo the damage to it that they have done.
"Russia’s president Putin clearly is more in Hobbes’ camp: government needs an iron fist to retain law and order. As are China’s President Xi, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad Bin Salman, the ruling mullahs of Iran, and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, among others."
How the hell is Benjamin Netanyahu not on this list...
Perhaps because he isn't the boss: he is dependent for his figurehead spot (and protection from prosecution) on an alliance with extremist Zionists. Funny reflection of the dilemma of Johnson in the House here. He's stuck with a choice to do the right thing and fund Ukraine, or no longer be Speaker. I say, that is a good sword to fall on, Mr. "Godly" man. For what it's worth...
Have the Brownshirts arrived here ? I just read on my cell phone this AM that at Louisiana SHOOL BOARD MEETING THAT when the board superintendent was being voted a raise a teacher asked why is he getting a raise and struggling teachers with increasing class sizes are denied raises. The teacher (a woman) was thrown to the ground, handcuffed and arrested.
I think that so many people tune out politics that they have no idea what is happening. I worry that they would think that this is all just Democratic Propaganda. I shudder to think that as Liz Cheney said, "sleepwalking into a dictatorship". I know people will wish that they had been paying attention after the fact.
Everything is visceral to many people.
"Trump hates dogs" and "Trump stole from kids with cancer" sometimes wakes them.
Thank goodness Trump is so repulsive.
The fact that authoritarianism has been the historically dominant form of human government proves nothing aside from our lack of confidence in ourselves combined with a fundamental laziness about making decisions. If the morbidly rich and their tool tfg prevail, the world will slide into an authoritarian hellscape miserable for the many and a delight for the few. Should our species go that route, for me, that means it will have failed. It will have surrendered what could have made it worthy. Were it not for the fact that the means of our self-extinction will likely take most other life on earth with it, I would be all for it in that event. Maybe I still would. After all, the cockroaches have been waiting billions of years for their chance to rule, and might well be better at it.
I have taught many of the political theorists, including Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. And you are right. But in my most cynical, darkest moments, I think there’s no theory or ideology, per se, that the power-hungry embrace. I think I comes down to “how much money can I make from this thing they call the state?”
Brilliant! But the money is just evidence/symbol of the hegemony. A lot is being made now of the idea that the oligarchs "reconciling" with Trump are motivated by fear of taxes. But I think fear of regulations are even paramount. Pesky interference: zoning, and stupid worries about useless wildlife, and water pollution, and little people downwind, and an apartment building collapsing now and then, or a town being blown up or door blowing off a plane. What a bunch of petty hassles! Rachel Maddow went into detail about Trump's magical bonder; hello! Funny how the (SEC? Justice?) investigation into massive predatory lending and collections practices evaporated when Trump was Pres. To those people, the government is a waste of legal fees and "compliance" personnel.
Democracy is indeed under attack across the world and the underdog supporters are losing ground more and more every year. We have to keep fighting as quitting is not an option, unless you like slavery and indentured servitude. Those are coming back more as well. Just ask the domestic workers from the Philippines. There are hundreds of people being kidnapped and coerced into slavery in south east Asia all the time now. Vietnam (I think) just pulled of a rescue mission in Cambodia and Laos, as I recall.
The bottom line is that feudalism is coming back and if those of us who would be considered in the serf or slave caste of that ancient system don't fight back, our grand children will end up with lives very much like our ancestors endured back in the middle ages.
Indentured servitude has never left, except for gig workers, and small business owners, or tradesmen. One you sign an employment contract, especially with a company that has benefits, you are in essence an indentured servant for life
An indenture is a legal contract. Property sales in the early days of our nation were by Indenture.
The early settlers in Virginia were either adventurers of purse (i.e. investors or scions of investors in the London Company of Virginia...Virginia Company) craftsman-"freemen", like carpenters and mercenaries like Capt John Smith, or indentured servants. adventurers of purse could gain a 50 acre patent from the King for every passenger whose voyage he paid, once tobacco plantations were established the fee for passage of an indentured servant was `150 lbs of tobacco.
The duration of the indenture varied over time, and according to the skills of the indentured, most common was 7 years, after which he was provided a musket, a sack of seed corn, and a mule.
In the interim indentured servants were treated harshly, worse than slaves, and slavery was not recognized until 1654 in the case of Johnson v. Casor. Anthony Johnson, a former indentured servant, became a planter and had his own indentured servants, but was a cruel task master, and an indentured servant named John Casor ran off to a neighboring plantation. Johnson sued for possession of Casor,claiming that he was his property, the court agreed, but it wasn't until 1661 that slavery was the law of the land, and an anti miscegenation law was passed.
In late August, 1619, 20-30 enslaved Africans landed at Point Comfort, today's Fort Monroe in Hampton, Va., aboard the English privateer ship White Lion. In Virginia, these Africans were traded in exchange for supplies.
These poor souls were not enslaved, they were indentured to established planters, and when the indenture was fulifilled they were freed. Thus the likes of the black planter Anthony Johson and Edward Mozingo https://www.amazon.com/Fiddler-Pantico-Run-African-Descendants/dp/1451627483, the story of an African warrior and his white descendants.
Depends. Too many "at will" states, where workers have essentially no rights.
But since FDR many workers have some recourse, even in "at will" states, no thanks to the Republican Party.
If those who make the decisions for our democracy want to fulfill their Constitutional purpose, we need them to collaborate with our fellow citizens to build and maintain a role model education system (among other things). Without it, we now have tens of millions of poorly educated citizens who are incapable of critical and analytical thinking, and especially vulnerable to authoritarianism, fear and rage.
And that makes them perfect marks for the Russian-run grifters we have in our government today. A democracy will only thrive if we have enough folks who choose to learn what’s going on in the world and the skills to discover it. And since money is speech and corporations get to exploit the rights of our citizens, any efforts to have a role model education system available to all of us will be thwarted by those who benefit from our collective ignorance and stupidity, and our devolution into autocratic rule will be assured. We must end the powers of corporate personhood with a supermajority of competent elected officials and it would be very helpful if we could do it this year.
You are correct about the need for education. That may be one of the reasons that Project 2025 seeks to eliminate public schools. Betsy DeVos with her nonsense charter schools (on the public dime) damaged the education of our youth. The people I have been living among didn’t complete high school. All of them fall into the “neurodiverse” category - ADHD, Aspergers etc. Without education they are much more susceptible to the sophisticated propaganda machine of Heritage.org/Morbidly rich/Putin backers. We need a strong public education system again. One that helps everyone. People learn differently but they can all learn to decipher truth from lies.
The challenge in Nov. is highly systemic. Trump and DeJoy sabotaged the Census, at the same time the software for cherry-picking voters became brilliant. It's too late to worry about the "citizens who are incapable of critical and analytical thinking," only mechanical, on the ground mustering and enabling of those who are aware can overcome the obstacles. Elias, Palast, Abrams and maybe local Democratic Party offices can help check, and double check registration, polling place, technical mail ballot rules. I think I just heard on MSNBC that mail ballots in No. Carolina need to be notarized? Seriously? It's insane.
Authoritarian regimes that were previously Democracies cannot help but be resentful and resistant . And if they are not , I question their current mental health.
People that wish to be dominated, find out that it’s not exactly a compassionate arrangement.
Remember how absolutely not caring the Republicans have become . They are happy to create all kinds of devious policies to undermine democracy and the will of the people.
They don’t care.
They care about money and power and domination of others .
Being on the other side of that is not a reasonable or pleasant way to live.
Freedom is a higher value and must be pursued in spite of the prevailing political winds .
We have these prevalent winds because Trump and his followers have sold their souls to other dominating authoritarians . Putin, Orban, and many others are not “ nice, fair, or reasonable” people.
Remember the Republicans sent for the kit of authoritarianism , having invited Orban to address the Republicans Conventions over the past several years. They suck up to Putin in fear .
And spend the rest
Of their time falsely investigating the current administration and family members . But do not function as a Congressional body .
We must fight this mess on every level . For ourselves, children and grandchildren .
Democracy, democracy, democracy. Minus the fact that we’re reduced to elections for accomplishing “representative government,” I do appreciate the representative aspects of our constitutional republic; our rule of law for civic peace and order.
Civic peace and order are things we’ve enjoyed so long we expect them, and take the completely for granted. And we forget where they came from (at least in our society). Those don’t come from democracy. They come from civic law & order.
I favor representative government. But functional democracy is contingent on a constitutional republic. It’s our rule of law - our constitutional republic at stake here. How it goes - so goes our democracy.
We need to wake up and get serious about protecting our constitutional republic. If we actually do that - the democracy related aspects will take care of themselves.
If we don’t do that, nothing is going to save our “democracy” anyway.
Two signs that we are now in very dangerous territory. One is that the courts, which are supposed to protect our Constitution and rule against people who blatantly break the law, have now chosen to protect Trump. Justice Thomas and Judge Cannon are already tilting the next election towards Trump.
The second huge threat is that Russian propaganda and lies are now being told by members of the US House. We have been altered to this danger by Chairman Michael McCaul Republican head of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Trump and his Congressional lackeys are falling in line with Putin. We don't know how much financial aid they are getting.
Another excellent lesson Thom. It pains me to think that the authoritarians may yet seize the day, but in so doing they will wake up with a hangover like a binge drinker, and bemoan the fate that they brought down upon themselves.
The standard of living that the world enjoys, was not brought by authoritarian governments and rulers, be they sectarian or secular. But by the freedom of choice enjoyed by Democratic governments, with the USA leading the way.
Should the dictator Trump actually take over America, the quality of life for all of us peons will degenerate, not overnight, for there is enough fat in the land for the social animal to live off. and not just America but the world.
On the plus side, we won't see the Saudis and Emirates rushing to send their brats to the U.S. for education and using their money to corrupt our educational institutions and government.
As the quality of life degenerates so will the consumption of fossil fuels, and maybe the mammals will gain a decade or two of reprieve before the anthropogene extinction.
I agree with your comment until this part:
“On the plus side, we won't see the Saudis and Emirates rushing to send their brats to the U.S. for education and using their money to corrupt our educational institutions and government.”
What do you mean exactly? How exactly are these students corrupting our educational institutions and government?
I’ve taught hundreds maybe thousands of students from KSA, UAE, and other parts of the Middle East as well as China at US colleges and universities over the years. If anything, those students took back to their respective countries a lot of our best values and ideas.
The vast majority of international students put US students to shame in terms of their seriousness about their education and willingness to learn.
Here I go. Call me Islamophobic if you wish, but then I am also Christophobic and Judeaphobic for the same reason. The Abrahamic religions are patriarchal, homophobic, misogynistic, intolerant, triumphalist. Well Judaism isn't triumphalist. But of them all, Islam is the very worst and most extreme. There are 57 Islamic ethnostates in the world, and all of them are ruled, at least to some degree, by the tenets of the faith, aka Sharia. Even Malyasia which declares itself a tolerant democracy, is not tolerant nor a democracy if you are female or gay..
If you have read my other comments, you know that I have been trying to warn people about Dominionism,
Founded by R J Rushdoony and the father of Ted Cruz Rafaelwhich poses as a Christian ideology, aka Christian Reconstruction, or the Christian NAZI's or https://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/royal_race.htm
Christianity and Islam share one goal, World Domination, but of the two Islam is the most successful as it already controls 57 Countries.
There is misogyny, intolerance of infidels, non believers and LGBT in all religions, but none so institutionalized as in Islamic countries.
All of those "liberal" Islamophile students, would have a different opinion were they living in an Islamic country, and the women were reduced to conformist dress, and LGBT were forced into hiding.
And what are these "foreign exchange" students from Islamic countries doing, for one they are enjoying the freedoms of western culture, but also presenting a false Idea of Islamic culture. Saudi and Emirate money are buying chairs and professors, and the students are doing the same with their peers.
As regards bringing back a lot of our best values and ideas, They are left at the airport.
I spent about three years on a forum called Liberty Forum, it was started after Dubya's invasion of Iraq. I thought at first by a billionaire libertarian, all of the mods were libertarians, but on reflection I see Arab oil money.
There were a lot of Muslims, a couple of converts (they were the most radical), and a Saudi troll farm, with as many Saudi's as there were pages.
I don't know if they still have phrae, but you can have multiple conversations or pages open at a time, this one's screen name was Kudzu, supposedly a female who had lived and grown up in a compound in Saudi Arabia, but had an amazing ability to respond immediately to any comment about the Kingdom or Islam, within seconds on many pages at once.
I made an acquaintance with one young man, a student in Montreal, he told the truth about Islam, and what the sahih (verses) in the Quran meant, his father was tracked down (his father lived in the Kingdom), he was threatened, the father in turn threatened the son, and the son apologized claimed some lame excuse and then went silent.
It was then that I was motivated to study Islam, I studied the Quran, owned three copies, even the copy of the one Thomas Jefferson kept in his library, the haddiths and the biography of Muhammad by ibn Ishaq. These are the sources that Mufti's and Ayatollahs use to issue fatwa's and for judicial rulings.
So why do you think that universtity students and some professors are all up in arms and activists over Gaza, and could care phucking less about the slaughter of Ukrainians by Putin.?
Because of Islamic student activism, and the fact that many professors and deans owe their income and position to oil money.
I turn on the TV, watch BBC America, even MSNBC, and am bombarded with HAMAS propaganda and figures when are thrown out without caveat,, but when Israel posts a video, it iis caveated as unverified.
So we now have, taken as gospel, by the media and idiots, 35,000 Dead in Gaza. The figures are from the HAMAS "Ministry of Health", and they don't even bother to tell you that, they call it Palestinian Ministry of Health.. And they don't advise the viewer that all figures from HAMAS are exagerrated propaganda. Of course they are.
And no one bothers to mention that among those killed, up to half are HAMAS terrorist/soldiers. A battalion in the west is about 500 troops, HAMAS has 5 brigades, and 30 battalions total, then there is Islamic Jihad, which has its own battalions, participated in Oct 7 and has it's own hostages.
These troops aren't wearing uniforms and helmets, most are in civilian clothing, thus when killed, HAMAS claims that Israel killed a civilian.
I’m truly unsure what you’re talking about.
My comment has nothing to do with religion. Most international students return to their native countries once their studies are done in the US.
Have you ever had any kind of relationship with any students/young people from the Middle East or elsewhere?
I have in the hundreds. Painting people with a broad brush like you’re doing is ineffective at best and xenophobic at worst.
Get hold of yourself.
I know that international students return to their countries, but that has nothing to do with the disruption that they are having on our politics. I really don't give a rats about Israel. I am not a Jew and am, according to the lights of Zionists, and anti semite, but they are agitating for Trump, that isn't there goal, but they are loyal to the Ummah above all else. The Ummah is the world wide community of Muslims. If Wayne Co, MI goes for Trump it will be because of the Muslims who sat out the election, voted third party, or even voted for Tump out of protest of Biden. If Michigan goes for Trump, then it is pretty well assured that Trump will be #47.
As regards having a relationship with students/young people from the middle east. Bear in mind that when you are a guest in the home of a another, you present and behave differently than in your own home.
I am not painting people with a broad brush, but painting a culture (Islam) with it's own brush.
My father was a retired Marine, he was part of the 5th Amphib, that liberated Roi Namur, Saipan and Tinian, he landed in Pusan to drive the North Koreans back, survived the Chosin Reservoir and caught a chicom mortar between the lefs at Hwonchan dam, he would get together with friends, retired MSgts and a Col) to drink and play cards. Nicest, most sentimental men you could meet, not one of them an a hole, but put them in uniform, in a unit , and faced with a mission and stand out of their way.
I am a retired special ops officer. I too am at heart a pacifist, too sentimental at times, but in charge of my team and given a mission, the mission will be accomplished.
I don't know if you get the drift.
There are 8 billion people on this planet and growing, you have no choice but to paint with a broad brush, because you don't have time to evaluate and make exceptions case by case.
I have said many times, that if someone tells me up front that they are a Christian, I grab my wallet, turn on my heels and walk away... I am painting with a broad brush and for good reason..personal experience.
You are usually pretty good at sourcing. I have been curious about the extent to which Hamas is still shooting back in Gaza? But I wonder what is your source for: "up to half are HAMAS terrorist/soldiers. A battalion in the west is about 500 troops, HAMAS has 5 brigades, and 30 battalions total, then there is Islamic Jihad, which has its own battalions, participated in Oct 7 and has it's own hostages." Thanks.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sydqaxqlr
Apr 9, 2024
The matter of credibility is important. It doesn't seem to bother those quoting these figures that these numbers come from Gaza's Health Ministry, controlled by the terrorist organization Hamas, which has a track record of blatant lying and a clear interest in inflating civilian casualty numbers while concealing its own combatant casualties. According to the IDF's estimates, approximately 12,000 Hamas fighters have been killed so far in the fighting.
It's crucial to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization whose data is misleading and easily disproved. The claim that 70% of the dead are women and children is easy to refute since, if the IDF eliminated 12,000 Hamas fighters, almost all of whom are men, then accordingly that would lead to the conclusion that every man killed in Gaza is a Hamas member (and more), including the elderly, as the remaining 30% who are not women and children are by definition men. Moreover, 12,000 military casualties constitute 36% of the 33,000 reported to have been killed, meaning that there are about 2,000 of the Hamas casualties claimed by the IDF as killed (6% of 33,000) who should be categorized as women and children. This strengthens the argument that many of those categorized as children killed are actually young Hamas fighters and/or that Hamas just lies.
Additionally, it appears that in Gaza people don't die unless it's in a war. The natural mortality rate in the West Bank and Gaza, according to World Bank data, stands at 0.4%. Applied to the six months since the war began, this rate would be 0.2% out of a population of 2.2 million, meaning 4,400 individuals died in circumstances unrelated to the war, to Israel or to the conflict; however, they are of course counted by Hamas as war victims.
It's highly probable that all these deaths are civilians, mostly elderly and sick individuals, not fighting-age combatants. Moreover, the actual natural death toll is likely much higher, with many dying due to lack of proper health care resulting from the war's strain on Gaza's health care system. These thousands are also war victims in the war instigated by Hamas and other terror organizations, who exploit humanitarian facilities for military purposes, thus making them military targets, which lead to them being attacked. Had they stayed civilian, these places would have not only provided care for the civilian population in Gaza, but would have also offered refuge for many.
These numbers alone reduce the civilian death toll in Gaza caused by Israeli attacks to at most 15,000 and probably even less, meaning less than half of the casualties are civilians. In modern warfare history, a ratio of less than 1:1 between combatants and civilians is considered a very low civilian casualty rate. In the Vietnam War, the ratio was 1:3, in the Chechen Wars 1:4.3, in NATO's war in Serbia 1:4, and in the Iraq War, civilian casualties accounted for 77% of deaths. However, it's crucial not to stop here, as even 15,000 civilian deaths are a significant and tragic number that must be acknowledged.
IMHO they're almost there. But we have the capacity to vote them out Register Democrats, kick Fascists in the ass. https://www.fieldteam6.org/volunteer-ops
I’ve signed up to attend the town hall with Field Team 6 this afternoon. Are you free to join me? Use this link to sign up: https://mobilize.us/s/E5DAXt
Yes and yes! How many "get it" that we are voting for our own quality of life thanks to rational government? One could go on for pages, but just look at Texas divorcing itself from the National power grid and then failing it's citizens during yet another Big Freeze? Then there was half the town blown up from a plant that hadn't been inspected in years, ho hum. The primary fallacy is that government is the enemy.
Another great article by Hartmann. But I have to take issue with a phrase in the article:
"and the party is using Trump’s “stolen election” [LIE] to undermine and ultimately end democracy at the state level."
It is concerning that Trump's brush with treason is conveniently reduced to a stolen election lie. It's like saying you found a tree in the forest. I wish journalists would be a little more accurate and descriptive. Here is how I would write that phrase:
Trump's massive, ongoing, coordinated stolen election CONJOB involving THOUSANDS of CO-CONSPIRATORS and MILLIONS of LIES.
I gotta read Thom's book. I think we didn't actually have "democracy" until the Voting Rights Act became law in 1965. I think we pretty much lost it in Shelby County v. Holder, 2013.
I don't presume to speak for humanity, but Americans worked through evolution in applying the Constitution. IMHO we no longer are relegated to "place" a/k/a "states" as that term was defined in the Articles of Incorporation or the Constitution and the 10th Amendment is relegated to scraps due to the supremacy clauses.
Yesterday in another forum, I referenced the "Treason of the Senate": https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/electing-appointing-senators/treason-of-the-senate.htm
The Voting Rights Act supposedly ended racial discrimination in voting. At our founding only white male landowners could vote. The Constitution made slaves count as 3/5 of an elector, and the Electoral College gave states outsized power.
That power was vested in the Senate. The Constitution originally provided for the election of senators by individual state legislatures. In the years following the Civil War, that system became increasingly subject to bribery, fraud, and deadlock. As Congress took on a greater role in shaping an industrializing nation, those with a major business stake in that development believed they could best exert their influence on the U.S. Senate by offering financial incentives to the state legislators who selected its members.
The 17th Amendment changed the method to direct election, in an attempt to reduce the influence that that large corporations and corrupt state legislators played in selection of senators.
Our founders were not ideologues, and the first thing they did was amend the Constitution. In reading their arguments and the Federalist Papers, Al Levine (a/k/a Alexander Hamilton) and his followers favored a loose interpretation of the Constitution, which meant they believed that the document permitted everything that it did not expressly forbid. This contrasted sharply with Thomas Jefferson's strict interpretation. This is ironic because Jefferson was a Deist and not a fundamentalist.
Hobbes alleged that we are naturally cruel and competitive. Reminds me of the insurance company defense in PI cases, "Man, born of woman, comes into the world in pain and from the moment of conception begins to die." Extrapolating, to any reasonable degree of inference therefore, choose Fascism and choose a life of pain leading to hell.
No thanks.
The idea that it is natural and inevitable that humans move toward authoritarian forms of government is nonsense and self serving BS from those who want authoriatarian govt. If you haven't read it yet read The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by Graber and Wengrow. In it the authors show (based on new findings in archealogy and anthropology) that for most of human history (including prehistory) we may have experimented with authoritarian govt but eventually came to our senses and got rid if it. That included several large cities of 20,000 plus population managing themselves just fine without oligarchs, kings, high priests etc. Early on Native Americans had trouble believing europeans bowed down to some idiot in a funny suit. They intensely valued their freedom. Their leaders had to lead by being eloquent and persuasive or they would be ignored (with no consequence).
George Lakoff (cognitive scientist)(Whose Freedom?) shed light on a second issue here . In this country (and others?) there is a battle between what Lakoff refers to as the strict father model (very authoritarian) and the nurturant father model (very democratic, inclusive etc). These books are well worth reading.
Thanks! Made a note. I am of the generation for whom Riane Eisler was such a revelation, casting the issue in gender distinctions. I am not sure that the relative virtues of this social unit or that can be easily categorized. I humbly propose that the issue front and center in America now: how shall the reproduction of females be regulated? isn't the definitive consideration in any given culture.
I understand this analysis of human historical social models as a choice between adherence to abstract religious forms, which includes all capitalist politics, or creative cultural communion.
We need more research on the recent global epidemic of children being diagnosed with ‘mental illnesses’, ranging from autism to sexual or physical dysmorphia, as a reactive structural intolerance by political systems of individual’s emotional intelligence and cultural sensitivity.
Jeffersonian Democracy was an explosion of success around the world which took notice. The economic royalist believed it would fail quickly and they could take over so no big deal with the experiment. They had to turn around and pretend they believed in democracy when it was an undeniable success. In fact they turned around and claimed to be the protectors of democracy while doing all they could to undermined its true values and functions. They have a program to undermine America and end democracy around the world. They will fail as they always do in the long run. All we need to do and undo the damage to it that they have done.
"Russia’s president Putin clearly is more in Hobbes’ camp: government needs an iron fist to retain law and order. As are China’s President Xi, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad Bin Salman, the ruling mullahs of Iran, and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, among others."
How the hell is Benjamin Netanyahu not on this list...
Perhaps because he isn't the boss: he is dependent for his figurehead spot (and protection from prosecution) on an alliance with extremist Zionists. Funny reflection of the dilemma of Johnson in the House here. He's stuck with a choice to do the right thing and fund Ukraine, or no longer be Speaker. I say, that is a good sword to fall on, Mr. "Godly" man. For what it's worth...
The animal kingdom as our guide. Mother Nature knows!
We may be brilliant - developing liberal democratic rule - but we're broken - fallible, self-serving, money grubbing and power hungry.
Have the Brownshirts arrived here ? I just read on my cell phone this AM that at Louisiana SHOOL BOARD MEETING THAT when the board superintendent was being voted a raise a teacher asked why is he getting a raise and struggling teachers with increasing class sizes are denied raises. The teacher (a woman) was thrown to the ground, handcuffed and arrested.