I live in a red area in Pennsylvania (unfortunately). Don't see many felon signs any more, but the red voters around here still hate Democrats, no matter what. We'll see who they blame if/when our rural hospital closes.
They voted out Bob Casey, who in the past was instrumental in keeping our small hospitals open, but I bet the felon's supporters don't even know that.
Republicans wanted ignorant voters, and they've managed to successfully cultivate just that population.
Nailed it, Martha. They will learn that hating us and loving him, hurts THEM. It is already hurting their precious pocketbooks they voted for. He's coming for every dollar and protection they have. The hats should say Make America Grovel Again.
Paradoxically,. the lesser the number of racial minorities in a region, an area, a state, a town, a county, the greater the degree of racism.
Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas are more racist than even Mississippi and Alabama
Has anyone noticed that as the population becomes more heterogeneous, like in Seattle, NYC, New Orleans it becomes more tolerant
Until 2019 I lived in Redmond, WA , home of Microsoft, and a burb of Seattle, it is a virtual united nations, they even celebrate Indian Holidays, the Indian Festival of Colors, Holi is a big deal.
The Redmond police force has so little to do, that it has to prey on motorists with traffic traps.
I suspect that your neck of the woods, Daniel, is different, because it is infected with caudillo Bautisto's,, who are also very Catholic, and thus extremely intolerant, patriarchal, misogynistic (unless they are submissive) and homophobic.
In Appalchia, there are very few Catholics, but the population is extremely intolerant, patriarchal, misogynistic (unless they are submissive) and homophobic.
In Pennsyltucky, we had 57 different varieties, now mostly racist. In many places, Blacks and other despised minorites came as strike breakers.
Catholicism is a culture, as much as a religion. Pentecostalism, and Evangelical Christianity has made major inroads in Latin America from Mexico to South America and these people are true believers.
I don't know it for a fact but I am sure that Catholicism and Santeria live in the same breasts. After all the patron saint of the cartels is Santa Muerte, they even have cards in which they take blood oaths on Santa Muerte.
The Catholicism of Vietnam , the Catholicism of Madrid, the Catholicism of Niger and the Catholicism of Pittsburgh look like different religions except that they have the same heirarch, Priest, Bishop, Archbishop, Cardinal and the same rebellious rituals with a local flair.
Most MAGATs in Pennsyltucky were Dems. They've been hurting since about 1977 when the steel industry started into decline. I can rattle off the names of defunct companies in the counties surrounding Pittsburgh. In some cases, the company pension funds took a hit. Many of them lost every protection except SSI, supplemental security income, and the Republicans are opposed to that.
All politics is local. Pennsylvania is not like the rest of the country. Casey was anti abortion. Fetterman has his own agenda. I bet that Harris got a higher vote from Republicans in Pennsyltucky than from Democrats.
In my home county, due to racism, even the NAACP supports Republicans.
Have to say I'm glad I read this one before my morning coffee. That's a very long, stark, terrifying and stomach churning list of all that has happened so far in service to tRump's billionaire "toadies." It saddened me as it made my stomach turn, literally. And it all has happened so quickly, by design. Keep hoping the utter incompetence will bring them down - these are absolutely NOT our best and brightest running everything - actually the very worst of humanity running it all, and running it all into the ground. Putting all our hope into the midterms feels perilous; they're pulling every trick and scheme in the book to prevent those elections, if we do indeed have elections, from being free and fair. At least one Governor is fighting back. All the blue state Governors need to do the same, along with every Democrat in Congress. And you're right about "Tag" it's us, as we all have to stay on our representatives to start fighting like Newsome is fighting. Screaming, shouting bombastically that we are already living in a dictatorship, and if we don't fight with every resource at our disposal, it will be too late to stop this insanity. And maybe, just maybe, the silver lining here will be such a strong backlash to the madness that we actually begin governing with a truly progressive agenda. It is so very hard to hold on to that hope, but we absolutely must. Hold on.
MAGA nationalism equates to isolationism. One thing that might woke up MAGAland would be if NATO kicked the USA out - Yankee go home! If Starmer and Macron finally threaten Trump politically, might he pull in his horns? In other words, if they politically punched the bully squarely in his nose on TV, would people wake up that we are running out of allies - globally?
Trump and his MAGAs have falsely claimed that the USA pays for nearly all NATO defense activities. How could MAGAs explain if NATO, on its own, invaded Ukraine and chased Putin out? That some EU states like Hungary have small defense budgets overlooks that they also have small GDPs. Orban fascism is a flop. So is Erdogan's Turkey. Trump's lies about NATO defense also overlook the return on our investment in police cooperation across the Atlantic protecting fair trade as well as sharing intelligence that saves our CIA a bundle. Of course, racketeer Trump's tariffs and clown cabinet just tipped over the intel wagon too.
I've been in the EU all summer. I did not hear anything but animus toward the USA. "What is wrong with you Americans?" was common.
Part of the problem Tom is that 67% of America identifies as Christian, and not the Christianity of Matthew 25 either.
This Christianity shares with Islam, the idea of exceptionalism, triumphalism, exclusivity and exclusion.
If they had full power, as is the design of 7 Mountains Dominiionism, New Apostolic Reformation, Opus Dei, we would be living under a regime that makes the Taliban look liberal.
Yes indeed. I have posted a couple of times that I consider the MAGA Evangelicals and Alt-Right Catholics to be Old Testament Christians. They ignore love thy neighbor, forgiving sinners, and the many other New Testament guidance. They prefer to embrace "Love only white Christian nationalists like yourself," and "Punish anybody who does not behave like you (okay to ignore sins like you commit, of course).
These Old Testament Christians go by the name of Christian Reconstruction, Dominionists, 7 Mountains Dominion, New Apostolic Reformation, People of Prayer, it is ecumenical, pan denominational, it is an ideology and was founded by Rafel Cruz, father of Rafel Ctuz Jr, aka Ted Cruz, and R J Rushdoony. Here is a link to tell you all about it https://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/royal_race.htm, The Religion archives are worth the time viewing.
The ideolgogy has infected the officer class of the Armed Forces, it started with the AF Academny circa 1962 when the mega churches moved in to Colorado Springs, and apparently has infected Anapopolis, Both the AF and Navy are the most on board with Hegseth's Christianizing and anti woking of the Armed Forces.
Keep track of the Generals and Admirals in the Armed Forces, those that are academy graduates are infected by this "cordyreps" (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis)
Islam used to be the hotbed of scientific research long ago and looked what happened when the orthodox version kicked in. We are seeing the same in god-fearing America.
Exactly. Muslims love to talk about Islam's golden age. In the early 7th Century. a band of illiterate Arabs came flying out of Arabia on the backs of horses and camels and to conquer and confiscate the riches of an indolent, soft and corrupt Eastern Roman Empire, just as the Vandals had done to the Western Roman Empire in 455 CE.
A difference being that the Vandals were Christians and already infected with the virus
The Arabs weren't Christians, but when they beheld the wonders of an advanced civilization, they said "I want some of that". and gathered up all of the learned men science, engineering, philosophy, made of them slaves, just as Rome had made of the learned Greeks, slaves. Preserving all of the works, that the West Roman Empire under the thrall of Christianity had destroyed..
The world is indebted to those early Muslims., but like all ideologies, It's expansion was stopped, it lost it's hunger, it developed a social order of Caliph's, Ulama and Military Aristocracy:
Scholars of Islamic law (ulama) and the military aristocracy held significant power and influence.
I consider the battle of Tours as significant, as Charles the Hammer (Martel) stopped the spread of Islam and it fell back in on itself, becoming soft and indolent, which leads to regression known as fundamentalism, (in Islam : salafi akin to orginalism, which is fundementalism).
The same thing happened to Rome, the Western Empire first, then the Eastern Empire
You can see it in the arment of the Roman army. Under Julius, Claudius, Hadrian it wa armed with the Gladius, a short stabbing sword, and the spatha, a long slender sword, even their shields evolved from the Scutum, to a variety of shields, from Oval, and rectangular to the Parma, a small round shield used by skirmishers.
The Mongols rode in displaced the Arabs, or at least the Caliphate, leaving behind mounds of skulls, then they became soft and indolent and were displaced by the Truks who had become Islamicized. Then in the 15th Century would have conquered Constantinople were it not for it's formidable walls. and defense in depth.
The Turks only captured Constantinople because someone inside, showed them a secret entrance.
But they too came to a halt, and ossified, when John III Sobieski and his flying Hussars stopped Mehmet III at the gates of Vienna in 1683.
Russia fell to the Tsar because the Tsar and the nobility, the boyars lost their vitality. Europe fell to Hitler for the same reason.
Subjugation always starts from within. The populace falls in on itself, they embrace fundamentalism, afraid of change, there is the subsequent degeneration
Fundamentalism is entropic, it falls in on itself and consumes itself, like a cancer cell. The Amish, the Mennonites, only survive because there is a world external to their community, that actually support their quaint little way of life.. The wood that builds their houses, furniture and wagons is provided by the very same culture that they eschew, same with the iron that is in their tools, their stoves, and the cotton and wool that is on their backs.
They support themselves by selling food and wares to the disgusting heath.
Islam had it's day, then grew fat and soft and fell in on itself with fundamentalism.
The reformation actually saved Christianity and the Church of Rome, which was eating itself alive
The United States had its day in the sun.
Russia would have fell in on itself, had not Putin come along with plans for expansion. Russia is a wreck, it's economy is in tatters, it is in the same shape as the old Soviet Union, it can't produce consumer products, it is chewing up its young male population.. And it would fall apart were not the Russian population conditioned by a thousand years or more, to tolerate and live under the thumb of ruthless rulers, from the mongol hordes and Ivan the terrible to Peter the (not so) great, Stalin and now Putin.
This, I am sure, is the vision of Donald John Trump and his coterie of enablers.
We don't feel the pain, not yet, because we are living off the accumulated fat.
Don Jr. says we made them grift their way to billions. I'll let you research his "wisdom" concerning this subject on your own. My theory is that it was the cocaine talking.
Unfortunately, the real leaders of the free world will be able to only smuggle into that meeting the daggers coming from their eyes. Won't it be interesting to see what they use to mirror or flatter him to save Ukraine? At least it will be for a GOOD cause, unlike Putin. You know they will be sitting there thinking he is the stupidest person in the world, with a lot of competition from his Cabinet members and staff there as well.
Going down your list of our losses is stunning. We have to show the world we are going to make a comeback. See you in the streets.
For you, 108 protest signs for the fight. This is for Occupied D.C. Many signs are revised to sing. 🎶. I recommend using a local printer, but national print companies offer great pricing, shipping included. There is time to get the lot printed for your protest group, assuming you have a gathering of 300 to 1,000. This would help fill the hands of the signless.
Since the "you don't have the cards" Trump gaffe, Russia is bombed nightly, the Russian army is losing troops by death, injury, and defection, and the summer Russian initiative has stalled, if not thwarted. By bombing oil refineries and arms factories, Russia is on the verge of banktruptcy.
There is a site, medium.com, it is a paywall, but it has a wide variety of offerings, and is a great source of updates on Ukraine. Our media isn't telling us thus, but Ukraine in reaching deep into Russia and destroying it's war making ability, not just airplanes, but their chemical and petroleum facilities, they even took out a plant that is essential to making their verion of the Shahed drone. they recently took off line, with drones, a petroleum refinery that produces 5% of their fuel.
And Ukraine has a bustling drone operation, producing thousands a month, making the life of the army miserable., and at the cost of $100 or less per drone, cost benefit, the lose a $20 million dollar radar to a $1,000 drone.
There way ahead of us in fighting on a 21st Century battlefield, and Hegseth doesn't have a clue, and our government let multi million or billion dollar contracts to Raytheon and McDonnell Douglas.To research and build million dollar drones.
meanwhile the Houti's are shooting down Reaper Drones,and an Israel Drone lost its helicopter and landed in Gaza.
Thanks for posting the link to "The Fourth Turning is Here" by Howe. I have been reading both Howe and Turchin avidly and think they have the key: every 80-100 years societies forget what "made them great" and must go through a catastrophe to renew themselves. We are there.
If you , Mr.Hartmann could get this on every newspaper by challenging them to report the truth and “both sides”, and then spread it out to every actual news forum maybe the word will spread. How can we be so apathetic when everything you state has already happened?
The supremely far right court should face impeachment. Those who lie should be constantly followed on media by pointing out there complicity in selling us over to the fascists.
Get really armed with “the good fight”…. The truth about why people want to continue being robbed by the filthy greedy humans who so hate them.
God help us….. and by that I mean use our “free will” to do the work that will spotlight the ugly rape we are experiencing now! Thank you for stating it so succinctly.
There will be no salvation this time. The morbidly rich, sexism and racism have won. Tens of millions of Americans are basically irredeemable, and we will only get our country back, if even then, in a sea of blood, not ballots. Greed and domination seem hard wired in us, which is why democracy is so rare and often short-lived. We boomers were blessed with what was, in retrospect, America’s golden age. Too bad we lacked the will or the smarts to preserve what this country once was for future generations. My own hopefully imminent demise will relieve me of pain, suffering, all of life’s burdens and annoyances. It will not relieve me of guilt for not seeing the growing rot and doing more to destroy it.
Interesting how the last presidential election elicited little to no concerns about the integrity of the election, scant commentary on little to no calls for scrutiny and the usual noble victim posturing of the elected sitting democrats who just might be more fearful of disclosures of insider trading and Epstein dalliances than they are of the possibility of seriously rancid voting fraud. There is caused ennui in the history of it. It was clear that Jebbie shape-shifted Florida's votes to defeat Gore, but who gave a shit? And Gore, morally above putting up a fight, skuck his nose high, and faded into the elitist mist. There are many elections which have the same shimmering wavy lines that rise from a pile of fresh poop, but follow-up? Reactive out-cry? Recently I saw two flashs of media burps suggesting foul play in the last presidential election but no follow-up. Media burying was expected, but organized democratic party ho-humming? Wasps in the wind. Some evidence of a rigged presidential election and no democratic congressional follow-up, no serious outcry? Now asked to put all your marbles in voting? Grow the fuck up.
The "average" voter needs to be educated more & yanked away from FOX & other rightwing outlets. If you don't receive enough education to determine what is real & what is hype, well then, waking up may be just that, wake up, go to work, come home watch FOX, & lots of inane television, go to sleep, rinse & repeat. Until those voters pay attention more than they do, they will always vote for the con artists! You can't pay attention the day before the election & make a reasonable decision.
As I see it, we need dire economic circumstances to animate and motivate the 91 million people who didn't bother voting in the November election. They saw what Trump did on J6 but didn't care. Since Americans appear to be more motivated by economic factors than any others, the gravest danger to democracy, as I see it, is that scotus will block Trump's illegal tariffs before they can do sweeping damage.
To those in power who read Hartmann - and I know there are - place this piece in front of literally everything else on your agendas. If the facts and reason presented here don't warrant top priority, you are persisting exclusively in self-interest. It is that simple.
Breaking News: Russian Tank spotted flying American flag. Trump has told Zelenskyy he is going to have to give up land. Question now is does NATO have any cajones.?
Truthfully, I turned off the meeting, after I saw Trump manhandle Macron, and Macron let him. My wife was watching it for a spell and I saw Trump's act praising them one by one using his childish language, just like his cabinet praises him.
Made me sick, but if the NATO and EU officials didn't stand up to Trump, they are indeed pussies.
So long as he can push them around, and they don't push back, they are pussies and losers.
Words don't count, actions do, and unless the EU stands up to Trump-Putin, it is all over, next year Putin will be rolling through eastern Europe.
Case study: Brian Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick was one of only two House Republicans to vote against Trump's major domestic policy legislation in July 2025. He explained his "no" vote by stating that Senate amendments to Medicaid provisions and other clauses in the bill were unacceptable for his district.
And just when things were starting to look up... "Exceeding functional biosphere integrity limits: Study finds 60% of the world's land area is in a precarious state". This is the headline from phys.org this morning. As the environment goes down authoritarianism goes up.
I get two dozen requests for money each day, on line, or text, from organizations to address specific issues on this long laundry list of crimes against us. Whom do I trust? Who has the most cohesive and wide-ranging solution to regain control of our country?
Essentially, whom do I believe, and what is the plan?
We are in this situation, to a very great degree, BECAUSE "progressive" people and efforts have been chasing a million different rabbits at the same time, diluting and confusing the American people.
Are the underlying and critical needs of the Handicapped Lesbians with AIDs really that much different than inner city single mothers??? Every time we splinter the body politic into another special needs group, the right wing blathersphere salivates with the opportunity to drive another wedge between working people.
So who is unifying the response? Where is the unifying message/messenger that creates a universal progressive brand?
We are in a knife fight. Singing Goombayah is not going to work.
There is no old money brahmin like FDR who is going to come down from on high and take charge.
There are years of neglect in solidifying and polishing a Progressive Brand, and maintaining a mechanism to deliver and frame it.
The billionaires who funded the corporate Dems are the last people we can turn to at this time. You know who NOT to look to for leadership by how much any new candidate or pundit -- MSN -- rely upon the Clinton/Obama big money limo-liberal starship.
If Obama had embraced Occupy Wall St., and put in jail about a dozen of the guys who caused the 2007-08 mortgage investment collapse that hurt so many working people, we would not be in this mess. Instead, he mumbled something about how a country needs a financial system and let the Republican money invent the TEA PARTY to capture the rage.
So, who can organize and frame a capturing of the current rage? Who is going to take it out of Donnie T's pocket in enough time to save us???
Is there a younger Bernie? Is there a more marketable to the whole country OAC?
Be very careful of whom you donate to. I had my paypal account charged twice, for over $500 for something I didn't order. Paypal, eventually, after persistence, reversed the charges, and I changed my password, many times.
I am not doing Paypal anymore, and definitely not self renewing subscriptions.
As substack can set you up for a self renewing subscription,so can others whom you think are simply vendors or charitables.
I live in a red area in Pennsylvania (unfortunately). Don't see many felon signs any more, but the red voters around here still hate Democrats, no matter what. We'll see who they blame if/when our rural hospital closes.
They voted out Bob Casey, who in the past was instrumental in keeping our small hospitals open, but I bet the felon's supporters don't even know that.
Republicans wanted ignorant voters, and they've managed to successfully cultivate just that population.
Nailed it, Martha. They will learn that hating us and loving him, hurts THEM. It is already hurting their precious pocketbooks they voted for. He's coming for every dollar and protection they have. The hats should say Make America Grovel Again.
Paradoxically,. the lesser the number of racial minorities in a region, an area, a state, a town, a county, the greater the degree of racism.
Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas are more racist than even Mississippi and Alabama
Has anyone noticed that as the population becomes more heterogeneous, like in Seattle, NYC, New Orleans it becomes more tolerant
Until 2019 I lived in Redmond, WA , home of Microsoft, and a burb of Seattle, it is a virtual united nations, they even celebrate Indian Holidays, the Indian Festival of Colors, Holi is a big deal.
The Redmond police force has so little to do, that it has to prey on motorists with traffic traps.
I suspect that your neck of the woods, Daniel, is different, because it is infected with caudillo Bautisto's,, who are also very Catholic, and thus extremely intolerant, patriarchal, misogynistic (unless they are submissive) and homophobic.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, many hispanics from central America are NOT Catholic and many Cuban Americans who claim to be Catholic are actually followers of Santeria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Lukumi_Babalu_Aye_v._City_of_Hialeah
In Appalchia, there are very few Catholics, but the population is extremely intolerant, patriarchal, misogynistic (unless they are submissive) and homophobic.
In Pennsyltucky, we had 57 different varieties, now mostly racist. In many places, Blacks and other despised minorites came as strike breakers.
Catholicism is a culture, as much as a religion. Pentecostalism, and Evangelical Christianity has made major inroads in Latin America from Mexico to South America and these people are true believers.
I don't know it for a fact but I am sure that Catholicism and Santeria live in the same breasts. After all the patron saint of the cartels is Santa Muerte, they even have cards in which they take blood oaths on Santa Muerte.
The Catholicism of Vietnam , the Catholicism of Madrid, the Catholicism of Niger and the Catholicism of Pittsburgh look like different religions except that they have the same heirarch, Priest, Bishop, Archbishop, Cardinal and the same rebellious rituals with a local flair.
Most MAGATs in Pennsyltucky were Dems. They've been hurting since about 1977 when the steel industry started into decline. I can rattle off the names of defunct companies in the counties surrounding Pittsburgh. In some cases, the company pension funds took a hit. Many of them lost every protection except SSI, supplemental security income, and the Republicans are opposed to that.
All politics is local. Pennsylvania is not like the rest of the country. Casey was anti abortion. Fetterman has his own agenda. I bet that Harris got a higher vote from Republicans in Pennsyltucky than from Democrats.
In my home county, due to racism, even the NAACP supports Republicans.
I don’t know if they’ll ever see the truth. We will probably have to fix this country without them.
1. We wuz robbed. Did Trump admit that Musk stole Pennsylvania?
2. I'm originally from Pennslytucky. New Castle, Lawrence County. "Hate Democrats" translated is racism. Even Nazis object to losing benefits.
Of course
Have to say I'm glad I read this one before my morning coffee. That's a very long, stark, terrifying and stomach churning list of all that has happened so far in service to tRump's billionaire "toadies." It saddened me as it made my stomach turn, literally. And it all has happened so quickly, by design. Keep hoping the utter incompetence will bring them down - these are absolutely NOT our best and brightest running everything - actually the very worst of humanity running it all, and running it all into the ground. Putting all our hope into the midterms feels perilous; they're pulling every trick and scheme in the book to prevent those elections, if we do indeed have elections, from being free and fair. At least one Governor is fighting back. All the blue state Governors need to do the same, along with every Democrat in Congress. And you're right about "Tag" it's us, as we all have to stay on our representatives to start fighting like Newsome is fighting. Screaming, shouting bombastically that we are already living in a dictatorship, and if we don't fight with every resource at our disposal, it will be too late to stop this insanity. And maybe, just maybe, the silver lining here will be such a strong backlash to the madness that we actually begin governing with a truly progressive agenda. It is so very hard to hold on to that hope, but we absolutely must. Hold on.
MAGA nationalism equates to isolationism. One thing that might woke up MAGAland would be if NATO kicked the USA out - Yankee go home! If Starmer and Macron finally threaten Trump politically, might he pull in his horns? In other words, if they politically punched the bully squarely in his nose on TV, would people wake up that we are running out of allies - globally?
Trump and his MAGAs have falsely claimed that the USA pays for nearly all NATO defense activities. How could MAGAs explain if NATO, on its own, invaded Ukraine and chased Putin out? That some EU states like Hungary have small defense budgets overlooks that they also have small GDPs. Orban fascism is a flop. So is Erdogan's Turkey. Trump's lies about NATO defense also overlook the return on our investment in police cooperation across the Atlantic protecting fair trade as well as sharing intelligence that saves our CIA a bundle. Of course, racketeer Trump's tariffs and clown cabinet just tipped over the intel wagon too.
I've been in the EU all summer. I did not hear anything but animus toward the USA. "What is wrong with you Americans?" was common.
Part of the problem Tom is that 67% of America identifies as Christian, and not the Christianity of Matthew 25 either.
This Christianity shares with Islam, the idea of exceptionalism, triumphalism, exclusivity and exclusion.
If they had full power, as is the design of 7 Mountains Dominiionism, New Apostolic Reformation, Opus Dei, we would be living under a regime that makes the Taliban look liberal.
Yes indeed. I have posted a couple of times that I consider the MAGA Evangelicals and Alt-Right Catholics to be Old Testament Christians. They ignore love thy neighbor, forgiving sinners, and the many other New Testament guidance. They prefer to embrace "Love only white Christian nationalists like yourself," and "Punish anybody who does not behave like you (okay to ignore sins like you commit, of course).
These Old Testament Christians go by the name of Christian Reconstruction, Dominionists, 7 Mountains Dominion, New Apostolic Reformation, People of Prayer, it is ecumenical, pan denominational, it is an ideology and was founded by Rafel Cruz, father of Rafel Ctuz Jr, aka Ted Cruz, and R J Rushdoony. Here is a link to tell you all about it https://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/royal_race.htm, The Religion archives are worth the time viewing.
The ideolgogy has infected the officer class of the Armed Forces, it started with the AF Academny circa 1962 when the mega churches moved in to Colorado Springs, and apparently has infected Anapopolis, Both the AF and Navy are the most on board with Hegseth's Christianizing and anti woking of the Armed Forces.
Keep track of the Generals and Admirals in the Armed Forces, those that are academy graduates are infected by this "cordyreps" (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis)
Islam used to be the hotbed of scientific research long ago and looked what happened when the orthodox version kicked in. We are seeing the same in god-fearing America.
Exactly. Muslims love to talk about Islam's golden age. In the early 7th Century. a band of illiterate Arabs came flying out of Arabia on the backs of horses and camels and to conquer and confiscate the riches of an indolent, soft and corrupt Eastern Roman Empire, just as the Vandals had done to the Western Roman Empire in 455 CE.
A difference being that the Vandals were Christians and already infected with the virus
The Arabs weren't Christians, but when they beheld the wonders of an advanced civilization, they said "I want some of that". and gathered up all of the learned men science, engineering, philosophy, made of them slaves, just as Rome had made of the learned Greeks, slaves. Preserving all of the works, that the West Roman Empire under the thrall of Christianity had destroyed..
The world is indebted to those early Muslims., but like all ideologies, It's expansion was stopped, it lost it's hunger, it developed a social order of Caliph's, Ulama and Military Aristocracy:
Scholars of Islamic law (ulama) and the military aristocracy held significant power and influence.
I consider the battle of Tours as significant, as Charles the Hammer (Martel) stopped the spread of Islam and it fell back in on itself, becoming soft and indolent, which leads to regression known as fundamentalism, (in Islam : salafi akin to orginalism, which is fundementalism).
The same thing happened to Rome, the Western Empire first, then the Eastern Empire
You can see it in the arment of the Roman army. Under Julius, Claudius, Hadrian it wa armed with the Gladius, a short stabbing sword, and the spatha, a long slender sword, even their shields evolved from the Scutum, to a variety of shields, from Oval, and rectangular to the Parma, a small round shield used by skirmishers.
The Mongols rode in displaced the Arabs, or at least the Caliphate, leaving behind mounds of skulls, then they became soft and indolent and were displaced by the Truks who had become Islamicized. Then in the 15th Century would have conquered Constantinople were it not for it's formidable walls. and defense in depth.
The Turks only captured Constantinople because someone inside, showed them a secret entrance.
But they too came to a halt, and ossified, when John III Sobieski and his flying Hussars stopped Mehmet III at the gates of Vienna in 1683.
Russia fell to the Tsar because the Tsar and the nobility, the boyars lost their vitality. Europe fell to Hitler for the same reason.
Subjugation always starts from within. The populace falls in on itself, they embrace fundamentalism, afraid of change, there is the subsequent degeneration
Fundamentalism is entropic, it falls in on itself and consumes itself, like a cancer cell. The Amish, the Mennonites, only survive because there is a world external to their community, that actually support their quaint little way of life.. The wood that builds their houses, furniture and wagons is provided by the very same culture that they eschew, same with the iron that is in their tools, their stoves, and the cotton and wool that is on their backs.
They support themselves by selling food and wares to the disgusting heath.
Islam had it's day, then grew fat and soft and fell in on itself with fundamentalism.
The reformation actually saved Christianity and the Church of Rome, which was eating itself alive
The United States had its day in the sun.
Russia would have fell in on itself, had not Putin come along with plans for expansion. Russia is a wreck, it's economy is in tatters, it is in the same shape as the old Soviet Union, it can't produce consumer products, it is chewing up its young male population.. And it would fall apart were not the Russian population conditioned by a thousand years or more, to tolerate and live under the thumb of ruthless rulers, from the mongol hordes and Ivan the terrible to Peter the (not so) great, Stalin and now Putin.
This, I am sure, is the vision of Donald John Trump and his coterie of enablers.
We don't feel the pain, not yet, because we are living off the accumulated fat.
It's all the rankest of heresy.
Slava Ukraini!
Don Jr. says we made them grift their way to billions. I'll let you research his "wisdom" concerning this subject on your own. My theory is that it was the cocaine talking.
Unfortunately, the real leaders of the free world will be able to only smuggle into that meeting the daggers coming from their eyes. Won't it be interesting to see what they use to mirror or flatter him to save Ukraine? At least it will be for a GOOD cause, unlike Putin. You know they will be sitting there thinking he is the stupidest person in the world, with a lot of competition from his Cabinet members and staff there as well.
Going down your list of our losses is stunning. We have to show the world we are going to make a comeback. See you in the streets.
For you, 108 protest signs for the fight. This is for Occupied D.C. Many signs are revised to sing. 🎶. I recommend using a local printer, but national print companies offer great pricing, shipping included. There is time to get the lot printed for your protest group, assuming you have a gathering of 300 to 1,000. This would help fill the hands of the signless.
https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/protest-sign-sign-everywhere-a-sign
Hope a lot of protesters will accompany Zelensky.
Since the "you don't have the cards" Trump gaffe, Russia is bombed nightly, the Russian army is losing troops by death, injury, and defection, and the summer Russian initiative has stalled, if not thwarted. By bombing oil refineries and arms factories, Russia is on the verge of banktruptcy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=lmp4C1bRpiM
There is a site, medium.com, it is a paywall, but it has a wide variety of offerings, and is a great source of updates on Ukraine. Our media isn't telling us thus, but Ukraine in reaching deep into Russia and destroying it's war making ability, not just airplanes, but their chemical and petroleum facilities, they even took out a plant that is essential to making their verion of the Shahed drone. they recently took off line, with drones, a petroleum refinery that produces 5% of their fuel.
And Ukraine has a bustling drone operation, producing thousands a month, making the life of the army miserable., and at the cost of $100 or less per drone, cost benefit, the lose a $20 million dollar radar to a $1,000 drone.
There way ahead of us in fighting on a 21st Century battlefield, and Hegseth doesn't have a clue, and our government let multi million or billion dollar contracts to Raytheon and McDonnell Douglas.To research and build million dollar drones.
meanwhile the Houti's are shooting down Reaper Drones,and an Israel Drone lost its helicopter and landed in Gaza.
Thanks for posting the link to "The Fourth Turning is Here" by Howe. I have been reading both Howe and Turchin avidly and think they have the key: every 80-100 years societies forget what "made them great" and must go through a catastrophe to renew themselves. We are there.
The timeframe is off. Everything happens sooner now due to AI and modern communication.
If you , Mr.Hartmann could get this on every newspaper by challenging them to report the truth and “both sides”, and then spread it out to every actual news forum maybe the word will spread. How can we be so apathetic when everything you state has already happened?
The supremely far right court should face impeachment. Those who lie should be constantly followed on media by pointing out there complicity in selling us over to the fascists.
Get really armed with “the good fight”…. The truth about why people want to continue being robbed by the filthy greedy humans who so hate them.
God help us….. and by that I mean use our “free will” to do the work that will spotlight the ugly rape we are experiencing now! Thank you for stating it so succinctly.
There will be no salvation this time. The morbidly rich, sexism and racism have won. Tens of millions of Americans are basically irredeemable, and we will only get our country back, if even then, in a sea of blood, not ballots. Greed and domination seem hard wired in us, which is why democracy is so rare and often short-lived. We boomers were blessed with what was, in retrospect, America’s golden age. Too bad we lacked the will or the smarts to preserve what this country once was for future generations. My own hopefully imminent demise will relieve me of pain, suffering, all of life’s burdens and annoyances. It will not relieve me of guilt for not seeing the growing rot and doing more to destroy it.
Interesting how the last presidential election elicited little to no concerns about the integrity of the election, scant commentary on little to no calls for scrutiny and the usual noble victim posturing of the elected sitting democrats who just might be more fearful of disclosures of insider trading and Epstein dalliances than they are of the possibility of seriously rancid voting fraud. There is caused ennui in the history of it. It was clear that Jebbie shape-shifted Florida's votes to defeat Gore, but who gave a shit? And Gore, morally above putting up a fight, skuck his nose high, and faded into the elitist mist. There are many elections which have the same shimmering wavy lines that rise from a pile of fresh poop, but follow-up? Reactive out-cry? Recently I saw two flashs of media burps suggesting foul play in the last presidential election but no follow-up. Media burying was expected, but organized democratic party ho-humming? Wasps in the wind. Some evidence of a rigged presidential election and no democratic congressional follow-up, no serious outcry? Now asked to put all your marbles in voting? Grow the fuck up.
The "average" voter needs to be educated more & yanked away from FOX & other rightwing outlets. If you don't receive enough education to determine what is real & what is hype, well then, waking up may be just that, wake up, go to work, come home watch FOX, & lots of inane television, go to sleep, rinse & repeat. Until those voters pay attention more than they do, they will always vote for the con artists! You can't pay attention the day before the election & make a reasonable decision.
As I see it, we need dire economic circumstances to animate and motivate the 91 million people who didn't bother voting in the November election. They saw what Trump did on J6 but didn't care. Since Americans appear to be more motivated by economic factors than any others, the gravest danger to democracy, as I see it, is that scotus will block Trump's illegal tariffs before they can do sweeping damage.
To those in power who read Hartmann - and I know there are - place this piece in front of literally everything else on your agendas. If the facts and reason presented here don't warrant top priority, you are persisting exclusively in self-interest. It is that simple.
Breaking News: Russian Tank spotted flying American flag. Trump has told Zelenskyy he is going to have to give up land. Question now is does NATO have any cajones.?
The pussy in this equation is TRump not NATO.
RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA got him again. TACO Alert!
Truthfully, I turned off the meeting, after I saw Trump manhandle Macron, and Macron let him. My wife was watching it for a spell and I saw Trump's act praising them one by one using his childish language, just like his cabinet praises him.
Made me sick, but if the NATO and EU officials didn't stand up to Trump, they are indeed pussies.
So long as he can push them around, and they don't push back, they are pussies and losers.
Words don't count, actions do, and unless the EU stands up to Trump-Putin, it is all over, next year Putin will be rolling through eastern Europe.
Thom, too late to wake up voters. We may never get a valid election again.
We need to concentrate on working with Congressional Republicans.
Like I said yesterday, I wanna hear from Republican Sens Roger Wicker; Rand Paul; Don Bacon, Chairman, House Armed Services Subcommittee.
https://www.wicker.senate.gov/2025/6/wicker-backs-bill-to-bankrupt-putin
'There Is One Man To Blame For This War': Roger Wicker ..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6PJLdPjCAw
Case study: Brian Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick was one of only two House Republicans to vote against Trump's major domestic policy legislation in July 2025. He explained his "no" vote by stating that Senate amendments to Medicaid provisions and other clauses in the bill were unacceptable for his district.
Thom,
Thank you for this. The list grows longer and more vengeful every day.
All the best, keep writing and watch your six.
Steve Dundas
And just when things were starting to look up... "Exceeding functional biosphere integrity limits: Study finds 60% of the world's land area is in a precarious state". This is the headline from phys.org this morning. As the environment goes down authoritarianism goes up.
Break out your tie-dye, the hippies were right.
All true...
But, what's the plan?
I get two dozen requests for money each day, on line, or text, from organizations to address specific issues on this long laundry list of crimes against us. Whom do I trust? Who has the most cohesive and wide-ranging solution to regain control of our country?
Essentially, whom do I believe, and what is the plan?
We are in this situation, to a very great degree, BECAUSE "progressive" people and efforts have been chasing a million different rabbits at the same time, diluting and confusing the American people.
Are the underlying and critical needs of the Handicapped Lesbians with AIDs really that much different than inner city single mothers??? Every time we splinter the body politic into another special needs group, the right wing blathersphere salivates with the opportunity to drive another wedge between working people.
So who is unifying the response? Where is the unifying message/messenger that creates a universal progressive brand?
We are in a knife fight. Singing Goombayah is not going to work.
There is no old money brahmin like FDR who is going to come down from on high and take charge.
There are years of neglect in solidifying and polishing a Progressive Brand, and maintaining a mechanism to deliver and frame it.
The billionaires who funded the corporate Dems are the last people we can turn to at this time. You know who NOT to look to for leadership by how much any new candidate or pundit -- MSN -- rely upon the Clinton/Obama big money limo-liberal starship.
If Obama had embraced Occupy Wall St., and put in jail about a dozen of the guys who caused the 2007-08 mortgage investment collapse that hurt so many working people, we would not be in this mess. Instead, he mumbled something about how a country needs a financial system and let the Republican money invent the TEA PARTY to capture the rage.
So, who can organize and frame a capturing of the current rage? Who is going to take it out of Donnie T's pocket in enough time to save us???
Is there a younger Bernie? Is there a more marketable to the whole country OAC?
D.
AOC is the younger Bernie.
It will take X years for AOC to work on becoming acceptable to male -- and especially female -- voters in the key swing states.
We haven't got X years... not even half of X years.
d.
Comparatively there haven't been corporate Dems since HRC.
Republicans have hundreds of billionaire donors. We have 3.
We count differently.
And what's his name in CA is already lining them up.
D.
When they donate, I'll believe it.
We are outspent in virtually every red state and that's why they're red.
We disagree.
See Open Sources if you don't believe me.
https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview
Be very careful of whom you donate to. I had my paypal account charged twice, for over $500 for something I didn't order. Paypal, eventually, after persistence, reversed the charges, and I changed my password, many times.
I am not doing Paypal anymore, and definitely not self renewing subscriptions.
As substack can set you up for a self renewing subscription,so can others whom you think are simply vendors or charitables.