We are the precipice of another Fourth Turning except this one is for all the marbles. If we don’t get this right the next generations won’t stand a chance in hell of righting the wrongs committed by our own elected government. The climate crisis will be hard enough to overcome. Add in more systemic racism and violence and it’s just a matter of time before we enter into another engineered race war.
I really REALLY do not want to believe that 55-60% of Americans are "openly racists." I am observing that thanks to increasing food prices, cruel deportations, the Epstein files cover-up, and the likes of Joe Rogan, people are beginning to emerge from their comas and grasp what we are being fed....
The NAZI's had 4,000 concentration camps in Germany and in Poland. The camps in Poland were death camps, the others were labor camps, and of course prisoners were often worked to death. Dachau, for instance, was a labor camp
IMO, Trump is starting out with transit camps, which is what the NAZI's used, say Drancy in France or Theresienstadt which the NAZI's used to show the IRC how well they treated the Jews.
Next came the labor camps for political prisoners, and Jews, then the extermination camps located in Poland out of sight of the German population.
AI overview
Auschwitz was not a single camp but rather a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps established by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II.
The three main camps were:
Auschwitz I: The main camp (Stammlager) and administrative headquarters, originally a Polish army barracks, was used primarily for political prisoners.
Auschwitz II-Birkenau: Located in the village of Brzezinka, this camp was the largest of the Auschwitz facilities and functioned as the primary killing center with gas chambers.
Auschwitz III-Monowitz: This was a labor camp established to provide forced labor for the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben's synthetic rubber factory.
Beyond these main camps, there were dozens of smaller subcamps (Aussenlager, Nebenlager, or Arbeitslager) spread across the region, where prisoners were forced to work in various industries, including agriculture, mining, and armaments production.
This complex network of camps and subcamps played a central role in the Nazis' "Final Solution," their plan to systematically murder the Jewish people of Europe.
And at least 55% would like to do it again! The Israeli Gaza war is a pretext for the violence we see across Europe and the violence against Jews on college campuses and synagogues.
I agree Eadie, there is an embedded fear or hatred of Jews, not only in Christian, but also Islamic culture. In the case of Islam is actually more overt and outspoken in their holy texts like the Quran and the hadiths.
It is an antipathy born out of jealousy , even a sense of inferiority. Until the 20th and 21st Century Jewish communities were, of necessity, pretty much endogenous and closed, forced because of ostracization by the society at large, to be close knit and as a consequence had international lines of communication and thus commerce.
At first, under the thumbs of Islam, they had to accept 2nd class status as dhimmi's, the Quran makes provisions for the "Peoples of the Book" the book being the Sephar or Torah Scrolls or for Christians the Bible.
But as Dhimmi's they had to pay a poll tax, the jizzyah, which is so onerous, that many Peoples of the Book,like the Bogomil christians of Bosnia, converted to Islam to escape the jizzyah.
And of course being 2nd class citizens means that you are scapegoated, so to survive as people and a culture, they supported and helped each other and shared information, and information is king, it is the key to success, political and commercial.
Jewish communities, not only survived by prospered under Muslim rule, at least unitl 1492.
Ferdinand and Isabella, always in need of treasure, borrowed heavily from the Fugger Brothers of Italy. (A Christian banking family). Unable to repay the loan, they forced the Fugger Brothers into bankruptcy.
Needing more money the lit on the scheme of expelling Muslims and Jews, and confiscating their property. The date of expulsion was Aug 3. 1492, the same day that Columbus set sail for America. And there is suggestion that he too was a Jew.
Before 1492, Edward I of England, had also depleted his treasury in his wars with France and Scotland, needing money he borrowed from the Jewish merchants of London, and unable to repay the loan, he banished the Jews from England, and they only returned with King William of Orange.
I also have it on good advice,from a Huguenot descendant, that the Huguenots originally of Catalonia, were Jews who chose a third way, conversion to Protestantism, rather than under the thumb of Catholic monarchs.
As regards the term antisemite, I am pretty much a stickler for exact language, and the word semite,stems for Shem the son of Noah, and the whole story in Genesis is myth, Sumerian actually, via the Akkadians, via the Babylonians, in which the people come to be called Jews or Hebrew worked in the library and were versed in the Sumerian-Akkadian myths.
Also northern Arabs, haplogroup J1, claim to be semites, based on another myth,that of Abraham.
Abe had two sons and according to origin myth, Isaac is the patriarch of the Jews,and Muslims claimthat Ishmael is the patriarch of the Arabs.
Arab is not a race,anymore than Jew is a race. Who is and is not an Arab is based on their native tongue, there are black Arabs, Causcasian Arabs, Christian Arabs and Jewish Arabs (the Druze).
Jew is not a race either or the same reason, it is an identity assumed on the basis of tradtion and recognized by Rabbi's and the Israeli law of return, based on matrilineal descent.
Christian father, Jewish mother - Jew, Jewish Father-Christian mother, not Jew, though I have heard that Israel has since amended the law.
Atheistic Jew a thing, FromEinstein to Chomsky and even Netanyahu
Atheistic Christian or Atheistic Muslim, not a thing, Although a lesbian Irshad Manji claims to be such, she would last less than an hour in a Muslim land, only in America can you get away with such contradiction.
William, you are a wealth of information. Some of it I was aware of. Much of it I was not. I thank you. Unfortunately, we don't have anyone like you addressing this issue in our gov't. I hesitate to say their knowledge of Jewish history is sorely lacking.
I agree that Israel's attempted genocide in Gaza for almost 23 months now has desensitized much of the world (and almost all of the United States) into accepting more and more political violence at home, including the quick, illegal, and sometimes violent way the Gaza protest encampments on college campuses were dismantled. I'm not aware of any substantial violence against Jewish college students, although I know some hateful language was used. And criticizing military violence inflicted mostly onto 200,000 innocent Palestinian victims at this point is simply free speech.
I heard someone on TV yesterday say that Republicans oppose DEI because it goes against their commitment to keeping the races separate and resentful. The GOP can only survive by maintaining a climate of hate, creating rivalries, and keeping the working class from uniting. They seem to be doing a good job of it.
Thomas doesn't see himself as black. He made the statement, that "liberals made my life miserable for 47 years, now I am going to make them miserable for 47 years" He didn't explain how liberals made him miserable.
Vance and McConnell's racism has blinders, it is restricted to blacks, this anti immigration Jihad, catches the media's attention because it of necessity encapsulates Latino's, but less talked about or reported is that it is sweeping up Asians and even whites that are vociferous and public against Trump
IMO it is all the product of Stephen Miller, as a reminder he was behind the Muslim ban in 2016.
He is smarter this time, he is disguising his desire to purge the U.S. of Muslims, by starting with "illegal" immigrants.
Hitler started his purge of the Jews, by starting with trans, mentally disabled, queers, the socialists, communists, unionists, then after building camps and a bureaucratic infrastructure the Jews.
Start small, with small populations, that don't have political clout , find bugs, then scale up
Democratic leadership must indeed step up. Donvict recently offered the to-him racist observation that “Jasmine Crockett is the future of the Democratic Party”, to which my response is “God I hope so!”. It strikes me that many Americans go on about their lives paying minimal attention to current events, even boasting “I don’t follow politics”. They are presumably reachable, and they must be reached before MAGA destroys whatever greatness we’ve ever had, or any chance of achieving it.
With you on Crockett and the frustration of so many friends and family ignoring what is happening. Could not be happier if Crockett, Mamdani, AOC, and a few others are the ones who shape our government. Maybe there's a silver lining - that this fascist regime's backlash will be a truly progressive agenda - Democratic Socialism. "W"'s incompetence was in no small part what gave us Obama.
I am with you Michael, Alas Obama once in office, bent over backwards not to "act black" or do anything that would really upset the "Lost Cause" among us.
For so long, the only Politicians and TV hosts that had any guts at all, have been Black women. e.g. Letitia James, Stacey Abrams, Jasmine Crockett, Fani Willis, and black males, where not "house slaves" like Scott, Donalds, Robinson, while Democrat were hardly hard core , risk takers, maybe when young, but when they got into the belly of the beast, they moderated.
Every fascist movement is, has been based on racism. It is the core of all fascist agenda, past and present. When civil rights confrontations were materialized in southern states, they were largely implemented and manned by activists from northern states. Not all, but the scales are far from even. A real clue here exists in how Blacks have been and are being supported in the South. Pencil in white people. In most formats I attend, nothing has changed. In the advances of outright rascist attacks by Trump-led bigots, Blacks have suffered massive reversals of former civil rights gains. Ask yourself how many comments in these posting forums have you seen real concern or empathy expressed? Assuming that democratic party principle needs no such empathy actually expressed of course is a cop-out. More, it is unexpressed shrug that suggests 'that's their fight'. While white democrat posters may object, Blacks know better. The real message from democrats in Dixie today is read in their silence. Not loud, but clear. Clearly white democrats, by the leaving the Black fight to the Blacks, are enabling Trump's racist strategy.
Where I live MAGAT Byron Donalds has announced he's running to be governor of Florida.
“After a lot of prayer and a lot of thought with my family and my friends, I’m here to announce my candidacy to be the next governor of the great state of Florida,” Donalds, a Naples Republican, told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
We are a state that has excised Black history, "caged" and purged Black voters, inimidated Blacks at polling places, etc. I don't know this as a fact, but I think Palm Beach still has a "sundown" ordiance.
Florida, like other southern states, has a history of sundown towns, also known as sundown or sunset towns, which are municipalities or neighborhoods that historically excluded non-white people, particularly Black people, after sunset. These towns often employed a combination of discriminatory laws, intimidation, and violence to enforce this exclusion. While formal sundown ordinances are largely a thing of the past, some communities grapple with the legacy of these practices.
By your post Gerald, I assume that you are a black male, and thus have been disadvantaged by institutional and systemic racism.. This stilts ones point of view, how they see the world, the reality around them.. When you've been treated like a nail all your life, you see everyone else as a hammer.
What I am getting to is that not every fascist movement has been based on racism.
Franco's Falangist society, employed Moors from North Africa to combat the Republicans.
Fascism originated in Rome, in fact the name fascism comes from the Roman fasces, the symbol of the senate, and Rome had Emperors and Senators from all over the Empire, including a couple of African emperors.
The problem I have with your analysis, is that it is all about race, in particular white oppression of blacks.
This has been the fundamental weakness of Democrats, the big tent is full of groups demanding priority of money, recognition and power, it is so big that it is factionalized.
It isn't just black folk at siege, and some of them are doing very well I must say,in politics, the media, entertainment, business, and indeed there are "house slaves" like Clarence Thomas, Candace Owens, Byron Donalds, Tim Scott, Ye that sit by the fireplace sipping braandy with the massah.
There are groups even more marginalized and discriminated against than blacks, like the transgendered, the impoverished, the homeless, queers, and today immigrants seeking to improve their position or just live.and women who are self validating, self supporting and have no desire to be subjugated.
My oldest African American friend said to me years ago, "It's all about race." Indeed, the heritage goons have used issues such as transgender and other LGBTQ issues primarily to achieve their racist agenda and goals.
A doc that's free to stream, 'Slavery by Another Name," is a must watch to understand the history of Jim Crow and the perverse reactions to Reconstruction.
There are parts that should make one weep, at least for those that still possess a soul.
This administration is effectively returning America to Jim Crow and pre-suffragette. The fascism has been happening so rapidly, by design, that we are so overwhelmed we seem crippled to react. But react, resist and protest we must. It will never be any easier than it is today.
It's NEVER TOO LATE! So many friends and family just want to ignore what is happening; they just want to get on with their lives. That desire is understandable. However, in a masochistic effort, I dared to watch Hannity for no more than 2 minutes last night. In it I watched in horror as s. miller, and then Tulsi Gabbard spoke their brazen and fascist hate speak. Had to turn it off; I had to get on with my life.
"And we need to demand that the media stop laundering Republican talking points and call out this agenda for what it is: a fascist project to make racism great again." We can demand until we're blue in the face or crippled with writer's cramp. Until the next Murrow or a Murrow's boy comes along, nobody should expect any better.
Not much can be done with print media. The law of defamation is possible, but weak. The little guy has mostly hope in litigation. Few lawyers will take a defamation case on a contingency basis.
The broadcast industry is only about a hundred years old. The airwaves are supposed to be public. The principle of "public interest, convenience, and necessity," was the cornerstone of the Communications Act of 1934 and subsequent legislation. This "public trustee" model means that licensed broadcasters have an obligation to serve the public good, for example, by providing diverse programming, supporting local communities, and facilitating political discourse.
Once upon a time, the FCC had standards....originally the Communications Act forbid foreign individuals, governments, and corporations owning more than 20% of the capital stock of a broadcast, common carrier, or radio station. In 2013 the FCC relaxed these rules.
FCC jurisdiction should include all "social media."
It could be that Trump is the biggest liar in US history. He should be accountable for every lie that causes harm to innoicent victims. This is a basis for the concept of torts in Anglo Saxon common law that underlies our sovereignity.
The democrats should have had truth squads in every state more than a year ago. They have been fighting with one hand behind their back. Finally, Newsom has come to the rescue. We need more like him. Colbert comes to mind.
No election until Nov. 2026. We havent had valid elections in many years.
The best and maybe only hope until then might be shared government. I'd hope Jeffries has offered chairmanships to a couple of Republicans. Could end this September 3, when Congress returns. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
Bright shiny objects. This entire news cycle has been a distraction from Trump's vulnerbilities, starting with Trumpepstein. While we're worried abourt future elections, they imposed Fasccism. Elections will not be fair.
Putin's whore. We need to motivate the Congressional Republicans that support Ukraine.
The economy. The Big Crappy Bill is death to Republicans. Red states are the biggest losers. Paygo will force MEDICARE cuts. Note that I said Medicare, not Medicaid.
Maybe you are Trump's agent on this site, perpetuating false hope and ideas.
I don't want to alienate you Daniel, we have been in lock step so much, but this Manichean penchant of yours is a little too much. If I ain't with you I am again you. If I don't follow and believe you, I am with the other side. that is a little too much Daniel.
I readily admit that I don't trust establishment Democrats, because they have done nothing but bolster Trump,if inadvertently, until lately they have been weak sisters.
Your suggest that Congress can stop Trump and hold him accounable is laughable. The same congress that has a majority Republican vote, the same congress that took a recess so they didn't have to deal with the Epstein files? The same congress that passed the One Big Bad Bill?
Operation of law you say? What law that Trump doesn't ignore, the law that is under the control of Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, the injustice six on the supreme court? That law Daniel? Really?
I will state again who I am. I am a progressive, no bullshit, take no captives,give no quarter radical and the only way to fight fascism is with force, not reason.
One either stands up to bullies, or one submits to bullies, and that is Manichean and there is no third way.
So Trump built that Thom? Last time I checked it was our floundering fathers who established our country firmly on a foundation of white supremacy and wealth built on free labor. Flash forward to today when Democrats (along with Republicans of course) have done everything within their power to maintain that dynamic, Democrats joining in to suppress free speech and establish a militarized police state that crushes dissent. It was Democrats who introduced The Antisemitism Awareness Act that conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism and made political speech against Israel a crime. They have assisted Trump in his efforts every step of the way, complicit in state violence against protestors and the witch hunts stifling free speech at colleges and universities. As for Trump's federalization of police in D.C. it was Biden himself who set the stage for that by rejecting home-rule that he initially said he would approve because the DC mayor was not "tough on crime," siding with Republicans in an election season. Have you considered the history of Gaza and Israel at all to help Americans understand that, unlike Bernie Sanders keeps saying, this did NOT all start on October 7th? You have banned the regional history of Russia and Ukraine, hanging up on me TWICE when I tried to talk about it on your show (after which I stopped listening of course) and spreading Red Scare propaganda in lieu of truth. If I am not loyal to your and the Democratic Party's false narratives, then I am, banned. The foundation Trump is operating upon was built long ago, and has gotten to this malignant point with the help of neoliberal self-promoters like yourself. https://liberationnews.org/biden-bowser-and-democrats-betray-washington-d-c-statehood/
You really are a Putin stooge Boris, and you really piss me off. Putin is engaged in an act of genocide, as defined by Art 2, UN Charter on Prevention of Genocide, which specifies Intent.
Putin has declared that there is no such thing as Ukraine, the Ukrainan language and identity, he is purposefully waging war against civilians, his troops are torturing them and murdering themin cold blood, he bombs maternity wards, schools and kidnaps children, there is an international arrest warrant for him, and he met Trump in Alaska because he can't even fly over other countries and all you can come up with is a lame Red Scare.
What utter bullshit.
Yeh Natanyahu, Ben Gvir and the settlers are as bad as the NAZI's, but Israel is not targeting buildings, hospitals and schools just to terrorize the people into submission, because HAMAS won't submit,not ever. Rather HAMAS hides behind its people and uses them as human shields, Zelenskyy is not hiding behind his people and using them as shields.
Your paymaster Boris, is a cold blooded psychopath, and when he is done with Ukraine he will move on to Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and Germany, and they know it.
So give up on that bullshit and phony whining about the people of Gaza, we know you don't give a shit, they are just a propaganda excuse used to get o the emotions of liberals.
And OMG, he calls Thom and others like me, neo liberal, or neo conservative, right out of the KGB handbook on psyops to fuck with the liberal mind.
William you are an inspiration to all people who are fed up with using Netanyahu as a pretext to condemn the whole Israeli gov't. Witkoff needs to be replaced with someone who has your values and ability.. Dennis Ross comes to mind.
A decade or two ago, Israel was a shiny city on a hill, that put America to shame.
Gay rights, marriage rights, Arab rights, they even served in the Knesset, then along comes Netanyahu, a right wing dual citizen, somehow he Trumpified the Israeli public, and that liberal democracy has disappeared, as the Likkud(Israels MAGA) has taken over, and built constitutencies, Now the government of Israel is at war with it's own people, called a mixed war, just as is happening in America, but Americans are slow to catch on, they don't realize the house is on fire until the flames envelope them.
It was leaked by someone in Israeli intelligence, that Netanyahu knew that HAMAS was planning something, and the proof of that is in the fact, that Early in the morning of Oct 7th, with shift change, women soldiers replaced the men in the watch towers, and took their weapons with them, leaving the women unarmed.
It is known that Netanyahu actually financed and supported HAMAS to keep FATAH and the Palestinian Authority out of power.
In my opinion Bibi knew that an assault by HAMAS was in the works, he just didn't know the particulars, in the same vein I am sure that Bush knew that 9/11 was in the works, but he also didn't know the particulars, but he was damn sure not to be sitting in the White House, which was the destination of Flight 93, that the passengers overpowered the hijackers and crashed in that Pennsylvania field.
The Israel of today is not the democratic society that it was at the turn of the century,and because of the Oct 7th slaughter, the hostage taking and the onslaught of rockets, the Israeli public is no longer as open minded and liberal as it once was.
Worse you now have (orthodox) settlers, with obvious consent of the IDF, murdering and forcing Arabs out of their homes, and they plan to build a huge settlement that will divide Palestine and kill the possibility of a two state solution.
Of that, I don't think that there is a two state solution ever, because the war is religious in nature,, on both sides.
On Israel's side there is Eratz Ysrael, and a flag which symbolically represents the Nile with a blue strip at the top, the Euphrates with a blue strip at the bottom and all of Israel in between.
On the Muslim side, there is a gestational hatred of the Jews, it starts in the Quran when Muhammad in Medina, has the entire tribe of Jews, the Bani Quaryza, beheaded in the market place, and follows through with the promise that the end times, the day of judgement will not come until all the Jews are killed,andeven the rocks cry out, there is a Jew behind me slay him. Sahih 1295/1296, Book 56, hadith 139, al Bukhari.,also in paragraph 7 of the HAMAS covenant.
And worse yet, Muslims are so jealous of their sacred places, that no kufr Iinfidel) is allowed to tread there. Makka, Medina and Haram al Sharif, which is the Dome of the Rock and al Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem.
IIRC the 1st intifada (uprising) started when,the were provoked by the then Israeli leadership entering the Haram al Sharif. Bibi tried to start a second.
Haram, by the way, means sacred, thus forbidden. The Muslims copied the Jews and declared stuff like pork haram.
Which is interesting because about 3,000 years ago in Uru Salem, before it was occupied by the people the Egyptians called the habiru, there was a temple to Ninip,the Babylonian creating god, who let loose the flood,, swine was considered sacred , and therefore taboo to its worshipers and only eaten sacrificially by priests
Interesting how different cultures appropriate the same event, but interpret them differently.
Kashruth is the body of Jewish religious laws concerning the suitability of food, the fitness for use of ritual objects, etc That which is not fit, or kosher,is forbidden.
Haram means pretty much the same, only haram means both sacred and forbidden.
What a world we create for ourselves.
My friend Curtis from Oakland, would stand up in Diogenes Latern in 1958, and say "when this world stops I am getting off".
On November 2 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote his famous letter to Lord Rothschild, expressing the support of the government for the “establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people” Actually a band of Jewish intellectuals started the ball rolling. Chaim Weitzman, a renowned scientist, Harry Sacher, journalist and Leon Simon, activist along with philosophers, universities, Manchester Guardian were instrumental in making great Britain aware of the plight of the Jews. Thirty-one years later Israel became a reality.
On July 24, 1922, the League of Nations entrusted Great Britain with the Mandate for Palestine. Recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine," Great Britain was called upon to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine-Eretz Israel (Land of Israel). Shortly afterward, in September 1922, the League of Nations and Great Britain decided that the provisions for setting up a Jewish national home would not apply to the area east of the Jordan River, which constituted three-fourths of the territory included in the Mandate and which eventually became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
So 3/4 of the land in the Declaration was wiped away with the stroke of a pen.
Of course, the story didn’t end there. Israel had to fight for its independence in 1948. That shiny city on a hill fought 23 wars since then. Oct 7, 25 was the last one and it’s no wonder Netanyahu and the far right have had enough. I think you know I have no love for what Netanyahu has done to enable the haters of Jews and by extension Israel to win approval for a continuation of their propaganda war. They never mention that Arabs are represented in the Knesset, or that the head of the United Arab List is Monsieur Abbas who attended Hebrew University and became a dentist. How many Arab countries have Jews in gov’t.? Ans. Zero.
I assume that your post was meant for the edification of others, I am quite sure that you are aware that I know all of this.
Actually lord Rothschild approach Balfour with the proposal, and Balfour agreed.
The Zionist movement started with Theodore Herzl, he toured Europe preaching to the Jewish community, the necessity of returning to the homeland, and indeed recruited quite a few families.
The land at that time belong to the Sultan of Turkey, never the less, the Jewish emigrants purchased land from the inhabitants. There was in fact a Jewish community already living there before the migration started and the Jews of the Levant suffered pogroms.
After WWI, Turkey ceded the land , which Rome called Assyria Paleastina
To the UN and it was placed under the mandate of the United Kingdom.
That is when the migration of European Jews, led by Theodore Herzl, started.
The Jews in "Palestine" (there is not and never has been a country called Palestine, it was either Roman, Greek, Arab or Turk.
Anyway because of the pogroms and attacks by their Arab and Bedouin neighbors a self defense force called the Haganah was created, it later became the basis of the IDF,
Eventually, , around 1931, the Irgun was formed, and it engaged in acts of terrorism against the Arabs and the Brits, and led by Menachim Begin, they blew up the King David Hotel, the Brits had enough and finally left about Jan 1948, and doing so disabled the aircraft, vehicles and blew up the ammo.
The enterprising Jews were able to repair the planes and vehicles, and ordered lip stick tubes, which they remanufactured into bullets.
It is a fact that the Irgun committed acts of terrorism against the Arabs and the Brits and even massacred the village of Deir Yassin.
But this was a tit for tat era, an eye for an eye, fueled by religious beliefs, both on the part of the Jews and Arabs.
May 1948, the then new and thinly populated state of Israel was recognized by the UN, six months later in Nov 1948, seven Arab nations, launched an invasion of genocide against the Jews defiling their sacred soil, especially Jerusalem
The affront now is that the despised Jew, no longer dhimmis, second class citizens control the third mos holy site in Islam, the Haram al Sharif and al Aqsa mosque, the situation is intolerable
You are correct there are 10 Arabs in the Knesset, and I promise you that you will not find any Jews or Christians in the government of a Muslim, not to mention Arab country.
In fact you won't find hardly in Jews or Christians in any Arab or Muslim Country. Iran has the most Jews, about 5,000 probably less now, as the Republican Guard has been rounding them up since the bombing of the nuclear sites by Trump.
Other than that the Jewish population ranges from 0 in Saudi Arabia,to three in Egypt to maybe 100 - 500 in some Muslim state, and no they don't have any rights,much less representation in government.
Terror has been unleashed on the Jews by the Arabs, and in turn, self defense even, by the Jews upon the Arabs.
What would the critics do, if they migrated to a region, bought homes and land, and in turn were harassed, murdered by their neighbors, they would fight back in self defense.
Everyone in the world is living on land, stolen, by force, from someone else, and even by genocide.
The Angles, Saxons and Jutes, wiped out all of the Brythonic peoples that they confronted, except for the few that fled to the fens, mountains and Wales.
While William the Conqueror did not commit genocide, and allowed some Saxon barons who pledged fealty to keep their barony (the sole surviving Saxon barony is that of Berkeley), he did ethnically cleanse the baron of Northumbria (modern Yorkshire and Durham) when the Saxon barons Aedwin and Morcar Algerson's, reneged on their pledge of Fealty.
Boris, you are as transparent as the glass in my window. You really don't care about anything, except Russia, Russia, Russia and your employer Putin. You go through this long rant, but you get to the point. And you try to put Thom and liberals on the defense by evoking the Red Scare meme.
In part you are correct, Putin is indeed the heir of Stalin and like Stalin he is dead set on wiping out the Ukrainian culture, identity and language, In a word genocide in Ukraine and you say nothing, just trying to distract us .
Of course the founders of this nation were imperfect, which is why the Preamble stresses that what is being established is a "More perfect union". Our Constitution is designed to be an organic document, one that can (and should) evolve with time. Living in today's world with a constitution ratified in 1787 would be unconscionable but at that time it was radical. Over the following 200 years it has continued to evolve so that today (or maybe I should say "yesterday") we have universal enfranchisemen; an end to slavery; a right to worship and speak as we please; limits to the terms someone can be president, as well as a legal means to remove said person if they are found to be unable, physically or psychologically, to perform the responsibilities of the office. So sure, our government is not perfect, but then neither are we.
So what is your vision of a more perfect government? Does it already exist in some foreign land? And again, if you dislike this site so much, why are you here?
No government is perfect. But whitewashing history and using it as a weapon rather than to learn and foster understanding is extremely dangerous as we are seeing. The "rights" you outline are selective and if you read my comment we do not have the right to the free speech that the establishment will allow. Slavery exists in prisons, marginalized communities, Amazon warehouses and so on. Biden was not removed from office and he was unable to perform the duties from day one, Trump as well. I have no idea where you live or what you are reading but evidently Thom Hartmann has made you oblivious to the realities those outside of your circles face. And sorry, your "more perfect union" nonsense does not excuse the fact that most of our founding fathers were torturers, rapists, and thieves. Our government is "not perfect?" I would say aiding and abetting and covering up a genocide, as well as bombing and invading countries at will, is far less than "not perfect." I would call it warmongering and morally bankrupt.
The alternative is a government that is not completely controlled by the ruling class as both of our political parties, and our media, currently are. Perhaps representatives who aren't on the take and who prioritize the interests of their constituents. Perhaps leaders who don't lie every single day as all of them have for decades and who promote peace over war and absolute power. I could go on, but you'll just say I'm engaging in magical thinking like Hillary Clinton said about Bernie Sanders. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/the-empire-strikes-backat-itself
Much of what you write here would be viewed as a valid critique. I am in complete agreement with the first half but you are unaware of other positions on this site which I have repeatedly stressed.
1) What have I written that makes you think Hartmann has made me oblivious?
2) What are my "circles"?
3) Why is the concept of "a more perfect union nonsense"? You state that no government is perfect, which I totally agree with. My point is that we have a document that allows for alteration based on the will of the people, I didn't say, nor will I argue, that that function is successfully applied. That it isn't is a condemnation of the people, not the document.
5) Where did I write, here or anywhere else, that I excused any of the "Founding Fathers"? In the context of 2025 I find them repugnant, but looking at them in the context of the 1780s I must view them differently. That most certainly doesn't mean I accept their actions because I don't. Reach back into that time and bring forth people that you consider to be free of taint. Are you free of taint now, today, because I know damn well I'm not.
6) My guess is that the age of the commenters on this site averages somewhere in the 70s and lower 80s. Assuming you're old enough for it to be an issue, what did you do during the 60s and 70s? I was 1-O, one of the first to receive it based on philosophical grounds. When I filed in 1963 I firmly believed that I was going to go to prison and was ready to do so. This is not meant as virtue-signaling, because I sure as Hell am not virtuous. The position I held then I still do today.
Virtually all of us are complicit, either through our actions or inactions. If we pay taxes there is blood on our hands. When we turn on our air conditioners (it's going to get up to 103° here Friday and Sunday) we are taking part in the collapse of the biosphere. Don't grow your own fruits, grains and vegetables (I'll toss in meat as well, though I'm a vegetarian) besides the above you are supporting a toxic industry that not only pollutes our water, land and all living things, it uses immigrant labor, labor that is forced to work in untenable conditions for meager wages.
Like you I could go on, more or less indefinitely, but I fail to see the point. Condemning the many for the crimes of the (very) few is as absurd as it is vile. Telling me what I hold is farcical, Barry. You have no idea whatsoever who I am or what I believe in. You appear to be criticizing me for posting here but, Lo and Behold!, here you are.
You say "The alternative is a government that is not completely controlled by the ruling class...". Sure, I'm on board; how do you propose to get there? I don't see how we can without boycotts, ongoing work stoppages, active resistance, etc. This cannot be successful without nationwide sustained action but I have no idea how we get there from here. If you have what you believe is a viable plan I would appreciate you sharing it.
Better if we went our separate ways than civil war— this isn't 1861, the weapons are way worse, and there seems to be no compunctions against targeting noncombatants. Though dissolving the Union would probably play out much like the partition of India and Pakistan.
Just guessing Robert, but I would say that Boris definition of a perfect society is a Marxist paradise.m what Marxists don't grasp is that Marx was a proto libertarian and not at all an advocate of a classless society, just the elimination of the middle class which he called the bourgeoisie. His society was that of the peasant, the peon, the proletariat, the plebe ruled over and managed by the ruling class, in other words he was a neo feudalist.
Overall, Marxism hasn't turned out very well. Barry proposes a classless society — the Tooth Fairy inside me really likes the idea — without indicating how it is achieved in the first place or then maintained afterwards.
I am afraid that Jefferson was probably right when he said “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure”. The thought makes me uneasy but until there is some fundamental change either in neuroanatomy or a permanent (positive) alteration of socialculturall norms I don't see much of an alternative.
I totally agree Robert, we are on the same wavelength.
Marx was a hypocrite, or rather in the employ of the ruling elite, after all he was funded by the League of Just Men, and abandoned his wife and children to live in squalor.
His partner, Frederich Engels, inherited a textile mill, which of course employed children and illiterate workers.
There is no such thing as a classless society, and never will be a classless society, there will always be someone in charge and that will be a pyschopathic thug
Beware of ideologues, they are dangerous, not forward thinking, of if forward thinking, then vicious psychopaths who manipulate public sentiments for their own purpose.
Milovan Djilas, widely regarded as Tito's possible successor and in 1953 he was about to be chosen as President of Yugoslavia. He became President of the Federal People's Assembly of Yugoslavia, but he only held office from 25 December 1953 to 16 January 1954. wrote a book "The New Class"
Wiki has an irrelvant article on a book The New Class, and an obscure and somewhat obfuscating artile New Class, but in essence Djilas argues hat the new class' specific relationship to the means of production was one of collective political control, and that the new class' property form was political control. For Đilas, the new class not only seeks expanded material reproduction to politically justify its existence to the working class but also seeks expanded reproduction of political control as a form of property in itself. This can be compared to the capitalist who seeks expanded value through increased sharemarket values, even though the sharemarket itself does not necessarily reflect an increase in the value of commodities produced. Đilas used this argument about property forms to indicate why the new class sought parades, marches and spectacles despite this activity lowering the levels of material productivity. Đilas proposed that the new class only slowly came to self-consciousness of itself as a class. On arriving at a full self-consciousness the initial project undertaken would be massive industrialisation in order to cement the external security of the new class' rule against foreign or alternative ruling classes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_class
In other words Marxism does not lead to a classless society. Marx himself was not a Marxist, but a free trader. He opposed the British Corn laws, which were tariff's, he believed that gold was the standard of value, the USSR adoped his ideation wholesale and thus set themselves up for a perpetual depression as every ruble was tied to .9851 grams fine gold, and the amount of rubles in circulation was limited to the gold on hand.
He also chastised Southern editors, to free the slaves and hire them back at market wages, because American cotton was too expensive, and Engels had to resort to importing the cheaper and inferior Egyptian cotton.
The maintenance of a slave force was expensive, first there was the capital outlay, then the payment and provision of overseers,then the housing, clothing, entertainment (like hiring preachers to preach that slavery was godly) and medical care.
Whereas hiring at market wages, left the workforce to fend for itself, and compete for jobs, competition brings down wages. In fact the plaque so reduced the labor supply, that it is the cause of the end of serfdom.
There aren't very many clear paths forward at this point. History is so littered with the rusting hulks of failed ideologies that I have to wonder if we are sustainably self-governable in groups over 300. Democratic forms are sustainable for relatively short periods before they bleed back into rule of the many by the few. Hence Jefferson's "... blood of patriots and tyrants..." What most people want to believe is that having attained rule by the people (not that ti actually ever has) it will remain forever inviolate. The desire for and belief in some never-ending magical land where all is forever peachy keen, millenarianism, repeatedly pops up in human political thought. Besides the obvious, Christ's Kingdom on Earth (1000 years), there is the 1000 years of the Third Reich, Hegel's political end-state, More's Utopia, and, more recently, Fukuyama. The idea of an end of history, where everything political remains because it doesn't need to be changed, it's perfect, is a wondrous notion. The only problem I see is that none of the founders of these belief systems ever stopped to consider how humans actually interact with one another. Again, back to Jefferson, faults and al, who realized there wasn't a n end state to be reached but rather that maintaining democracy required ongoing commitment.
Allow me to be crass, Robert, but Fucking A. Brilliant you nailed the problem, the human condition
With this:
"The only problem I see is that none of the founders of these belief systems ever stopped to consider how humans actually interact with one another. Again, back to Jefferson, faults and al, who realized there wasn't a n end state to be reached but rather that maintaining democracy required ongoing commitment"
We are indeed tribal, and dependent on the situation we are either herd animals grazing with one eye on the others, or pack animals, predators, fighting for dominance of the pack, and it is all about breeding rights or sex.
Herd animals, the males fight it out, and the loser is ejected from the herd.
In Pack animals, the loser assumes his place as a beta, gamma, delta, within the herd.
The species felis (cats, lions, leopards, etc) are neither herd nor pack animals, but like herd animals they expel young males from the clan.
The social heirarchy is individual, clan, tribe.
Christian is a tribe, Catholic is a clan.
Islam is a tribe, Sunni, Shia are clans. and clans break down into sub groups.
Spot on with your depiction of Jefferson, warts and all. The right wing use to quote him when he said "the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"
Now that they have finally achieved the power which they have so long sought, they forgot the quote and in fact would disavow it.
The one quality humans have mastered is hypocrisy.
A suggestion friend, in good faith and good intentions.
Your comment, to which I am responding, is poignant, and would be more readable if broken up into short paragraphs, each containing a single though. And each two or three sentences max.
I learned that technique, of all things, from fund raising literature from the Moral Majority in the lead up to the election of Reagan.
It is actually very effective, Another version is "bullet points" Take my response for example. It is much easier to read and follow, than long drawn out paragraphs, with many thoughts.
You really do have poignant and appropriate thoughts in your comment.
DC statehood was never viable because it requires 60 votes in the Senate, and Repubs will never vote for that, as it creates 2 more Democratic Senators and another Dem House rep. Your other statements also appear to be factually incorrect, as they similarly blame elected Democrats for Republican positions. But nice try.
Dump is just the avatar that the Heritage Foundation used to get into the White House. He will be cast aside on January 21, 2027 if he doesn’t die or completely melt down before then. The Koch family has been working on this project since the 1970s. They have joined with other oligarchs to systematically degrade the middle class and strip away our rights and treasure for over 50 years, like a Jenga tower. The tower has now been exposed and we must collapse it now or forever be awash in its evil!
If slavery is so great maybe Trump and his zombie army should try a few days out in the fields picking strawberries. The farmers sure could use the help considering all the workers have been deported or are in hiding. Remember to sing — Massa sure loves happy slaves.
There was a fascinating and unnerving article on NPR today (remember to donate) about brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). These are the devices that are being used to allow people who can't talk to synthesize speech. There is some indication that the interface may actually be able to convert your thoughts into words as well. The usefulness of this in some post-Orwellian techno-reich is all too obvious. Your ticket to Miniluv is waiting for you. They're fixing up Room 101 for you so don't be late.
There is a certain surreality to the rapid disintegration of the One True Beacon of Democracy into a moral slag heap. Visions of. melting the Statue of Liberty down to make ideological shackles for the masses — at least those who are white. Everybody else is going to be in South Sudan.
Hawking's was different: it was partly mechanical. Initially he was able to navigate using a clicker but as he lost ability to control his thumb the interface was switched over so that it could navigate via twitches of his cheek. When I was him In Berkeley he was still able to use the clicker.
The BCI mentioned is driven by an implant — it has no mechanical interface. Basically, it translate brainwaves into speech. There has also been limited success creating visual images from brain activity. Previous work with the BCI focused on synthesizing what people were trying to say but were incapable of doing so. The article in question discusses being able to discern what the person is thinking, your inner-most thoughts, as it were. The sci-fi nerd inside me envisions a time when AI is able to record one's dreams on a multi sensory level. My dystopian self foresees a chip implanted ion every baby's head so that The Government knows what one is thinking 24/7. And shortly after that, reversing direction so that The Gov directs what people think and do. Hell, why spend time with thinking at all!
That's some scary shit, but the technology used for Hawking is amazing, it can be used for anything With adjustments it can be used to manipulate and exo skeleton.
The South never actually acknowledged losing the Civil War. The surrender at Appomattox was just a delaying tactic. Since then, Southern states have preserved as much as possible of the antebellum order, retreating only when the Federal government forced those states to comply with the laws that govern the rest of us.
Whenever the country looked the other way, the South turned up the heat, winning post-war victories via violence, flouting the law, or political cheating. When the Federal government was run by sympathetic politicians, the South grabbed as much as they could and created a new normal that required old battles to be fought all over again.
Now, with the Federal executive overrun by racists and traitors and both the legislative and judicial branches captured or neutered, the dream is becoming real: the South is rising again. But now they're not just asserting dominion over their own little corner of the country, they are changing the rules for the whole nation and turning us all into the Confederacy.
We need to stop this now, or our history will be indistinguishable from what it would have been if the South had defeated the North in 1865.
Where is the shadow government that provides daily opposite information to citizens and voters? Sadly, do nothing Democrats are a failed party and unable to step up and provide what is needed at our most horrific corrupted time in history. The DNC listens to - has been- consultants like James Carville who preached do nothing and watch them burn it down. They throw out strong young progressives like David Hogg and spend $ to sabbotage Momdani?
I am a progressive and was forced out of the party and many, many like me were never listened to for years and gave up trying to change from a grass roots level.The DNC refuses to listen even today under fascist rule. They cater to the likes of Liz Cheney????
Perhaps it is time to scrap the constitution that brought us here. We could do so much better with a complete overhaul. I would have hoped that our best and brightest would have had an answer to Project 2025 by now, but crickets. Bernie and progressives are the only ones on an oligarch tour? That fact speaks volumes of doom to the party that could not convict the madman in office. So here we are fellow citizens, living in this reality TV show government nightmare.
If you are right about the percentage of racists, Thom, and I think you are, I rather doubt we have much hope in this country. They will beat us with rigged ballots or more bullets. The nonwhites and whites who don't kowtow. We are all their enemy, as we stand for justice, fairness, equal opportunity, truth, science, the rule of law. We value education. We care about the weak and the vulnerable. We are "cursed" with empathy and abhor bullies.
But the white racists should take note that worldwide, the nonwhite population VASTLY outnumbers we white folk. Turn this into a global racial war and watch what happens. Whites may have nukes (as do India, Pakistan, North Korea and maybe some we don't even know about), but using them will mean game over for the world.
I see little hope that we will defeat the Orange Beast and his cult here at home. We on the left are too divided, too limp-wristed, too anemic, and let it be said, too wedded to the morbidly rich in many cases, to do what is needed. To fight fire with fire, hard, strong and fast. The midterms will likely confirm that we are in a deep, deep hole from which it may be impossible to extricate ourselves without tearing the whole thing down. I hope our grandson can escape to a better place before that happens. There are nowadays quite a few choices. Which may also end, given what I see as the inherent defects of the human race. But that is a broader issue.
All it takes for evil to thrive is for good folk to do nothing.
"Loyalty oaths, banned history, forced obedience: the right isn’t hiding anymore. They’re telling us exactly what kind of dictatorship they want…"
The issue is how to do jujitsu, turn this to advantage.
First step. Ask every Congressional Republican whether they are OK with it.
If they are, if they won't answer, attack.
If they say they oppose...force a vote. Now.
We are the precipice of another Fourth Turning except this one is for all the marbles. If we don’t get this right the next generations won’t stand a chance in hell of righting the wrongs committed by our own elected government. The climate crisis will be hard enough to overcome. Add in more systemic racism and violence and it’s just a matter of time before we enter into another engineered race war.
I really REALLY do not want to believe that 55-60% of Americans are "openly racists." I am observing that thanks to increasing food prices, cruel deportations, the Epstein files cover-up, and the likes of Joe Rogan, people are beginning to emerge from their comas and grasp what we are being fed....
When you erase the memory of what's been done to a people, the next step is clear after your attempts at rendition to Africa fail.
Write down these templates. Before Donald makes these names illegal, too.
- Chelmo
- Belzec
- Sobibor
- Treblinka
- Majdanek
- Auschwitz
George Santayana famously said:
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
The NAZI's had 4,000 concentration camps in Germany and in Poland. The camps in Poland were death camps, the others were labor camps, and of course prisoners were often worked to death. Dachau, for instance, was a labor camp
IMO, Trump is starting out with transit camps, which is what the NAZI's used, say Drancy in France or Theresienstadt which the NAZI's used to show the IRC how well they treated the Jews.
Next came the labor camps for political prisoners, and Jews, then the extermination camps located in Poland out of sight of the German population.
AI overview
Auschwitz was not a single camp but rather a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps established by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II.
The three main camps were:
Auschwitz I: The main camp (Stammlager) and administrative headquarters, originally a Polish army barracks, was used primarily for political prisoners.
Auschwitz II-Birkenau: Located in the village of Brzezinka, this camp was the largest of the Auschwitz facilities and functioned as the primary killing center with gas chambers.
Auschwitz III-Monowitz: This was a labor camp established to provide forced labor for the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben's synthetic rubber factory.
Beyond these main camps, there were dozens of smaller subcamps (Aussenlager, Nebenlager, or Arbeitslager) spread across the region, where prisoners were forced to work in various industries, including agriculture, mining, and armaments production.
This complex network of camps and subcamps played a central role in the Nazis' "Final Solution," their plan to systematically murder the Jewish people of Europe.
And at least 55% would like to do it again! The Israeli Gaza war is a pretext for the violence we see across Europe and the violence against Jews on college campuses and synagogues.
I agree Eadie, there is an embedded fear or hatred of Jews, not only in Christian, but also Islamic culture. In the case of Islam is actually more overt and outspoken in their holy texts like the Quran and the hadiths.
It is an antipathy born out of jealousy , even a sense of inferiority. Until the 20th and 21st Century Jewish communities were, of necessity, pretty much endogenous and closed, forced because of ostracization by the society at large, to be close knit and as a consequence had international lines of communication and thus commerce.
At first, under the thumbs of Islam, they had to accept 2nd class status as dhimmi's, the Quran makes provisions for the "Peoples of the Book" the book being the Sephar or Torah Scrolls or for Christians the Bible.
But as Dhimmi's they had to pay a poll tax, the jizzyah, which is so onerous, that many Peoples of the Book,like the Bogomil christians of Bosnia, converted to Islam to escape the jizzyah.
And of course being 2nd class citizens means that you are scapegoated, so to survive as people and a culture, they supported and helped each other and shared information, and information is king, it is the key to success, political and commercial.
Jewish communities, not only survived by prospered under Muslim rule, at least unitl 1492.
Ferdinand and Isabella, always in need of treasure, borrowed heavily from the Fugger Brothers of Italy. (A Christian banking family). Unable to repay the loan, they forced the Fugger Brothers into bankruptcy.
Needing more money the lit on the scheme of expelling Muslims and Jews, and confiscating their property. The date of expulsion was Aug 3. 1492, the same day that Columbus set sail for America. And there is suggestion that he too was a Jew.
Before 1492, Edward I of England, had also depleted his treasury in his wars with France and Scotland, needing money he borrowed from the Jewish merchants of London, and unable to repay the loan, he banished the Jews from England, and they only returned with King William of Orange.
I also have it on good advice,from a Huguenot descendant, that the Huguenots originally of Catalonia, were Jews who chose a third way, conversion to Protestantism, rather than under the thumb of Catholic monarchs.
As regards the term antisemite, I am pretty much a stickler for exact language, and the word semite,stems for Shem the son of Noah, and the whole story in Genesis is myth, Sumerian actually, via the Akkadians, via the Babylonians, in which the people come to be called Jews or Hebrew worked in the library and were versed in the Sumerian-Akkadian myths.
Also northern Arabs, haplogroup J1, claim to be semites, based on another myth,that of Abraham.
Abe had two sons and according to origin myth, Isaac is the patriarch of the Jews,and Muslims claimthat Ishmael is the patriarch of the Arabs.
Arab is not a race,anymore than Jew is a race. Who is and is not an Arab is based on their native tongue, there are black Arabs, Causcasian Arabs, Christian Arabs and Jewish Arabs (the Druze).
Jew is not a race either or the same reason, it is an identity assumed on the basis of tradtion and recognized by Rabbi's and the Israeli law of return, based on matrilineal descent.
Christian father, Jewish mother - Jew, Jewish Father-Christian mother, not Jew, though I have heard that Israel has since amended the law.
Atheistic Jew a thing, FromEinstein to Chomsky and even Netanyahu
Atheistic Christian or Atheistic Muslim, not a thing, Although a lesbian Irshad Manji claims to be such, she would last less than an hour in a Muslim land, only in America can you get away with such contradiction.
William, you are a wealth of information. Some of it I was aware of. Much of it I was not. I thank you. Unfortunately, we don't have anyone like you addressing this issue in our gov't. I hesitate to say their knowledge of Jewish history is sorely lacking.
I agree that Israel's attempted genocide in Gaza for almost 23 months now has desensitized much of the world (and almost all of the United States) into accepting more and more political violence at home, including the quick, illegal, and sometimes violent way the Gaza protest encampments on college campuses were dismantled. I'm not aware of any substantial violence against Jewish college students, although I know some hateful language was used. And criticizing military violence inflicted mostly onto 200,000 innocent Palestinian victims at this point is simply free speech.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/five-jewish-college-students-report-assaulted-last-month-rcna171727
https://www.hillel.org/antisemitism-on-college-campuses-incident-tracking/
https://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2024/summer/featured-stories/antisemitism.html
They know the past and are working hard to recreate it.
I heard someone on TV yesterday say that Republicans oppose DEI because it goes against their commitment to keeping the races separate and resentful. The GOP can only survive by maintaining a climate of hate, creating rivalries, and keeping the working class from uniting. They seem to be doing a good job of it.
A "commitment to keeping the races separate" - then Clarence and Jinny Thomas have to go! TOO DEI
Then JV Dance and his "foreign" wife have to go! TOO DEI
Then Moscow Mitch and his asian wife have to go! TOO DEI
Then foreign and possibly illegal 1st lady,(whatever she's called these days) has to go! She's an Einstein app??? WAY TOO DEI.
I'm sure there are many others that fit this bill and should have to go because they are TOO DEI.
Why isn't anyone naming these names to be purged?
Thomas doesn't see himself as black. He made the statement, that "liberals made my life miserable for 47 years, now I am going to make them miserable for 47 years" He didn't explain how liberals made him miserable.
Vance and McConnell's racism has blinders, it is restricted to blacks, this anti immigration Jihad, catches the media's attention because it of necessity encapsulates Latino's, but less talked about or reported is that it is sweeping up Asians and even whites that are vociferous and public against Trump
IMO it is all the product of Stephen Miller, as a reminder he was behind the Muslim ban in 2016.
He is smarter this time, he is disguising his desire to purge the U.S. of Muslims, by starting with "illegal" immigrants.
Hitler started his purge of the Jews, by starting with trans, mentally disabled, queers, the socialists, communists, unionists, then after building camps and a bureaucratic infrastructure the Jews.
Start small, with small populations, that don't have political clout , find bugs, then scale up
The rules are not for them, but for us.
It also gives non whites and women access to middle class wealth and power, which means that they can resist more effectively.
Democratic leadership must indeed step up. Donvict recently offered the to-him racist observation that “Jasmine Crockett is the future of the Democratic Party”, to which my response is “God I hope so!”. It strikes me that many Americans go on about their lives paying minimal attention to current events, even boasting “I don’t follow politics”. They are presumably reachable, and they must be reached before MAGA destroys whatever greatness we’ve ever had, or any chance of achieving it.
With you on Crockett and the frustration of so many friends and family ignoring what is happening. Could not be happier if Crockett, Mamdani, AOC, and a few others are the ones who shape our government. Maybe there's a silver lining - that this fascist regime's backlash will be a truly progressive agenda - Democratic Socialism. "W"'s incompetence was in no small part what gave us Obama.
I am with you Michael, Alas Obama once in office, bent over backwards not to "act black" or do anything that would really upset the "Lost Cause" among us.
For so long, the only Politicians and TV hosts that had any guts at all, have been Black women. e.g. Letitia James, Stacey Abrams, Jasmine Crockett, Fani Willis, and black males, where not "house slaves" like Scott, Donalds, Robinson, while Democrat were hardly hard core , risk takers, maybe when young, but when they got into the belly of the beast, they moderated.
Every fascist movement is, has been based on racism. It is the core of all fascist agenda, past and present. When civil rights confrontations were materialized in southern states, they were largely implemented and manned by activists from northern states. Not all, but the scales are far from even. A real clue here exists in how Blacks have been and are being supported in the South. Pencil in white people. In most formats I attend, nothing has changed. In the advances of outright rascist attacks by Trump-led bigots, Blacks have suffered massive reversals of former civil rights gains. Ask yourself how many comments in these posting forums have you seen real concern or empathy expressed? Assuming that democratic party principle needs no such empathy actually expressed of course is a cop-out. More, it is unexpressed shrug that suggests 'that's their fight'. While white democrat posters may object, Blacks know better. The real message from democrats in Dixie today is read in their silence. Not loud, but clear. Clearly white democrats, by the leaving the Black fight to the Blacks, are enabling Trump's racist strategy.
The enablers include Black southern politicians like Tim Scott. https://www.axios.com/2023/05/21/tim-scott-presidential-campaign-black-republicans
Where I live MAGAT Byron Donalds has announced he's running to be governor of Florida.
“After a lot of prayer and a lot of thought with my family and my friends, I’m here to announce my candidacy to be the next governor of the great state of Florida,” Donalds, a Naples Republican, told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article301014689.html#storylink=cpy
We are a state that has excised Black history, "caged" and purged Black voters, inimidated Blacks at polling places, etc. I don't know this as a fact, but I think Palm Beach still has a "sundown" ordiance.
Florida, like other southern states, has a history of sundown towns, also known as sundown or sunset towns, which are municipalities or neighborhoods that historically excluded non-white people, particularly Black people, after sunset. These towns often employed a combination of discriminatory laws, intimidation, and violence to enforce this exclusion. While formal sundown ordinances are largely a thing of the past, some communities grapple with the legacy of these practices.
I found that the Florida state library does contain info about the 1923 massacre of the entire Black community of Rosewood. https://dos.fl.gov/library-archives/research/explore-our-resources/florida-history-culture-and-heritage/rosewood/. But it has no information about sundown towns.
I wonder whether Donalsds or Tim Scott have been to Mar a Lago after sundown?
Whether they've ever played 18 with the massa?
You mean Uncle Tom Scott?
Race and religion are good starter wedges to get fascism going. The rest come after.
By your post Gerald, I assume that you are a black male, and thus have been disadvantaged by institutional and systemic racism.. This stilts ones point of view, how they see the world, the reality around them.. When you've been treated like a nail all your life, you see everyone else as a hammer.
What I am getting to is that not every fascist movement has been based on racism.
Franco's Falangist society, employed Moors from North Africa to combat the Republicans.
Fascism originated in Rome, in fact the name fascism comes from the Roman fasces, the symbol of the senate, and Rome had Emperors and Senators from all over the Empire, including a couple of African emperors.
The problem I have with your analysis, is that it is all about race, in particular white oppression of blacks.
This has been the fundamental weakness of Democrats, the big tent is full of groups demanding priority of money, recognition and power, it is so big that it is factionalized.
It isn't just black folk at siege, and some of them are doing very well I must say,in politics, the media, entertainment, business, and indeed there are "house slaves" like Clarence Thomas, Candace Owens, Byron Donalds, Tim Scott, Ye that sit by the fireplace sipping braandy with the massah.
There are groups even more marginalized and discriminated against than blacks, like the transgendered, the impoverished, the homeless, queers, and today immigrants seeking to improve their position or just live.and women who are self validating, self supporting and have no desire to be subjugated.
My oldest African American friend said to me years ago, "It's all about race." Indeed, the heritage goons have used issues such as transgender and other LGBTQ issues primarily to achieve their racist agenda and goals.
A doc that's free to stream, 'Slavery by Another Name," is a must watch to understand the history of Jim Crow and the perverse reactions to Reconstruction.
Link: https://www.pbs.org/show/slavery-another-name/
There are parts that should make one weep, at least for those that still possess a soul.
This administration is effectively returning America to Jim Crow and pre-suffragette. The fascism has been happening so rapidly, by design, that we are so overwhelmed we seem crippled to react. But react, resist and protest we must. It will never be any easier than it is today.
It's NEVER TOO LATE! So many friends and family just want to ignore what is happening; they just want to get on with their lives. That desire is understandable. However, in a masochistic effort, I dared to watch Hannity for no more than 2 minutes last night. In it I watched in horror as s. miller, and then Tulsi Gabbard spoke their brazen and fascist hate speak. Had to turn it off; I had to get on with my life.
"And we need to demand that the media stop laundering Republican talking points and call out this agenda for what it is: a fascist project to make racism great again." We can demand until we're blue in the face or crippled with writer's cramp. Until the next Murrow or a Murrow's boy comes along, nobody should expect any better.
The next Murrow will never come about as long as corporatists own the airwaves. Bring back the Fairness Doctrine, update it to include social media.
Not much can be done with print media. The law of defamation is possible, but weak. The little guy has mostly hope in litigation. Few lawyers will take a defamation case on a contingency basis.
The broadcast industry is only about a hundred years old. The airwaves are supposed to be public. The principle of "public interest, convenience, and necessity," was the cornerstone of the Communications Act of 1934 and subsequent legislation. This "public trustee" model means that licensed broadcasters have an obligation to serve the public good, for example, by providing diverse programming, supporting local communities, and facilitating political discourse.
Once upon a time, the FCC had standards....originally the Communications Act forbid foreign individuals, governments, and corporations owning more than 20% of the capital stock of a broadcast, common carrier, or radio station. In 2013 the FCC relaxed these rules.
FCC jurisdiction should include all "social media."
It could be that Trump is the biggest liar in US history. He should be accountable for every lie that causes harm to innoicent victims. This is a basis for the concept of torts in Anglo Saxon common law that underlies our sovereignity.
The democrats should have had truth squads in every state more than a year ago. They have been fighting with one hand behind their back. Finally, Newsom has come to the rescue. We need more like him. Colbert comes to mind.
No election until Nov. 2026. We havent had valid elections in many years.
The best and maybe only hope until then might be shared government. I'd hope Jeffries has offered chairmanships to a couple of Republicans. Could end this September 3, when Congress returns. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
Bright shiny objects. This entire news cycle has been a distraction from Trump's vulnerbilities, starting with Trumpepstein. While we're worried abourt future elections, they imposed Fasccism. Elections will not be fair.
Putin's whore. We need to motivate the Congressional Republicans that support Ukraine.
The economy. The Big Crappy Bill is death to Republicans. Red states are the biggest losers. Paygo will force MEDICARE cuts. Note that I said Medicare, not Medicaid.
Need I go on?
Who will hold Trump accountableDaniel? And who will they do that? How and who will enforce the law and judgements?
1. Congress. 2. Operation of law.
Trying to make me laugh Daniel?
You are Trump's agent on the site.
He just plays god on tv. Mortal. Weak. Schmuck. Putin's whore.
Maybe you are Trump's agent on this site, perpetuating false hope and ideas.
I don't want to alienate you Daniel, we have been in lock step so much, but this Manichean penchant of yours is a little too much. If I ain't with you I am again you. If I don't follow and believe you, I am with the other side. that is a little too much Daniel.
I readily admit that I don't trust establishment Democrats, because they have done nothing but bolster Trump,if inadvertently, until lately they have been weak sisters.
Your suggest that Congress can stop Trump and hold him accounable is laughable. The same congress that has a majority Republican vote, the same congress that took a recess so they didn't have to deal with the Epstein files? The same congress that passed the One Big Bad Bill?
Operation of law you say? What law that Trump doesn't ignore, the law that is under the control of Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, the injustice six on the supreme court? That law Daniel? Really?
I will state again who I am. I am a progressive, no bullshit, take no captives,give no quarter radical and the only way to fight fascism is with force, not reason.
One either stands up to bullies, or one submits to bullies, and that is Manichean and there is no third way.
So Trump built that Thom? Last time I checked it was our floundering fathers who established our country firmly on a foundation of white supremacy and wealth built on free labor. Flash forward to today when Democrats (along with Republicans of course) have done everything within their power to maintain that dynamic, Democrats joining in to suppress free speech and establish a militarized police state that crushes dissent. It was Democrats who introduced The Antisemitism Awareness Act that conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism and made political speech against Israel a crime. They have assisted Trump in his efforts every step of the way, complicit in state violence against protestors and the witch hunts stifling free speech at colleges and universities. As for Trump's federalization of police in D.C. it was Biden himself who set the stage for that by rejecting home-rule that he initially said he would approve because the DC mayor was not "tough on crime," siding with Republicans in an election season. Have you considered the history of Gaza and Israel at all to help Americans understand that, unlike Bernie Sanders keeps saying, this did NOT all start on October 7th? You have banned the regional history of Russia and Ukraine, hanging up on me TWICE when I tried to talk about it on your show (after which I stopped listening of course) and spreading Red Scare propaganda in lieu of truth. If I am not loyal to your and the Democratic Party's false narratives, then I am, banned. The foundation Trump is operating upon was built long ago, and has gotten to this malignant point with the help of neoliberal self-promoters like yourself. https://liberationnews.org/biden-bowser-and-democrats-betray-washington-d-c-statehood/
You really are a Putin stooge Boris, and you really piss me off. Putin is engaged in an act of genocide, as defined by Art 2, UN Charter on Prevention of Genocide, which specifies Intent.
Putin has declared that there is no such thing as Ukraine, the Ukrainan language and identity, he is purposefully waging war against civilians, his troops are torturing them and murdering themin cold blood, he bombs maternity wards, schools and kidnaps children, there is an international arrest warrant for him, and he met Trump in Alaska because he can't even fly over other countries and all you can come up with is a lame Red Scare.
What utter bullshit.
Yeh Natanyahu, Ben Gvir and the settlers are as bad as the NAZI's, but Israel is not targeting buildings, hospitals and schools just to terrorize the people into submission, because HAMAS won't submit,not ever. Rather HAMAS hides behind its people and uses them as human shields, Zelenskyy is not hiding behind his people and using them as shields.
Your paymaster Boris, is a cold blooded psychopath, and when he is done with Ukraine he will move on to Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and Germany, and they know it.
So give up on that bullshit and phony whining about the people of Gaza, we know you don't give a shit, they are just a propaganda excuse used to get o the emotions of liberals.
And OMG, he calls Thom and others like me, neo liberal, or neo conservative, right out of the KGB handbook on psyops to fuck with the liberal mind.
William you are an inspiration to all people who are fed up with using Netanyahu as a pretext to condemn the whole Israeli gov't. Witkoff needs to be replaced with someone who has your values and ability.. Dennis Ross comes to mind.
A decade or two ago, Israel was a shiny city on a hill, that put America to shame.
Gay rights, marriage rights, Arab rights, they even served in the Knesset, then along comes Netanyahu, a right wing dual citizen, somehow he Trumpified the Israeli public, and that liberal democracy has disappeared, as the Likkud(Israels MAGA) has taken over, and built constitutencies, Now the government of Israel is at war with it's own people, called a mixed war, just as is happening in America, but Americans are slow to catch on, they don't realize the house is on fire until the flames envelope them.
It was leaked by someone in Israeli intelligence, that Netanyahu knew that HAMAS was planning something, and the proof of that is in the fact, that Early in the morning of Oct 7th, with shift change, women soldiers replaced the men in the watch towers, and took their weapons with them, leaving the women unarmed.
It is known that Netanyahu actually financed and supported HAMAS to keep FATAH and the Palestinian Authority out of power.
In my opinion Bibi knew that an assault by HAMAS was in the works, he just didn't know the particulars, in the same vein I am sure that Bush knew that 9/11 was in the works, but he also didn't know the particulars, but he was damn sure not to be sitting in the White House, which was the destination of Flight 93, that the passengers overpowered the hijackers and crashed in that Pennsylvania field.
The Israel of today is not the democratic society that it was at the turn of the century,and because of the Oct 7th slaughter, the hostage taking and the onslaught of rockets, the Israeli public is no longer as open minded and liberal as it once was.
Worse you now have (orthodox) settlers, with obvious consent of the IDF, murdering and forcing Arabs out of their homes, and they plan to build a huge settlement that will divide Palestine and kill the possibility of a two state solution.
Of that, I don't think that there is a two state solution ever, because the war is religious in nature,, on both sides.
On Israel's side there is Eratz Ysrael, and a flag which symbolically represents the Nile with a blue strip at the top, the Euphrates with a blue strip at the bottom and all of Israel in between.
On the Muslim side, there is a gestational hatred of the Jews, it starts in the Quran when Muhammad in Medina, has the entire tribe of Jews, the Bani Quaryza, beheaded in the market place, and follows through with the promise that the end times, the day of judgement will not come until all the Jews are killed,andeven the rocks cry out, there is a Jew behind me slay him. Sahih 1295/1296, Book 56, hadith 139, al Bukhari.,also in paragraph 7 of the HAMAS covenant.
And worse yet, Muslims are so jealous of their sacred places, that no kufr Iinfidel) is allowed to tread there. Makka, Medina and Haram al Sharif, which is the Dome of the Rock and al Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem.
IIRC the 1st intifada (uprising) started when,the were provoked by the then Israeli leadership entering the Haram al Sharif. Bibi tried to start a second.
Haram, by the way, means sacred, thus forbidden. The Muslims copied the Jews and declared stuff like pork haram.
Which is interesting because about 3,000 years ago in Uru Salem, before it was occupied by the people the Egyptians called the habiru, there was a temple to Ninip,the Babylonian creating god, who let loose the flood,, swine was considered sacred , and therefore taboo to its worshipers and only eaten sacrificially by priests
Interesting how different cultures appropriate the same event, but interpret them differently.
Kashruth is the body of Jewish religious laws concerning the suitability of food, the fitness for use of ritual objects, etc That which is not fit, or kosher,is forbidden.
Haram means pretty much the same, only haram means both sacred and forbidden.
What a world we create for ourselves.
My friend Curtis from Oakland, would stand up in Diogenes Latern in 1958, and say "when this world stops I am getting off".
On November 2 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote his famous letter to Lord Rothschild, expressing the support of the government for the “establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people” Actually a band of Jewish intellectuals started the ball rolling. Chaim Weitzman, a renowned scientist, Harry Sacher, journalist and Leon Simon, activist along with philosophers, universities, Manchester Guardian were instrumental in making great Britain aware of the plight of the Jews. Thirty-one years later Israel became a reality.
On July 24, 1922, the League of Nations entrusted Great Britain with the Mandate for Palestine. Recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine," Great Britain was called upon to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine-Eretz Israel (Land of Israel). Shortly afterward, in September 1922, the League of Nations and Great Britain decided that the provisions for setting up a Jewish national home would not apply to the area east of the Jordan River, which constituted three-fourths of the territory included in the Mandate and which eventually became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
So 3/4 of the land in the Declaration was wiped away with the stroke of a pen.
Of course, the story didn’t end there. Israel had to fight for its independence in 1948. That shiny city on a hill fought 23 wars since then. Oct 7, 25 was the last one and it’s no wonder Netanyahu and the far right have had enough. I think you know I have no love for what Netanyahu has done to enable the haters of Jews and by extension Israel to win approval for a continuation of their propaganda war. They never mention that Arabs are represented in the Knesset, or that the head of the United Arab List is Monsieur Abbas who attended Hebrew University and became a dentist. How many Arab countries have Jews in gov’t.? Ans. Zero.
I assume that your post was meant for the edification of others, I am quite sure that you are aware that I know all of this.
Actually lord Rothschild approach Balfour with the proposal, and Balfour agreed.
The Zionist movement started with Theodore Herzl, he toured Europe preaching to the Jewish community, the necessity of returning to the homeland, and indeed recruited quite a few families.
The land at that time belong to the Sultan of Turkey, never the less, the Jewish emigrants purchased land from the inhabitants. There was in fact a Jewish community already living there before the migration started and the Jews of the Levant suffered pogroms.
Pogroms in Palestine before the State of Israel: https://www.fondapol.org/en/study/pogroms-in-palestine-before-the-creation-of-the-state-of-israel-1830-1948/
After WWI, Turkey ceded the land , which Rome called Assyria Paleastina
To the UN and it was placed under the mandate of the United Kingdom.
That is when the migration of European Jews, led by Theodore Herzl, started.
The Jews in "Palestine" (there is not and never has been a country called Palestine, it was either Roman, Greek, Arab or Turk.
Anyway because of the pogroms and attacks by their Arab and Bedouin neighbors a self defense force called the Haganah was created, it later became the basis of the IDF,
Eventually, , around 1931, the Irgun was formed, and it engaged in acts of terrorism against the Arabs and the Brits, and led by Menachim Begin, they blew up the King David Hotel, the Brits had enough and finally left about Jan 1948, and doing so disabled the aircraft, vehicles and blew up the ammo.
The enterprising Jews were able to repair the planes and vehicles, and ordered lip stick tubes, which they remanufactured into bullets.
It is a fact that the Irgun committed acts of terrorism against the Arabs and the Brits and even massacred the village of Deir Yassin.
But this was a tit for tat era, an eye for an eye, fueled by religious beliefs, both on the part of the Jews and Arabs.
May 1948, the then new and thinly populated state of Israel was recognized by the UN, six months later in Nov 1948, seven Arab nations, launched an invasion of genocide against the Jews defiling their sacred soil, especially Jerusalem
The affront now is that the despised Jew, no longer dhimmis, second class citizens control the third mos holy site in Islam, the Haram al Sharif and al Aqsa mosque, the situation is intolerable
You are correct there are 10 Arabs in the Knesset, and I promise you that you will not find any Jews or Christians in the government of a Muslim, not to mention Arab country.
In fact you won't find hardly in Jews or Christians in any Arab or Muslim Country. Iran has the most Jews, about 5,000 probably less now, as the Republican Guard has been rounding them up since the bombing of the nuclear sites by Trump.
Other than that the Jewish population ranges from 0 in Saudi Arabia,to three in Egypt to maybe 100 - 500 in some Muslim state, and no they don't have any rights,much less representation in government.
Terror has been unleashed on the Jews by the Arabs, and in turn, self defense even, by the Jews upon the Arabs.
What would the critics do, if they migrated to a region, bought homes and land, and in turn were harassed, murdered by their neighbors, they would fight back in self defense.
Everyone in the world is living on land, stolen, by force, from someone else, and even by genocide.
The Angles, Saxons and Jutes, wiped out all of the Brythonic peoples that they confronted, except for the few that fled to the fens, mountains and Wales.
While William the Conqueror did not commit genocide, and allowed some Saxon barons who pledged fealty to keep their barony (the sole surviving Saxon barony is that of Berkeley), he did ethnically cleanse the baron of Northumbria (modern Yorkshire and Durham) when the Saxon barons Aedwin and Morcar Algerson's, reneged on their pledge of Fealty.
It is known as the Harrying of the North https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrying_of_the_North, it is believed that 200,000 men, women and children were either put to the sword or die of starvation.
And look at what the Anglo Saxons and Europeans did to the occupants of America and the Africans that they imported as slaves.
And none of this compares to the tens, maybe hundreds of millions killed and raped by the mongols, Turks and Arabs.
The Arabs invaded Persia, then the Indus Valley, and those that they didn't slaughter they hauled back as slaves.
This is what mankind does to those that are not members of their tribe.
Yes, you're correct. It was meant for a wider audience. Thank you again for expanding and elucidating Jewish history.
Boris, you are as transparent as the glass in my window. You really don't care about anything, except Russia, Russia, Russia and your employer Putin. You go through this long rant, but you get to the point. And you try to put Thom and liberals on the defense by evoking the Red Scare meme.
In part you are correct, Putin is indeed the heir of Stalin and like Stalin he is dead set on wiping out the Ukrainian culture, identity and language, In a word genocide in Ukraine and you say nothing, just trying to distract us .
Of course the founders of this nation were imperfect, which is why the Preamble stresses that what is being established is a "More perfect union". Our Constitution is designed to be an organic document, one that can (and should) evolve with time. Living in today's world with a constitution ratified in 1787 would be unconscionable but at that time it was radical. Over the following 200 years it has continued to evolve so that today (or maybe I should say "yesterday") we have universal enfranchisemen; an end to slavery; a right to worship and speak as we please; limits to the terms someone can be president, as well as a legal means to remove said person if they are found to be unable, physically or psychologically, to perform the responsibilities of the office. So sure, our government is not perfect, but then neither are we.
So what is your vision of a more perfect government? Does it already exist in some foreign land? And again, if you dislike this site so much, why are you here?
No government is perfect. But whitewashing history and using it as a weapon rather than to learn and foster understanding is extremely dangerous as we are seeing. The "rights" you outline are selective and if you read my comment we do not have the right to the free speech that the establishment will allow. Slavery exists in prisons, marginalized communities, Amazon warehouses and so on. Biden was not removed from office and he was unable to perform the duties from day one, Trump as well. I have no idea where you live or what you are reading but evidently Thom Hartmann has made you oblivious to the realities those outside of your circles face. And sorry, your "more perfect union" nonsense does not excuse the fact that most of our founding fathers were torturers, rapists, and thieves. Our government is "not perfect?" I would say aiding and abetting and covering up a genocide, as well as bombing and invading countries at will, is far less than "not perfect." I would call it warmongering and morally bankrupt.
The alternative is a government that is not completely controlled by the ruling class as both of our political parties, and our media, currently are. Perhaps representatives who aren't on the take and who prioritize the interests of their constituents. Perhaps leaders who don't lie every single day as all of them have for decades and who promote peace over war and absolute power. I could go on, but you'll just say I'm engaging in magical thinking like Hillary Clinton said about Bernie Sanders. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/the-empire-strikes-backat-itself
Much of what you write here would be viewed as a valid critique. I am in complete agreement with the first half but you are unaware of other positions on this site which I have repeatedly stressed.
1) What have I written that makes you think Hartmann has made me oblivious?
2) What are my "circles"?
3) Why is the concept of "a more perfect union nonsense"? You state that no government is perfect, which I totally agree with. My point is that we have a document that allows for alteration based on the will of the people, I didn't say, nor will I argue, that that function is successfully applied. That it isn't is a condemnation of the people, not the document.
5) Where did I write, here or anywhere else, that I excused any of the "Founding Fathers"? In the context of 2025 I find them repugnant, but looking at them in the context of the 1780s I must view them differently. That most certainly doesn't mean I accept their actions because I don't. Reach back into that time and bring forth people that you consider to be free of taint. Are you free of taint now, today, because I know damn well I'm not.
6) My guess is that the age of the commenters on this site averages somewhere in the 70s and lower 80s. Assuming you're old enough for it to be an issue, what did you do during the 60s and 70s? I was 1-O, one of the first to receive it based on philosophical grounds. When I filed in 1963 I firmly believed that I was going to go to prison and was ready to do so. This is not meant as virtue-signaling, because I sure as Hell am not virtuous. The position I held then I still do today.
Virtually all of us are complicit, either through our actions or inactions. If we pay taxes there is blood on our hands. When we turn on our air conditioners (it's going to get up to 103° here Friday and Sunday) we are taking part in the collapse of the biosphere. Don't grow your own fruits, grains and vegetables (I'll toss in meat as well, though I'm a vegetarian) besides the above you are supporting a toxic industry that not only pollutes our water, land and all living things, it uses immigrant labor, labor that is forced to work in untenable conditions for meager wages.
Like you I could go on, more or less indefinitely, but I fail to see the point. Condemning the many for the crimes of the (very) few is as absurd as it is vile. Telling me what I hold is farcical, Barry. You have no idea whatsoever who I am or what I believe in. You appear to be criticizing me for posting here but, Lo and Behold!, here you are.
You say "The alternative is a government that is not completely controlled by the ruling class...". Sure, I'm on board; how do you propose to get there? I don't see how we can without boycotts, ongoing work stoppages, active resistance, etc. This cannot be successful without nationwide sustained action but I have no idea how we get there from here. If you have what you believe is a viable plan I would appreciate you sharing it.
Looking forward to your reply.
As if we didn't fight a civil war, amend the Constitution....
As if we didn't have a civil rights movement, a voting rights bill, the right to sue for discrimination...
I hope we don't have to do it again. The last one cost us about half a million people.
Better if we went our separate ways than civil war— this isn't 1861, the weapons are way worse, and there seems to be no compunctions against targeting noncombatants. Though dissolving the Union would probably play out much like the partition of India and Pakistan.
They have no intention of allowing a peaceful split.
That's true of both sides, which places us in a parlous state indeed.
i'm sure looking forward to his alternative.
Just guessing Robert, but I would say that Boris definition of a perfect society is a Marxist paradise.m what Marxists don't grasp is that Marx was a proto libertarian and not at all an advocate of a classless society, just the elimination of the middle class which he called the bourgeoisie. His society was that of the peasant, the peon, the proletariat, the plebe ruled over and managed by the ruling class, in other words he was a neo feudalist.
Overall, Marxism hasn't turned out very well. Barry proposes a classless society — the Tooth Fairy inside me really likes the idea — without indicating how it is achieved in the first place or then maintained afterwards.
I am afraid that Jefferson was probably right when he said “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure”. The thought makes me uneasy but until there is some fundamental change either in neuroanatomy or a permanent (positive) alteration of socialculturall norms I don't see much of an alternative.
I totally agree Robert, we are on the same wavelength.
Marx was a hypocrite, or rather in the employ of the ruling elite, after all he was funded by the League of Just Men, and abandoned his wife and children to live in squalor.
His partner, Frederich Engels, inherited a textile mill, which of course employed children and illiterate workers.
There is no such thing as a classless society, and never will be a classless society, there will always be someone in charge and that will be a pyschopathic thug
Beware of ideologues, they are dangerous, not forward thinking, of if forward thinking, then vicious psychopaths who manipulate public sentiments for their own purpose.
Milovan Djilas, widely regarded as Tito's possible successor and in 1953 he was about to be chosen as President of Yugoslavia. He became President of the Federal People's Assembly of Yugoslavia, but he only held office from 25 December 1953 to 16 January 1954. wrote a book "The New Class"
Wiki has an irrelvant article on a book The New Class, and an obscure and somewhat obfuscating artile New Class, but in essence Djilas argues hat the new class' specific relationship to the means of production was one of collective political control, and that the new class' property form was political control. For Đilas, the new class not only seeks expanded material reproduction to politically justify its existence to the working class but also seeks expanded reproduction of political control as a form of property in itself. This can be compared to the capitalist who seeks expanded value through increased sharemarket values, even though the sharemarket itself does not necessarily reflect an increase in the value of commodities produced. Đilas used this argument about property forms to indicate why the new class sought parades, marches and spectacles despite this activity lowering the levels of material productivity. Đilas proposed that the new class only slowly came to self-consciousness of itself as a class. On arriving at a full self-consciousness the initial project undertaken would be massive industrialisation in order to cement the external security of the new class' rule against foreign or alternative ruling classes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_class
In other words Marxism does not lead to a classless society. Marx himself was not a Marxist, but a free trader. He opposed the British Corn laws, which were tariff's, he believed that gold was the standard of value, the USSR adoped his ideation wholesale and thus set themselves up for a perpetual depression as every ruble was tied to .9851 grams fine gold, and the amount of rubles in circulation was limited to the gold on hand.
He also chastised Southern editors, to free the slaves and hire them back at market wages, because American cotton was too expensive, and Engels had to resort to importing the cheaper and inferior Egyptian cotton.
The maintenance of a slave force was expensive, first there was the capital outlay, then the payment and provision of overseers,then the housing, clothing, entertainment (like hiring preachers to preach that slavery was godly) and medical care.
Whereas hiring at market wages, left the workforce to fend for itself, and compete for jobs, competition brings down wages. In fact the plaque so reduced the labor supply, that it is the cause of the end of serfdom.
There aren't very many clear paths forward at this point. History is so littered with the rusting hulks of failed ideologies that I have to wonder if we are sustainably self-governable in groups over 300. Democratic forms are sustainable for relatively short periods before they bleed back into rule of the many by the few. Hence Jefferson's "... blood of patriots and tyrants..." What most people want to believe is that having attained rule by the people (not that ti actually ever has) it will remain forever inviolate. The desire for and belief in some never-ending magical land where all is forever peachy keen, millenarianism, repeatedly pops up in human political thought. Besides the obvious, Christ's Kingdom on Earth (1000 years), there is the 1000 years of the Third Reich, Hegel's political end-state, More's Utopia, and, more recently, Fukuyama. The idea of an end of history, where everything political remains because it doesn't need to be changed, it's perfect, is a wondrous notion. The only problem I see is that none of the founders of these belief systems ever stopped to consider how humans actually interact with one another. Again, back to Jefferson, faults and al, who realized there wasn't a n end state to be reached but rather that maintaining democracy required ongoing commitment.
Allow me to be crass, Robert, but Fucking A. Brilliant you nailed the problem, the human condition
With this:
"The only problem I see is that none of the founders of these belief systems ever stopped to consider how humans actually interact with one another. Again, back to Jefferson, faults and al, who realized there wasn't a n end state to be reached but rather that maintaining democracy required ongoing commitment"
We are indeed tribal, and dependent on the situation we are either herd animals grazing with one eye on the others, or pack animals, predators, fighting for dominance of the pack, and it is all about breeding rights or sex.
Herd animals, the males fight it out, and the loser is ejected from the herd.
In Pack animals, the loser assumes his place as a beta, gamma, delta, within the herd.
The species felis (cats, lions, leopards, etc) are neither herd nor pack animals, but like herd animals they expel young males from the clan.
The social heirarchy is individual, clan, tribe.
Christian is a tribe, Catholic is a clan.
Islam is a tribe, Sunni, Shia are clans. and clans break down into sub groups.
Spot on with your depiction of Jefferson, warts and all. The right wing use to quote him when he said "the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"
Now that they have finally achieved the power which they have so long sought, they forgot the quote and in fact would disavow it.
The one quality humans have mastered is hypocrisy.
A suggestion friend, in good faith and good intentions.
Your comment, to which I am responding, is poignant, and would be more readable if broken up into short paragraphs, each containing a single though. And each two or three sentences max.
I learned that technique, of all things, from fund raising literature from the Moral Majority in the lead up to the election of Reagan.
It is actually very effective, Another version is "bullet points" Take my response for example. It is much easier to read and follow, than long drawn out paragraphs, with many thoughts.
You really do have poignant and appropriate thoughts in your comment.
DC statehood was never viable because it requires 60 votes in the Senate, and Repubs will never vote for that, as it creates 2 more Democratic Senators and another Dem House rep. Your other statements also appear to be factually incorrect, as they similarly blame elected Democrats for Republican positions. But nice try.
Dump is just the avatar that the Heritage Foundation used to get into the White House. He will be cast aside on January 21, 2027 if he doesn’t die or completely melt down before then. The Koch family has been working on this project since the 1970s. They have joined with other oligarchs to systematically degrade the middle class and strip away our rights and treasure for over 50 years, like a Jenga tower. The tower has now been exposed and we must collapse it now or forever be awash in its evil!
Remember too, every assassin went after civil rights supporters.
Besides not wanting to pay taxes, Republicans simply want to take advantage of everything available that we the tax paying community made available.
Repuklicans simple need : their very own country…, I hear Russia, Hungary, must we go on?? Deport the cheap cheats.
If slavery is so great maybe Trump and his zombie army should try a few days out in the fields picking strawberries. The farmers sure could use the help considering all the workers have been deported or are in hiding. Remember to sing — Massa sure loves happy slaves.
There was a fascinating and unnerving article on NPR today (remember to donate) about brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). These are the devices that are being used to allow people who can't talk to synthesize speech. There is some indication that the interface may actually be able to convert your thoughts into words as well. The usefulness of this in some post-Orwellian techno-reich is all too obvious. Your ticket to Miniluv is waiting for you. They're fixing up Room 101 for you so don't be late.
There is a certain surreality to the rapid disintegration of the One True Beacon of Democracy into a moral slag heap. Visions of. melting the Statue of Liberty down to make ideological shackles for the masses — at least those who are white. Everybody else is going to be in South Sudan.
None of this could happen without our help.
I don't know it for a fact, but it appears that this technology was first used on Stephen Hawkings.
Hawking's was different: it was partly mechanical. Initially he was able to navigate using a clicker but as he lost ability to control his thumb the interface was switched over so that it could navigate via twitches of his cheek. When I was him In Berkeley he was still able to use the clicker.
The BCI mentioned is driven by an implant — it has no mechanical interface. Basically, it translate brainwaves into speech. There has also been limited success creating visual images from brain activity. Previous work with the BCI focused on synthesizing what people were trying to say but were incapable of doing so. The article in question discusses being able to discern what the person is thinking, your inner-most thoughts, as it were. The sci-fi nerd inside me envisions a time when AI is able to record one's dreams on a multi sensory level. My dystopian self foresees a chip implanted ion every baby's head so that The Government knows what one is thinking 24/7. And shortly after that, reversing direction so that The Gov directs what people think and do. Hell, why spend time with thinking at all!
That's some scary shit, but the technology used for Hawking is amazing, it can be used for anything With adjustments it can be used to manipulate and exo skeleton.
Amazing things ahead l
The South never actually acknowledged losing the Civil War. The surrender at Appomattox was just a delaying tactic. Since then, Southern states have preserved as much as possible of the antebellum order, retreating only when the Federal government forced those states to comply with the laws that govern the rest of us.
Whenever the country looked the other way, the South turned up the heat, winning post-war victories via violence, flouting the law, or political cheating. When the Federal government was run by sympathetic politicians, the South grabbed as much as they could and created a new normal that required old battles to be fought all over again.
Now, with the Federal executive overrun by racists and traitors and both the legislative and judicial branches captured or neutered, the dream is becoming real: the South is rising again. But now they're not just asserting dominion over their own little corner of the country, they are changing the rules for the whole nation and turning us all into the Confederacy.
We need to stop this now, or our history will be indistinguishable from what it would have been if the South had defeated the North in 1865.
Where is the shadow government that provides daily opposite information to citizens and voters? Sadly, do nothing Democrats are a failed party and unable to step up and provide what is needed at our most horrific corrupted time in history. The DNC listens to - has been- consultants like James Carville who preached do nothing and watch them burn it down. They throw out strong young progressives like David Hogg and spend $ to sabbotage Momdani?
I am a progressive and was forced out of the party and many, many like me were never listened to for years and gave up trying to change from a grass roots level.The DNC refuses to listen even today under fascist rule. They cater to the likes of Liz Cheney????
Perhaps it is time to scrap the constitution that brought us here. We could do so much better with a complete overhaul. I would have hoped that our best and brightest would have had an answer to Project 2025 by now, but crickets. Bernie and progressives are the only ones on an oligarch tour? That fact speaks volumes of doom to the party that could not convict the madman in office. So here we are fellow citizens, living in this reality TV show government nightmare.
AMEN!
If you are right about the percentage of racists, Thom, and I think you are, I rather doubt we have much hope in this country. They will beat us with rigged ballots or more bullets. The nonwhites and whites who don't kowtow. We are all their enemy, as we stand for justice, fairness, equal opportunity, truth, science, the rule of law. We value education. We care about the weak and the vulnerable. We are "cursed" with empathy and abhor bullies.
But the white racists should take note that worldwide, the nonwhite population VASTLY outnumbers we white folk. Turn this into a global racial war and watch what happens. Whites may have nukes (as do India, Pakistan, North Korea and maybe some we don't even know about), but using them will mean game over for the world.
I see little hope that we will defeat the Orange Beast and his cult here at home. We on the left are too divided, too limp-wristed, too anemic, and let it be said, too wedded to the morbidly rich in many cases, to do what is needed. To fight fire with fire, hard, strong and fast. The midterms will likely confirm that we are in a deep, deep hole from which it may be impossible to extricate ourselves without tearing the whole thing down. I hope our grandson can escape to a better place before that happens. There are nowadays quite a few choices. Which may also end, given what I see as the inherent defects of the human race. But that is a broader issue.