Fascism seems to come in waves across the globe. It isn't just the USA facing this threat, but much of the developed world. My personal opinion is that we are being set up for another global war. There are too many "peasants" to please the oligarchs, who don't need this many of us. You'd think they would back off their abortion rhetoric,…
Fascism seems to come in waves across the globe. It isn't just the USA facing this threat, but much of the developed world. My personal opinion is that we are being set up for another global war. There are too many "peasants" to please the oligarchs, who don't need this many of us. You'd think they would back off their abortion rhetoric, but control starts at the individual level - men over women and children, and white men over men of color. The children that result from abortion bans are likely to have grown up in poverty and chaos (not in all cases) and can be used as canon fodder. How else are rich people going to get young people to die and fight for their financial interests? The first and MOST important tactic of fascism is to gain control of women and then the easily impressionable children. Hitler used the Hitler Youth corps to spy on families. Here, we have the Young Republican Clubs.
In the Continuum of America there are moments of conflict and strife and much longer periods of harmony and productivity. Inevitably the fiery flashes of inspired change will cool to periods where we bask in the embers from the stellar efforts of our revolutionary founders, the soldiers fighting for democracy, and the activists protesting our shortcomings. These stellar moments of strife disrupt our normal course of national life and productivity, but are all part of the continuum.
The Democracy Awareness Project represents our nation’s continuum with a star spangled Möbius Strip. The flash points in our history are represented by thirteen stars for our founding colonies, and the longer periods of productive democracy are represented by three stripes for our branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial.
Help fight the ignorance and apathy cancers on our nation and wear a Democracy Awareness Möbius Stripe and update your social media badge with a virtual Möbius ribbon. Together we can “perpetuate our political institutions” as Lincoln proposed in 1838 and avoid a national divorce or state succession as some politicians propose today.
I applaud your sentiments and I wish I could be more optimistic. The past does not always accurately predict the future. The Confederacy has been itching for a rematch of the civil war, thinking this time they'd prevail. That's all MAGA is, by the way, a warmed over Confederacy - same states, same ideologies, descendants of the same people and the same theocratic bent with a God that raises them above others. There is one area in which I agree with MT-not-Greene-anymore. We DO need a national divorce. The blue states need to stop propping up the red states failed ideologies with our cash. Let them fail on the swords of their own ignorance. Would this be painful? Absolutely. More painful than civil war? I doubt it. The right has already entered the conflict, while the left pretends it isn't really happening and that frustrates me. If someone on the right even *hears* something they don't want to hear, out comes the death threats and often real violence and murder. Sometimes, sadly, bullies have to be checked. If we can do it peacefully by letting them sink into their self-created poverty pits, that would be preferable to me than another civil war.
I’m not suggesting that you are wrong however we need to exhaust every alternative to a national divorce. A good start would be talking about our disagreements in the Senate by reforming the silent filibuster. Let Senators debate the pros and cons of legislation and take a public vote so they can be accountable to the voters. As the Reverend Al Green preached “Let’s Stay Together.”
And I don't mean to suggest you are wrong. Yours is the optimistic take. Mine is not. I'm nearly 70 years old. I do not care to "Stay Together" with people who are undermining civil rights, banning books and honest history, making death threats and carrying out domestic terrorism, creating a libertarian nightmare of this country. I don't want compromise with those ideologies. I swear those folks would walk over a starving child on their way to the coffee shop. Once I stopped to help a black man in a wheelchair get across an intersection. I chatted with him on the other side; someone had hit and run him with their car, crushing his ankle and foot. He was already in the wheelchair when they did it, but now his foot was swollen making life even more difficult. He had no support, no medical care...no help. He was covered in a dirty blanket. He didn't ask, but I gave him some money, which he refused to accept until I put it in his pocket. I did what I could for him and what he would allow. He was a proud man and said, "I'll get by." At the end I hugged him in his chair. The man suddenly burst into tears and I'll never forget what he said, "God bless you for touching me. Nobody here will touch me." The city in which I live is considered the "Christian," right-wing Mecca of the USA. We literally have hundreds of right-wing religious organizations here because the city council decided to make it a tax-haven for them. Not one of those fine Christians lifted a hand to help this man or lift his spirit. I don't want to make nice with that.
The founding of any nation-state involves compromises to create the nation. Look at any of the modern large nation states--France, Germany, UK, China, Russia, etc.--and there is inevitably a grouping of factious entities. At some point, the original raison d'être erodes, the binds that tie loosen, and things fall apart.
The U.S. was born of a time-convenient compromise of slave owners, who wanted to avoid slavery being banned by Parliament in London, and Northern commercial interests, who wanted to avoid the Parliament's restrictions on westward expansion on the North American continent. Westward expansion is now reaching diminishing returns, and the replacement of slavery with Jim Crow subjugation and wage slavery is difficult to continue. The ties that bound the U.S. experiment are further frayed by the need to deal with the maintenance of infrastructure in the large, sparsely populated expanse of the West.
Rather than making the topic of a different configuration of the U.S. taboo, we should be talking about how to develop a workable future. Permitting regions to self-govern with accountability for funding their needs could be a start. Fortunately, we have some mechanisms in our current governance structure that permit this and would avoid the destructive outcomes of a simmering civil war that some megalomanic politicians desire. One such mechanism involves the aggressive use of interstate compacts.
FDR’s administration was moving in the direction of regionalization with many of the interstate compacts for infrastructure in the 1930s and 1940s. The move was interrupted by WWII. One such compact was the building of the interstate highway system. (Interstate highways were also delayed by WWII, and the idea is often wrongly attributed as an idea to the Eisenhower administration). We can take a lesson from the brilliance of many in the Roosevelt administration and repurpose interstate compacts towards creating regional autonomy in key areas such as healthcare, infrastructure, accountable government finance, and natural resources. Compacts are a much better approach than the alternative of a stochastic, simmering civil war.
I like your thoughts on this; do you think there is any way that our politicians will support your ideas? I don't see it. Could you explain more about interstate compacts?
Interstate compacts are permitted by he Compact Clause (Article I, Section 10, Clause 3) of the United States Constitution. Essentially, these are treaties between and among the States. There are around 200 already in existence. Some are quite monumental and cover things such as building and maintaining the interstate high way system, regional hydro power (TVA and WAPA), and rationing of water resources. Explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interstate_compacts
Effective politics is about "the art of the possible." Congress could and should find ways to permit and encourage further use of these compacts to take over critical areas such as healthcare and infrastructure. How about allowing regional compacts to create single-payor healthcare? Would WA, OR, and CA sign up?
Would the "Twitter-aholoics" do this? No! But folks like Bernie might see this as a way forward.
As an example, one should not forget that systems such as the Canadian healthcare system are not totally national. Each province does its own thing within the Federal system.
This approach assumes political leadership in congress who will pursue these good ideas. The Republicans would have to give up their raw power lust in order to do what's best for the nation. I don't see that happening. It isn' their brand, of which there are three components. In order of priority, these are grievance, white privilege and increasing the wealth of the morbidly rich. They want the blue state-generated federal money that sustains them in their foolish ideologies, while at the same time, the legislative ability to run roughshod over the blues with theocratic legislation that will destroy the very engines of prosperity that sustain them. In other words; they want their cake and to eat it too. So far, they've been getting away with it. Since the Democrats either can't or won't play hardball with them, I don't see any improvements on the horizon. The absolute corruption of the SCOTUS with unqualified political hacks has made any forward movement impossible. Anything the blue states can try to do, legally or legislatively, to check the theocrats will be overturned by the gang of five "black-robed rulers." This is the real, most important issue, facing us and one that will persist for the next half-century unless there are reforms. I don't see the Biden administration doing any of the things they could do to correct the court's imbalance. Biden won't increase the size of the court as he is afraid the Republicans will retaliate when the have the power. What he doesn't seem to understand is they will do what they want regardless. Let them. Besides, it would likely be a good thing for this country if we had a much larger SCOTUS instead of a high court with no credibility and a majority of five people out of our 300M plus who are intent upon religious rule.
My point has been that breaking up the country would be a tragic mistake. But, if we are headed down that road having many pieces in place for separate governance would be absolutely essential.
One must remember Pasteur's saying that "Chance favors the prepared mind."
Fascism seems to come in waves across the globe. It isn't just the USA facing this threat, but much of the developed world. My personal opinion is that we are being set up for another global war. There are too many "peasants" to please the oligarchs, who don't need this many of us. You'd think they would back off their abortion rhetoric, but control starts at the individual level - men over women and children, and white men over men of color. The children that result from abortion bans are likely to have grown up in poverty and chaos (not in all cases) and can be used as canon fodder. How else are rich people going to get young people to die and fight for their financial interests? The first and MOST important tactic of fascism is to gain control of women and then the easily impressionable children. Hitler used the Hitler Youth corps to spy on families. Here, we have the Young Republican Clubs.
In the Continuum of America there are moments of conflict and strife and much longer periods of harmony and productivity. Inevitably the fiery flashes of inspired change will cool to periods where we bask in the embers from the stellar efforts of our revolutionary founders, the soldiers fighting for democracy, and the activists protesting our shortcomings. These stellar moments of strife disrupt our normal course of national life and productivity, but are all part of the continuum.
The Democracy Awareness Project represents our nation’s continuum with a star spangled Möbius Strip. The flash points in our history are represented by thirteen stars for our founding colonies, and the longer periods of productive democracy are represented by three stripes for our branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial.
Help fight the ignorance and apathy cancers on our nation and wear a Democracy Awareness Möbius Stripe and update your social media badge with a virtual Möbius ribbon. Together we can “perpetuate our political institutions” as Lincoln proposed in 1838 and avoid a national divorce or state succession as some politicians propose today.
I applaud your sentiments and I wish I could be more optimistic. The past does not always accurately predict the future. The Confederacy has been itching for a rematch of the civil war, thinking this time they'd prevail. That's all MAGA is, by the way, a warmed over Confederacy - same states, same ideologies, descendants of the same people and the same theocratic bent with a God that raises them above others. There is one area in which I agree with MT-not-Greene-anymore. We DO need a national divorce. The blue states need to stop propping up the red states failed ideologies with our cash. Let them fail on the swords of their own ignorance. Would this be painful? Absolutely. More painful than civil war? I doubt it. The right has already entered the conflict, while the left pretends it isn't really happening and that frustrates me. If someone on the right even *hears* something they don't want to hear, out comes the death threats and often real violence and murder. Sometimes, sadly, bullies have to be checked. If we can do it peacefully by letting them sink into their self-created poverty pits, that would be preferable to me than another civil war.
I’m not suggesting that you are wrong however we need to exhaust every alternative to a national divorce. A good start would be talking about our disagreements in the Senate by reforming the silent filibuster. Let Senators debate the pros and cons of legislation and take a public vote so they can be accountable to the voters. As the Reverend Al Green preached “Let’s Stay Together.”
And I don't mean to suggest you are wrong. Yours is the optimistic take. Mine is not. I'm nearly 70 years old. I do not care to "Stay Together" with people who are undermining civil rights, banning books and honest history, making death threats and carrying out domestic terrorism, creating a libertarian nightmare of this country. I don't want compromise with those ideologies. I swear those folks would walk over a starving child on their way to the coffee shop. Once I stopped to help a black man in a wheelchair get across an intersection. I chatted with him on the other side; someone had hit and run him with their car, crushing his ankle and foot. He was already in the wheelchair when they did it, but now his foot was swollen making life even more difficult. He had no support, no medical care...no help. He was covered in a dirty blanket. He didn't ask, but I gave him some money, which he refused to accept until I put it in his pocket. I did what I could for him and what he would allow. He was a proud man and said, "I'll get by." At the end I hugged him in his chair. The man suddenly burst into tears and I'll never forget what he said, "God bless you for touching me. Nobody here will touch me." The city in which I live is considered the "Christian," right-wing Mecca of the USA. We literally have hundreds of right-wing religious organizations here because the city council decided to make it a tax-haven for them. Not one of those fine Christians lifted a hand to help this man or lift his spirit. I don't want to make nice with that.
The founding of any nation-state involves compromises to create the nation. Look at any of the modern large nation states--France, Germany, UK, China, Russia, etc.--and there is inevitably a grouping of factious entities. At some point, the original raison d'être erodes, the binds that tie loosen, and things fall apart.
The U.S. was born of a time-convenient compromise of slave owners, who wanted to avoid slavery being banned by Parliament in London, and Northern commercial interests, who wanted to avoid the Parliament's restrictions on westward expansion on the North American continent. Westward expansion is now reaching diminishing returns, and the replacement of slavery with Jim Crow subjugation and wage slavery is difficult to continue. The ties that bound the U.S. experiment are further frayed by the need to deal with the maintenance of infrastructure in the large, sparsely populated expanse of the West.
Rather than making the topic of a different configuration of the U.S. taboo, we should be talking about how to develop a workable future. Permitting regions to self-govern with accountability for funding their needs could be a start. Fortunately, we have some mechanisms in our current governance structure that permit this and would avoid the destructive outcomes of a simmering civil war that some megalomanic politicians desire. One such mechanism involves the aggressive use of interstate compacts.
FDR’s administration was moving in the direction of regionalization with many of the interstate compacts for infrastructure in the 1930s and 1940s. The move was interrupted by WWII. One such compact was the building of the interstate highway system. (Interstate highways were also delayed by WWII, and the idea is often wrongly attributed as an idea to the Eisenhower administration). We can take a lesson from the brilliance of many in the Roosevelt administration and repurpose interstate compacts towards creating regional autonomy in key areas such as healthcare, infrastructure, accountable government finance, and natural resources. Compacts are a much better approach than the alternative of a stochastic, simmering civil war.
I like your thoughts on this; do you think there is any way that our politicians will support your ideas? I don't see it. Could you explain more about interstate compacts?
Interstate compacts are permitted by he Compact Clause (Article I, Section 10, Clause 3) of the United States Constitution. Essentially, these are treaties between and among the States. There are around 200 already in existence. Some are quite monumental and cover things such as building and maintaining the interstate high way system, regional hydro power (TVA and WAPA), and rationing of water resources. Explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interstate_compacts
Effective politics is about "the art of the possible." Congress could and should find ways to permit and encourage further use of these compacts to take over critical areas such as healthcare and infrastructure. How about allowing regional compacts to create single-payor healthcare? Would WA, OR, and CA sign up?
Would the "Twitter-aholoics" do this? No! But folks like Bernie might see this as a way forward.
As an example, one should not forget that systems such as the Canadian healthcare system are not totally national. Each province does its own thing within the Federal system.
This approach assumes political leadership in congress who will pursue these good ideas. The Republicans would have to give up their raw power lust in order to do what's best for the nation. I don't see that happening. It isn' their brand, of which there are three components. In order of priority, these are grievance, white privilege and increasing the wealth of the morbidly rich. They want the blue state-generated federal money that sustains them in their foolish ideologies, while at the same time, the legislative ability to run roughshod over the blues with theocratic legislation that will destroy the very engines of prosperity that sustain them. In other words; they want their cake and to eat it too. So far, they've been getting away with it. Since the Democrats either can't or won't play hardball with them, I don't see any improvements on the horizon. The absolute corruption of the SCOTUS with unqualified political hacks has made any forward movement impossible. Anything the blue states can try to do, legally or legislatively, to check the theocrats will be overturned by the gang of five "black-robed rulers." This is the real, most important issue, facing us and one that will persist for the next half-century unless there are reforms. I don't see the Biden administration doing any of the things they could do to correct the court's imbalance. Biden won't increase the size of the court as he is afraid the Republicans will retaliate when the have the power. What he doesn't seem to understand is they will do what they want regardless. Let them. Besides, it would likely be a good thing for this country if we had a much larger SCOTUS instead of a high court with no credibility and a majority of five people out of our 300M plus who are intent upon religious rule.
My point has been that breaking up the country would be a tragic mistake. But, if we are headed down that road having many pieces in place for separate governance would be absolutely essential.
One must remember Pasteur's saying that "Chance favors the prepared mind."
Good points, Dr. Doug.