Look up "Gödel's Loophole". Kurt Gödel was a brilliant, somewhat half-crazy mathematician who became a U.S. citizen in 1947 after being sponsored by Einstein. He claimed there was an "inner contradiction" in the Constitution that would allow it to become a dictatorship. He had seen this happen in Austria and while he never explained the mechanism that could occur in the U.S. it looks like we may have found it. To quote an old R. Cobb cartoon of a man writing in the ruins of a city, "All this makes lousy history."
I recall an Islamist, perhaps bin Laden, saying that we will use the freedoms of democracy, to vanguish democracy.
Take the 1st Amendment. It says nothing about free speech,only that Congress (CONGRESS) shall make no law abridging the right of speech or assembly. That means, despite the explanation on whitehouse.gov, there is no absolute free speech, try telling that to Bill Maher, the right wing, and even the left.
The teacher was right, Mary. Like our money, which is based on nothing more than "good faith and trust" in the country, the system works because enough people want it to. But when you have a president who is an angry little boy with a box of matches and his followers are a gang right out of "A Clockwork Orange" that is something else again.
What we already know about him should be damning enough to not only keep him out of the speakership, but out of any public office and in a traitor's jail cell. It's too bad that our system of justice is so overwhelmed by Trump and post-Trump criminalities that it cannot take care of business the way it should.
Great points Thom. As I see it, Republican voters want evil empty suits to spout nonsense conspiracy theories to satisfy their grievances and justify their bigotry. Even though Gym boyJordan hasn’t written any legislation in his years of office, no worries, he’s still the Republican voters’ spokesman for BS. Nothing but “frothers “ as Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel calls the GQP. There are many in office like Jordan who satisfy the useful idiot position for the fascist donors with the agenda to take out democracy, and the willfully ignorant voters go along with it. In interviews with MAGATs who spout the propaganda and Putin/tRump talking points the ignorance is appalling. How to enlighten these people that they are delusional and have been duped? I don’t have an answer and am pessimistic that we as a nation can reverse the destruction of the corruption and fascist influence that is acceptable currently.
Was reading in Thom Hartmann’s newsletter that European countries are ‘on it’ when it comes to countering Russian propaganda in their individual countries (obviously, not Hungary).
At www.FeathersOfHope.net we have just published a list of 23 selected Republican Representatives with their DC and District phone numbers. All are from districts where MAGA forces are not dominant. We are urging everyone to call them, asking that they break with extremism and support a bipartisan coalition to elect a traditional non-MAGA Republican Speaker.
I wanna know why Gym Jordan has not been subpoenaed to testify in NY and GA re his attempts to obstruct state judicial proceedings. He even held hearings in NY.
“Your attempt to invoke congressional authority to intrude upon and interfere with an active criminal case in Georgia is flagrantly at odds with the Constitution,” Willis wrote in the nine-page letter, which accuses Jordan of lacking a “basic understanding of the law,” including the law regarding state sovereignty. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/09/07/fani-willis-jim-jordan-trump-prosecution/
Jim Jordan's resume, as Thom authors truthfully and thoroughly, would also serve as a well reasoned finding of probable cause for a criminal complaint - on several counts. If any particular law enforcement agency feels up to enforcing the law, here you have it. We need our next Vincent Bugliosi to stand up...
There aren't enough words in existence to describe the extraordinary level of danger a Jim Jordan speakership would pose. He would literally be one terrible event (hopefully people remember and understand Jan 6th...) away from becoming our Commander in Chief. We now realize just how quickly these types of events can unfold given the openly violent base the far right has cultivated - not to mention the "unmentionable" war Putin is absolutely waging against the US through proxies, social media, and perhaps most insidiously, from within the happy to oblige GOP itself.
These are not times of grace. These people are for real. Their ambitions to end our democracy are real. Like all of his cohorts, Jim Jordan serves one master - himself. And if it takes a foreign adversary of the US to do so, so be it.
It's unconscionable to even conceive of placing an already implicated traitor anywhere near the On/ Off switch of democracy. Jim Jordan as Speaker of the House would be synonymous with holding a bonfire in a bomb factory.
I'm closer to 80 than to 70, which means I've lived through a lot of "stuff," much of it very good (polio vaccine - I was part of the clinical trial in 1954, fall from grace of Joe McCarthy, collapse of the USSR) and much of it very bad (Nixon, Reagan, GW Bush, trump).
A Jordan speakership is beyond my ability to imagine.
A junk yard dog has a useful purpose, knows friend from foe, and is housebroken. If the R's reject Jordan it won't be because he is a threat to democracy or a traitor. It will be only because of petty fights and disagreements he has with various members. It could be a good thing in the long-term, as it will hasten the demise of that entire cult and association of cowards.
Awesome to see you quoting George W Bush to add legitimacy to your propaganda. Perhaps had you used your megaphone to speak with such conviction for the Palestinian people or against the US militarism that is destabilizing the world (and complicity with dictators like Netanyahu and MBS) you wouldn't have to distract by freaking out about Putin and Trump 24/7.
Israeli Arabs have more civil rights than Arabs in any Moslem country.
Most Palestinian Arabs have more to fear from Hamas than the US government. In the West Bank, Israel proper more to fear from Hamas than the current government.
In case you missed it, Israel now has a coalition government.
Excellent comment. IMHO, there are nascent cult(s) on the left, that really don't know much, especially history, but are enmeshed in group think. They find someone to "worship"" like Noam Chomsky, and once they bite into the pie, they eat the whole thing, regardless of whether any of it is tainted or distasteful.
It's more like a social club, where kids and grownups, who otherwise feel ignored, can obtain peer approval and pats on the back.
I consider myself a sensible progressive, I stand with the left on subjects of equality, diversity, human rights, the por the homeless, the disenfranchised.
I separate from them on immigration, as I see the cultural threat of unrestrained immigration policies to Europe and America. And it appears that Immigration is what is giving the Right Wing momentum, as the left so loves to pat itself on the back. championing open borders. Which by the way was the 1980 Libertarian Program of David Koch. (Cheap labor is his motivator) but now he has shifted away from open borders, because he would lose support from the fascists.
Immigration is indeed a problem. Those from Central and South America are Catholics, Evangelicals, Pentecostals and as such ultra conservative, meaning misyognistic, patriarchal and homo phobic., They are, after migrating,voting Republican (Fuentes, Tarrio,Cubans, Haitians anyone), as are their kids.
The idiot left is also pro Arab, seeing the Arabs (including Palestinians) as victims, and the world loves the victim so much that it champions, blood thirsty terrorists as victims.
These hypocrtical ignores ignore the fact that Islam is misogynistic, homophobic and patriarchal to the extreme, they think that they can separate the likes of the Mullahcracy of Iran and the blood thirsty, oppressive Wahabiyyah of Saudi Arabia, from the Imams of Palestine, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia.
Iran forces gays to have sexual reassignment surgery. KSA beheads gays and raped women (who are considered adulterers.) Salafism is the equivalent of Christian fundamentalists and is found best in Dominionism which was co founded with Rafael Cruz,Teds daddy.
Europe is being overwhelmed by a foreign and hostile culture, that is theocatic, and they know it and want to safeguard secular, or as in Poland and Hungary, Christian or at least secular cultures, and this accounts for the rise of the right.
We in America and the west, can't bleed out or hearts for all of the worlds destitute.
The plight of a peoples is the responsibility of he government, whether it be democratically elected or obtained power by force..
If our democracy is flushed into the sewer, it is not only the religious, racist, haters on the right, but every voting eligible American that could have stopped them
We are not the saviors of the world, neither is Europe. Nor are we the employer of last resort, if we take in everyone who feels disenchanted or is unemployed, we will be swarmed and indeed replaced.
I have nothing against Latin culture and in fact enjoy it, but it is hostile to women's equality, as is Islam, and homophobic and patriachal to the extreme just like Islam.
There are individual exemptions, always. But the mass overwhelms the individual.
My father was a kind, sensitive, loving individual, but he was a Marine for 20 years, was adjuant for the 1st JASCO in recovering Roi Namur, Saipan and Tinian and caught a Chicom 61 mm at Hwanchon Dam in Korea.
But put him in a company of Marines, with a carbine and a mission, and you didn't want to be in front of him.
Dictatorships don't arise from nothing, they come about, as did Hitlers, from the support of the people, even a coup.
As you can see from my rant. I am not at all sympathetic to the plight of those on our border or Europes. I love my freedom and my culture and I don't want to see it overwhelmed, and that happens when a minority culture reaches 17%, the fascist culture in America is at least 40%, and it is growing in Europe and it is all because of a rational reaction to being overwhelmed by an alien and unassimilable culture.
Question is why are these migrants fleeing their own culture (and demand that we accept their culture, not as a special body, but as the nascent dominant culture, Just as SC seceded because it was pissed that Congress would not legalize slavery throughout all the states.
A countries problems are those of its own making, either by submission to their homegrown tyrants or by their own culture and beliefs.
Granted Europe and America, being dominated and controlled by monied interests (financial institutions and capitalists, like Peter Thiel, Goldman Sachs, Larry Summers, Elon Muck, Zuckerberg and Bezo's, and in the past by the crowned heads of Europe, But those powers were driven out of these underdeveloped countries, and the power vacuum has been filled by dictators, that got there because of the support of the population.
As Mao said, the revolution swims in the sea of the people.
The economic and human rights woes, of these countries are the result of the citizenry supporting and facilitating the leadership.
As William noted "The economic and human rights woes, of these countries are the result of the citizenry supporting and facilitating the leadership." The simple reason that these woes exist is because too many of the world's citizens learned to be bad at learning thus making them easy marks for cult leaders throughout history. The best strategy to combat the stupid decisions that people make is with a great public education system that satisfies its mission by teaching people to be good at learning (and teaching). Unfortunately, the powers of corporate personhood and cultic control will continue to block that effort in our country and around the world. At least until we do something about it, like use the 3.5% solution to make our democracy work the way it should.
Let me add to that, That countries what have made or tried to make a break with patriarchial rule, have flourished when the creative energy of women have allowed to take hold, and the more patriarchal the society, the more backward, oppressive and depressive they are, and combative and aggressive they are.
Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher appear to be exceptions, but in all respects, they seem to be mentally transgendered, , mental and emotional males, or know that the way to success is to act like a male.
William, thank you, I always appreciate your distillations of history, and this is an important one to make. Patriarchy is a fundamental dynamic that is seldom if ever talked about, especially America's special history with it. Remember all it took to justify the genocides caused by America's leaders was a little Calvinism and a healthy dose of racism to justify slavery. After that our patriarchy never really smelled so good, if you were paying attention. And without a countervailing power to stop the tyranny (like having progressive and competent women in elected office), things are not going to get better any time soon.
I can't help but agree. Enslavement and genocide were carried out under the banner of Manifest Destiny. I just watched Ken Burns "The American Buffalo" and he showed a poster with an angelic woman floating in the air , leading pioneers westward in Manifest Destiny, and driving out Indians and slaughtering buffalo in the process.
And we are still at it.
I shouldn't bitch, everything in the past is responsible for the existence of people in the present.
Were it not for a sequence of events, at that particular nano second, I would not be hear today.
My father was born in Arkansas, his 2nd great grandfather owned a slave or two, his grandfather was a pig farmer, his father was a lumberjack, on ground that his father once owned,. Prior to the war (WWII) he joined the Corps and was posted to the Philadelphia Naval yard, where my mothers sister, who married a Marine, introduced my mother to my father, (the buddy of my aunt's 1st husband). if the two did not have sex, and he ejaculated at a precise moment, I would not be here. I bet no one thinks of life like that, as though we were a divine creation, pre ordained to appear on Earth. If my 2nd great grandfather, my fathers great grandfather) had broke an axel on his wagon on his 1848 trip from Alabama to Union Parish, LA i would never have been born. If the taters hadn't washed out of the ground, and in disgust he picking up and moving again to SW. Arkansas, I never would have been born.
Interesting thing about the patriarchy, until WWII, even though they had the vote in 1919, and it was believed by men who signed the legislation in Congress, Executive and ratified in the states that by enfranchising women, they would double the vote, because women were submissive and obeyed their lord and master (like Father knows best, Leave it to Beaver, Mayberry), and by and large they did and still do. (Notice my qualifier)
That is why there are so many fierce MAGA and anti abortion women. Stockholm Syndrome.
They married because they wanted a man to provide and protect them, so they didn't have to deal with the real world, and could stay safe and stress less in their homes. It works till the husband gets tired of the same old and , look for something new or different
They believe that the status quo, butters their bread, and feel that female autonomy threatens what they perceive as a privileged position.
My wife and I talk openly about this problem, she says it is true, luckily our marraige (we have been together 30 years, is a marriage of equals, actually she is my superior in many things, and I have no problem with that and often ask her opinion, or ask her to fix things. I have many strengths she has hers, and there is not a master subordinate relationship. I would not be with her if she was weak and dependent., or more likely pretended to be, as so many women do.
Men, she says, are so easy to manipulate, playing weak and helpless and sex are the female tools, by which to bend men to their will.
I had a wife like that, but taught her to drive, bought her a car and encouraged her to earn her own money., her own, not mine, not household, but hers.
I sense that the magat government workers think that the American populace is stupid and inhuman, in order to justify stealing all of our stuff. Even though liberals control most of the votes, the right wingers in the government and military want to boss us around, not us boss them around. The government workers are uniting as a criminal organization try to steal our treasury while attaining high paying jobs for life for a reward to themselves.. I think it is even possible for the Democratic leadership to be in on this as well, (Reagan democrats)because of no prosecution for the insurrectionist ringleaders. After stealing and obstructing for the last 60 years instead of working towards a Utopia and serving God!
True but having lost control, they are still in there pressing on with their agenda, and as one who headed a department that had a mix of civilians military. There are many ways to subvert a department or agency. Many, many, ways
Here is an example. Garland who is not inclined to investigate Trumpers or Republicans, appointed an attorney embedded by Trump into the DOJ, along with perhaps hundreds of others,
A Trump humping employee, embedded in Civil Service by WO 13957 as Trump was walking out of the door, named David Weiss, who actually went begging, "pick me coach, pick me" to investigate Hunter, while Garland has done jack squat about the crimes of Ivanka, Eric and Jr.
Bob my friend, slow down please, Have your morning coffee or something. I can't relate, much less understand your comment, honestly.
Especially government workers uniting as a criminal organization? Please. they have unions, as they should, the National Federation of Federal Employees and American Federation of Government Employees and their are state and local unions like Service Employees International Union. Unions are indeed needed as a countervailing force against government, employment.
I was a foreman, after my conversion to a progressive, for an SEIU chapter, and did a great job in contract negotiation, while the other forepersons were tired and wanted to go home, I stoood against peer pressure and got what I wanted, group health care for retirees, only to have 2 years later a spineless negotiating team, give in and water it down.
Reagan Democrats became Republicans, alas there are still some buried in the party, like Rahm Emanuel.
Every Republican that does not speak out against Trump is in on the theft of our government and Nation! Why do you think that the government Republican workers want a dictatorship then? This is simple for me, they want money and privilege and to be able to abuse the people they do not like, they are a criminal organization even the GOP voters are in on it, but they will only get the crumbs and have to do all the dirty work. You sound like they will all sit in a big circle and sing kumbaya.
With that clarification. I understand. Totally amazing how government workers line up to be led up the ramp of the abattoir by Judas Goats. There sure are stupid people that I have to share this planet with.
Not all government workers are Republicans, over half the house and half the Senate are, including their staffs, same with the FBI, DOD (civilian force), DOJ, CBP, DHS, even Labor and the FDA at least at the GS-13 level and above.
DOJ is a good example. Chock full of Trumps embedded schedule F, which Biden failed to remove, and look at the harm they are doing to him, like Weiss as special counsel prosecuting Hunter, which is sure to play big on TV screens and social media, come the campaign.
Jim Jordan is the Speaker that the Republicans deserve, but NOT the Speaker Americans deserve. His "dazzle them with bullshit" style totally tracks with their cult of Trump. In fact, we might as well have had Trump accept or demand the position. Trump's handler, Putin, will be two heartbeats away from control.....
This country will get a big dose of what they are in for if the GOP manages to succeed in 2024. I hope there is a last minute explosion of demands and in-fighting, but it looks like they are coming together instead. I personally think his vile agenda and personality will hurt them 2024.
US Representative, millions of dollars, the Medal of Freedom, and now perhaps Speaker of the House---boy, it sure is good to be Jim. Maybe we will also be looking at the next GOP presidential candidate once Trump goes to his golden mansion in the sky. Sorry to have upset our stomachs! We sure as hell don't deserve Jordan, Trump, or this version of the GOP.
"The guys who whine and cry " are not "empty vessels". They are weather vanes, pointing us in the correct direction by identifying our problems. Before we take steps to improve life, we must make certain we know WHAT must be changed; or else we will spin our wheels or make matters worse. Yes I agree some of Biden's moves have been good ones. But even wise Old Joe is getting some of it wrong; partly because he MUST compromise and partly because he is occasionally just WRONG.
Treasonous Congress persons are trying to save their traitorous asses. If trump wins they will get pardoned. Billionaires love SCOTUS and Trump.
Look up "Gödel's Loophole". Kurt Gödel was a brilliant, somewhat half-crazy mathematician who became a U.S. citizen in 1947 after being sponsored by Einstein. He claimed there was an "inner contradiction" in the Constitution that would allow it to become a dictatorship. He had seen this happen in Austria and while he never explained the mechanism that could occur in the U.S. it looks like we may have found it. To quote an old R. Cobb cartoon of a man writing in the ruins of a city, "All this makes lousy history."
I recall an Islamist, perhaps bin Laden, saying that we will use the freedoms of democracy, to vanguish democracy.
Take the 1st Amendment. It says nothing about free speech,only that Congress (CONGRESS) shall make no law abridging the right of speech or assembly. That means, despite the explanation on whitehouse.gov, there is no absolute free speech, try telling that to Bill Maher, the right wing, and even the left.
Yes, the freedom we enjoy is a double edged sword.
It is our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. We can survive only if we all recognize it.
However the hatreds, angst, fears and bigotry of the right, puts it all in peril.
I feel we are in the same place as the Weimar Republic in the 1930's.
However Mr. Farrar, there is reason to hope. We are not really in the same position as the Weimar because
1) We are not suffering from the economically crushing mistakes of the Treaty of Versailles.
2) No Great Depression.
3) We have not just emerged as defeated losers of the greatest war in human history.
My 9th grade civics teacher also said this in 1959. There are several inner contradictions.
The teacher was right, Mary. Like our money, which is based on nothing more than "good faith and trust" in the country, the system works because enough people want it to. But when you have a president who is an angry little boy with a box of matches and his followers are a gang right out of "A Clockwork Orange" that is something else again.
So true Mr. Weil.
There may be contrary claims. But where is the contradiction?
Time for people to speak out noisily against this man!
IF people know something about him now is the time.
What we already know about him should be damning enough to not only keep him out of the speakership, but out of any public office and in a traitor's jail cell. It's too bad that our system of justice is so overwhelmed by Trump and post-Trump criminalities that it cannot take care of business the way it should.
Great points Thom. As I see it, Republican voters want evil empty suits to spout nonsense conspiracy theories to satisfy their grievances and justify their bigotry. Even though Gym boyJordan hasn’t written any legislation in his years of office, no worries, he’s still the Republican voters’ spokesman for BS. Nothing but “frothers “ as Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel calls the GQP. There are many in office like Jordan who satisfy the useful idiot position for the fascist donors with the agenda to take out democracy, and the willfully ignorant voters go along with it. In interviews with MAGATs who spout the propaganda and Putin/tRump talking points the ignorance is appalling. How to enlighten these people that they are delusional and have been duped? I don’t have an answer and am pessimistic that we as a nation can reverse the destruction of the corruption and fascist influence that is acceptable currently.
Was reading in Thom Hartmann’s newsletter that European countries are ‘on it’ when it comes to countering Russian propaganda in their individual countries (obviously, not Hungary).
At www.FeathersOfHope.net we have just published a list of 23 selected Republican Representatives with their DC and District phone numbers. All are from districts where MAGA forces are not dominant. We are urging everyone to call them, asking that they break with extremism and support a bipartisan coalition to elect a traditional non-MAGA Republican Speaker.
Here's a link to the post:https://jerryweiss.substack.com/p/finding-republican-partners .
.
My representative, Batistiana Republican Maria Salazar, who calls all her opponents communists, says she wants to talk with us. Get her on the record.
I wanna know why Gym Jordan has not been subpoenaed to testify in NY and GA re his attempts to obstruct state judicial proceedings. He even held hearings in NY.
“Your attempt to invoke congressional authority to intrude upon and interfere with an active criminal case in Georgia is flagrantly at odds with the Constitution,” Willis wrote in the nine-page letter, which accuses Jordan of lacking a “basic understanding of the law,” including the law regarding state sovereignty. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/09/07/fani-willis-jim-jordan-trump-prosecution/
Jim Jordan's resume, as Thom authors truthfully and thoroughly, would also serve as a well reasoned finding of probable cause for a criminal complaint - on several counts. If any particular law enforcement agency feels up to enforcing the law, here you have it. We need our next Vincent Bugliosi to stand up...
There aren't enough words in existence to describe the extraordinary level of danger a Jim Jordan speakership would pose. He would literally be one terrible event (hopefully people remember and understand Jan 6th...) away from becoming our Commander in Chief. We now realize just how quickly these types of events can unfold given the openly violent base the far right has cultivated - not to mention the "unmentionable" war Putin is absolutely waging against the US through proxies, social media, and perhaps most insidiously, from within the happy to oblige GOP itself.
These are not times of grace. These people are for real. Their ambitions to end our democracy are real. Like all of his cohorts, Jim Jordan serves one master - himself. And if it takes a foreign adversary of the US to do so, so be it.
It's unconscionable to even conceive of placing an already implicated traitor anywhere near the On/ Off switch of democracy. Jim Jordan as Speaker of the House would be synonymous with holding a bonfire in a bomb factory.
".....synonymous with holding a bonfire in a bomb factory." Hilarious. Thank you Mr. Notabot.
Keep the apophthegms coming! I love it.
I'm closer to 80 than to 70, which means I've lived through a lot of "stuff," much of it very good (polio vaccine - I was part of the clinical trial in 1954, fall from grace of Joe McCarthy, collapse of the USSR) and much of it very bad (Nixon, Reagan, GW Bush, trump).
A Jordan speakership is beyond my ability to imagine.
A junk yard dog has a useful purpose, knows friend from foe, and is housebroken. If the R's reject Jordan it won't be because he is a threat to democracy or a traitor. It will be only because of petty fights and disagreements he has with various members. It could be a good thing in the long-term, as it will hasten the demise of that entire cult and association of cowards.
"A junk yard dog..........and is housebroken." Thank you Mr Elliott. I could not stop laughing.
Where will the next turd land?
Awesome to see you quoting George W Bush to add legitimacy to your propaganda. Perhaps had you used your megaphone to speak with such conviction for the Palestinian people or against the US militarism that is destabilizing the world (and complicity with dictators like Netanyahu and MBS) you wouldn't have to distract by freaking out about Putin and Trump 24/7.
Oh yeh, U.S. militarism that is destabilizing the world. Wonderful Putin speak. Good try Boris.
Putin and Xi are only victims of the imperialist America. HUH?
Israeli Arabs have more civil rights than Arabs in any Moslem country.
Most Palestinian Arabs have more to fear from Hamas than the US government. In the West Bank, Israel proper more to fear from Hamas than the current government.
In case you missed it, Israel now has a coalition government.
Excellent comment. IMHO, there are nascent cult(s) on the left, that really don't know much, especially history, but are enmeshed in group think. They find someone to "worship"" like Noam Chomsky, and once they bite into the pie, they eat the whole thing, regardless of whether any of it is tainted or distasteful.
It's more like a social club, where kids and grownups, who otherwise feel ignored, can obtain peer approval and pats on the back.
I consider myself a sensible progressive, I stand with the left on subjects of equality, diversity, human rights, the por the homeless, the disenfranchised.
I separate from them on immigration, as I see the cultural threat of unrestrained immigration policies to Europe and America. And it appears that Immigration is what is giving the Right Wing momentum, as the left so loves to pat itself on the back. championing open borders. Which by the way was the 1980 Libertarian Program of David Koch. (Cheap labor is his motivator) but now he has shifted away from open borders, because he would lose support from the fascists.
Immigration is indeed a problem. Those from Central and South America are Catholics, Evangelicals, Pentecostals and as such ultra conservative, meaning misyognistic, patriarchal and homo phobic., They are, after migrating,voting Republican (Fuentes, Tarrio,Cubans, Haitians anyone), as are their kids.
The idiot left is also pro Arab, seeing the Arabs (including Palestinians) as victims, and the world loves the victim so much that it champions, blood thirsty terrorists as victims.
These hypocrtical ignores ignore the fact that Islam is misogynistic, homophobic and patriarchal to the extreme, they think that they can separate the likes of the Mullahcracy of Iran and the blood thirsty, oppressive Wahabiyyah of Saudi Arabia, from the Imams of Palestine, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia.
Iran forces gays to have sexual reassignment surgery. KSA beheads gays and raped women (who are considered adulterers.) Salafism is the equivalent of Christian fundamentalists and is found best in Dominionism which was co founded with Rafael Cruz,Teds daddy.
Europe is being overwhelmed by a foreign and hostile culture, that is theocatic, and they know it and want to safeguard secular, or as in Poland and Hungary, Christian or at least secular cultures, and this accounts for the rise of the right.
We in America and the west, can't bleed out or hearts for all of the worlds destitute.
The plight of a peoples is the responsibility of he government, whether it be democratically elected or obtained power by force..
If our democracy is flushed into the sewer, it is not only the religious, racist, haters on the right, but every voting eligible American that could have stopped them
We are not the saviors of the world, neither is Europe. Nor are we the employer of last resort, if we take in everyone who feels disenchanted or is unemployed, we will be swarmed and indeed replaced.
I have nothing against Latin culture and in fact enjoy it, but it is hostile to women's equality, as is Islam, and homophobic and patriachal to the extreme just like Islam.
There are individual exemptions, always. But the mass overwhelms the individual.
My father was a kind, sensitive, loving individual, but he was a Marine for 20 years, was adjuant for the 1st JASCO in recovering Roi Namur, Saipan and Tinian and caught a Chicom 61 mm at Hwanchon Dam in Korea.
But put him in a company of Marines, with a carbine and a mission, and you didn't want to be in front of him.
Dictatorships don't arise from nothing, they come about, as did Hitlers, from the support of the people, even a coup.
As you can see from my rant. I am not at all sympathetic to the plight of those on our border or Europes. I love my freedom and my culture and I don't want to see it overwhelmed, and that happens when a minority culture reaches 17%, the fascist culture in America is at least 40%, and it is growing in Europe and it is all because of a rational reaction to being overwhelmed by an alien and unassimilable culture.
Question is why are these migrants fleeing their own culture (and demand that we accept their culture, not as a special body, but as the nascent dominant culture, Just as SC seceded because it was pissed that Congress would not legalize slavery throughout all the states.
A countries problems are those of its own making, either by submission to their homegrown tyrants or by their own culture and beliefs.
Granted Europe and America, being dominated and controlled by monied interests (financial institutions and capitalists, like Peter Thiel, Goldman Sachs, Larry Summers, Elon Muck, Zuckerberg and Bezo's, and in the past by the crowned heads of Europe, But those powers were driven out of these underdeveloped countries, and the power vacuum has been filled by dictators, that got there because of the support of the population.
As Mao said, the revolution swims in the sea of the people.
The economic and human rights woes, of these countries are the result of the citizenry supporting and facilitating the leadership.
As William noted "The economic and human rights woes, of these countries are the result of the citizenry supporting and facilitating the leadership." The simple reason that these woes exist is because too many of the world's citizens learned to be bad at learning thus making them easy marks for cult leaders throughout history. The best strategy to combat the stupid decisions that people make is with a great public education system that satisfies its mission by teaching people to be good at learning (and teaching). Unfortunately, the powers of corporate personhood and cultic control will continue to block that effort in our country and around the world. At least until we do something about it, like use the 3.5% solution to make our democracy work the way it should.
Let me add to that, That countries what have made or tried to make a break with patriarchial rule, have flourished when the creative energy of women have allowed to take hold, and the more patriarchal the society, the more backward, oppressive and depressive they are, and combative and aggressive they are.
Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher appear to be exceptions, but in all respects, they seem to be mentally transgendered, , mental and emotional males, or know that the way to success is to act like a male.
William, thank you, I always appreciate your distillations of history, and this is an important one to make. Patriarchy is a fundamental dynamic that is seldom if ever talked about, especially America's special history with it. Remember all it took to justify the genocides caused by America's leaders was a little Calvinism and a healthy dose of racism to justify slavery. After that our patriarchy never really smelled so good, if you were paying attention. And without a countervailing power to stop the tyranny (like having progressive and competent women in elected office), things are not going to get better any time soon.
I can't help but agree. Enslavement and genocide were carried out under the banner of Manifest Destiny. I just watched Ken Burns "The American Buffalo" and he showed a poster with an angelic woman floating in the air , leading pioneers westward in Manifest Destiny, and driving out Indians and slaughtering buffalo in the process.
And we are still at it.
I shouldn't bitch, everything in the past is responsible for the existence of people in the present.
Were it not for a sequence of events, at that particular nano second, I would not be hear today.
My father was born in Arkansas, his 2nd great grandfather owned a slave or two, his grandfather was a pig farmer, his father was a lumberjack, on ground that his father once owned,. Prior to the war (WWII) he joined the Corps and was posted to the Philadelphia Naval yard, where my mothers sister, who married a Marine, introduced my mother to my father, (the buddy of my aunt's 1st husband). if the two did not have sex, and he ejaculated at a precise moment, I would not be here. I bet no one thinks of life like that, as though we were a divine creation, pre ordained to appear on Earth. If my 2nd great grandfather, my fathers great grandfather) had broke an axel on his wagon on his 1848 trip from Alabama to Union Parish, LA i would never have been born. If the taters hadn't washed out of the ground, and in disgust he picking up and moving again to SW. Arkansas, I never would have been born.
Interesting thing about the patriarchy, until WWII, even though they had the vote in 1919, and it was believed by men who signed the legislation in Congress, Executive and ratified in the states that by enfranchising women, they would double the vote, because women were submissive and obeyed their lord and master (like Father knows best, Leave it to Beaver, Mayberry), and by and large they did and still do. (Notice my qualifier)
That is why there are so many fierce MAGA and anti abortion women. Stockholm Syndrome.
They married because they wanted a man to provide and protect them, so they didn't have to deal with the real world, and could stay safe and stress less in their homes. It works till the husband gets tired of the same old and , look for something new or different
They believe that the status quo, butters their bread, and feel that female autonomy threatens what they perceive as a privileged position.
My wife and I talk openly about this problem, she says it is true, luckily our marraige (we have been together 30 years, is a marriage of equals, actually she is my superior in many things, and I have no problem with that and often ask her opinion, or ask her to fix things. I have many strengths she has hers, and there is not a master subordinate relationship. I would not be with her if she was weak and dependent., or more likely pretended to be, as so many women do.
Men, she says, are so easy to manipulate, playing weak and helpless and sex are the female tools, by which to bend men to their will.
I had a wife like that, but taught her to drive, bought her a car and encouraged her to earn her own money., her own, not mine, not household, but hers.
I sense that the magat government workers think that the American populace is stupid and inhuman, in order to justify stealing all of our stuff. Even though liberals control most of the votes, the right wingers in the government and military want to boss us around, not us boss them around. The government workers are uniting as a criminal organization try to steal our treasury while attaining high paying jobs for life for a reward to themselves.. I think it is even possible for the Democratic leadership to be in on this as well, (Reagan democrats)because of no prosecution for the insurrectionist ringleaders. After stealing and obstructing for the last 60 years instead of working towards a Utopia and serving God!
MAGATS lost control of the agencies of the federal government when Biden was inauguarated.
Garland could, if so inclined, investigate the Republicans who aided, abetted, or gave comfort to insurrection.
True but having lost control, they are still in there pressing on with their agenda, and as one who headed a department that had a mix of civilians military. There are many ways to subvert a department or agency. Many, many, ways
Here is an example. Garland who is not inclined to investigate Trumpers or Republicans, appointed an attorney embedded by Trump into the DOJ, along with perhaps hundreds of others,
A Trump humping employee, embedded in Civil Service by WO 13957 as Trump was walking out of the door, named David Weiss, who actually went begging, "pick me coach, pick me" to investigate Hunter, while Garland has done jack squat about the crimes of Ivanka, Eric and Jr.
Bob my friend, slow down please, Have your morning coffee or something. I can't relate, much less understand your comment, honestly.
Especially government workers uniting as a criminal organization? Please. they have unions, as they should, the National Federation of Federal Employees and American Federation of Government Employees and their are state and local unions like Service Employees International Union. Unions are indeed needed as a countervailing force against government, employment.
I was a foreman, after my conversion to a progressive, for an SEIU chapter, and did a great job in contract negotiation, while the other forepersons were tired and wanted to go home, I stoood against peer pressure and got what I wanted, group health care for retirees, only to have 2 years later a spineless negotiating team, give in and water it down.
Reagan Democrats became Republicans, alas there are still some buried in the party, like Rahm Emanuel.
Every Republican that does not speak out against Trump is in on the theft of our government and Nation! Why do you think that the government Republican workers want a dictatorship then? This is simple for me, they want money and privilege and to be able to abuse the people they do not like, they are a criminal organization even the GOP voters are in on it, but they will only get the crumbs and have to do all the dirty work. You sound like they will all sit in a big circle and sing kumbaya.
With that clarification. I understand. Totally amazing how government workers line up to be led up the ramp of the abattoir by Judas Goats. There sure are stupid people that I have to share this planet with.
Not all government workers are Republicans, over half the house and half the Senate are, including their staffs, same with the FBI, DOD (civilian force), DOJ, CBP, DHS, even Labor and the FDA at least at the GS-13 level and above.
DOJ is a good example. Chock full of Trumps embedded schedule F, which Biden failed to remove, and look at the harm they are doing to him, like Weiss as special counsel prosecuting Hunter, which is sure to play big on TV screens and social media, come the campaign.
Re: the big list of bills that he voted against: Sadly, isn’t this true for every other Republican in Congress? :-(
Scary stuff. I feel like we’re entering 1984 territory.
Entering?. I recall that 1984, was an anagram for 1948
$30 million says all we need to know about what motivates gym jordan. From wresting pariah to multi- millionaire. Hmmm.
Jim Jordan is the Speaker that the Republicans deserve, but NOT the Speaker Americans deserve. His "dazzle them with bullshit" style totally tracks with their cult of Trump. In fact, we might as well have had Trump accept or demand the position. Trump's handler, Putin, will be two heartbeats away from control.....
This country will get a big dose of what they are in for if the GOP manages to succeed in 2024. I hope there is a last minute explosion of demands and in-fighting, but it looks like they are coming together instead. I personally think his vile agenda and personality will hurt them 2024.
US Representative, millions of dollars, the Medal of Freedom, and now perhaps Speaker of the House---boy, it sure is good to be Jim. Maybe we will also be looking at the next GOP presidential candidate once Trump goes to his golden mansion in the sky. Sorry to have upset our stomachs! We sure as hell don't deserve Jordan, Trump, or this version of the GOP.
"The guys who whine and cry " are not "empty vessels". They are weather vanes, pointing us in the correct direction by identifying our problems. Before we take steps to improve life, we must make certain we know WHAT must be changed; or else we will spin our wheels or make matters worse. Yes I agree some of Biden's moves have been good ones. But even wise Old Joe is getting some of it wrong; partly because he MUST compromise and partly because he is occasionally just WRONG.