June 13, 2022

The committee… established that the Trump campaign sent millions of fundraising emails based on the promise to fight to challenge the election results, ultimately raising $250 million from small donors.

But the… so-called Election Defense Fund was never real.

January 6 Is a Dangerous Shorthand-03

Misconduct must have consequences, and it is not just appropriate but imperative that democratic societies expect and enforce a higher standard from their public officials.

January 6 Is a Dangerous Shorthand02

The campaign by the former president and his associates to subvert an election is not tolerable. Attempting to cover up that misconduct is not tolerable. The groundwork being laid to sabotage future elections is not tolerable.

January 6 Is a Dangerous Shorthand 01

This may be the panel’s more cryptic and consequential challenge. It will not be enough to put the full scope of misconduct on display and fashion a comprehensible story. It must also convince the public that such conduct is intolerable.

Against Gun Idolatry 03

It’s even more disturbing to see that spirit of armed defiance so closely correlated with the religious right. The decision of Christians to provoke their fellow citizens into feeling palpable, physical fear of armed violence is deliberately malicious and cruel.

David French

Against Gun Idolatry 02

Defiance is different. It’s rooted in the will to power. It is designed to implant fear, not to save lives but to exert control. It contradicts a core value of a classically-liberal society, that change comes through courts and the ballot box, not through intimidation and fear.

David French

Against Gun Idolatry 01

… the threat to America’s gun culture comes from the gun rights movement itself. The threat is gun idolatry, a form of gun fetish that’s fundamentally aggressive, grotesquely irresponsible, and potentially destabilizing to American democracy.

David French

H. C. Richardson, April 28, 2022

… the rise of “illiberal democracy” or “soft fascism” is new to us, and the first step toward rolling it back is recognizing that it is different from Trump’s autocracy or states’ rights, and that its poison is spreading in the United States.

Real estate players shower DeSantis with campaign cash as housing prices soar

… having just helped my mother sell her condo in Florida i can attest to the soaring of prices…

20220420.08

Kentuckians Left Without Abortion Access After Lawmakers Override Governor’s Veto

… wondering when women will revolt en-masse and refuse sexual relations altogether… that would correct the situation pretty quickly i suspect… i read somewhere that such denial was what ultimately “tamed” the wild west… i’d be with them…

The law—House Bill 3, passed in March—made abortion illegal after 15 weeks of pregnancy. It also instituted several new restrictions on abortion provision before this cutoff, including a ban on abortion pills being shipped in the mail or otherwise provided outside a physician’s office.

20220420.06

DeSantis Calls for End of Walt Disney World’s Self-Rule

Heaven help us if this man ever becomes POTUS…

Any contention that DeSantis is eliminating some sort of “special treatment” for Disney comes with it the perhaps mistaken assumption that the two counties suddenly in charge of all of this infrastructure will somehow make the park better and not worse. In reality, putting Disney parks at the mercy of two different counties with different laws will be a huge mess for everybody involved, and that’s the point. It’s not about what’s fair or what’s best for the citizens in the area. It’s about punishing political foes and centralizing government power (a very nonconservative approach) to do so.

… but of course, there is no heaven and the universe doesn’t care about what we humans get up to…

20220420.05

Alex Jones’s InfoWars Files for Bankruptcy Amid Sandy Hook Lawsuits

It seems to be a morning for bad actors being on the path to getting what they deserve…

After the 2012 mass shooting claimed the lives of 26 people, including 20 first graders, Jones falsely described the victims and their parents as “crisis actors” participating in a conspiracy to allow the government to seize guns. Due to Jones’ lies, the parents of the victims were inundated with harassment and death threats. According to the New York Times, the family of Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner currently lives in hiding due to the persistent harassment they’ve experienced since the shooting.

… and…

In September 2021, Jones lost two defamation lawsuits in Texas after a judge ruled that he had engaged in “persistent discovery abuses” by failing to turn over important documents related to the case, noting that “an escalating series of judicial admonishments, monetary penalties, and non-dispositive sanctions have all been ineffective at deterring the abuse.” In November, Jones lost an additional lawsuit in Connecticut for failing to turn over documents.

20220420.04

This morning’s post by Heather Cox Richardson is encouraging… the noose is tightening around 45 and others…

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol also has a great deal of information; it has now interviewed more than 800 people. On April 11, Salon columnist Chauncey DeVega published an interview with Hugo Lowell, who has been following the January 6 committee closely for The Guardian. Lowell’s observations support the idea of a conspiracy, although he noted evidence is still coming in. “The evidence so far points to the fact that Donald Trump knew and oversaw what happened on Jan. 6,” Lowell told DeVega. “Trump knew in advance about these different elements that came together to form both the political element of his plan, which was to have Pence throw the election, and the violence that took place on Jan. 6.”

… the J6 committee is openly calling it a coup attempt led by 45…

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a member of the January 6 committee, suggested Lowell’s observation was correct yesterday when he told reporters: “This was a coup organized by the president against the vice president and against the Congress in order to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” Trump’s role in that coup will be the centerpiece of next month’s public committee hearings.

… Marjorie Taylor Green will have to testify about her involvement in the January 06 coup attempt… in a court of law… under oath…

In Georgia, voters are challenging the inclusion of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on the ballot this fall, arguing that she is an insurrectionist disqualified to hold office under the Fourteenth Amendment. Ratified after the Civil War, that amendment says any official who has taken an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and then engages “in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” cannot hold office. Greene took her oath of office on January 3, 2021, three days before the January 6 insurrection, and insisted the election had been stolen. “This is our 1776 moment,” she told Newsmax on January 5, 2021.

Greene promptly sued to get a judge to block the challenge. Yesterday, federal judge Amy Totenberg decided that the case can go forward. Greene will have to testify on Friday, under oath, before a state administrative law judge in Atlanta. She will be the first member of Congress to testify under oath about the events of January 6. After the judge handed down the decision, Greene complained to Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson that “I have to go to court on Friday and actually be questioned about something I’ve never been charged with and something I was completely against.”

… Friday will be an interesting day

20220420.02

A really interesting article on why it might be that socialism repels the people it most seeks to help… apparently, George Orwell, a socialist, understood something about that…

In the most provocative segment of the entire book, Orwell also cites “the horrible, the early disputing prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw toward them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.” And he notes the prospectus for a summer Socialist school in which attendees are asked if they prefer a vegetarian diet.

“That kind of thing is by itself sufficient to alienate plenty of decent people. And their instinct is perfectly sound, for the food-crank is by definition a person willing to cut himself off from human society in hopes of adding five years onto the life of his carcass; a person out of touch with common humanity.”

… and this…

The questions raised by Orwell go beyond the frustrating failure of Democrats to insulate themselves from charges of being “soft on crime.” They reach down to one of the more striking shifts within the Democratic Party: the loss of effective political figures that speak to working- and middle-class voters.

… and this…

Former Democratic Montana Gov. Steve Bullock has described the image of his party this way: “coastal, overly educated, elitist, judgmental, socialist — a bundle of identity groups and interests lacking any shared principles. The problem isn’t the candidates we nominate. It’s the perception of the party we belong to.”

… and this…

But the danger to the left that Orwell described remains, as Democratic polling warns, “alarmingly potent.” An electorate where many find the party “preachy” and “judgmental” will falter on this side of the Atlantic now, just as it did thousands of miles away and decades ago.

… and then there is this…

March 30, 2022 - by Heather Cox Richardson

Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who chairs the committee responsible for electing Republican senators, has produced an “11-point plan to rescue America.” It dramatically raises taxes on people who earn less than $100,000, and ends Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.

About Appetite

In the philosophy of Socrates and Plato three parts of the human “soul” are identified. They are reason, spirit and appetite. Reason is the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom and is the province of the philosopher. Spirit is the pursuit of honor and glory—as in battle—and is the province of the warrior/gladiator. Appetite is the pursuit of wealth and the pleasure it affords and is the province of the oligarch.

“Souls” can be fully dominated by one soul-part or another. More commonly, and desirably, the parts express themselves in a variety of dominance/subservience configurations. Indeed, while Socrates and Plato felt reason was best suited to management of the soul of both individual and state, spirit and appetite have important roles. The best human soul is characterized by reason as the moderator of spirit and appetite.

As a basic model for human psychology, it lacks the scientific foundations and clinical efficacy that modern clinical psychology can claim, but i find it an appealing general model for examining the ways people and societies conduct themselves.

One of the conclusions I come to is that presently the vast majority of populations around the world are ruled by appetite, the lowest and most irresponsible of the three soul-parts. This is demonstrated by obsession with wealth, things obtainable through wealth and the willingness to ruthlessly exploit the planet and each other to gain wealth.

Capitalism is the organization of appetite into a global system of wealth extraction through the exploitation of planet and people. I don’t know that it can be said that the broad flow of history has ever produced a society governed by Philosophers.

Though we like to think of ourselves as being far more civilized than our distant ancestors and more recent indigenous societies, we are very little removed from our primal instincts, that is, from being ruled by our appetites.

It’s not through lack of effort on the part of at least some of us. Indeed, this system of the tripartite soul developed by Socrates and Plato is aimed at understanding how one might govern self and society in a more rational way. As a way of establishing a universal good and conducting affairs according to that good.

A contemporary of Plato’s offered an alternative way of looking at things. Thrasymachus challenged the Socratic-Platonic concept of the good as a universal principle, saying that the good is whatever pursues the interests of the more powerful. According to Bertrand Russell this challenge is swatted away like a bothersome fly and not effectively refuted. It’s been a long time since I have read the Republic, so I will accept Russell’s assessment that it stands as an effective challenge to the Socratic-Platonic vision of the world as it could be. Inspection of history and the present state of the world appears, to me, to support the position of Thrasymachus. Appetite has been and is largely immune from any attempts by reason or faith to subdue it.

Unfortunately, we have reached a place where we either moderate appetite or we are destroyed by it.

Love and Strife

Buy, Buy says the sign in the shop window,

why, why says the junk in the yard.

Paul McCartney

I had two revelations from my reading of A History of Western Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell this week.

The first is that at the heart of (almost?) all scientific, philosophical and religious effort is a desire that something, anything, be eternal. We want our lives to mean something even if only that they were a necessary, albeit, tiny part of something grand and purposeful.

The second is that when we ask the question why, we either ask it teleologically, seeking first cause, or we ask it mechanistically, seeking to understand the mechanics of what we observe. The first is a process of induction of universal truths from experience. The second is a process of deduction of rules from experience. Regardless of path chosen, it is impossible to know anything in an absolute way. Consequently, certainty that there is something eternal is beyond grasp.

My wife loves to ask why and then tell me she doesn’t understand when I offer an explanation. Why would anyone like Putin exist (because absolute power makes absolute assholes)? Why would he invade Ukraine (because absolute assholes are assholes)? Why do conservatives want to destroy democracy (because absolute power is worth it)? Why do white supremacists exist (because we are primally disposed to enslave the other)? Why can’t we all just get along (because humans have never just gotten along and there are always power hungry assholes)?

“I don’t understand” she continues to say to any explanation I offer. I love her for being this way. She still has faith in humanity and it doesn’t compute when humanity is not faith-worthy.

When we were young we asked about the sign in the shop window and the junk in the yard. We also asked about the Vietnam war. These days liberals like ourselves ask why as we witness the Enlightenment Liberalist world order we have been comfortably ensconced in decomposing. We are pretty sure we won’t like it if it does decompose fully, any more than Ukrainians are enjoying bombs and displacement.

The ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles believed everything was composed of earth, air, fire and water which were moved into vortices of physical manifestation by love and strife in a cyclical manner.

Love and strife have been playing themselves out in humans since the time before memory. We are lucky if our lives contain plenty of love and strife is rarely life threatening. But it’s a crap shoot. We could as easily be Ukrainian as American. We could as easily have brown skin as white skin. And we could as easily live in an authoritarian form of government as a democratic one.

The struggle between some form of Oligarchic/Authoritarian rule and Democracy has been going on in the west for most, if not all, of recorded history. A prime example is the struggle between oligarchic Troy and democratic Athens, a contest the Trojans won, marking the end of the Athenian Golden Age. It would not be until the Renaissance that anything like that golden age (The Enlightenment) appeared again in the West.

We may eventually turn Putin back in Ukraine. But will we turn back Oligarchic Authoritarianism in the US? It’s not clear and on my bad days I despair. If Authoritarianism wins, it would be in no small measure because of Vladimir Putin. Are we going to win the battle but loose the war?

The United States has been in this place multiple times in the past. The Civil War was the manifestation of one particularly harsh turn in the cycle. So far, the people have rallied to push back the slave holders, the oligarchs and the would be despots to preserve the promise, if not execute the ideal of democracy. If Greek history teaches anything though, it’s that the only thing pre-ordained are the cycles, not the winners and losers.

What Volodymyr Zelensky’s Courage Says About the West - The Atlantic

There can be something a little distasteful about Western onlookers (myself included) cheering on Ukrainians for a cause that our countries are not willing to join, a stance that risks raising the price of a peace that will be paid only with Ukrainian blood. Nevertheless, it is possible to recognize this, to be inspired by what Zelensky represents, and then to be shamed by his example.

Here is a nation and a leader willing to sacrifice so much for the principle of independence and the right to join the Western world. And yet, much of the West is jaded and cynical, apparently devoid of any such mission, cause, or sense of idealism anymore. What is it that the West believes in now? When you think of the great liberal heroes of our age, Angela Merkel and Barack Obama, say, they are actually deeply pragmatic conservatives, constantly hedging, calculating, and balancing interests with little grand vision or cause to pull their policies together. There is much to be said for this type of governance: As Helmut Schmidt, the former chancellor of West Germany, once quipped, “Whoever has visions should go to the doctor.” Visions led to the Iraq War, for example. Yet conservative pragmatism is also deeply limited, allowing adversaries like Vladimir Putin to take advantage, exploiting caution and shortsighted selfishness.

What Changed Germany’s Mind - The Bulwark

Putin’s blatant and unprovoked assault on Ukraine changed that calculus. Now, no one in their right mind could possibly blame Germany, so it is finally safe to act. Germany can play a key role as a supporter of Ukraine, both by sending arms to help the poor people in Kyiv and throughout the country and by rearming itself, as Scholz has promised to do, to meet the obvious threat from Russia.

Is anyone else struggling to feel right now?

I am. The last seven years have been extraordinarily numbing, a relentless march of spiritually draining events. I can’t remember a more difficult stretch of time in my life. Maybe during the Vietnam war? 1969 was a remarkably bad year. I was young and oblivious back then, I don’t remember thinking or feeling much about it.

For the last seven years I have been witness to the rise of populism and the dispiriting and painful march of Donald Trump to the White House. I have been witness to his even more painful and dispiriting administration. I have been witness to his efforts to steal the election, corrupt every branch of government and then conjure the January 6th riot. I have been witness to the manifest inability of our system of checks and balances to actually check and balance. I continue to witness the growing threat of authoritarianism in my country, even as we rally the world to assist the imperfect Ukrainian Democracy and decry Vladimir Putin, an authoritarian thug. And just now, a commentator on MSNBC raising the spectre of Putin spoiling for a direct confrontation with the United States and then what, nuclear war?

Apparently, nature loves to pile it on thick so lets add in the Pandemic. I have witnessed that human tragedy, lived in fear of my fellow human beings and suffered through the resulting social isolation.

As I watch the events unfold in Ukraine I have been finding it hard to generate much emotion about it.

As I pursue my artwork, I have been finding it hard to get very excited about anything I make.

I am exhausted by the times. I am exhausted by the relentless flow of dispiriting and/or threatening events both at home and abroad. I have little emotion left to expend towards anything.

Or so I thought.

And then, this morning, something remarkable happened. Tears filled my eyes as I read accounts of the incredible bravery of the Ukraines, and how the war was not going as smoothly as Russia had planed (and all our military planners and pundits had expected). As I read about how Ukrainian colors are being projected on buildings and displayed in cities around the world in solidarity; about how concerts everywhere are being opened with the Ukrainian National Anthem; about a Ukrainian boy resolutely playing the piano as the bombs fall; about Ukrainian wives, daughters, mothers, grandmothers making molotov cocktails; about 12 Ukrainian soldiers choosing death over subjugation by telling a Russian war ship to “go fuck yourself!” rather than surrender and live. Yes, tears filled my eyes.

It’s too much to hope that this will be a David and Goliath story. But, something seems to have been awakened. For myself, I realized I had begun to give up hope that authoritarianism’s relentless rise around the world was stoppable and that even in the United States we might not be able to turn it back. Russia’s aggression in Ukraine seemed destined to plunge the world into darkness that would outrun my time on the planet.

Yes, it is perhaps too much to hope that David can slay Goliath here, but the Ukrainians have given me hope even so. Their valor has brought tears to my eyes. Their example tells me yes, we can turn back tyranny. It starts by giving it a bloody nose.

In The Bulwark this morning…

… if Donald Trump continues to be enabled by the Republican party, Republican voters, and America’s conservative propaganda machines, then we may very well be led once again by this man, giving him the chance to follow through on his promise to break-up the NATO alliance and put a stake through the heart of our democracy once and for all.

… my wife is concerned about the possibility of nuclear war… i am more concerned about the above… i feel we are heading into a perfect storm of voters preferring a Trumpian alternative to the present administration…

20220225-01

… it seems it is the mundane crimes that will get you in the end…

Trump Really Could be Prosecuted for Destroying Documents

20220216-02

February 12, 2022, Heather Cox Richardson

… about Abraham Lincoln and his leadership during a trying period for democracy in this country… in particular, she shares the cogent argument that Lincoln makes against the idea that there are intellectually and morally superior individuals who should command and organize life for everyone else… that there is ever good cause for some people to be masters and some people to be slaves, however you define slave…

In the 1850s, on a fragment of paper, Lincoln figured out the logic of a world that permitted the law to sort people into different places in a hierarchy, applying the reasoning he heard around him. “If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.—why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?” Lincoln wrote. “You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly?—You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own. But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.”

20220213-02

America Can’t Fight Authoritarianism on the Cheap, Shay Khatiri, The Bulwark

… The Bulwark is a center conservative publication so it is not surprising that they are pro military, perhaps a bit Hawkish… still, it looks like they advocate a large expansion of the military budget and one has to wonder, don’t we spend too much already?… apparently not… present expenditure is about half of peaks reached in post cold war years… and yes, i agree with the article that the threats are real and come from many directions…

One of the reasons President Biden has sought a “stable and predictable” relationship with Russia, and has been hesitant to respond to Russia’s destabilizing unpredictability, is that the United States doesn’t have the resources to confront both Russia and China at the same time. Yet, that’s exactly what it has to do.

… we already don’t pay for it all… how do we balance the budget, grow military spending and grow soft and hard infrastructure spending?… and all in the midst of our own lurch towards Authoritarianism?… something has to give…

20220210-03

Two Cheers for America’s COVID-19 Response, Brent Orrell, The Bulwark

Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live… just added this to my to-read list… it’s way down but it looks really interesting… so is the Bulwark article which says we got a lot of things right, even while getting a lot of things wrong…

20220209-05