JackTReason

What Messaging Says About The USA And Russia

There is little doubt about the reality of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The attack, called a Special Military Operation by the Russians, is a war of conquest intended to advance the geopolitical ambitions of the Russian dictator Vladamir Putin. (I say dictator because it is more accurate than any other title we have for anyone in his position. His power in Russia is absolute, and he has effectively suppressed all political opposition. He may well have been elected by a majority of the people, but those people do not have complete information, nor do they have any candidates to effectively challenge Putin.)

The USA during the Donald Trump Presidency warmed up to Putin and denigrated the leadership of Ukraine, as well as the whole of NATO. It is likely that had Trump been reelected, he would have pulled the US out of NATO entirely. This isn’t my hyperbole, but the opinion of former advisors to him, along with numerous international political experts who have watched these things carefully.

There is little doubt that Putin knew he would have a free hand in Ukraine, and that opposition from NATO would be stymied by Trump’s withdrawal from NATO, and the US’s unwillingness to support the democracies in Europe. It is probably true that a combination of things led to his invasion this year, instead of biding his time for a better opportunity. (Which is something that Xi in China is doing vis a vis Taiwan.)

As a dictator, Putin has put his primary energy into keeping power. This has led him to put personal loyalty to him above every other factor in choosing his administration and his military leadership. These people sucked up to him, as we’d expect, and told him whatever he wanted to hear. They told him he had massive numbers of Russophiles in Ukraine waiting to assist in an overthrow of the western leaning government, and that he’d be welcomed into Ukraine as a liberator. They also told him stories about the west that weren’t true. Such as the claim that Biden was a weak and addled-brain fool who would only respond with sanctions and protests upon his invasion, and that Trump was nearing a return to office – even before the next Presidential election in 2024. The wildcard was Putin’s ill health. Though it is clearly a state secret, it is safe to say that Putin faced his mortality when he developed a cancer somewhere in his body. A cancer that had metastasized and threatened his life. His physical appearance and infrequency of public displays of manliness made clear that he has been receiving treatment.

This illness may have been the catalyst that sparked him to act when he did.

To borrow a line from a movie, he chose poorly.

Biden was not only sharp as a tack and wary of Putin’s intent, he was attune to the moment democracy faces globally. He not only committed to supporting Ukraine, but he rallied and strengthened NATO, which has since grown in size following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

To settle a point: Russia has no valid claims to any territory in Ukraine, including Crimea. Russia has no inherent right to territory outside its own borders simply because they once controlled those territories in the olden days, or because some of the people there speak Russian. The idea that world borders can be decided by military annexation is something we rejected last century, and should such a practice return, it would mean the eventual destruction of civilization.

Putin’s defenders in America (of which there are many, including many elected leaders) are quick to accuse the Biden administration of warmongering, and trying to start a war against Russia (and probably China too.) This gets a lot of oxygen, mostly because of those elected leaders, as well as sycophants like the obsequious Tucker Carlson on the Fox propaganda network.

To be sure, Russia is threatening more than just Ukraine. The clear agenda of Putin is to recreate the borders of the former Soviet Union or the earlier Russian Empire. He’s made no secret about it, and has made statements to that effect in the past. He has claimed that Ukraine has no right to exist except as a vassal state to Russia. He has said or implied that other nations are subject to the same claim. The Baltic states, Georgia, Poland, to name a few.

And the USA under the Biden administration has certainly made it clear that we are supporting Ukraine, and more importantly, that we will defend with arms any attack on any NATO member. (A membership which as of today includes Finland, doubling the NATO presence along the borders of Russia.) And this support of Ukraine has included substantial amounts of highly effective weaponry, which has been mirrored by other NATO countries. All along Biden and his Cabinet department heads, such as State and Defense, have been very clear that the USA does not wish to get into a direct conflict with Russia.

But is this true? Are we secretly angling towards conflict with Russia? What about China?

The territorial ambitions of these two countries are antithetical to global democracy, and as such a threat to the peace and stability of the world. Are we looking to fight them now, perhaps to avoid having to face them in the future when they are stronger?

The answer is no, and the way I can tell that is from messaging.

Here I will need to talk about propaganda.

Propaganda is the use of information (or more often misinformation) designed to push a political agenda. It has been used by all countries at one time or another. My own family history was altered by propaganda during the First World War. Though we had been citizens of this Republic since the founding of the country, and had taken up arms in defense of this Republic in every war including the Revolution and Civil Wars, my family faced severe anti-German sentiment because of the national origins of our name. It resulted in claiming that our ancestry was Dutch rather than German. A pointless distinction to actual Americans, but necessary for local harmony.

German-Americans, whether they identified as such or not, faced discrimination, boycotts, and even violent attacks. These were brought on by the anger towards Germans that our national propaganda amplified. The Germans were depicted as apes, and were called Huns in a reference to the historical group that attacked and waged war against European countries in earlier history.

We did this because we were at war. And in the Second World War we repeated these characterizations, and included those of Japanese descent, where this time we locked Japanese-Americans in concentration camps out of fear of the possibility of enemy combatants in our own population. You can go to YouTube and find numerous videos from those war years depicting the Japanese as menacing and evil.

And especially when it comes to that last global war, both Japan and Germany did horrible things in the name of conquest. The Chinese were enslaved and slaughtered by the Japanese, and the Germans attempted to exterminate the Jewish people of Europe. There were plenty of other crimes against humanity committed by those countries, and even some by those defending against them. But the fact remains that they wouldn’t have happened had the wars of expansion and aggression hadn’t been started.

But we can look back on this history and see that it was in the leadership of those countries where the evil lived, and while abominable in their actions, the people were manipulated into those acts by their national leaders. All Germans weren’t antisemitic, and all Japanese weren’t raping and murdering their way through Asia.

But we promoted them as such because we were at war with them, and before that because we were expecting that we may need to fight them. It is far easier to kill other soldiers if we are convinced they are bloodthirsty villains. Today Ukrainian soldiers may well need to apply some of the same propaganda in order to quell any sympathy for the invading army. Sympathy that may be present because the Ukrainian people know that this is Putin’s war, and that were Russia a true democracy, this attack would not have happened.

During those past wars, as well as numerous other wars we engaged in, we promoted the idea that we were fighting against evil people. Now let’s look at today.

The messaging from President Biden, as well as all of his spokespeople, is clear that the fault of this war lies strictly with the leadership of Russia. It is commonplace for us to hear sympathetic words regarding the soldiers of Russia. Not that their cause is just, far from it, but that they are poorly trained and equipped, and that they are being thrust into this war by Putin, and that they are going like lambs to the slaughter. The invasion is a crime, but only some of the soldiers are brutally killing civilians, while the whole of the war is caused by Putin.

And when it comes to China it is similar. It is the Communist party and leadership that has enslaved people in that country, that has arrested and quelled protests, and has harvested organs from political prisoners. It isn’t from the Chinese people, but from the leadership of those people where evil was born.

This distinction is important. If the President was trying to stoke up the people to warfare, the efforts would be to vilify the people of those countries, or at least their soldiers. But what he is doing is separating the people of those countries from the leadership. He is pointing fingers at Xi and Putin, and refraining from blaming their people. If anything, he is encouraging those people to see the benefits of true democracy, with the hope that they will seek to change their regimes.

There is a case to be made for war, but only for one of defense. Defense of ourselves, or defense of other peoples and other countries, which have been attacked and are being threatened.

The global conflict that is threatening us is not one of who controls which borders, but of what kind of governments do people have. Broadly speaking, a collection of democracies where the people decide their future – and have the opportunity to change that decision in time; or one of authoritarianism where power is concentrated in the hands of the few.

All my life I’ve heard people talk about George Orwell and his novel 1984. I have heard numerous persons express fear that we are headed toward such a future, and they seek salvation in the election of a hero who will vanquish the bad guys. This partly explains the rise of Trump. But it is Trump and those like him that are the path to the dystopian future Orwell predicted. Even Trump’s campaign included large images of Trump’s eyes staring out of  a screen. An image eerily reminiscent of the book.

Imagine a world with dictators in China, Russia, and America? With this combined power, who could fight against it? What could the smaller democracies do but bend to the whims of the dictators? What power could the democracies of Europe have to match such global supremacy? Especially with the authoritarian governments that are emerging, and the democracies that are fledgling or failing.

It was Lord Acton of the United Kingdom who coined the phrase, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

And it was the Constitution of the United States that put the whole of the people above the leadership of those people. The formation of this country was and is an effort to spread power out away from the center in order to keep it from concentration. For it is the concentration of power that causes the abuses we see emerging from dictatorships today.

Let’s be clear: The efforts being undertaken by Biden are not to get us into a war, but to demonstrate that our dispersal of power does not make us weak, and that democracy is worth defending wherever it exists. He’s made it clear and unambiguous that we will defend ourselves and NATO, and that we will support democratic governments.

The messaging out of the White House isn’t propaganda, but even if it was, it is directed at the leadership of those countries where democracy has been stifled, and not at the people of those countries.

Should the effort be to stir up the people to war, the messaging would be disparaging to the whole of those countries, and not merely the leadership. As to that leadership, they have earned our scorn.

It is March 31, which marks the one day anniversary of the news that a Manhattan, New York Grand Jury has voted to indict former President Donald John Trump for upwards of thirty felony charges relating to fraud committed in the furtherance of his political career. The crimes took place when he arranged for payment of money to silence a porn star named Stormy Daniels who had sex with Trump while his wife was wither pregnant or recovering from having Trump’s son Barron. Daniels had planned to go public with the information when Trump was running for President in 2016, which Trump felt could damage his political ambitions.

In this case, Trump recorded the payoff as a legal retainer for his then lawyer Michael Cohen, who has already been convicted for that crime. In that case, Trump was identified as co-conspirator number one, though not named directly. Cohen, for his part, saw the error of his ways and made a full confession accepting his wrongdoing, and has since fully cooperated with law enforcement.

Yesterday’s indictment is under seal, and we expect Trump to be arraigned in Manhattan in the coming days, and we’ll get to know the details of the charges, as well as some idea of the steps going forward.

This is a sober moment for our country, as no President, former or current, has ever been indicted on criminal charges. (Former Vice-President Spiro Agnew was charged and convicted of income tax evasion, and his boss, Richard Nixon, would likely have been charged after his resignation had his successor Gerald Ford not issued him a full pardon “for the good of the nation.”)

But this is also a day of celebration, as we can finally put muscle behind the claim that in America, no one is above the law.

Of course not everyone is happy about this. I spent a couple of hours this morning (while waiting for bread to rise) watching the right-wing media pundits and Trump acolytes go into conniptions over this news. Their responses were predictable, though pathetic. They have taken up the torch of desperation and moved from pearl-clutching to accusations of politically motivated bias. To them, the Manhattan District Attorney, as well as the grand jury are all corrupt leftists, funding by George Soros. (This last is a dog whistle to antisemitism, as Soros is an internationally known Jew of European birth.)

All of this whining both angered and amused me. It angered me because each of their screeds were nothing but gaslighting and lies, but likely to inflame the base they inform. And it is likely that we will see violence perpetrated against Americans by these fascist supporting dupes. While it amused me to see them sweat and squirm.

Their words claimed that this will drive support for Trump, and guarantee his election to President next year, though their eyes told a different story. A story of fear, for some of these people can see themselves facing similar legal jeopardy in the future, and others the demise of their careers.

This is especially outlandish coming from the talking heads on Fox network, who have already been outed for knowingly lying about Trump and his culpability between themselves in private emails – which have come to light as part of lawsuits by Dominion Voting Systems, who is suing Fox for 1.6 Billion dollars over that networks false and malicious claims of fraud by Dominion during the 2020 Presidential election. Yes, Fox knew Trump lost and that Dominion did nothing wrong, but they claimed it anyway.

And I sit here with my spirits lifted by this news, and not a small amount concerned about what might befall our country for this action. Hopefully the MAGA base will confine themselves to kvetching and weeping, and refrain from violent acts. Though here I may be the one who is naive.

And no, I don’t think this will catapult Trump to the Presidential victory in 2024, but I do believe it will inspire and encourage his faithful. What will happen in the next election is unknowable. Trump lost by over seven million votes in the last election (though five million of these were in California alone), and it is unlikely he has gained popularity since then. But the political left isn’t a unified mass. The Democratic party is somewhat fractured, and a substantial portion prone to apathy in elections. On top of that, we have the current President already the oldest man to be elected to the office, and this in the face of a call for more a more youthful Presidential candidate. It remains to be seen if Biden will run for reelection (though he said he would, he hasn’t declared his candidacy yet). And which Democrat might step into that role should he decide not to, or should age and health catch up with him and end his career in Politics, is not apparent.

We may face troubles here at home, and we may yet face troubles internationally, but today we can take a breath and smile. Finally.

Finally, after all these years of watching the bloviating mobster of an ex-President (from before, during, and after his term) get away with crimes, we are seeing justice come home. This has just begun, and conviction isn’t guaranteed. But it has begun just the same, and this gives hope that the State of Georgia and the US Department Of Justice will follow up with their own charges. Charges for more serious crimes. Crimes which weren’t conducted to get elected, but done to stop the transfer of power after he lost an election.

Breathe. Smile. Take comfort that we have laws and independent prosecutors and juries of the people.

Juries made up of We The People.

The fire in the wood stove and a small oil lamp are enough light to run a brush over the boots I wore today.

This is a pair of casual dress boots. They extend just above the ankle, and have a split reverse welt joining the upper to the insole, midsole,  and sole, which makes them wider than sleeker dress boots. They are dark brown, leather lace up boots, with five sets of eyelets and three sets of speed hooks. They are of derby style, meaning the quarters wrap to the front and over the vamp of the shoe to form the sides holding the eyelets. The toe is plain, with no cap or broguing, and the laces are dark brown cotton. In fact the design is quite simple. A plain vamp with two quarters and a single strip protecting the back. A timeless look that is often called a service boot, but would look very familiar to men a hundred years ago.

But what stands out is the leather. These boots are made of Chromexcel (commonly referred to as CXL, both within the tannery and throughout the wider world wherever it is known.) CXL is a proprietary tannage of Horween Leather Company, Chicago, Illinois. It follows a recipe dating back over a century.

CXL is a combination leather, partly vegetable and partly chrome tanned. (Lots of steps and people.) It is “cooked” as they say, and stuffed with a secret blend of oils and waxes, giving it a slightly (faintly) greasy look. They are a “pull up leather” meaning when the leather is stretched it lightens, then returns to normal when released. It is easily scuffed and marred when bumped around, but they are restored pretty easily. Yes, all I need is a good brush for most of the care for these boots.

Which brings me to the moment of sitting in a comfortable chair near a blazing fire in the wood stove as it is driving away the effects of winter. With a horsehair brush pushing the fats and waxes around and bringing a deep glow to the shoes.

Care starts when I take them off my feet. A quick wipe to remove surface dirt and water that I may have encountered, and inserting a pair of cedar shoe trees. The cedar shoe trees do two important things: they absorb the moisture the leather has taken from your feet – a pint a day, I’ve been informed; and they keep the leather shoe from losing its shape. Every pair of leather shoes should have its own pair of cedar shoe trees.

 This is just an evening brushing, and I’m not adding any lotions or polishes. I tie the laces in a bow and stuff them into the shoe alongside the tongue to get them out of the way. I then take a horsehair brush and briskly brush the whole of the boot, returning from area to area, toe to heel, and watching the low glow appear in the slightly scuffed and formally dull leather. It couldn’t be called a shine, as that implies a reflective surface like a wax. And it would never polish up to that kind of shine anyway. The nature of this leather is that it won’t accept colored polish and wax. It couldn’t mirror shine if you wanted to. You would never pass muster in uniform on a parade ground. No, it isn’t a shine. It’s a gleam. A glow. It looks like the color is deep, almost like a liquid. And on this deep, dark brown leather it is like looking into a vat of dark chocolate.

Each time I bring a brush to these boots I am surprised anew by the rapid return of their good looks. Even in the low lighting of the fire and lamp, the appearance is unmistakable. The boots look good. Solid, sturdy, and comfortable. And as they serve me year after year, I care for them with the respect they deserve. I even remove the heavy scuffs along the inside of the right heel, where it seems I routinely kick myself with the other foot as I transfer myself in and out of the car, and through doors and halls and aisles and sidewalks and pathways of my environs.

Good boots are more than footwear. They are more than fashion and more than protection from the elements. They are more than a tool used in the functioning of life. Good boots are an ally and a formidable part of mission success. Like a jet returning to the aircraft carrier after a sortie, while the pilot is being fed and rested, the plane is cleaned and examined. Checked out and made ready for the next flight. So too should boots be addressed. The minimum is to wipe them down. Removing the dirt and dust of the world, however light it is, prolongs the life of the boots. Brushing raises the temperature of the leather, and brings that gleam we so enjoy. And on boots made of CXL, the brushing moves those oils and waxes around the leather, and scuffs slowly disappear, as if by magic.

As a rule, I don’t wear any shoes more than two days consecutively. A day of rest is a must. And sitting on the rack, polished and smart looking, they are ready to be deployed the next time they are called into service.

Tomorrow I will wear different shoes. Boots probably, as it is January in Michigan. And those boots will have their own properties and characteristics. But like the boots I am brushing, those too will need some small amount of regular care. Brushing and occasional addition of some leather lotion to rehydrate the skin. It is a skin, we know. A skin that has been tanned for longevity. But like rubbing some lotion into your hands to add moisture, tanned leather needs lotion introduced occasionally too. And some boots are typical dyed leather and need additional cream and sometimes wax polishes to restore color and protect them from the elements.

It is some extra care over what a common man might have. He might come home and kick off his outdoor shoes, shoving them in a closet or onto a tray by the door. The next day he stuffs his feet into them, without even the aid of a shoe horn, and off to the day he goes again. He might repeat this process for a year or less before starting the search for another pair, discouraged by how quickly the last pair wore out. He might have confined his search to the cheapest products he can find, or he might spend a sizable amount to meet the standards needed for his work.

I have worked in hard work environments. Places where safety-toes were required, and where boots would get kicked and soiled, stained and scuffed. Whether it was working at a steel company or walking the steel decks of a freighter or tanker on the high seas, I usually received an allowance every other year for a new pair of boots. Two years is how long we expected them to last. Little did I know in the early days how long a pair could last with some regular attention.

The boots I have now will likely be with me and in my wear rotation for the rest of my life. I have several pairs, roughly divided between summer and winter with some crossover to both. The care of the boots is up to me. And when I eventually wear through the life of the sole, all the boots I own can have their soles replaced for a fraction of the cost of a new pair, and an entire new cycle awaits.

This matters more to me than it did back in my youth. I might have had boots I liked and wanted to keep, and boots I wish I could find the equal to, but boots all went the way of the landfill too soon, and often for lack of good care.

And shoes were all too often cheap, and made of inferior materials. Cemented together in some Chinese factory, designed to cover the feet in a presentable manner for under a hundred bucks. Those shoes wouldn’t last regardless of what care regimen I followed. They would lose their shape, or the lining would wear through, or they would get wet and the cement would fail, leaving an unsightly mess.

But I am getting older. (Like we all are – hopefully.) And now I want shoes that reflect me better. Quality shoes and boots for a quality person. A good man needs good shoes, and life is too short for cheap shoes. And I want shoes that I can keep for a long time. Like how I want to last a long time myself. For this I need care too. So attention to diet, and engaging in exercise are a must, as well as cleaning and resting. There will come a point where I end up in a landfill of sorts. How far away that is depends a great deal on me, saving room in that process for the will of the Fates.

On an evening that a younger me would have spent carousing, I now find joy in caring for the boots that care for me.

It is now 2023, and I started thinking about the changes in a century. These are my notes.

In the year 1923

Less than 40% of homes had electricity.

1% had a radio.

About one-third had a phone.

Letters by postal delivery was the primary form of communication over any distance, even within the same city.

Telegrams were for emergencies, business, and the wealthy.

Electric refrigeration was virtually non-existent. People used blocks of ice to chill insulated boxes. They put a sign in the window with how big a block they wanted the iceman to deliver.

People still went to see vaudeville, but “moving pictures” at the cinema were becoming more popular.

At the cinema, those moving pictures, or “movies” were silent only. And it was still several years before theaters were air-conditioned.

People got most of their news from the newspaper, which often had multiple editions a day printed.

It was still common to see horse-drawn wagons in the cities, and the last horse-drawn fire engine was retired in New York City just the year before.

Most people had just a couple outfits of clothing (other than workwear), consisting of “Sunday best), along with typical daily attire.

Two pairs of shoes wasn’t uncommon (dress and rough wear), and there was a good chance the boys around the neighborhood wore sneakers.

There were commercial air flights available (for those who could afford it), but most people traveled by train or bus when on land, and the only way for a passenger to cross an ocean was by ship.

For suburban residents who worked in the cities, the commute was about the same as today, but it meant a train ride and some walking.

If your house was more than 20 years old, it probably was built without a bathroom. And if you lived in the country, you still had an outhouse. The “tub, sink, toilet” bathroom of today was really an invention of the 1920s.

Toilet paper – mostly for city and suburban homes (the country folk still had their Sears and Roebuck catalogs), was advertised as “splinter-free,” as a mark of quality.

There were some prepared foods available, but most cooking was done from scratch. And people ate a lot less meat and dairy than today.

I could go on for pages with some of these interesting (I think) differences between then and now, but the decade of the 1920s was rapidly innovating and advancing. By the end of the decade phones, electricity, plumbing, and gas cooking would be commonplace in the home. Talking pictures “Talkies” would be universal, and private automobile ownership widespread.

Naturally it makes one wonder what life will be like in a hundred years hence. But if you are thinking about making predictions, first go to your computer search engine (A phrase that people would not comprehend a century ago) and look up what people in the 1920s thought the future would look like. It will bring some laughs and teach some humility.

The Presidency of Donald Trump was terrible for our country. We came within an eyelash of losing the Republic to an authoritarian cult leader, who went out the door trying to overthrow the country – an effort that he continues today.

Frequently Trump failed to execute the duties of his job and the oath to the Constitution. Twice he was Impeached by the House of Representatives, an unprecedented record that will follow him through history. Today, he is under investigation in several criminal and civil cases in several places in the country. His company is currently in court defending against charges of fraud.

Since regaining control of the House of Representatives in 2018, and the Presidency and Senate in 2020, the Democratic Caucus in Washington has worked tirelessly to pass laws to help the people. In spite of a narrow majority in the House and a split Senate needing tie-breaking votes, they have managed to pass numerous important bills to help move the country forward. They include:

The Inflation Reduction Act – Health care and climate, including lowering prescription drug prices and addressing climate change. It also will reduce the deficit by $300B through a minimum tax on billion dollar corporations and a 1% tax on stock buybacks.

The American Rescue Plan Act – Direct aid to Americans suffering from the effects of the pandemic, along with numerous government sponsored programs to help, including help finding health care, food subsidies, rental assistance, small business assistance, and others. It also increased earned income and child tax credits, and made millions more people eligible for ACA coverage. This probably moved more people out of poverty than anything in recent memory.

The CHIPs Act – Investing in America by making silicon chips here in America to reduce our dependency in China.

The Pact Act – Expands VA coverage to service personnel exposed to burn pits in combat.

*The Safer Communities Act – The first legislation to address firearm deaths in decades, which includes mental health action, school safety, gun safety, and red flag laws.

Infrastructure Investment And Jobs Act – A once in a generation investment in American infrastructure and competitiveness. This goes way beyond roads and bridges, and will move the country forward like nothing before.

And so much of these actions will create good, high-paying careers and union jobs. It is clear that it is the Democratic party who supports American labor.

There are more accomplishments, but this is enough. These are all things we’ve needed to do but couldn’t get done because of D.C. gridlock.

The Democrats have more plans to help the people going forward.

What about the Republicans?
Apart from largely opposing all (Except *) of the legislation above, including the PACT Act!, they have promised nothing but political retribution for attempts to stop a criminal President. And, for the most part, continued support for the insurrection that tried to overturn the will of the people and end our Republic.
And they promise to continue the culture war they started by pandering to the lowest common denominator of hate for immigrants, women, LBGTQ and anyone different.

And they promise to continue their assault against those they call “woke.”

For all practical purposes, the GOP is now the MAGA party. They shouldn’t even be called Republicans. They are (with some few exceptions) in awe of fascistic leaders and global strongmen. While some are decent people who were merely too cowardly to stand up to the fascists, most are actively for it. Winning power to keep it.

Please folks. Please. This isn’t hard. One party is working to make things better for all Americans, while the other has selected a group of “real” Americans who get privileged treatment.

Should Republicans regain power they have promised to spend their time and legislative energy seeking revenge on political enemies. They have promised to Impeach Joe Biden (apparently for the crime of being elected by the majority), and stripping the federal government of power. This means eliminating departments like the Department of Education, Department of Energy, and the Social Security Administration. Yes, the Republican platform of 2022 calls for requiring renewel votes on Social Security and Medicare every five years. This has been a conservative ambition for decades. They want to privatize Social Security and Medicare, and force people to seek this services in the private sector. This means insurance companies can gate keep funding medical needs, and turning the lifeline that Social Security is to tens of millions of Americans over to Wall Street, so they can steal it.

After 50 years of yelling that abortion is a right that should be left up to the states, Republicans have offered a bill that would ban abortions throughout the country after fifteen weeks.

They’re coming for control over our bodies, control over our gender, control over whom we can marry, and the end of majority rule in America.

One party wants to earn your votes again, while the other wants to make your vote superfluous.

This is serious stuff folks, and not the time for chasing ideals, or voting because gas prices are too high.

Vote for Democrats in every race.

Recently Florida Governor Rod DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott conspired to trick migrants from Venezuela and fly them unannounced to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. No one in Martha’s Vineyard was informed of this, and there are no available facilities to receive unhoused migrants there.

The people of that small community rose to the moment and welcomed the migrants, housing and feeding them until the Governor of Massachusetts arranged for transportation and housing at a base on Cape Cod.

It turns out that prior to being flown to Martha’s Vineyard, the migrants were assigned locations to check in on the following Monday morning that were scattered across the country everywhere but Massachusetts, thereby ensuring that they would miss their asylum appointments and be in violation of the terms of immigration under that provision. This seems to have been done intentionally to ensure that all of these asylum seekers would be returned to Venezuela – the place they were fleeing out of fear for their lives and safety.

It is plain to the eye that Governor DeSantis was foisting these asylum seekers on states he perceives as Democratic (though the Governor of Massachusetts is Republican) in an attempt to create a crisis for political purposes. He even sent along an official photographer to capture the chaos and outrage he expected.

The position from the Republican party is that migrants seeking asylum and refugees are an annoyance and burden on their states and communities, and that Democratic politicians have failed to address the problem, seemingly to allow unfettered access to the United States by any number of people from Latin America, regardless of national laws.

I’ll note right here that Democrats have comprehensive immigration reform on the table and ready for votes, but these solutions have been blocked in Congress by Republicans. This suggests that Republicans are not interested in solutions to immigration issues, but only chaos and crises to use as political tools in upcoming elections.

I’m going to talk about humanity in a moment. But first I’ll say some words about race and ethnicity.

Over the last twenty years it has become clear that demographic shifts in the US population has Caucasian people (white people) will lose their majority status in the United States around the middle of this century. That is +/- thirty years. This appears to be a real problem for some in this country. I should be more clear, it is a problem to those in the country who believe that skin color is a marker of nationality. That is to say that these people believe that America is and ought to be a white majority country.

While most Republican politicians refrain from saying this outloud, it is clear from their response to immigrants from Latin America and from Africa and Asia are negative, while little if anything is mentioned of immigrants from northern European countries. Black and brown immigrants are identified as invaders, while white immigrants are positive infusion of new people to our melting pot.

The punditry of the right is less guarded. When they speak of brown and black immigrants they use words like dirty and criminal. They speak about how “real” Americans didn’t get to vote on the changing demographics, and that these changes are ruining the greatness of the country.

Awash in all of this is what is referred to as The Great Replacement Theory. A conspiracy theory that claims Democratic politicians are encouraging the immigration of brown and blacks to replace the white majority with a population more compliant to Democratic agendas.

Yes, Great Replacement Theory is entirely racist. There isn’t a single reasonable argument supporting it, either in fact or intention.

Simply put, the world over we see non-white skinned people are increasing in numbers, and white people have decreasing birth rates. Because the US has a majority white population, and because white birth rates are slowing, the population of the country has slowed its growth. In fact, were it not for immigration, the US population would be shrinking.

While the white population will not be the majority in the future, it will remain the largest category of race. We will become a majority minority country. Which is to say there will be more non-whites than whites. (This includes black, brown, Asian, etc.)

The answer from the right is predictably racist. Slow the immigration of non-whites, and try to increase the birth rates of whites. Of the latter, one can see the right-wing attack on abortion rights as one piece of evidence. Though black and brown people have abortions too, the vast majority of advertising against abortion show pictures of white babies and white parents.

There are several avenues to immigration into America. One is applying for immigrant status. Another is coming on a temporary work permit. Another is as a refugee from conflict. Another is seeking asylum from threats of persecution based on politics, race, gender, sexual orientation, or economic condition. All of these are legal, and make up the bulk of those who enter the United States.

Of those who come on work visas, some number of them remain in country after their visa expire, making them undocumented persons. We may add to that the numbers who cross into the country without permission at all.

The political right treats all brown and black immigrants as if they are in this last category, and they refer to them as illegals. I have never heard them mention a single white person as such, even though there are numbers of them too.

But in all of these cases we are talking about people. Actual people making tough choices about how they are going to survive in this world, and how they will provide opportunity for their children. No one is bringing their children and what belongings they can carry across hundreds or thousands of miles for any other reason than they believe it is necessary. Whether people are allowed in is a matter of law.

The laws of the United States permit both refugees and asylum seekers. The former must be declared refugees before coming, while the latter must first enter the country before asking for asylum. This is legal.

Those who came from Venezuela recently, and were tricked into agreeing to be transported by DeSantis’ agents were here in this country lawfully. And the federal government has systems in place to process and register these people, who will then have their claims of asylum investigated and reviewed. Some certain numbers are turned away if found that their claims do not merit our protection.

But at the very start of this we have people who are desperate enough to pack up their belongings and traipse across the continent to our border and ask for protection and help. It seems the obvious humane thing to hold out our hands for others in need. We certainly have the room, and we certainly have the need for more people, and we certainly can afford to help them.

So this action by DeSantis seems plainly cruel and indecent. It shows a disregard for the suffering of the people and the willingness to use them as pawns for political gain. The claim that these asylum seekers would find welcome services in Massachusetts and therefore are being helped rings untrue in light of the surreptitious way in which they were transported, and the attempts to sabotage their asylum claims.

What we have today in the Republican party is not simply people who have a different idea of how government should work, or how immigration should be managed. What we see is intentional cruelty. And it is cruelty based on race and ethnicity. The Republican party has picked a favored race, a favored gender, and a favored religion. They are cruelly using the tools of state to harm and punish those who seek our help, and discourage the shift in demographics that the world is experiencing.

It appears that Governor DeSantis has violated federal law in this action. Whether he faces legal consequences or not, we can hope he at least faces political consequences.

And we can also hope that Americans broadly recognize that it isn’t skin color that makes one American. And it isn’t religion or ethnicity either. Hopefully the people will agree that our diversity is a good and great feature of this country.

And hopefully we can keep this fascist Republican party from regaining power and implementing their racist and theocratic agenda.

The answer is no. At least I think it is. And I get that partly from my unwillingness to surrender to their rule.

But I ask the question because I am not certain, and I am concerned that too few Americans recognize how close we are to losing control of this country to fascism.

I spent enough years inculcated by conspiracy theories and tales of secret ruling parties and hidden agendas of world domination. I was saved by critical thinking, a practice I always used a little here and there, but came to adopt as my operating program for discerning truth. I don’t know that there was a clear line in the sand, but it might well have been the proposition that multi-dimensional, shape-shifting, reptilian overlords are controlling the governments of the western world, and acting as replicants to replace actual world leaders. Yeah, when I was told Queen Elizabeth II and George W. Bush were Lizard-People, I realized how detached the whole New World Order conspiracy had become from reality.

But something I learned while I was romping around in the mud of global conspiracy hogwash did make sense. And that is about the hidden part. How will we know when the global cabal has successfully enslaved us all? The answer is: they will stop hiding.

They will stop hiding should they gain complete control, because at that point there is nothing we can do to stop them.

But this part is intuitive. We have been told since childhood that one day the evil one will reveal himself. (At least if you were raised Christian, or around enough of them.) As a young adult I was captivated by the notions of the Antichrist and people being forced to bear the mark of the beast. All of this would happen after the Antichrist gained control.

And watch enough crime mysteries and the bad guy always has a moment of reveal where he exposes his entire evil plot to the hero because he thinks it too late to stop him.

But how late is too late? Even some of James Bond’s climatic escapes and destruction of the villain’s plot seemed laughably implausible. (Maybe all of them.) But surely we aren’t going to rely on James Bond, or any other fictional superhero-come-to-life to save us? Surely we aren’t all going to standby and hope for some savoir to rise up and vanquish fascism? We all need to be James Bond or Derek Flint. Or Captain America. And our superpowers can be our large numbers. The will of the people.

So why do I ask if the Fascists have already won?

Because they are acting like it. They are no longer hiding or masquerading or disguising or diluting or dismissing their overt racism. They are no longer operating with plausible deniability like they used to. The Ku Klux Klan wore hoods so they couldn’t be identified outside of their group. The hoods have come off.
The talk of “traditional American values and culture” was a euphemism for white power, but now they just say white people are being replaced. They’ve taken off the hoods, mostly.

I listened to reporting about the CPAC conference held recently in Texas. CPAC is Conservative Political Action Committee. I saw clips from several speakers, which included accurate context, but I didn’t watch the whole thing myself. I didn’t have the stomach for it, and there are others who are willing to sit through it and report back to the rest of us. They have openly taken an anti-trans, anti-woke, anti-immigrant, anti-woman, and most recently an anti-race-mixing platform. This last was done when they invited the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as Keynote speaker.

Orbán has shattered real democracy in Hungary, and though he did this by gaining popularity, the loss of that would not result in him losing power, as he has dismantled many of the tools citizens use to effect change peacefully. He is an authoritarian in all the true senses of that word. And he is racist and xenophobic. His most recent alarming statement was making it clear that he thinks race-mixing is a great wrong that should be prevented. Europeans could mix, but not with other races. And combined with other statements he has made over time, he isn’t talking about skin color mixing only, though that is certainly included. He also means Jews. He seems particularly concerned with Jews and Romani peoples.
Last year CPAC went to Hungary to hold their rally. Many people asked why would an American conservative PAC hold its convention in a foreign country, but the answers didn’t satisfy anyone. The unspoken answer is that they liked the nationalistic and authoritarian message they heard coming from there. But now they invite him to amplify the white power message right here in America.

And other speakers at the conference, prominent actors in the conservative movement and in the Republican party, voiced similarly disturbing viewpoints. They went from anti-woke to anti-immigrant to anti-democracy. They were particularly concerned about pronouns, but not so much to actually look up what the word means, apparently. They were rabidly concerned that they appeared tough. And here they miss the mark widely, and settle for sounding bitter and mean, spiteful and superior to those who are different.

A decade ago, the most of them would hide behind couched phrases instead of overt racism and anti-semitism. Now they invite openly anti-semitic leaders to headline their shows. Now they stand in front of a camera and microphone and publicly denounce the “other.” Whether it be your color, your language, your gender, your sexual orientation, your religion, or even political affliliation, if you are not cis-gender, white, gun-owning Christian, you are not welcome.

Long gone is the “Big Tent” GOP. They are no longer interested in gaining support from the other. And they aren’t even interested in appealing to the middle ground of America who isn’t overtly racist and doesn’t hate the Jews. They don’t want that support.

The conservative movement has gone fully conspiracy crazy, and is ardently pro-white and wants a Christian theocracy. They would terminate rights for many Americans and replace the government of, by, and for the American people, with one of, by, and for the “Real American people.” And here “Real Americans” are the straight, white Christians.

This new conservative movement talks openly of dismantling the government agencies that are investigating the corruption and crime of the previous President, and avenging these actions with retribution. They are openly threatening to do harm to these people when Republicans retake control of the federal government. They are promising to Impeach the current President and Vice-President, apparently for getting elected.

They aren’t trying to hide it anymore.

That led me to the question: Why not?

My instinct is that they have miscounted their support among the people. That they have overestimated their numbers. Like the “Moral Majority” of the 1980s, the current “Silent Majority” isn’t either of those things. They confine themselves to confirmation bubbles where they come to believe their view is shared widely. I saw this in a quote by Trump supporting election denier who said that Biden couldn’t have won because he didn’t know anyone who had voted for him.

But what if it is more than that? What if this fascist movement knows something we don’t? What if they know they already have enough control at state levels, and know that the Supreme Court is going to hand all election powers to state legislatures without requiring popular vote or state court challenges?

Don’t mistake this last. There is a case coming before SCOTUS next session that could decide in a warped interpretation of the 12th Amendment, it would allow no challenge to a decision by state legislatures to set aside a popular vote and select their own slate of electors.
Democracy in America is at the edge of the cliff. And there is a concerted effort by many powerful people to push it over.

The only chance we have to keep it is to push back now, and hard. We must make it clear in the coming elections that we have the numbers to keep democracy. Because keeping democracy is a worthy fight, and a lot easier than winning it back again.

The bad guys have quit hiding what they are. Is this because they have won? Or merely believe they have won?

In either case we are in too precarious a spot to ignore this threat.

Vote.

For all that’s going on in United States politics, courts, and civil turmoil, there is also an international picture. Oh, yeah.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine goes on, and will likely go on for a long time. If something surprising doesn’t happen, this grinding war will go through this year and maybe the next. We, the west, must keep supplying Ukraine and supporting any way we can. There is no good reason to think the Russian government or people will ever halt Putin’s ambition of recreating the borders that Russia had three hundred years ago – as if they are relevant now.

There is a world-wide crisis associated with this. Besides the war, which puts the democratic order of the world under stress, there is a crisis of food. Ukraine is a breadbasket to much of the world. They have great supplies of grain harvested that need to get to many, many countries on several continents soon, or people will starve. Millions of people.
The war by Russia is halting those shipments. They need to move by sea, and the Russians are controlling and blockading the seaports on the Black Sea where these grains would need to ship from.
It is physically impossible to move more than 10% of these grains over land. The only way to avert a massive worldwide crisis is to put them on ships.
To let them through the Russians will certainly want sanctions lifted. Doing that will give them the ability to destroy Ukraine, and any other country they think belongs under their thumb.

We could send a convoy of NATO ships into the Black Sea to escort the grain ships out, but that could lead to combat with Russia. We should be prepared for that as a reality. We can’t let the world starve, and we can’t let Russia attack and conquer whomever they want. So this may happen. And we may go to war.

And, if that wasn’t enough, Britain is mobilizing its armed forces. This is preventative. The new head of their armed forces sees in this moment the reflection of 1937. That was the year their Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sought appeasement with Germany and Adolph Hitler. He traded accepting Germany’s grab of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland in exchange for peace with the rest of Europe. Hitler was lying and later invaded Poland.
Britain will not be fooled again, and is preparing and mobilizing for a war, as a means to sustain peace. Russia will not invade other countries when facing a formidable and prepared force.

This is our reality. We are closer to a big war than we’ve been since WWII. And with some certain justification. Any plan to accede to Russian demands will only be more painful later.
We must consider it a real threat that such a war is possible.

The good news, if that is the correct phrase, is that NATO is overwhelmingly more powerful than Russia. More powerful than Russia and China combined. There is no conceivable scenario that we would lose such a war, though there is every reason to believe that it would be costly, both in money and lives. And it would upset the normalcy we’ve been accustomed to these last 7 decades.

To a great degree we have no choice. We are part of NATO. As we all know, NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The purpose of forming NATO was to create an alliance of countries with rock solid commitments to defend each other if attacked. This was formed and has worked to sustain peace for all these years. It has been largely untested. It has sat for all this time as a deterrent to foreign aggression. With a moderate force stationed in many European countries as a tripwire, an attack on which would trigger the response of all NATO forces, but which forces would not be large enough to repel attackers.
NATO has changed readiness in light of this Russian attack. It is now deploying and readying forces sufficient to repel attacks in these border countries. The goal is to make attacking NATO countries so likely to fail that Russia will not try. This is a smart play. Russia has the GDP equivalent of Italy, and has no chance against the military of NATO. This isn’t even a close match. This is the Superbowl champion team, along with all of the playoff teams, playing against a high school varsity team. And since the disaster they’ve experienced in their attack on Ukraine, it is that high school team without four of their starting lineup.

They have no chance.

Why would they attack if they have no chance? Well, they likely wouldn’t. And that is why we prepare fully to give them no chance. That is how wars are prevented. But if they did, it would be with the assistance of other countries, and with the help of internal conflicts within the NATO countries. This includes, and mostly affects the USA. Should America face internal civil conflict, or should pro-Russian politicians regain power in the US, it is possible that the US contingent to NATO could be withheld.

These reasons and others are why we need to deepen our commitment to keeping the Democratic party in the majority in the House or Representatives, and expanding the majority in the Senate. Should we lose this, Ukraine will lose, and Russia will control the food supply to a large part of the world. And Russia (as well as China) will have free rein to attack and subjugate whatever country suits them. This will doom the planet to something similar to the world of the book, 1984, by George Orwell, with three mutually powerful countries locked in perpetual war and each led by an authoritarian leader. It doesn’t matter what his name is, if Big Brother is in charge.

The previous US President, Donald Trump, held an isolationist stance, and pursued alienation of allies while cozying up to the adversarial dictators. It is possible he believed he was “keeping his enemies closer” to borrow a phrase from The Godfather. (1972 film about the American Mafia that Trump and his family members quote all too frequently.) But he did it so ham-handedly that it was plain for all to see. And since his actions were almost entirely for show to a home audience of his political base, there wasn’t any real follow up or enforcement of the tough talk. And, since his administration mostly pursued an agenda of corruption and self-enrichment, it was easy for those various dictators to flatter his ego and bribe him with contracts for him and his family. For the same reasons he put around himself foreign policy advisors who would just agree with whatever he wanted, leaving him effectively without sound advice.

The current President, Joseph Biden, has four decades of experience as Senator and as Vice-President with a wealth of foreign policy experience. Further, he has selected for his cabinet other well-qualified diplomats and advisors to whom he actually listens. He and his team have reunified the countries within NATO to stand against the Russian aggression, and has also sewn up the relationships with most of the rest of the world, with particular attention to those bordering the Pacific Ocean.

This segues to China. Here I will be speaking of both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland, as well as the Republic Of China (ROC) on the Island of Taiwan.

Though most people in America who are at all familiar with that region believe that they are two separate nations. This isn’t technically true.
During World War II both communist and nationalist forces were fighting against the Japanese occupation of China. The allied countries worked with both to aid in the destruction of the Japanese military to end the war. After the war was over, those factions continued fighting a civil war for control of China going forward. The communists under Mao Zedong got the upper hand, and the nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek moved to the Island of Taiwan (then Formosa) and established a government in exile. Up until 1979 the US recognized the ROC as a government, but dropped that and recognized the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China, but only acknowledged their authority over Taiwan. The subtle distinction between recognize and acknowledge is full of meaning, and is covered by the US One China Policy. The complicated diplomatic nature of the policy boils down to the US accepting that only one China exists, and that its government is the PRC, but that reunification with Taiwan will only be achieved through peaceful methods, and with the agreement of Taiwan. Which allows the US to continue to support the defense of Taiwan through arms sales and defensive cooperation. Taiwan is a functioning democracy and a significant trading partner with the US and other western nations. The PRC is a single party (Communist) state with severe restrictions on personal liberty, serious human rights violations and ongoing genocide against people within its borders, and no means for the people to express a desire for self-determination.

In short, so long as the mainland is run by communist and authoritarian rule, the US will defend Taiwan from attack. (So long as the US remains a democracy itself.) And the long term hope is that the Chinese mainland will themselves come to embrace democratic principles and eschew communism.

But, the current President of China, and head of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping has territorial ambitions rivaling those of the Russian President Valadimir Putin. Xi intends to restore the borders of China to that of some earlier time, and seeks to dominate Asia and the western Pacific Ocean region. He has pledged to return Taiwan to the control of the PRC and has said that he would use the military if necessary. He intends to be the most consequential leader of China in the modern era. Etching his name in stone alongside the Khans of old.

This puts the world on a bit of a collision course between democracy and authoritarianism. While the democratic nations in alliance are vastly more powerful, they hinge on the strength of the United States. And it requires the cooperation of many different people. Dictators can manage that with a few phone calls and handshakes.
Should the US become embroiled in civil war it might put the burden of such a contest upon the various lesser nations involved, such as those in NATO, plus Australia, Japan, and possibly India, along with various other smaller countries. One can easily speculate that should that civil war begin, and should China and Russia use that event as cover to continue their aggression, the various other nations would refrain from conflict on their own, and NATO would agree to concessions with Russia to avoid direct conflict.

So, can the United States conduct a two-front war against China and Russia, while fighting a civil war within its own borders? That is unknown. Much of that will depend on which party holds power in the Executive and Legislative branches. Because of the size of the nuclear arsenal possessed by the USA, it is likely NATO countries would involve themselves in such a civil war, if only to ensure the security of those weapons.
As it is in the interest of Russia and China that such an internal conflict arises in the US, we can expect them to continue to foment it.

The defense against that should necessarily include pressing for such instability within the borders of those nations as well.

The situation in Russian is untenable over the long haul. The sanctions imposed on Russia are crippling the economy and restricting the ability of them to get critical parts and technology they need to support their machinery and armament manufacturing. Russia has imposed large controls over their economy and the effect on the citizenry has been mitigated, but this cannot last. The loss of over one thousand international companies, along with the inability for Russia to access world funds, will become increasingly difficult for the populace to sustain. And the casualties they are experiencing in the war against Ukraine cannot long be covered up by the government.
In China they also have cracks in the stability they project to the world. Between vast amounts of general corruption and internal power conflicts, there is growing unrest within that country. There are huge failures in home building projects that were pre-purchased by consumers, and banks are having difficulty supplying money to their customers, with bank runs becoming commonplace.
The effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic have severely affected China, and this along with bad weather has harmed crop yields. This is particularly troubling because China already relies on many other countries to supply them with food products – grains in particular. These grains come from NATO or NATO friendly countries, such as Canada, the USA, and Australia. While China has been investing in various places in the world to increase their influence and ensure their food supply, at this time they cannot sustain their people should these countries become belligerents.
As I mentioned earlier, the US under President Biden has sewn up alliances and friendly relations with numerous Asian and Pacific countries who have traditional relationships with the west, and who feel increasingly under threat of being dominated by China in the years ahead. And while China has cut deals with many of the Pacific Ocean countries, particularly in Oceania, they have been haphazard and without coordination towards a goal.

President Xi has not left his country in over eighteen months, and many sense that he is afraid of a coup while away. He is on the verge of being reelected for a third term of five years, after the two-term limit was removed after his last election. His grip on the country seems secure, but his rise to power came with a campaign against corruption that hurt many of his political opponents. Those people have not forgotten. The tradition of corruption in China has not disappeared, and this may become Xi’s downfall.

Xi may well have intended to either coerce Taiwan into abandoning self-rule with threat of force, or to use such force had Donald Trump been reelected in the USA. Trump has frequently said that current President Biden was going to have to deal with China attacking Taiwan, and that this and the Russian attack on Ukraine wouldn’t have happened had he been elected. Of course this is nonsense, as it is clear that Trump showed great favor towards the leaders of both of those countries, and was toying with leaving NATO, which many insiders have said he would have done had he retained the Presidency. There is little doubt that Trump would have remained isolationist, and refuse to get involved.

It appears that Russian President Vladamir Putin overestimated the internal conflict in the US, and underestimated NATO’s resilience, as well as Biden’s ability to build support for Ukraine. He also seems to have been misled by his own intelligence agencies, who promised him an easy victory over the power structure in Ukraine, as well as significant aid from paramilitary groups within Ukraine that were friendly towards Russia.

Xi does not seem to be making that same mistake. He seems more willing to wait and see what the outcome of the next two elections will say about the direction of the US. Should authoritarians retake power, this would make his position against Taiwan stronger. And should the Democratic Party remain in power, and an insurgency arise causing great civil unrest or civil war, this would also give him greater confidence in launching such an invasion.
Xi’s own political power and internal difficulties might force him to act sooner out of fear that waiting might weaken his support.

The best approach the US and allies can pursue, as I see it, is to covertly try to foment the downfall of Xi in China, by creating chaos internally, either by stoking the economic and cultural unrest, or by creating the fear among other Chinese leaders that he will launch them into a massively destructive war against Taiwan – or both.
And in Russia it seems inevitable that Putin will fall, though it is unlikely his replacement will be much better, it may at least cause an end to the attack on Ukraine. Which would bolster support for Biden, and thus democracy in America.

And strengthening democracy in America is the most important of all results. Without a doubt, the failure of democracy in the United States would be a harbinger of doom for freedom the world over, as there is little doubt that it could be sustained long without the anchor that the US provides.

The end goal is a theocracy

This is the desire of the Christo-fascist force driving the political right in the 21st Century. The success of placing federalist justices on the Supreme Court over the last couple of decades is paying dividends for this group. The recent decision to overturn the half-century old Roe Vs. Wade decision that had protected women’s reproductive rights and allow abortion up to viability is only one step.

SCOTUS is using federalist ideas to reduce the federal government to a few basic duties. National defense, Interstate Commerce, etc.

The next thing you’ll see will be in the coming week or so, is stripping the enforcement provisions of federal agencies, and ruling that each enforcement must be enacted by Congress.

This will effectively neuter every federal agency to do what they were created to do. The EPA, OSHA, SEC, etc. Congress will have to vote on if yellow vests are required on construction sites, or how much ventilation is in coal mines. The EPA may rule that dumping toxins into a river is not allowed, but compliance will become voluntary unless Congress or the individual states pass enforcement for that rule. We should expect that only the most egregious violations of rules will get Congressional attention, and the trend will be to push these enforcements to the individual states.

Then, as was telegraphed by overturning Roe v Wade, all protections implied in the Constitution are on the block. All that will remain are those specified in the Constitution or Amendments. So, yes, slavery will still be outlawed, and universal suffrage will remain intact. But any others, be it same-sex marriage, any trans-rights, contraception, or whatever else, will all be subject to reversal. This is no joke. This is the plan. If it isn’t specifically granted as a freedom, it will be stripped. Provisions of the 9th and 10th Amendments notwithstanding.

But down the road, after state laws against abortion and laws against travel to other states for abortions fails to eliminate it in many states, the states-rights position of the theocratic right wing will be supplanted by a national law against abortion to protect “the life of the child” after declaring that life begins at conception.

The Separation of Church and State is not an exact phrase in the Constitution. The first Amendment says the government cannot establish a religion, and protects people’s right to practice one, but keeping religion out of school is implied by that Amendment. It will not stand this Court. We shall see this be decided in the coming years.

This all hinges on the upcoming elections. Not only this year (though this is the most important) but over the next ten years.

As numbers of electors and Representatives to Congress are decided by decennial census as required in Article 1 of the Constitution, and as this count happened two years ago, all such representation and electoral representation will remain for the rest of this decade. This is regardless of how many people are in those states.

As draconian laws in some “purple” states drive minority groups out seeking more favorable states, the purple in those states will return to red. This will create an even greater disparity between popular will and electoral power. I can imagine a future Presidential election where the winning electoral candidate receives 8 or 10 million fewer popular votes. Maybe even in 2024 or 2028.

This may well trigger greater social unrest, and might result in the use of the military to “insure domestic tranquility” as provided in the Constitution’s preamble.

This will clearly lead to a concentration of power into the hands of fewer and fewer people.

This sounds very dark, and it is. It is also avoidable. This only happens if We The People let it.

We are supposed to be a government of, by, and for the people. And it is through our participation in our government, particularly by exercising our vote, that we build upon the founders’ vision to push power away from the center.

Three immediate steps must be taken. The first is that we must stop accepting that both parties are the same or so similar that there isn’t a real difference. This is not true. One is a party supporting democracy, diversity, and individual rights; while the other is pressing for what should be called “Christo-Fascism.” This may be hidden from view, but it is clear to see if you follow their own intentions to a conclusion.

I would love it if we had parliamentarian rules that gave a percentage of power to parties based on votes, so more representation of third parties would occur. But that requires amending the Constitution, which isn’t going to happen. We have a winner take all system. So third party advocates must bite the bullet and accept that voting for Democratic party candidates is the only viable option for now. They would be wise to use whatever numbers they have to influence the Democrats to endorse some of their platform positions once elected. But this is a time of picking a side. We will all suffer the consequences should the right win.

The second is that liberal-minded people living in purple states must remain there. I understand that it will be uncomfortable, and at times possibly dangerous. The rest of us will do what we can to help. But if they leave, those states and all their electors will go to the right. And this will give control of Congress to that Christo-fascist power structure. This could happen after this year’s election. A loss of Congress will not put moderate Republicans back in charge of their party now that Trump appears to be gone. Trump was a tool of the theocrats to gain power. He was and is awful, but he was only a temporary face of the problem. The theocrats, using MAGA or whatever brand of authoritarian “nuttery” they offer will be in charge. Most of the rest of the Republicans are federalists in any case. And federalism is a political ideology to support plantation owners. By limiting the reach of the federal government, oligarchs of every stripe can buy the influence necessary to control the states they are in.

Once back in power there will be no more progress, and immediate regression will begin. Expect Impeachments of Biden and Harris, and prosecution of Attorney General Garland, Speaker Pelosi, and others. The first two years of their power will be a revenge tour.

The third thing we must do is register and vote. We must overwhelm with our larger numbers the inequity created by the electoral college and the distribution of Senators. We must do this going forward for as long as we wish to have this Republic remain democratic. But this coming election is the most critical.

This is it folks. This is our moment.

The founders of this country, for all the problems they had, shared the precepts of the age of reason. They recognized the tendency for power to concentrate, and the need to establish a system of government that pushed the power out to the people. And in that they trusted the whole of the people to make decisions better than those made by concentrated power. And they drafted a Constitution that could be changed over time as The People saw fit.

We have to do it folks. This is our fight. We may revere the actions of the patriots who fought to give us this nation, and the actions of those who fought to preserve it four-score and seven years later; but generations hence they will look to us to see what happened. Will we fail them?

Power To The People!

Many will recognize these words from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. He gave the address while consecrating a cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, following the victory of the Army of The Potomac in the battle that was fought there four months earlier. He was speaking of the soldiers who had died in that battle, and offered the wish that they shall not have died in vain.

The speech was not well thought of at the time, but has since become regarded as one of the finest in our history. The last line asked that, “government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

A study of history of this country, or any country for that matter, often begins with the battles that were fought, the issues that those battles decided, and the leaders who held power and directed the country and forces through those battles. My historical education began no differently. The causes of those wars are always addressed, though often superficially, as the final exam will mostly be on the who, what, where, when, and how of the events. Why is often a deeper question. One that can take as much study as all the rest. It is graduate level stuff, or at least for the pursuit of history majors.

I don’t pretend to be that history major, or dare say a professor to teach these histories; but I do like that dive into the deep end of the pool. I do want to understand what lay behind the decisions that our predecessors made.

When I read those beautiful words of President Lincoln’s I wonder what the motivations were for those men who did give their last full measure.

Today we see the American Civil War as a fight to end slavery, at least from northern historical perspectives. But if you asked Lincoln what it was about, he’d have said first, second, and third that it was preserving the Union.

To Lincoln the Civil War was not fought between the USA and the CSA. It was fought within the USA, and it was started by 11 states of that union entering open rebellion. And the existence of the Confederacy as a nation was in the minds of only those who were in rebellion. They were always part of the United States in Lincoln’s mind. And the point of fighting was to keep it that way.

We know for certain that the primary cause of that rebellion was slavery. That “peculiar institution,” as it was called, and the threat to it that the southern slaveholding states perceived with the political trend across the country, and in particular the election in 1860 of Lincoln to the Presidency.

Lincoln was only the second Presidential candidate for the then new Republican Party. The first being Colonel John C. Fremont four years earlier.

I’ve gone more into detail in other writings, but the short of it is that the Republican Party was formed by abolitionist members of the Whig party. The core principle of the Republican party was the abolition of slavery. And though Lincoln never called for an end to slavery during his campaign, (and even famously said he would keep slavery intact if that would save the Union,) it was the this basic ideal that they held which inspired the slave states to attempt to secede and form their own country where slavery would be permanent.

Later in the 19th century, “lost cause” histories were written framing the civil war as having been fought over states rights, and often referring to it as “the war of northern aggression.” But these were not true. A clear reading of the proclamations, letters, and speeches of the leaders of those same southern states, which were made prior to and at the time they attempted secession, made it clear that it was the right to own slaves that was at the heart of this decision. They saw the black man as beneath the white man, both in intellect and character, and that it was God’s will that they remain in a condition of such servitude.

And don’t be misled into believing that all in the north were abolitionists. This is not true, though it is true that abolition was stronger in the free states than it was in the slave states, so long as you don’t count the voices of those who were so enslaved.

And, as it is today, the north had its share of racists. Even many who supported abolition maintained that while the “negro” should be free from bondage, he would never be the equal to the white man.

But when the call to arms came, what motivated the people to come forward and put their lives on the line? Slavery was certainly a motivating cause, but more because of the long term limitations it placed on the nation than any immediate threat. As mentioned earlier, Lincoln was saving the Union, and the issue of freeing slaves and ending slavery came years into that great conflict. Clearly for both north and south, patriotism to one’s own state was highly motivating. But was that alone enough for this fight?

In the slave south, most of the men called forth to come under arms did not even own slaves. And in the north, large numbers didn’t even object to the institution. (Here as an aside I’ll mention that in reading recently about a popular early choral ensemble, The Hutchinson Family Singers, I read that when they performed for Union soldiers during the war, many of those men complained about the abolitionist songs that the group had become famous for.)

It is easy (but wrong) to paint with a large brush the motivation for all participants in war. Surely there were many who didn’t wish to fight at all, but who were called up and ordered to do so. The draft has been used many times in our history, and though some men served because they were compelled to, the vast majority volunteered. There were then, as we saw in later wars, those who avoided being drafted. Whether it was by paying someone else to go in their stead, by claiming some defect that would prohibit service, or by fleeing outright to some territory out of the reach of conscription by authority. But broadly speaking, most people would rather obey the law and take their chances in the field, then brand themselves an outlaw or a coward.

And surely there were those who were motivated by the ideals of the moment. Whether it be the scion of the southern plantation owner defending his establishment, or the northern abolitionist fighting for the freedom of the negro.

But at the core there was the idea of defending the cause of the people with whom you belonged. They stood with their neighbors, and behind the leaders of their states. And they adopted the hatred of the enemy. The enemy who sought to destroy something they held dear.

This was true for those who donned the blue, and marched in regiments from New York and Pennsylvania, Maine and Massechusettes, Illinois and Indiana, Minnesota and “Thank God for” Michigan. The men who left farms and factories in all northern states to take up arms, it was the union they were defending, whether they thought so at the start, whether they had higher ideals or not, or whether they volunteered or were drafted.

And it was right and good that Lincoln addressed their sacrifice so eloquently in this speech. But of course he did. In his letters and papers, as well as those of others who interacted with him, Lincoln was deeply moved and hurt by the great loss of life. Like it was for Grant, it was this which motivated him to push to win and end this war quickly. Lincoln understood death, and he understood the loss those men were to their families and community.

When we ask if they died in vain, it is good to look at what we have, and see what might have been had we lost. Some students of this world tell us that slavery would eventually end on its own had we not fought that war. But how many more generations would suffer in bondage waiting for people to change their minds? Look at how many who walk our streets today still hold the belief of racial superiority? How many rationalize the slavery of our history as beneficial and necessary? What might be the state of things today and the effect on the world as a whole had the secession of the southern states succeeded?

The greatness that came to this continent in keeping the union had a profound effect on the world in the decades since. Whether it was breaking the stalemate of the Great War, or standing up to fascism during the second World War that followed a generation later; it is hard to imagine what might have been the course we traveled had we been split into two all those years ago. For the last three-quarters of a century, America has been at the heart of the modern world. Holding together the ideals of liberty and democracy in the face of renewed authoritarianism that spreads on other continents.

We haven’t always acted perfectly. There have been too many times where the monied interests held too much influence on our national agenda. Too many times when corrupt politicians lined their own pockets and allowed the power to be concentrated in the hands of the mighty and wealthy. Yes, we’ve made mistakes. But we have a system that can fix those mistakes. The founders of this nation put their trust in the people. And if the people exercise their power, we can refocus our commitment to the ideals we hold. Consent of the governed. Government of the people. Democratically chosen representation.

We had a scare at the beginning of 2021 and almost lost what we had. The details are slowly coming out, and I look forward to the public hearings that our publicly elected Congress will hold in the coming months. Hearings that will paint for us in grave detail the diabolical effort that was made to erase the public will and replace our majority government with an autocracy, and how close it came to succeeding.

But understand that had that coup worked, the days of choosing who leads us would be over. Democracy would be replaced with autocracy. It would become the norm to claim victory and use violence or the threat of it to compel compliance or suppress democracy.
In countries like Russia, like Hungary, and others, democracy is notional; with real opposition to the entrenched power being marginalized, election outcomes decided in advance by the rulers, and increasingly restricted speech imposed on the people. The ability to redress grievances and replace those governments with ones that better represent the will of the people cannot be decided at the polling stations. The power in those countries have been taken away from the people. And some say the people gave it up because they liked what the leaders were doing. They now see it is too late to change their minds. If they try to take it back, they’ll quickly see that it would have been easier to not let it get away at first.

And some here in America like the former President and would have accepted him remaining President had he managed to succeed in his plan to overthrow our democracy.

There are times in the history of the world where the ends may well have justified the means. I won’t try to pick any now. But the idea that destruction of the basic democratic framework of our Republic could somehow be justified because a vocal and militarized minority didn’t like the will of the majority is not such a moment.

The Union.

Union is all of us voicing our desires, and accepting that the majority gets choices. Our governing document is the Constitution, which establishes who holds power, and how that power is applied. It makes clear that the majority may not deny the rights of the minority. They pick who leads, and those who lead follow the rules and laws so established.

The founders of this nation were themselves the people of this nation. They trusted that the majority could collectively make good choices.

But mostly they recognized that the tendency of power is to concentrate. And those who wish to hold that concentrated power become corrupted by it. It is, they found, in the best interest of the people for power to be spread out among the masses, so that a minority may not subject the people to their will. This entire American experiment could be summarized as an effort to spread power away from the corruption of concentration. Benjamin Franklin famously responded to a question about what he and the others had wrought with the line, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

And they knew that keeping it would require work, and that work would need to be done by the whole of the people. Democracy is a participatory undertaking. It won’t work with the people watching from the sidelines.

And those who would work against democracy, those who would seek to concentrate the power into their own hands will not quit trying. This isn’t a movie where the bad guy is vanquished once and forever. There will always be new actors in that role. There will always be those whose egos drive them to the belief that they and theirs are the only ones who can direct the country, and that the voices of the majority are misguided and should be marginalized or ignored. They follow the lessons learned over the millennia. Divide and conquer.

So they gain political power by driving a wedge between the people. By declaring that some of the people are the enemy of the others. That their faction will be subjugated by the others if they don’t fight. They seek to divide the people into factions, left-right, old-young, white-black, nativist-immigrant; and they use cunning to divide even those who have broad agreement by creating conflicts over abortion, healthcare, guns, gender, sexual orientation and more.

We are reaching Memorial Day here in the United States of America. It is a day for parades and speeches, and marks the unofficial start of summer. The weekend never goes by without reminders of whom we memorialize, and the admonishments of veterans like myself, that this day is not about us, but about those who died defending this nation and the freedoms we cherish. Veterans have our own day later in the year. The end of May is for the honored dead.

They were all fighting for the nation, whether they were all equally motivated by one ideal or the other, or whether they truly understood the risks in front of them. Ultimately it is the Union for which they fought.

We need to renew our fight for union. For unity to the cause of our nation. We need to reaffirm our love of freedom, of equality, of that government of, by, and for The People. If we fail to do so, and we allow a minority to wield authority over us; then it will be that all of those we honor today shall have died in vain, and their last full measure of devotion will have been wasted.