tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91943692024-03-06T23:29:03.186-08:00Last Left Turn Before Hootervilletrying to make sense out of insanity since 2004Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.comBlogger682125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-52265211362323814692020-07-03T14:02:00.002-07:002023-06-04T17:33:33.045-07:00Locking Down and Masking Up is the Only Way We Get Through This. Trump is Killing Us.<p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 23px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgitDZI9rZet6zB-EwboxCjU-xdMPjF-prtWfx_jT1CcUyl1VHKQnS-7LdDrq0sY9rIYjizUhAVIsepYWK-FqyzNF0wydrtdehmAn99SjKOD2qbiGeiwz0GUE-fthBf5DZbB5WudA/s992/818E910E-7F3F-49F1-948E-78E0148F2DC8.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="992" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgitDZI9rZet6zB-EwboxCjU-xdMPjF-prtWfx_jT1CcUyl1VHKQnS-7LdDrq0sY9rIYjizUhAVIsepYWK-FqyzNF0wydrtdehmAn99SjKOD2qbiGeiwz0GUE-fthBf5DZbB5WudA/s320/818E910E-7F3F-49F1-948E-78E0148F2DC8.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>WTF is the matter with people?<p></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 23px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">The entire rest of the world had managed to grasp something that we can't seem to - that the only way out of this pandemic is to lock down and mask up.</span></div><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">But the delusional science-hating reality-deniers are insisting that it's more important to "get the economy going again" by reopening and putting people back to work than to save hundreds of thousands of lives.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">The problem with this is - reopening and putting people back to work before this pandemic is under control will NOT "get the economy going again." </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">In the very short term, the economy could incrementally improve. But the cost in lives will nullify *financially* (since this is the only lens these people can see things through) any short-term financial gains. </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">We will be set back *financially* much, much farther than we would if we stayed locked down. There will be less people alive, more virus roaring through the remaining population - and good luck getting a functioning ecomony going in those circumstances.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">What's happening here is the same old Republican trope about lazy poors sucking up unearned money from the hard-working well-off.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">It is KILLING them that there are <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>people who are momentarily receiving more money from unemployment and stimulus payments than they were making before the pandemic.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">Every second this is happening is burning them up inside.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">The idea that the government is paying people not to work is driving them out of their minds.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">Some Republicans are coming right out and saying it.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/lindsey-graham-coronavirus-stimulus-bill" target="_blank">Vanity Fair reports</a> that "Senators Lindsey Graham, Ben Sasse, Rick Scott, and Tim Scott are sick with fear that the legislation will make unemployment so enticing that low-wage workers will decide to lay themselves off."</p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 23px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><blockquote>Claiming the relief package will encourage people to stay out of the workforce, Graham told reporters that the bill “pays you more not to work than if you were working,” noting that it would provide the equivalent of $24.07 an hour in South Carolina versus the state minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.“If the federal government accidentally incentivizes layoffs, we risk life-threatening shortages in sectors where doctors, nurses, and pharmacists are trying to care for the sick, and where growers and grocers, truckers and cooks are trying to get food to families’ tables,” Graham, Sasse, and Scott said in a statement. </blockquote><p></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 23px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">Somehow, they don't seem to take in the fact that sending these low-wage workers (whose wages are too low to support themselves working full time) back to work while the pandemic still rages is condemning them (and the people who interact with them) to a possible death sentence. </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">These people cannot do their jobs from home. And the people who are hotly demanding they go back to work are, more often than not, people who can work from home or who can afford to stay home.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">The demands to send the low-wage workers back to work and off the government teat are not accompanied by the requisite protections to keep them safe - mostly because right now, there IS no safe way to go back.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">The best way to protect ourselves and even our ecomony is to literally pay people to stay home. </span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">Pay people to keep them from killing themselves or other people. </span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">Cam you imagine, if this were the bubonic plague, that it would be "freedom" to force people to choose between starving because they have no money and going to work and spreading the plague wherever they went?</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">This has to be done from the federal government, because their first responsibility is to keep Americans safe - to save American lives. Nothing is more important than this. Certainly, making sure poor people don't get too much money is not more important than saving hundreds of thousands of American lives.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">The fact is, we have to think of the money as an investment - one that will, in the long term, truly "get our economy going again." We simply can't be so short-sighted as to be "penny-wise and pound-foolish".</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">The federal government also MUST make wearing masks and social distancing a requirement, not a suggestion.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">Right now, Trump's politicization and personalization of mask-wearing as an insult to him is a literal death sentence to countless Americans. It needs to be understood as such.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">The rest of the world has already done what's necessary to get to the other side of the pandemic. They have nationally mandated masks. They have locked down and stayed down until the numbers came down. </span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">They're already back to work, back to school, back to restaurants, back to a sort of normalcy that we cannot possibly achieve until we take the steps that the rest of the world have taken.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27.4px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="s1">And as long as Trump is refusing - because of his own personal vanity - to do what's necessary to get us out of this, and forcing his ride-or-die supporters to choose between him and their lives (and the lives with whom they interact, i.e. the rest of us) and frame lifesaving measures as an assault on liberty, we will continue down this highway to hell with no exit ramp in sight. </span></p>Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-67111137694808676532020-02-21T09:27:00.000-08:002023-06-04T17:33:35.745-07:00The Last Chapter of "The Price of Right" - Preaching To The ChoirThis is the last chapter of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Price-Right-Conservative-Agenda-America/dp/0977954595/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200697623&sr=8-1" target="_blank">my 2008 book "The Price of Right"</a><br />
<br />
It seems to me that it's more true today than I could have envisioned back then.<br />
<br />
<b>Preaching To The Choir</b><br />
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The cost of conservatism is one we can no longer afford. The "price of right" is far too high. But we cannot begin to change the policy of conservatism until we recognize it for what it is: a political philosophy that believes that in order to have winners, there must be losers. And in an us-against-them mindset, the losers will always be those who don't subscribe to the conservative beliefs.<br />
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It's disheartening that so many people who consider themselves conservative don't realize the neoconservatism of today is fundamentally different than the conservatism of the past. Many old-style or Goldwater conservatives have left the Republican Party in disgust because of what has happened to conservative ideals.<br />
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John Dean's book Conservatives Without Conscience, originally co-written with Barry Goldwater himself (who died before it could be finished), is a thirty-years-later sequel to Goldwater's own conservative manifesto The Conscience of a Conservative, in which the conservative icon mourns the loss of his view of traditional conservative values. Goldwater's ideals shouldn't be labeled conservative or liberal, instead, they should be seen as genuine human concerns, ones that our Founding Fathers had as their goals when they fought the Revolutionary War. "Lower taxes" is emotional shorthand for "don't steal from me." "Deregulation" is shorthand for "don't prevent me from making a living." "Smaller government" and "individual freedom" is shorthand for "let me be free."<br />
<br />
But, unfortunately, in the neoconservatism of today, Goldwater's ideals have been warped beyond recognition.<br />
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"Lower taxes" now means giving tax breaks to the rich and corporations and offloading the decreased revenue onto the backs of those least able to afford it. It means creating a trickle-up economy with the largest redistribution of wealth since the Gilded Age.<br />
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"Deregulation," which has been the conservative battle cry since the 1970s, now means making rules that allow corporations to pollute, to sell poisonous products without being responsible for their effects, and to charge whatever they want for essential services such as electricity.<br />
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As for "smaller government," perhaps our government has reduced in size, but it's only because private corporations like Blackwater have taken over traditional government roles. So instead of a bigger government that the people can look to and depend on, we now have a government unable to manage its own affairs, one that puts power in the hands of corporations unregulated by the public.<br />
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And "individual freedom?" One needs look no further than our administration granting itself the authority to spy on and amass personal data on its citizens.<br />
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The Bush administration, which proudly and defiantly calls itself conservative, has embraced an ideology that is anything but classical conservatism. Instead, it has produced a government that rejects democracy, self-determination, human rights, and true freedom in favor of an iron-fisted imperialistic and plutocratic rule that ignores the rights and concerns of many in favor of the interests of the few and powerful.<br />
<br />
Freedom has become only for those who can afford it.<br />
<br />
So, what can progressives, liberals, moderates, even classic conservatives do to take back our democracy?<br />
<br />
There are many factors that keep our current government system in place. One factor we can't really do much about is that 23-25 percent of the population is made up of authoritarians. These people's need to accept authority for authority's sake in the manner of the strict father frame will (most likely) not be swayed by argument. It's easier to let go of the frustration of being unable to get through to these people if we understand this. It's also important to remember that all conservatives are not authoritarians. We are in a farmer society, and most of the basic rules we follow exist because they work. Change for the sake of change is just as impractical and potentially destructive as stubbornly clinging to the past. But if a leader is leading the herd over a cliff, obedience ceases to be an asset. So why doesn't most of our country realize we're heading over the cliff? Why is it that this other 75-77 percent of the population isn't up in arms about what's happening to our democracy?<br />
<br />
One way that those in power continue to hold the upper hand is by convincing people that resistance is futile. If you feel that your vote won't get counted, that your voice doesn't matter, that there's nothing you as a person can do to change things, then you withdraw from the democratic process, become disaffected and apathetic, and nothing does change.<br />
<br />
There are those who are critical of what is called the "echo chamber" or "preaching to the choir," meaning discussing issues with those who agree with you instead of arguing with those who don't. However, when it comes to mobilizing liberals and progressives to find our voice and our strength, preaching to the choir is exactly what's called for. This book is not written for the usual suspects - the people who are already hip-deep in progressive issues, involved in this committee or that campaign, at the front of every protest or march. They have been working in the trenches all along. The people this book is aiming far are those who believe in liberal values - in peace, in social justice, in America as it was intended to be - but have been sitting on the sidelines because they don't realize how important, how needed their voices are.<br />
<br />
It would be great, of course, if we could be guaranteed that by following a certain course of action, we would achieve the desired results. It would be nice to know that if we called Senator X, signed Petition Y, and marched at Protest Z, that our troops would come home, that Bush, Cheney, et al. would resign en masse, that we'd get universal health care.<br />
<br />
The reality is, in spite of our best efforts, we may not be able to achieve these objectives. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. If we really believe in what we say, then we have no choice but to work for what's right, even if we don't see a sure and smooth path to success. That is what morality is - doing what's right because it's right.<br />
<br />
With action, we can bring change. No matter how small the action, it is worth doing because not taking action is giving active support to those people and positions we are fighting against. Not only is it worth doing, but it is imperative.<br />
<br />
The word "evangelize" comes from the Greek word (eu- aggelos) for "bringing good news." We need to evangelize. We need to bring a discussion to our friends, our family, our coworkers, not the ones who already believe that whatever George Bush wants to do is just dandy, but the ones who are disaffected, who are disgusted with politics and politicians. The ones who think there's no sense in voting because their vote will be stolen anyway. The ones who think that things will get better by themselves, that someone else is going to take care of it. These people aren't going to hear the truth from the traditional media, which is all most working people have time to pay attention to these days. So we need to bring the news to them, one person at a time. Tell people what you're reading. Start a discussion. Give suggestions on practical ways to get active. Perhaps phone banking for one night for a local candidate whose positions they support, or making a call to a Congressperson about an issue they feel strongly about. Perhaps standing on a corner for an hour on a Friday night with some local peace activists. It's simply about getting involved on some level. Nothing earth shattering or life changing; just simple action.<br />
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Any action is preferable to inaction.<br />
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You don't have to be George Soros to make a difference. If you come across something that sparks your interest or you feel is deserving, kick in $10. Or $5. Any donation, no matter how small, is better than none. Not only that, but it gets you participating. Instead of throwing yourself full-time into someone's campaign, just phone bank for one night from your cell phone. Or offer some other skill you have for a couple of hours.<br />
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The point of micro-activism isn't the amount. It's involvement versus non-involvement. Physical action leads to emotional connection. Conservatives like to accuse liberals of having no common values, of being in disarray. We certainly have values, but the part about being in disarray has a crumb of merit. Liberals are, well, liberal. We believe in freedom. Not just freedom for ourselves, but freedom for other people as well. The kind of freedom we were promised as Americans in the Constitution. We are not anarchists. We believe in the rule of law. We respect authority when it deserves our respect, but not authority for authority's sake. Though we are the majority part, we are less than unified. But if we can unify, if we can bring in the people who are not ordinarily political, but who share our values, we have a chance at tipping the balance back toward sanity. To have a good choir, you need a lot of voices, not just a few screeching as loudly as they can. This is one of the points in history where every person is important. It's not enough anymore for the usual suspects to make all the noise. They can't do it by themselves anymore.<br />
<br />
Thomas Paine wrote this on December 23, 1776:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. </blockquote>
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These, too, are times that try our souls. The cost of freedom is indeed high, but the "price of right" is even higher. So let us not allow our freedom be taken away without a fight. We owe it to ourselves, to each other, to those who came before us, and to those who will come after us.Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-42345276574982624412020-01-01T14:43:00.000-08:002023-06-04T17:33:31.341-07:00March of the Republican Zombie Ants<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVw8c4k703qFZRLLR18dK-bsNiMBnk36xB8oG4cfouHBWMQdJ4UpNSuUbKuMZMH5tVY9VrmglK7b5FG_LZHHsP1YmVsF_FP3iJT1JbazQQQJRb-gK2pjCtxiynBqUy-Bfe2D_mtA/s1600/Zombie+Ant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVw8c4k703qFZRLLR18dK-bsNiMBnk36xB8oG4cfouHBWMQdJ4UpNSuUbKuMZMH5tVY9VrmglK7b5FG_LZHHsP1YmVsF_FP3iJT1JbazQQQJRb-gK2pjCtxiynBqUy-Bfe2D_mtA/s320/Zombie+Ant.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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There are species of ants that have been seen to exhibit behavior straight out of a horror movie.
A seemingly normal, healthy carpenter ant, going about its normal ant business, suddenly exhibits strange behavior.<br />
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It leaves its nest, staggering and stumbling like a drunken sailor on shore leave, and begins searching for a plant to climb. When it reaches a particular elevation, it climbs onto the underside of a leaf and clamps its jaws down in a death grip onto a leaf vein on the north side of the plant.<br />
<br />
There it remains, paralyzed and waiting to die.<br />
<br />
But that is not all.<br />
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The final horror: after three weeks or so, the dead ant, devoured from the inside, is covered in fuzz, and displays a gruesome tentacle that has burst out from its head.<br />
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They are nicknamed "zombie ants", and they seem to be compelled by some malevolent force beyond their control to destroy themselves and then once dead, to create more like themselves.<br />
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The real culprit? A parasitic fungus called <i>Ophiocordyceps unilateralis</i>.<br />
<br />
This fungus replicates itself by attaching its spores to the exoskeleton of an ant. As it penetrates the exoskeleton, it infects the host ant and compels it to march to its death, where it eats the ant from the inside and then once it has grown large enough, sends a long tentacle-like stem called a "fruiting body" out from the ant's head, which has pods containing spores. When the pods burst, the spores are scattered by the wind to infect other ants, and the process begins again.<br />
<br />
The infected ant will look and act normal for a while as the fungus incubates, which is another brilliant move by <i>Cordyceps</i> because normally if an ant appears sick, the other ants will eject it from their colony in self-preservation. But once the infection develops enough, the fungus apparently invades the muscle bundles of the ant, interferes with its nervous system, and controls its movement.
<br />
<br />
It compels the ant to climb to a certain height off of the ground, with the right amount of light and humidity that the fungus needs to grow and reproduce. Then it takes over the mandibles and forces the ant to bite down on the vein of a leaf on the specific side of the plant and paralyzes it so it can't unlock its jaw.<br />
<br />
Then, after devouring the ant from the inside, it forces it to infect other ants.<br />
<br />
One interesting thing about <i>Cordyceps</i> and related fungi is that, while an insect-pathogen itself (which kills and eats the ant, and then uses the corpse for its reproduction) it uses what is called a "secondary metabolism", which acts to immunize the ant from other pathogens, thus ensuring it is healthy enough to stay alive for the necessary amount of time to complete the fungus' reproductive cycle.<br />
<br />
I can't help but see a parallel with the Republican party as it exists today with the infection known as Trumpism (or in the Latin, <i>Trumpyceps republicanis</i>).<br />
<br />
Once-seemingly normal Republicans exhibit a puzzling and bizarre turnabout from ideas and principles that once were a hallmark of the Republican Party - fiscal conservatism, personal and fiscal responsibility, Russia hawkishness, respect for the rule of law, law enforcement agencies, and national security - and have replaced these with a march to self-destruction and the annihilation of the democratic process, replacing it with blind loyalty and support of a venal, lawless, cruel, dictator-loving would-be autocrat whose goal seems to be the elimination of the principle of government of, by and for the people in favor of a classic tinpot totalitarian state ruled by him, his family and his toadies, using the coffers and the power of the government for their own personal benefit and enrichment.<br />
<br />
There was a time when Republicans were fiercely opposed to these things. There was a time when they would excoriate Democrats for being insufficiently supportive of law and order, too skeptical about the CIA and FBI, for being too soft on Russia and North Korea, for deficits and spending without balancing it with budget cuts.<br />
<br />
Many of these Republicans whose mandibles are now permanently clamped to Trump's posterior were his most strident critics before the election. They raged about his immorality, his vicious invective towards anyone who he didn't like, his shady business practices, his complete and utter unfitness for public office of any kind, let alone the Presidency of the United States.<br />
<br />
Now, they enthusiastically defend his every vile word and action to the death. They cheer while he insults our allies and destroys our relationships with them; they cheer while he grovels before Putin; they cheer while he encourages white supremacy, religious bigotry and lawless aggression; and they cheer as he attacks immigrants and cages children.<br />
<br />
They defend his looting of the government coffers for his own enrichment; they defend his blatant nepotism and cronyism; they defend his dismantling of the State Department and rejection of diplomacy in favor of his secret plans to benefit himself and Russia at the expense of our own national security.<br />
<br />
They support his outright rejection of legal subpoenas, they support his crazy claims of complete and total privilege - not just for himself but anyone he wants to keep quiet - and immunity from oversight and even of investigation of wrongdoing.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitCOuhXHBoMtAzGhqQ8eU9a1Hnft7KUytOil-sdVuv3_VGxHgd2ibtk9fVFnhHNcULiKWcr8ci0e3FEHfRXQWK7wul_dzJO4cTtliLTaAfI05dBfVSyO4u9xhuNncN7EQ6sRUFEw/s1600/Lindsey+and+Ted+Zombie+Ants.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="912" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitCOuhXHBoMtAzGhqQ8eU9a1Hnft7KUytOil-sdVuv3_VGxHgd2ibtk9fVFnhHNcULiKWcr8ci0e3FEHfRXQWK7wul_dzJO4cTtliLTaAfI05dBfVSyO4u9xhuNncN7EQ6sRUFEw/s320/Lindsey+and+Ted+Zombie+Ants.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Donnie is just all right with me!"</td></tr>
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<br />
These Republicans, who had conniptions over the color of a suit that President Obama wore, have given Trump the green light to do whatever he wants. Overturn the conviction of a war criminal? Sure! Overrule security experts to give highest-level security clearances to his spectacularly unqualified daughter and son-in-law and many other people with no business being anywhere near a classified document? Go right ahead! Have secret conversations with our adversary Vladimir Putin and refuse to disclose the contents as required by law? Why not? Handing out his private number to have unsecure cellphone conversations and talking about important national security issues with world leaders surrounded by random paying guests at Mar-a-Lago? No problem! Bribery, witness intimidation, you name it - it's all good!<br />
<br />
This is literally insane.<br />
<br />
I'm no Republican and I do not support the bulk of the Republican agenda, but it seems there are some basic things here that normal Republicans in any other era would have howling fits about - even if (I would hope) another Republican president had done them.<br />
<br />
There seems to be some kind of bizarre pathology that changes law-and-order, fiscally conservative, national-security-hawk Republicans into gibbering sycophants who will fight to the death for Trump's right to do anything he pleases, even things that are clearly illegal, even things that endanger the founding ideals on which our country was built.<br />
<br />
The Trump fungus' "secondary metabolism" has immunized its victims against any other influence that could move them from their death march. <i>Trumpyceps republicanis</i> seems to have infected an entire political party, and it appears to be 100% fatal for democracy.
Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-58339422570342415532019-12-29T15:54:00.001-08:002023-06-04T17:33:33.581-07:00The Suit<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjym8rr4ysvU3XTxL-01gb3ozf2Cdc_P6U21r_TlCRjiRL1_wIzMFNQhtn9wrbrBPUKEULqmjBJgiiHCPm5MTzXU0wrUdF8fX5GenqmOFfezwSwGIQ3qr-oiQblE6jRbbqeH2RtOw/s1600/380ADCBA-B87C-4ABF-8A23-1673D80697D2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="807" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjym8rr4ysvU3XTxL-01gb3ozf2Cdc_P6U21r_TlCRjiRL1_wIzMFNQhtn9wrbrBPUKEULqmjBJgiiHCPm5MTzXU0wrUdF8fX5GenqmOFfezwSwGIQ3qr-oiQblE6jRbbqeH2RtOw/s400/380ADCBA-B87C-4ABF-8A23-1673D80697D2.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">@BillBramhall NY Daily News Dec 19 2019</td></tr>
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The President of the United States is not a person. The President is a suit, and a person wears that suit for a term of four to eight years. The Suit has its own powers and the wearer of The Suit can wield those powers while they are wearing The Suit, much like a suit of armor, or like Iron Man. It is also, however, a garment of service, like a butler's tuxedo or a military uniform. It indicates that the wearer has a purpose and that purpose is to serve and protect those for whom they are charged to care.<br />
<br />
But make no mistake: those awesome powers belong to The Suit, not to the person wearing it. That person is only renting it for a limited time from the United States of America, and, per the terms of the rental, is expected to return it in as good condition as when it was received.<br />
<br />
The wearer of The Suit can treat it with respect - they can keep it clean, keep it washed and ironed and fresh. They can mend it if it needs it. They can treat it gently so that it will be useful for a long time. They can wear it only when appropriate, so that on the occasions it is worn, it is taken seriously. They can keep The Suit looking good, so that the wearer of it exudes purpose and dignity and strength, inspires confidence, respect and trust, and when it is time to take off The Suit, it is in as good or better shape as when it was first put on, so that the next wearer may get as much good use out of it as the current wearer.<br />
<br />
Or, the wearer of The Suit can soil it, stain it, tear it, wear it out. They can use it to intimidate, to dominate, to further their own selfish ends. They can stretch it out so badly by self-indulgence that it won't fit anyone else. They can damage it so thoroughly that it can't be worn again.<br />
<br />
Donald Trump is sh*tting the pants of The Suit.<br />
<br />
He believes that Donald Trump is in charge of the United States of America, not the President. He doesn't understand that he is not The Suit. Or, maybe he does. Maybe he knows that The Suit rightly belongs to America, but he is trying to steal it for himself.<br />
<br />
This is what autocrats do. People like Putin or Kim Jong-Un or Xi wield personal power as themselves, not as temporary representatives of a sovereign nation. They take to themselves the resources of an entire country for their own benefit, enrichment and power, and view their country as existing to serve them, instead of being servants to their country. This is what Trump longs for and aspires to.<br />
<br />
His idea of 'leadership' is his personal transactional relationships with world leaders one-on-one, not US policy painstakingly hammered out by the State Department in concert with Congress, the Department of Defense, and longstanding treaties and understandings with our allies and adversaries forged over decades. He thinks it's none of our business who he talks to and what he says to them, as if he was just a private individual - a private individual who is not accountable to anyone, least of all the people he supposedly represents. He wants to be the most powerful person on Earth, without any limits. He spits on the Presidential Records Act and doesn't think anyone should listen to or take notes about his conversations with heads of state, especially the autocrats with whom he identifies.<br />
<br />
Donald Trump has no intention of being in service to anyone. He has never understood the concept of service, public or otherwise - he only understands obedience and loyalty from others to him, not to others from him. He expects to be served, not to serve. He does not understand that The Suit, with all its mighty powers, represents the ultimate in service to your country and that you are entrusted with the care of The Suit.<br />
<br />
And so, he is befouling, ripping and destroying The Suit, believing that it belongs to him to do with whatever he wants. He becomes furious at any attempt to restrain his wanton mistreatment of The Suit, because he considers it to be his personal property. And he is aided and abetted by those who also benefit from his misuse of The Suit, like dressing up in a bank guard's uniform to let his accomplices into the vault.<br />
<br />
He has publicly stated (in that 'joking but not joking at all' childish attempt to say what he means but avoid responsibility for what he says) that he <a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/852099/trump-just-joked-about-being-president-life--6th-time" target="_blank">does not want to give back The Suit </a>when the time comes to turn it back in. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/23/trump-falsely-tells-auditorium-full-teens-constitution-gives-him-right-do-whatever-i-want/" target="_blank">He has said</a> that he can do <a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/884122/ill-whatever-want-impeachment-trial-trump-says" target="_blank">whatever he wants </a>with it and that the real owners of it have no say about how he treats it. He calls <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/us/politics/trump-treason-impeachment.html" target="_blank">anyone who opposes him 'traitors' </a>who should be punished, since he sees no difference between loyalty to him and loyalty to America. And he dares anyone to try and do something about it, knowing that the real owners of The Suit fear that, in struggling to restrain him from misusing it, The Suit itself may get torn beyond repair.<br />
<br />
So, he continues to sh*t the pants of The Suit, knowing that if he can't keep it, at least it will be unwearable by anyone else when it is taken from him.Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-85728274897272147792019-11-18T00:21:00.000-08:002023-06-04T17:33:40.122-07:00Hooterville 15 Years Later - Keeping On Keeping OnAs I was looking back at some of my old blog posts, I realized that yesterday was my 15 year Blogiversary. It took me back to how I felt when I began writing this blog. <a href="http://lastleftb4hooterville.blogspot.com/2004/11/welcome-to-hooterville.html" target="_blank">After waking up the day after the 2004 election</a> to find that Dubya was still in the White House, I was dazed and disoriented. I had never written anything before, but in reading other blogs, I wanted to try writing myself as a way to deal with the insanity that I felt all around me, and maybe experience a little catharsis in expressing how I felt, and to connect with other people who felt like I did.<br />
<br />
It became one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, and along the journey I met so many amazing people who I never would have known in my regular life, but who inspired me greatly. It became a way for me to get into positive action and activism, and motivate and be motivated by my fellow bloggers and readers. Up until then, I had not been especially political or informed, even though I have always been a Democrat. But I found that in talking about what was happening in our country, and reading what other people were writing about, that it moved me to become involved in my local politics and it showed me that every action you take in service of what you believe makes a difference, no matter how small.<br />
<br />
The difference between a small action and a large action is nothing; the difference between action and inaction is everything.<br />
<br />
Becoming a blogger helped me to clarify what I believed America was about, what democracy was about, and it showed me that I could be a part of something vitally important - active citizenship. The greatest danger to citizenship is apathy, and when you feel like your voice is not heard, that what you do or say doesn't matter, then it often follows that you don't bother trying anymore and withdraw. "Why should I bother voting? It won't make a difference either way."<br />
<br />
When that happens, you've given your power away.<br />
<br />
But if you take action, no matter how small or large, you gain power.<br />
<br />
I want to stand up for my progressive values. I have learned that whether or not you obtain your objective doesn't matter. The ONLY thing that matters is that you fight for what you believe in. It's easy to fight if you have hope that you're going to get what you want. But what about when you don't have hope? Hope is all very well, but hope is just an emotion. All the important advances in our rights - the abolition of slavery, civil rights, women's rights, worker's rights, child labor - have been fought for and in many cases died for by people never saw the causes they fought for come to pass.<br />
<br />
But they did come to pass because of the people who never saw the victory.<br />
<br />
We need to do that too. It seems hopeless sometimes when the overwhelming forces of money and power are arrayed against us.<br />
<br />
<i><b>But it does not matter.</b></i><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
The <u>only</u> thing that matters is that we fight for what we know is right.<br />
<br />
When we do, we lay the groundwork for those that will come after us, even if we don't prevail today.<br />
<br />
So, don't give up because it seems there's no way to win. Reach out to others. Join in with those who are calling and writing and donating and knocking on doors and organizing and marching and running for office. Find a candidate you like and do whatever you can to support them. BE a candidate. It will always be a constant battle. But if we keep on working for justice, we have already won.<br />
<br />Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-20472377344901592352019-11-16T17:29:00.001-08:002023-06-04T17:33:27.492-07:00I Know Why The Caged Republican Sings<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*2GM0AlUFaDT3vneEOytPAQ.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" class="graf-image" data-height="168" data-image-id="1*2GM0AlUFaDT3vneEOytPAQ.jpeg" data-width="300" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*2GM0AlUFaDT3vneEOytPAQ.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tweet, tweet!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*KQIvTcq__b2qFpQ9gP7UOg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" class="graf-image" data-height="168" data-image-id="1*KQIvTcq__b2qFpQ9gP7UOg.jpeg" data-width="300" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*KQIvTcq__b2qFpQ9gP7UOg.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charge of the SCIF Brigade</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="568c">
<br /></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="568c">
<br /></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="568c">
<br /></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="568c">
<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/welcome-to-the-resistance-bill-barr/2019/10/14/da24cd20-eec0-11e9-8693-f487e46784aa_story.html" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/welcome-to-the-resistance-bill-barr/2019/10/14/da24cd20-eec0-11e9-8693-f487e46784aa_story.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Attorney General Bill Barr’s speech at Notre Dame </a>chilled me to the bone, because it was as upfront and direct about how this particular religious sector of the right really feels about Democrats and the left in general as I’ve ever seen publicly stated.</div>
<blockquote class="graf graf--blockquote" name="176c">
<em class="markup--em markup--blockquote-em">Militant secularism, he said, is to blame for the country’s greatest ills, including drug use, mental illness and “an increase in senseless violence.” Given such crises, Barr urged his audience to fight back against “so-called ‘progressives’ ” and others who insist upon respecting America’s pesky, constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="graf graf--blockquote graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="f5d7">
<em class="markup--em markup--blockquote-em">“This is not decay,” Barr said. “It is organized destruction. Secularists, and their allies among the ‘progressives,’ have marshalled all the force of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”</em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="graf graf--blockquote graf--empty" name="da81">
<br /></blockquote>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="2d80">
It speaks to what seems to me to be the real core issue that drives the Republicans in power right now — that, to them, liberal values and the Democrats who hold them are fundamentally illegitimate and should have no place in American government.</div>
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<div class="graf graf--p" name="e0d4">
The article I wrote last year (<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://lastleftb4hooterville.blogspot.com/2018/05/legitimacy-is-at-core-of-republican.html" href="https://lastleftb4hooterville.blogspot.com/2018/05/legitimacy-is-at-core-of-republican.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Legitimacy is at the Core of Republican Hypocrisy</a>) touched on this. It’s the only explanation that makes sense of why Republicans are acting the crazy way they are acting. These people are not, as many progressives like to think, all stupid. Not all of them are exactly rocket scientists, of course, but many of them are Harvard grads, Rhodes scholars (like Louisiana senator John Kennedy) and first in their class at West Point (like Mike Pompeo). They truly believe that progressive values and policies are dangerous and destructive and, for the sake of American freedom, prosperity, morality and stability, must be eliminated from the public sphere. They see the left as a literal existential threat to the United States of America.</div>
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<div class="graf graf--p" name="91ac">
They really do believe this.</div>
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<div class="graf graf--p" name="dabc">
They really do.</div>
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That’s why the people who believe this feel morally justified in blatantly lying, cheating and saying batshit-crazy things all day every day with a straight face and a clear conscience.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="58fc">
If you are fighting an existential threat, there are no “bridges too far”. It is not hypocrisy, it is any tool available with which to defend yourself, your country and your way of life.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="d650">
The idea of Democrats in power is beyond terrifying to them.</div>
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We need to be very, very aware of this.</div>
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I cannot overstate its importance.</div>
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<div class="graf graf--p" name="9dde">
This is a belief that has been held among many (but not all) Republicans for decades, but has been gradually gaining ascendancy and seizing power since Newt Gingrich (with the help of Frank Luntz) spelled it out in his “Contract with America” in 1994. He said out loud to the entire country what was usually said only among like-minded people. Liberals and liberalism was what was wrong with America and must be stomped out. Democrats were not the “loyal opposition”; they were a threat to be vanquished.</div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="9dde">
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<div class="graf graf--p" name="c2a2">
It’s a particular expression of authoritarianism, and it’s why many of them are pushing the “unitary executive” theory (provided, of course, it’s the right kind of executive.) As a generalization, conservatives are attracted to what Dr. George Lakoff calls the “Strict Father” frame, which emphasizes a hierarchical leadership structure with a leader at the top who must be obeyed by those below him. This must be a particular kind of leader — not any old leader will do (sorry, President Obama.) This must be a leader who leads by intimidation, who will brook no disobedience and rule with a firm hand. If this leader is obeyed, everyone obeying him shares in the benefits (and power) of this firm structure. They must support him unquestioningly in order to partake of his power. More moderate Republicans who did not ascribe to this mindset were slowly being pushed out of the Republican power circles. Many of them said, “I didn’t leave my party; my party left me.”</div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="c2a2">
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<div class="graf graf--p" name="253a">
This belief structure has been here for a while. It did not start with Trump, but Trump weaponized it to an unprecedented degree.</div>
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<div class="graf graf--p" name="54f9">
The Trump phenomenon is multifaceted. There was an extant political space that went from Newt’s “conservative renewal” to the neocons of the Bush years, to the Tea Party of the Obama years, the ascendancy of unapologetic evangelical nutball Sarah Palin and the refusal of Republicans to acknowledge the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency, which evidenced itself with birtherism. This was where Trump inserted himself into the national political sphere.</div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="54f9">
<br /></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="9135">
He made his bones with his <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://lastleftb4hooterville.blogspot.com/2011/05/afterbirth.html" href="http://lastleftb4hooterville.blogspot.com/2011/05/afterbirth.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">vile and racist birther attacks</a>. Republicans of the authoritarian bent loved how he took on their hated “Obummer”.</div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="9135">
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<div class="graf graf--p" name="f7ef">
He had other factors going for him at the same time. The popular reality show The Apprentice cast him as practically an emperor of business, where he sat on his gilded throne in his gilded palace and judged those below him who were desperately vying for his approval. Celebrity Apprentice was even more appalling, with actual celebrity-types groveling at his feet in pursuit of money for their pet charities (which Trump acted like he was magnanimously donating from his own pockets, but as is his way, took credit for it while the money came from the show), saying, “Yes, sir, Mr. Trump, sir! I respect you so much, Mr. Trump, sir!” (He loves him a good <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/16/politics/sir-trump-telltale-word-false/index.html" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/16/politics/sir-trump-telltale-word-false/index.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Sir Story</a>.)</div>
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The fact that in real life he was anything but successful and self-made, with inherited wealth and real-estate connections which insulated him from the consequences of his shockingly poor judgment, numerous bankruptcies, fraudulent businesses and shady financial dealings made no difference in the way he was seen by the swath of America which was impressed by symbols of wealth and grandeur. But it was his imperious “You’re fired!” that spoke to the heart of these people who were entranced by the appearance of a strongman who said and did whatever he wanted without apololgy or consequences.</div>
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The appeal of the “prosperity gospel” — the idea that God rewards those in His favor with earthly riches — was what enables the megachurch pastors to flaunt incredibly gaudy and ostentatious lifestyles, with opulent mansions, fleets of private jets, and gold-plated everything. In fact, the more ostentatious and over-the-top their conspicuous consumption, the more their followers love them and support them with their donations from their own, more meager stores. It’s because there is a deep-seated, unconscious feeling that lives inside many people that says “wealth equals morality”. The idea that the more you have, the more righteous you are and the more that God approves of you is what makes pastors like Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Ted Haggard, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen (to name a few) so very successful and looked up to by their flock.</div>
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The ostentation of Trump engenders similar feelings of respect and admiration among people of this persuasion. And to combine the gaudy ostentation with the aggression towards his enemies and willingness to call names, insult anyone and everyone who crosses him say whatever he thinks without regard for anyone else ratchets that admiration up into a fevered love and fierce, aggressive loyalty.</div>
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And since that kind of rabid adulation is what he has longed for all his life, he reflects that back to them in his rallies, which he needs like oxygen.</div>
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Don’t forget, also, for those of us who are not Fox watchers, that for years he was a regular guest on Fox. The Fox viewers knew him long ago — he was a familiar, highly entertaining and trusted figure who had the imprimatur of the Fox gods like Hannity and O’Reilly and the close-knit family of Fox and Friends. For Fox viewers he was a known and beloved friend years before he announced his intention to run for President.</div>
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When the circuit is complete between Trump and his base, a synergistic kind of power is engendered. A social dominator like Trump is just manna to authoritarian followers, and they are violently attracted to one another. Trump truly loves his base (as a group, not individual people) in a way that he has probably never loved anything or anyone else. He soaks up the roars and chants and I think it’s probably the only time he is really, genuinely happy. You certainly never see him happy anywhere else.</div>
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The three most basic traits of the authoritarian follower personality, as defined by Theodor Adorno in his groundbreaking study of authoritarianism after World War II and the Holocaust, are:</div>
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<strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Conventionalism</strong>: the tendency to accept and obey social conventions; adherence to the traditional and accepted</div>
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<strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Authoritarian Submission</strong>: submission to authorities and authority figures. This includes acceptance of inequality as something that is a natural consequence of wrong action.</div>
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and (most important to this discussion)</div>
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<strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Authoritarian Aggression</strong>: an aggressive attitude towards individuals or groups disliked by authorities; particularly those who threaten traditional values.</div>
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This is a key point right here.</div>
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As I mentioned earlier, the Trump phenomenon has many components. It is a “perfect storm” of confluence. He has many spheres of dominance. One section wants and needs him because he is a vehicle to deliver a permanent Republican majority by way of the judiciary, which these Republican legislators such as Mitch McConnell know will be influential long after Trump is gone. These people are not his “followers” in that respect; most of them no doubt loathe him like poison but recognize that, being basically an empty vessel with no political agenda — or even political interest whatsoever — he is Grover Norquist’s “working digits”, his Sharpie at the ready, his policies directed by those in a place to influence him. A real politician with real personal policy ideas and ideals of their own cannot be managed so easily. And the theocratic right has embraced him as a “flawed vessel” who is delivering God’s will to America. These are the people like Bill Barr and Mike Pompeo who believe that government should be ruled by Christians and are working diligently to make that happen. Trump is coming through for them in a big way — more than any other Republican president. Not St. Ronnie, and not even the true evangelical Dubya.</div>
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Big Business, the check-writers and legislation-writers, know full well that Democrats do not believe that the interests of business should come first, that “what is good for GE is good for America.” They have spent fortunes over the decades to insure that money is speech and whoever has the most money has the loudest voice. The twin devils of taxation and regulation will strangle them if they are not in a position of control.</div>
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And Republicans also realize that, if they lose Trump, they all lose their power. Not only that, they will be unable to stop the existential threat of a Democratic administration and/or majority. The idea of that fills them with horror.</div>
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It is usually not expressed in the public sphere that way (Barr being a breathtaking exception) because it is so deeply un-small-d-democratic, so antithetical to our stated American values of freedom and equality and separation of church and state — in a word, un-American. But please believe that this is the underlying truth. This is what they feel.</div>
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They don’t believe that Democrats can be trusted to do what’s right for the country. They believe that power should rest in the hands of those qualified to wield it — themselves. Real small-d democracy doesn’t work. It’s much easier to control policy when you have an autocrat — which is basically what they mean by unitary executive.</div>
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These are the yummy carrots that keep the Republicans in Trump’s iron-fisted control, and willing to do and say anything to protect him.</div>
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But there is also a big, ugly stick that packs a real wallop — the aggression of his base.<br />
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As I mentioned above, these three main traits of authoritarianism are right in line with Trump’s base.<br />
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Trait #1: They long for a return to “traditional values” and a time that only exists in their imagination. This is MAGA. The present is horrific, the imagined past is golden, and he’s the guy to take them back there.</div>
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Trait #2: They long for a strongman to whom they can submit (as is outlined in much of fundamentalist Christianity). When everyone stays in their place, the world runs right. Children submit to their parents, wives submit to their husbands, their husbands submit to God — or God’s designated authority. The God of the fundamentalists is often a punishing, angry God when he doesn’t get his way, and a rewarding God if only you obey him unconditionally. Trump gives them all of that in spades. He loves to be kowtowed to, and rewards them with his love.</div>
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And Trait #3 is authoritarian aggression. This is where they attack whoever their authority dislikes. We have seen it on so many fronts — in his rallies and online, from hateful speech to physical aggression, anyone Trump targets (and he loves to target and aim his followers at his enemies like an AK-47) receives anything from vicious insults to death threats, and sometimes more than speech, such as the guy with the Trump-festooned van who sent bombs to the targets of Trump’s invective. They are empowered by Trump, who delights in their attacking of his enemies. That is the loyalty that he craves and demands but does not get from the people around him.</div>
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<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://www.theauthoritarians.org/why-do-trumps-supporters-stand-by-him-no-matter-what/" href="https://www.theauthoritarians.org/why-do-trumps-supporters-stand-by-him-no-matter-what/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Check out what Dr. Robert Altemeyer, the expert on authoritarianism, has to say about Trump.</a></div>
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And if Trump targets a Republican who doesn’t toe his line for any reason, you had best believe there are serious consequences meted out by his base. A mean tweet from Trump can ruin someone’s life and all the Republicans know this. It sounds ridiculous on its face, but this is a reality that they are all too aware of. Ask anyone who’s been targeted online. Death threats are common, and you can’t discount the possibility of one of them being more than a threat.</div>
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So, there is every reason in the world to stay in Trump’s corner no matter what, no matter how insane you have to get — carrots and sticks.</div>
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The up side is that you share in the power and your long-term political goals of protecting America from the threat of the godless commie hell the Democrats are waiting to plunge you into are within reach. Or, if your concerns are more, shall we say, personal with regards to your financial interests, the guy whose number one priority is the almighty dollar is in your corner. The other guy or gal is ready to snatch your hard-earned goodies away to give to some lazy freeloader.</div>
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And, of course, the down side is being cast into the darkness of the Trump attack machine, from which none emerge unscathed.</div>
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Plus, there’s the “sunk costs”. From the first time Republicans excused Trump’s egregious and disgusting behavior on the campaign trail — mocking the disabled reporter, the Access Hollywood tape, the insulting of Megyn Kelly, Carly Fiorina’s appearance, Ted Cruz’s wife, Ted Cruz’s father, too much more to even list — from the moment they first excused his vile conduct in service of their own political interest, they took a step down a path they can no longer come back from. The have continued, step after step with no road back. How can they criticize anything he does now after allowing so much grotesque behavior to go unchecked and unremarked — even supported and justified?</div>
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They have sunk every bit of credibility they ever had down the black and gaping maw of Trump’s venality, narcissism and outright lawlessness.</div>
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I can honestly see why they are behaving as they are — answering every Trump lie with a lie of their own to serve and protect him, to aggressively go after his enemies in classic authoritarian follower fashion. As Trump careens headlong into chaos and endangers our national security and cedes our sovereignty to Vladimir Putin, Republicans are left with no option but to “go big or go home”, as Gordon Sondland told Marie Yovanovich. They literally have no other choice. They squandered their moral authority from the start in exchange for what they thought would be the long-term benefit, and they have nothing left. All of the off-ramps are closed to them now.</div>
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So, here is the point of all this:</div>
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If we — Dems, the left, progressives, whatever — do not recognize that the real issue here is not any of the stuff we’re arguing over, but the underlying premise that Democrats should be eliminated from the public sphere because their beliefs and policies are immoral and dangerous for America, then we will continue to tilt at ever-shifting windmills. Does every Republican believe this? No, but the ones currently in power do. The Republican goal at this juncture, with reasonable, bipartisan Republicans an endangered species, is a permanent Republican majority.</div>
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They haven’t achieved it yet, but it is still very much a goal.</div>
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Ask Bill Barr.</div>
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Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-87896586254678517282019-07-17T21:04:00.001-07:002023-06-04T17:33:40.431-07:00Above The Law<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "times";">I'm really worried.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">For all the dramatic proclamations that "no man is above the law", it is looking to me like someone definitely is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">As this president continues to flout every norm and even law that he doesn't like, he is getting away with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">I wish I could be as optimistic as some, such as my husband, who continues to believe that Trump is digging his own grave, and with every grotesquerie he commits, every vile offense he perpetrates, that people will see how heinous he is and reject him – in one way or another; either by impeachment or at the ballot box. "Look what he did today! He's going down now!" But then, he didn't think that Trump could possibly be elected. He was sure that the American people would not let that happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">A while back, I had some sort of dim hope that the special counsel's investigation, and the SDNY prosecutions, would be a means of holding him responsible for his actions and checking him. But with the installation of Bill Barr as attorney general, all of those investigations and prosecutions were quickly and quietly nipped in the bud. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Now, in addition to the Republican Party which has completely accepted and embraced every horrific thing he does, he has the highest law enforcement officer in the country protecting him from any and all consequences, and rendering the rest of us unable to do anything to stop him as he launches a sustained attack on the very foundations of our democracy and our place in the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">I'm not even going to bother to enumerate his many offenses. We all know what they are, from the picayune to the undeniably criminal to the dangerously authoritarian/wanna-be totalitarian. He is insulated by congressional Republican utter unwillingness to do anything to jeopardize their jobs or their political dominance, and the benefits accrued from them – the tax cuts, the deregulation, and especially for the evangelicals, real inroads into dismantling the right to an abortion. They love him because he has delivered unto them these things that St. Ronnie promised and then ignored, and what even a true evangelical like George W. Bush could not deliver. They operate on the 'flawed vessel' concept – that no matter how repugnant and immoral Trump is, he is being used by God to bring about His will (that is, what they want). And they're not really wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">And those who aren't motivated by greed are motivated by fear. If he indicates that he dislikes someone in his own party, that person is liable to be attacked by his horde of rabid Twitter followers, hounded out of office or inundated with death threats. They will do that, and have done that. It's easier to stay on the 'winning team' than to leave it only to be savaged by his base. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">So, we're unable to charge him, much less convict him of any crimes that the overwhelming evidence points to him committing, because 'the president can't be prosecuted for crimes while in office', and he can't even be charged because he can't defend himself in court against accusations. So that's ruled out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Impeachment, one of the few options that Democrats can avail themselves of, seems to be off the table as well, in practice if not in theory. Since there is no chance of conviction in the Republican-held Senate, it would seem to be a futile political exercise that could strengthen the president's position and weaken the Democrats ("They couldn't impeach me, so I've done nothing wrong.")<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">And you can't use legal means when the country's top law-enforcement officer, who is in charge of what gets prosecuted, declines to uphold the law when it comes to the president. So, this makes him, in effect, "above the law."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">But here's the thing – in addition to the Repubs and Bill Barr, we also have to contend with the fact that the Russian hacking of our elections is deliberately being ignored by this administration. Even though the entire intelligence community agrees that Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 presidential election, the Trump administration understands that they benefited from that interference, so they have absolutely no incentive to do anything to prevent it from happening again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">So even if the will of the majority were to prevail at the ballot box, there's an excellent chance that the tactics used by the Russians in 2016 – social media microtargeting using stolen personal data, hacking into county databases which hold voter rolls that could be deleted (preventing those voters from voting), hacking into the DNC and Clinton campaign servers, stealing emails and releasing them to the public in order to sow dissension within the Democratic Party – will be used again, perhaps even more, because Trump has made it slavishly clear to Vladimir Putin that he does not believe that Russia interfered with the election that put him in the White House, and therefore there would be no attempt to prevent it again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Even if you did believe that there may have been Russian interference in the election but that it had no effect on the actual outcome (I do not), that alone should impel you to take immediate and drastic action to make sure it doesn't happen again. That is, if you were acting in good faith. But there has been no action taken in that direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">So – where does this leave us in terms of checking this lawless president? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">The courts? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Not while Bill Barr is attorney general. Even if other parts of the department of justice were to want to take him to court, as long as Bill Barr is in charge of it, there will be no prosecutions. And if somehow there were, Trump would challenge it all the way to the Supreme Court, where his two ill-gotten selections for the bench, which created a conservative majority, owe him "big-league" and would be very likely to not bite the hand that fed them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">So, the argument goes, the courts aren't the proper remedy for dealing with a president. The way you deal with an errant president is through impeachment. Well, we see where that is going. Or not going, as the case may be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Impeachment?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">It seems to be contingent upon an impossible standard - that Republicans will go along with it. Since that will not happen, there doesn't seem a way forward there. And also, we are almost upon the election year, in which the claim will be made that you can't do anything like that so close to the election.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Legislation?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Not while Mitch McConnell is Majority Leader and has bragged that he will allow no Democratic legislation to even be brought to the floor. He has already subverted the prerogative and duty of the last president by not allowing Barack Obama to nominate a Supreme Court justice to fill a vacancy left open for a year, claiming that it wasn't right to fill the seat during an election year, so that "the American people" would be able to choose. He has also stated, with a chuckle, that were a Supreme Court vacancy to occur in this election year, of course he would allow Trump to fill it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Election?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">See above. I have no confidence that our election will be more secure than before; I'm betting on less. In addition to the Russian interference I referenced, there are serious concerns about the security of electronic voting machines, which more states are using. Hand-counted paper ballots are the least-hackable voting mechanism available. But even if the voting machines themselves were completely secure, there is the possibility that hackers who hack into the county voter rolls can remove voters from the roster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Combined with gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics, I am not at all sure that our votes will be counted. And, sadly, this is the exact result that the Russian attacks on us are trying to achieve. I do know this – if Trump does not win, he's going to scream that the Dems cheated and stole the election (most likely by the millions of 'illegals' that just waltz into the voting booth and cast a felonious vote, assisted by eager Dems) and will likely be very difficult to remove. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">So what we're left with is a circular set of options – what about taking him to court? Can't do that, gotta impeach him. What about impeaching him? Can't do that unless the Republicans agree. Can't prove that he broke the law because you can't take him to court. Can't impeach him because it wasn't proven that he broke the law. Wash, rinse, repeat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">Maybe something will happen that will change my mind. I really hope so. I wish with all my heart that I could be wrong about this. But right now, it seems clear to me that Trump is, in fact and in deed, "above the law." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">He's getting away with it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">And no one is stopping him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">And that scares the bejesus out of me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-18460990409280683352018-05-09T17:56:00.001-07:002023-06-04T17:33:27.361-07:00Russia Could Change Voter Registration Data - My Pollworker Experience Nov. 2016The Senate Intelligence Committee <a href="https://www.burr.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/RussRptInstlmt1-%20ElecSec%20Findings,Recs2.pdf" target="_blank">released a report Tuesday</a> stating that
<br />
<blockquote>
In 2016, cyber actors affiliated with the Russian Government conducted an unprecedented, coordinated cyber campaign against state election infrastructure. Russian actors scanned databases for vulnerabilities, attempted intrusions, and in a small number of cases successfully penetrated a voter registration database.</blockquote>
While it states that "The Committee has not seen any evidence that vote tallies were manipulated or that voter registration information was deleted or modified", it also says that
"It is possible that additional activity occurred and has not yet been uncovered."<br />
<br />
I don't know if California is one of the affected states, and what I'm about to say is completely anecdotal, but this is my experience with the 2016 presidential election. Make of it what you will.<br />
<br />
I have been a pollworker since 2006, and a poll inspector in charge of my precinct for the last 8 years. I have dealt with many voter registration issues during that time. The way it works is that when you register to vote and you are accepted as a legitimate voter, your information goes into the state database, and then your name and address are listed in the roster of voters of your precinct, and cross-referenced by street index.<br />
<br />
This means that if your name is listed in the roster, you are <i>already confirmed</i> as a legal voter. There is <a href="http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/analysis-noncitizen-voting-vanishingly-rare" target="_blank">no statistically-significant such thing as noncitizen voting at the polls</a> - that is, a noncitizen showing up to the polls and using a registered voter's name to cast an illegal vote. Contrary to what proponents of the "many millions of fraudulent votes by illegals" crown may claim, this is so rare as to be practically nonexistent. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, "After the 2016 election, <i>The New York Times</i> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/18/us/voter-fraud.html?_r=0" target="_blank">surveyed</a> election and law enforcement officials in 49 states and the District of Columbia. They learned of two <i>possible</i> instances of noncitizens voting – out of 137.7 million voters nationwide." Hardly the millions of illegal votes cast that Trump blames for his loss of the popular vote.<br />
<br />
That's why we ask for a voter's name and address only - if their info matches up on the voter roster, they're already certified as being properly registered. "But..," the fraud proponents sputter, "What if an illegal immigrant uses the name of a registered voter at the polls to cast an illegal vote?" This does not make sense. Non-citizens have no interest in trying to cast an illegal vote that
will do them no personal good, but will almost certainly result in
fines, jail and deportation. There's nothing in it for them! It's ridiculously easy to catch<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-81147773820698704232018-05-08T12:40:00.001-07:002023-06-04T17:33:38.498-07:00Legitimacy is at the Core of Republican HypocrisyThe arrogance of Republican hypocrisy is breathtaking. Trump, of course, is the most visible, blatant, and audacious, but it has been going on much longer than Trump has been on the scene. <br />
<br />
The most recent (as of this morning) has been the Eric Schneiderman debacle. After credible witnesses and contemporaneous corroboration of physical, mental and emotional abuse from someone who has been an outspoken advocate for #MeToo, Democrats rightly called for Schneiderman to step down, which he did. And Twitter was ablaze with the pearl-clutching condemnation of Republicans who were shocked and disgusted that a man in public office could behave so reprehensibly, and who must immediately be removed from that office.<br />
<br />
But when confronted with abuse and assault accusations of their own, they stubbornly insist that A) all of the accusers, no matter how credible, are lying; B) the accused are denying any wrongdoing so must be believed; and C) that regardless of the truth or falsity of the accusations, their guy was elected by the people so it doesn't matter.<br />
<br />
This extends to every corner of political and public life, from the accusations of corruption and self-dealing from the White House on down, to evangelical support of the most egregious moral failings of the President, and any kind of transgression that they would excoriate Democrats for. They lambasted President Obama for wearing a tan suit, which they accused of being 'disrespectful of the office', while giving a pass to the most vile insults that the current resident of that office throws around at anyone he doesn't like, including mocking a disabled reporter. They berated Michelle Obama for wearing a sleeveless dress, while giving the current resident's wife a pass for nude photographs.<br />
<br />
It has always puzzled me, because it's not just the 'low-information' base and die-hard Trump fans who do this - it's smart, well-educated Republicans in and out of public office who do the same. How can they possibly keep a straight face? How can they constantly excuse and justify bad behavior of their own while being outraged over the slightest transgression - real or imagined - of any Democrat? How can they rail against the speck in their brother's eye while ignoring the beam in their own? How can they justify this to themselves?<br />
<br />
I am thinking that it comes down to the issue of legitimacy.<br />
<br />
In 1994, Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist, with the help of pollster Frank Luntz, came up with the "Contract with America", a manifesto of conservative ideology and Republican campaign platform wish list that painted Democrats and liberals as not just misguided but illegitimate - not just wrong but immoral. They made the case that conservative values must prevail, not just to improve the economy or strengthen America, but in order to keep liberal values out of the public sphere altogether. This document referenced traditional Republican ideas such as cutting taxes, slashing the safety net, a balanced budget amendment, tort reform, term limits, cutting regulations, etc. Along with that came language that encouraged the Christian Coalition to consider it a legitimization of their 'place at the table' of government legislation and a rejection of the separation of church and state. <br />
<br />
Frank Luntz helped Newt to make the case that America itself was conservative, and therefore anything non-conservative was, by definition, un-American. Luntz gave Newt a treatise on language to define his position and denigrate the opposition, telling Republicans to use words like choice, children, common sense, confident, duty, family, freedom, liberty, opportunity, precious, prosperity, protect, rights, strength, tough, truth. And he told them to use words to define Democrats like abuse of power, betray, bizarre, bureaucracy, cheat, coercion, corrupt, decay, destroy, fail, greed, hypocrisy, ideological, intolerant, liberal, lie, obsolete, punish, radical, selfish, shame, steal, threaten, traitors, unionized, waste, welfare.<br />
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Of course, there have always been fundamental differences between the two parties/ideologies, and plenty of partisanship, but even with all that there was the idea of the 'Loyal Opposition' with whom you had vigorous, even heated debate on the floor, but respected as a person and a fellow congressperson. You might completely disagree with your opponent but at the end of the day you did not question their right to be there. Newt and company weaponized disagreement, and promoted the narrative that Democrats and liberal values must be eliminated at any cost from a voice in American government. This is not an exaggeration. They speak of a permanent Republican majority, and warn that if Democrats are allowed to have a say, that America itself is endangered. <br />
<br />
This is why you hear things like "a child molester/rapist/felon/thief/traitor in office would be bad, but not as bad as a Democrat."<br />
<br />
What has seeped into the subtext of the Republican narrative (obviously not all Republicans personally, but the frame, which is embraced by a large portion of the conservative electorate) is the idea that Democrats do not belong in office, period. That their very ideas are not legitimate and that their policies will harm America.<br />
<br />
This gives them the freedom to hold a different standard. <br />
<br />
If Democrats are fundamentally illegitimate, any steps to eliminate them from government are acceptable. If you believe that the premise of liberalism is dangerous and destructive and immoral, it is easy to justify doing anything possible to prevent or remove them from office. It's a logical extension of "the ends justify the means."<br />
<br />
So, no matter what a conservative may do that is questionable, unethical, immoral or even illegal, the bottom line is that they are in the right. They may not be personally honorable but they are standing with a cause that is honorable and essential for the survival of America, so they are legitimate. Trump is just the most egregious and offensive example of this way of thinking. This is why evangelicals will back him no matter what. If a sinner can further God's purpose, then the sinner is not wrong. <br />
<br />
Conversely, if a liberal or a Democrat transgresses, it is a confirmation of their basic illegitimacy. There is no cognitive dissonance there if you consider it within the frame of legitimacy over illegitimacy. A Democrat admitting and accepting responsibility for wrongdoing is proof of their fundamental unfitness. A Republican refusing to admit any wrongdoing is proof of their innocence and legitimacy.<br />
<br />
Although there are few Republicans who will consciously attest to this underlying premise, and of course many moderate Republicans who do not subscribe to it, I believe that this is an overall driving force in motivating the actions of the current Republican party. A lie in the service of the truth is no lie. <br />
<br />
Until we contend with this directly, I think this toxic dichotomy will continue and intensify. We must address this before we are shut out of our country's political process for good. As long as a Democrat in office is considered worse than a criminal, we will continue to have to fight a war for basic legitimacy itself.Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-59487474252411846582018-02-27T09:58:00.000-08:002023-06-04T17:33:33.850-07:00Democrats and Reasonable Republicans Need To Come TogetherLet me start by saying that all of us are on a continuum, and our major differences stem from where we sit on that continuum.<br />
<br />
As Americans, most of us believe in the same general ideas. For instance, in America we use the tax system to fund our government and the things we use in common that can't be built individually. So it's not that Democrats believe in taxes and Republicans don't; it's where on the continuum we stand on them. We have a set of laws and regulations that define us as a society. If every single thing we do in public or private is regulated by the government, we have no freedom; if nothing is regulated, we have no freedom either. <br />
<br />
We're not polar opposites; we are just on different places on the spectrum.<br />
<br />
The way our democratic/republic system is supposed to work is that we have input from different points of view, and by negotiation and compromise, we come to a place where there is something for everyone - no one gets all of what they want, but everyone gets some of what they want. We are not an autocracy where everything is determined by one person or party. We are not supposed to be trying to stamp out the other's point of view. It is not good vs. evil.<br />
<br />
Somewhere along the line, but brought to a fine point by Newt Gingrich in the 90s with his "Contract with America", came the idea that Democrats were not the loyal opposition but enemies to be eradicated, and that the goal was not a compromise between both parties in the marketplace of ideas, but to usher in permanent Republican rule, as Karl Rove declared. These radicals evolved into the Tea Party, and it's not too strong a statement to say that their aim is not cooperation but permanent political dominance. And this position has gotten more and more extreme, with little to no respect for the other side. Liberalism is not a balancing factor but a dangerous ideology, to be vanquished whenever and wherever possible. Hatred for liberals was a significant factor in Trump's election.<br />
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But it has not only been Democrats who have been demonized; it has also been reasonable Republicans. Moderate Republicans have been largely forced out or marginalized by this radical right, which is largely responsible for the inability of the Republicans to pass much significant legislation despite controlling the House, the Senate and the White House. In the meantime, a rogue President goes unchecked.<br />
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Reasonable Republicans are in a bind - they don't want to align with the radicals who are clearly out of their minds, who defy facts and science and math, who are racist and misogynist and homophobic and xenophobic and theocratic, who are going against everything that this country stands for - immigration, equal rights, public safety, separation of church and state, the integrity of the vote - yet they are not ready to identify with Democrats, either. <br />
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To them, I say: it's OK. You don't need to be a Democrat to help us regain what the radical Trumpists have taken from us. I know you worry that by aligning yourself with Democrats you are betraying your core identity as a Republican. But let's be honest - Democrats and reasonable Republicans have more in common than reasonable Republicans and the crazy Trump fringe. We're not asking you to give up your identity or be a Democrat or a liberal. We can agree on common facts and reality. They are in an 'alternative' universe. Which would be fine, except they have taken the power to inflict that alternate reality on us. This is already damaging us both inside our country and with our relationship to the rest of the world. And it can literally lead us to nuclear war. We have never been closer, even during the Cold War, because it would not happen as a deliberate policy decision by a nation, but as a confrontation between two unstable world leaders. Any little mistake, accident or provocation could bring it on.<br />
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As firmly as I believe in my liberal ideals, I also believe that my ideas should not be the only ones. I believe that Democrats and Republicans have to work together to temper each other's extremes or excesses. I don't want a permanent Democratic majority. There are good and bad ideas on both sides, and that's what America is to me - a place where everyone has a voice and can work together, a place that was built by and enriched by immigrants from its very inception, a place where one side does not control everything. It should also be a place where we share our common values, and respect facts and science. <br />
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So I'm calling on reasonable Republicans, not to become Democrats, but to take your party back from the fact-challenged extremists who are not even conservative. You don't have to give up your beliefs to join us, because at the end of the day we have more in common with each other than with Trumpism.<br />
<br />
(I should add that this applies to progressive v. centrist Dems as well - we can hash out differences in party direction later, but right now this is triage. We cannot afford to dilute or fracture our vote and risk losing another election, or at least enough seats to have some kind of say rather than being shut out altogether as we are now.) <br />
<br />
Our differences can be debated from a foundation of a shared reality. Not so with the Trumpists. They are neither real conservatives nor Republicans, but authoritarians following a narcissistic, childish despot-wanna-be. It is urgent that we come together to save a place where we can have those differences - while we still can.Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-77212437592805775252018-02-20T13:52:00.000-08:002023-06-04T17:33:37.230-07:00How About How Liberals Feel, For A Change?Once again, it's the Left that's being asked to consider the Right's feelings. It's the Left that is, as usual, being asked to do all the compromising for the sake of moving past gridlock. It's the Left that's accused of not respecting the opinions of the Right.<br />
<br />
In the wake of the horrific and tragic Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shootings, the ever-temperate and moderate bothsiderist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/opinion/parkland-gun-control-shootings.html" target="_blank">David Brooks tells us that</a> "The people who defend gun rights believe that snobbish elites look down on their morals and want to destroy their culture."<br />
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His answer, of course, is that "(i)t’s necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points." After all, if we snobbish liberal elites would just get off our high horses for a minute and try to understand how the Real Americans of the Heartland™ feel, and not just be hating and thinking we're so superior all the time, then maybe we can all move forward.<br />
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And of course, we always do. <br />
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Cue the tsunami of articles about Trump voters and how they feel and why they feel and why they're so downtrodden and ignored by the arrogant Left. How, they bemoan, can we understand the Red Staters better? What can we say to them to show them we're not haters? When are we going to show them some respect and stop telling them "who they are and what they think" from our lofty elitist towers?<br />
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Oddly, enough, this always seems to be a one-way street.<br />
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Have you ever gone to any right-wing sites or read any right-wing Facebook posts asking each other to consider the left-wing point of view? To try to put themselves in a liberal's shoes? To wonder why liberals think the way they do, and maybe understand them better?<br />
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Go ahead; I'll wait.<br />
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No. I haven't, either.<br />
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I can tell you that I have spent a LOT of time 'trying to see the other side's point of view'. In fact, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Price-Right-Conservative-Agenda-America/dp/0977954595/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200697623&sr=8-1" target="_blank">I wrote a whole book</a> trying to figure it out. Before I stopped posting my political viewpoint on Facebook, even in my most angry rants, I tried to show respect for those who believed differently than I did and to acknowledge that they (some, anyway) were trying to be the best people they could be and believed in the righteousness of their position as much as I believe in mine. I asked for those people to have an honest and respectful dialogue with me to see where our beliefs connected and did not connect without insults or attacks.<br />
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I can count on one hand the people who were actually willing to have that discussion. There were a few people that would, but they were very much the exception. And it was at my invitation, not theirs.<br />
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And I <i>never</i> saw, from those on the right, requests for liberals to explain why they believe as they do. I never saw someone from the right reach out to the left asking for respectful dialogue with an open mind to hear an opposing viewpoint with the approach that we are both people of goodwill trying to understand one another. That doesn't mean that it never happens, of course, but I never saw it and I have looked.<br />
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We are both - right and left - accused of operating within our own bubbles, more comfortable with surrounding ourselves with those who share and reinforce our own point of view. And this is pretty much true. But I can tell you that, at least with my own experience, when I try to engage the other side, most of the time I am not met with respect. <br />
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There are some people who thrive on argument and conflict and do well with confrontation, and they will go out there and give as good as they get. But I have yet to see an argument on Facebook that has resulted in "Gee, you're right! I need to change my point of view to yours!" <br />
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In any political conflict where there are diametrically opposed positions, it is always the left that is asked to capitulate for the sake of breaking a stalemate. It is always the left asked to make concessions to their beliefs. When Republicans are in power, Democrats are expected to compromise - and they do. As opposed as Dems were to George W. Bush's agenda, they gave him most of what he wanted, including a disastrous, unnecessary war. They cannot bear to be seen as 'obstructionist'. They believe that you have to give in order to get - you know, the way that the government worked back in the good old days when Dems and Repubs would argue bitterly on the floor, and then go out for drinks afterwards. But when Democrats are in power, they are treated as illegitimate by the Republican party (thanks to good ol' Newt) so that obstructing the Democratic agenda is seen as a virtue, and to compromise at all is to abandon conservative principles. And, of course, we can't be faulted for standing up for our principles, can we?<br />
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We're supposed to feel for the Red-Staters who Brooks quotes as "offended by the lawn signs that said, 'Hate Has No Home Here.' The implication: Hate has no home in my house, but it does in yours." It's understandable, even justifiable, for them to be offended by the slights that they see themselves subjected to by the thoughtless and uncharitable Left - but at the same time, they deride liberals who feel offended by their treatment by the right as being "special snowflakes". The Left are always the 'real racists' if they point out racism, and intolerant if they object to being discriminated against because of religious objections. They are 'haters' if they object to being hated.<br />
<br />
As the bleeding-heart, open-minded liberal I am, I am willing - more than willing - to consider or even embrace an opposite point of view if you could empirically prove it to me. If you could really show me that tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations truly make the economy better for everyone, I would change my position on tax cuts. I'm not married to them ideologically - I want results. But of course, it has never been shown to me to work - but if you had proof to show me, I would not ignore it. <br />
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So far, though, I have not been met with either respect, good faith, willingness to listen or empirical truth from the right. Until we get some sort of reciprocity (see what I did there?) from the other side, I am not especially interested in continuing the same dynamic where one side does all the reaching out, all the understanding, all the capitulating. Because it will continue exactly like that as long as we allow it to. <br />
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And I am not willing to roll over on a matter of principle as important as preventing mass murder. Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-83179178007898956382018-01-23T22:04:00.002-08:002023-06-04T17:33:39.028-07:00Evangelicals Approve of Trump - No Surprise!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Everyone seems to be surprised that far-right evangelicals and fundamentalists, who are so very critical of American society’s immorality and sinfulness, are completely embracing Trump, possibly the least-Christian President ever - venal, profane, vain, envious, greedy, a liar, a cheat, a thief, an adulterer, a glutton - when they howled at the perfidy of a Bill Clinton or even attacked the Christianity of a Barack Obama, surely one of the most scandal-free, family-values men ever to occupy the White House.<br />
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It is not so surprising if you know the history of the relationship between evangelicals and Big Business Republicans.<br />
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Evangelicals took a drubbing during the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925. Even though William Jennings Bryan prevailed against celeb lawyer Clarence Darrow and obtained a conviction against John Scopes for teaching evolution, the evangelical community were ridiculed in the press and painted as ignorant and backward. As a result, they retreated from public life and developed their own commmunity apart from the mainstream culture. <br />
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In the 60s, the Republican Party was essentially a business-oriented party, not especially concerned with religion. And the religious right was not interested in engaging in politics, which they considered ‘worldly’ and sinful. But when a 1964 Supreme Court decision removed prayer from public schools, a man named Paul Weyrich envisioned a Christian Right with political power. <br />
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It took him some time to convince both Republicans and Christians that they could empower each other. In 1978 the IRS threatened to revoke tax-exempt status from private schools that were not sufficiently integrated, and at this point the evangelicals decided that their isolation could no longer protect them, and decided to accept the help of the Republicans. Paul Weyrich convinced a Baptist minister to organize a Christian protest against the IRS called Christian School Action. Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and Jerry Falwell Sr. (who donated his massive direct-mail list) got on board, and Christian School Action was successful in getting the IRS to drop the desegregation plan.<br />
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This led to the birth of the Moral Majority, and the joining of the religious right and the Republican Party.<br />
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Up to this point, the Big Business Republicans did not have, by itself, the means to dominate the political landscape. And the religious right had no recourse to government power, especially with the separation of church and state. But together, they became a juggernaut, with Republicans utilizing a disciplined, organized and obedient religious voting bloc to achieve their secular ends. <br />
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In return, the evangelicals were promised that their religious goals would be prioritized.<br />
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Disappointed by the liberal bent of one they considered one of their own, born-again Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter, the religious right mobilized to elect the divorced ex-movie star Ronald Reagan, who although not particularly religious himself, wooed them ardently.<br />
<br />
However, although the Repubs talked a good game, the religious right didn’t always get a lot of bang for their buck. The evangelicals always delivered their vote and held up their end of the bargain, but once their guy was in office, the big promises did not materialize. Few evangelicals were appointed to top positions and their issues were not paid much attention to. <br />
<br />
Even during the George W. Bush era, who was a genuine born-again Christian, the religious right was not given the legislation and policies they felt their support entitled them to. <br />
<br />
The lesson learned for the evangelicals was that a President who was truly religious or who talked the good game was not necessarily going to outlaw abortion or same-sex marriage. Sunday-school teacher Jimmy Carter didn’t. Their beloved patriotic Ronald Reagan didn’t. Their born-again Dubya didn’t. <br />
<br />
So - when someone comes along who does pay real attention to what they want, no matter how personally vile and licentious, they could not care less. Their saintly candidates didn’t do squat. So maybe it takes God utilizing an ‘imperfect’ man to produce Godly ends, like King David or King Solomon.<br />
<br />
They will embrace and adhere to the one who gives them power - and Trump has done more than any other president to support their agenda. <br />
<br />
So don’t expect the hypocrisy to end anytime soon. That will have to wait till the next Democratic president, when they will once again rail at and condemn his or her awful sinfulness.Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-13684547972716312032017-12-27T14:41:00.000-08:002023-06-04T17:33:26.838-07:00Estate Tax - NOT a Death Tax, NOT a Double TaxWhy do the Repubs get away with saying the Estate Tax is 'double taxation'? <br />
<br />Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-75571399023295094442017-12-27T14:29:00.001-08:002023-06-04T17:33:36.878-07:00Now, What's Left?Now, What's Left?<br /><br />We know what is going on with the Right. <br /><br />We have come to the understanding (which I and other progressive writers came to 10 years ago) that the authoritarian personality - the core Trump supporter - is not amenable to persuasion, argument or even fact; that they make their political decisions based on the belief that a 'strongman' will keep them safe and it is the bad 'others' who are the real problem. We know that right-wing authoritarians have a much lower threshold for tolerating fear and uncertainty than those who identify as liberal or progressive. <br /><br />In my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Price-Right-Conservative-Agenda-America/dp/0977954595/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200697623&sr=8-1" target="_blank">"The Price of Right: How the Conservative Agenda Has Failed America (and Always Will"</a>, written while George W. Bush was president, I stated that my biggest worry was what would happen if our right-wing authoritarian populace, activated and intensified by 9/11, were to come into contact with a real social dominator. Bush was an authoritarian, but not a social dominator or even a double-high authoritarian (those who would score high on both authoritarian and social domination scales) although he was surrounded with quite a few double-highs, such as Cheney and Rove. But a real social dominator is without even the vestige of conscience or core intellectual ideology that drives a Cheney.<br /><br />My fear has come true 10 years later.<br /><br />A social dominator is the ideal attraction for the authoritarian personality and can command the utmost loyalty and obedience from his followers, and this is why Trump is unassailable as far as his base is concerned. There is nothing that makes an authoritarian feel safer and stronger than being led by a social dominator. They are both completely submissive to their accepted leader and highly aggressive towards anyone that leader dislikes. <br /><br />As we have seen, this is a complete 'alternate universe' in which we cannot even agree on a set of basic facts, much less have a substantive debate on them. <br /><br />But as the backlash to the Trump regime is building momentum, and Democrats are increasingly improving the possibility of winning back a majority in the House and Senate, I find myself wondering what the Dems are going to do to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as we always do. <br /><br />We play by two completely different set of rules, and we get snookered every single time.<br /><br />When Bush was in power, Democrats did their best to 'play fair', supporting the President and being willing to compromise, hoping that if we give some, that the other side will give some as well. What we got for our pains was a kick in the teeth.<br /><br />What the left sees as fairness - both sides being willing to compromise in order to move forward - the right sees as weakness and a willingness to betray one's beliefs. To their mind, if you compromise your principles, then you must not have very firm ones to begin with and therefore you don't deserve respect. <br /><br />So when Democrats came into power and we had a Democratic president who tried to include Republicans and sought out bipartisan solutions, the Republican answer was to completely stonewall everything the President tried to do - shockingly, not just by action but explicitly and in so many words, including the willingness to shut down the government and cripple our global credit rating and stealing the President's Supreme Court nomination. Obama's efforts to reach across the aisle engendered only contempt from the Republicans, while at the same time they accused him of tyranny if he made the only decisions he could with the Republican refusals to engage or participate. They saw him as weak and ineffective at the same time they accused him of being an imperious tyrant.<br /><br />And now, of course, when the Republicans are back in power and are in complete charge of everything, somehow it's the absolutely powerless Democrats who are responsible for the failure of the Trump agenda.<br /><br />We're in that same old familiar cycle of Repubs creating huge deficits by wealth redistribution - taking from the middle class and poor and giving it to the rich - and then justifying cutting the social safety net because there's no money left. <br /><br />And we're in that same scenario where when we try to set an example of sticking to our values, we get screwed, as the Al Franken debacle showed once again. We stand up against sexual assault, they defend their child molesters and sexual predators, and when one of our own is principled enough to accept responsibility for their behavior, we pillory them - yet Repubs excuse their own on the grounds that <i>they do not admit wrongdoing.</i> And we lose a great, honest Senator. <br /><br />(And I'm sorry to not toe the Dem line here, but I believe that Al Franken should not have lost his seat immediately. I believe that he was, indeed, set up by Roger Stone et al, and that there should have been an inquiry into the circumstances before asking him to fall on his sword to make the point that Dems are principled. And I will also say that if it had been a Republican accused of the same thing, I would feel the same way.)<br /><br />
So - we don't need to figure out the Right any more. We know exactly what's going on with them and why.<br /><br />We need to figure out the Left and we need to do it now.<br /><br />And I am really at a loss here.<br /><br />Why do we keep giving in? Why do we keep rolling over? Why don't we stand up for what we believe in just as strongly as the Right does?<br /><br />Why aren't we proud to call ourselves liberal in the way that the right is proud to call themselves conservative? <br /><br />Why is the media afraid to be accused of 'liberal bias'? Why do we let them move the goalposts and work the refs? <br /><br />Why does the conversation go like this:<br /><br /> *Some hateful thing by the right*<br /><br /> Dems: that is hateful <br /><br /> Repubs: nuh-uh, it's YOU that's hateful<br /><br /> Dems: well if we did something hateful, we're sorry and won't do it anymore<br /><br /> Repubs: See? YOU'RE the hateful ones, not us. <br /><br /> Dems: OK<br /><br /> Rinse and repeat.<br /><br /><br />We try to meet their lies with honesty and we always lose.<br /><br />We need to figure this out and we need to figure it out RIGHT NOW. <br /><br />The midterms will come up, and we will - maybe - take back the House and/or Senate - or not. There is no way of telling what could happen between now and then. <br /><br />But these are not normal times, with normal politicians in office. We don't have the luxury of sitting back and hoping something different will happen. The danger that this unhinged, unfit maniac in the White House presents worsens every day - to the tune of possible nuclear war. And if Dems cannot figure out why we act the way we do, we can't figure out how to change it. And if we continue the way we always have in response to right-wing aggression, we will lose even when we happen to be in power.<br /><br />We need to pursue the research into the same psychology, genetics, social science and neuroscience that has been used to understand right-wing thinking and motivation. Many decades of study have gone into understanding the right. <br /><br />We do know that progressive ideals have had power in the past. It is not impossible. It can be done. It has been done. The United States itself is a progressive, liberal ideal - the idea that We the People can be our own authority instead of being ruled by an autocrat.<br /><br />So, what needs to happen in order for us to assert and stand up for our own democratic beliefs and principles the way the Right does? To respect our own values the way we respect the values of others?<br /><br />We had better figure this out in a hurry. We're running out of time.Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-39516206591497081502017-06-29T13:43:00.002-07:002023-06-04T17:33:31.072-07:00Trump's Lies - A Feature, Not A Bug<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="ab104-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ab104-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="ab104-0-0"><span data-text="true">Many people wonder why Donald Trump lies about things that are easily fact-checked and refutable, and moreover, why he lies about things he doesn't need to lie about?</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="dkbto-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dkbto-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="dkbto-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="45sba-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="45sba-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="45sba-0-0"><span data-text="true">I have come to the conclusion that he lies - sometimes (maybe even most times) on purpose, and sometimes not knowing or caring if it's true or not - to assert power and domination.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="6ae26-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6ae26-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="6ae26-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="a4kt1-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a4kt1-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="a4kt1-0-0"><span data-text="true">Think about it.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="dlh2o-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dlh2o-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="dlh2o-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="d8525-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="d8525-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="d8525-0-0"><span data-text="true">Every time he tells a lie, he is telling the listener that whether it is true or not, what HE says is the reality that will follow.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="4c4lj-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4c4lj-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="4c4lj-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="3a87m-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3a87m-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="3a87m-0-0"><span data-text="true">It is a message to both his die-hard supporters and his 'enemies' - anyone who does not bow down to his greatness.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="b8a55-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="b8a55-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="b8a55-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="ci3tc-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ci3tc-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="ci3tc-0-0"><span data-text="true">It is an expression of his power and his ability to remake reality. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="bjb67-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bjb67-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="bjb67-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="ef0vf-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ef0vf-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="ef0vf-0-0"><span data-text="true">To his followers, the message is one of support and safety - if you follow someone so powerful, that power is yours also. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="7du2b-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7du2b-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="7du2b-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="nfeh-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="nfeh-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="nfeh-0-0"><span data-text="true">To his enemies, it is a statement of aggression and dominance. He can lie with impunity and not suffer any consequences from it, so therefore his enemies have no recourse against him. He cannot be stopped no matter what he does or says - not even by the truth.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="egovn-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="egovn-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="egovn-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="530hp-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="530hp-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="530hp-0-0"><span data-text="true">If the sky is blue and Trump says it's green, you are forced to make a choice. Not only that, you are forced into deciding between two 'realities', which automatically puts the lie on a par with the truth - two ideas that must be chosen from. So right there he has put himself in a position of strength. He has elevated his lie to the same level as your truth. This simultaneously boosts his lie and diminishes your truth. This works - but only if he NEVER concedes or retracts his lie. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="66cjl-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="66cjl-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="66cjl-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="8j8hi-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8j8hi-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="8j8hi-0-0"><span data-text="true">Then when presented with the overwhelming evidence that he lied, he either lies again and says he never said it, or you took it the wrong way, or he moves the goalposts, or he doubles down and dares you to do something about it. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="8ilpf-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8ilpf-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="8ilpf-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="9lu81-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9lu81-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="9lu81-0-0"><span data-text="true">And the more blatant and obvious the lie, the more powerful the differential. Your truth has lost its power by being compared on the same level as his outrageous lie, and the bigger the difference between the lie and the truth, the more power is ceded to him.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="p1bo-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="p1bo-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="p1bo-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="a2udb-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a2udb-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="a2udb-0-0"><span data-text="true">He claims additional power by constantly calling others liars (he is so powerful that he can lie, but no one else can) and by demanding apologies from everyone else (when he has never apologized to anyone ever.) He is different, better and stronger than you - you have to follow the rules but he doesn't. This is another display of dominance and aggression.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="fuc67-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fuc67-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="fuc67-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="21cm0" data-offset-key="6288j-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6288j-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="6288j-0-0"><span data-text="true">Simply put, there is much more power (for him) in lying and getting away with it than there is in telling the truth. </span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6288j-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="6288j-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-44900674801910914392017-06-09T15:01:00.004-07:002023-06-04T17:33:31.999-07:00Ignorance Is Not BlissIgnorance is not bliss.<br />
<br />
I am really tired of hearing Republicans say, "The people elected him to (smash up Washington, bring back coal jobs, etc. - insert delusion here), so he should get to do whatever he wants, and it doesn't matter if he has no idea what he's doing - he's not a Washington guy and doesn't know (insert protocol here)." <br />
<br />
<a href="https://thinkprogress.org/ryan-defends-trump-3c48c4d36573" target="_blank">For Paul Ryan to say</a>, "The president is new at this. He’s new to government. And so he probably wasn’t steeped into the long going protocols that established the relationships between DOJ, FBI, and White Houses” is simply ridiculous, but it echoes the current <strike>excuses</strike> talking points that the Republicans are using to obfuscate the fact that the Resident is completely and utterly - even dangerously - unfit for the office he grifted his way into.<br />
<br />
If you remember, when Obama became President, the Repubs continually called him an 'amateur' because he had only been in the Senate for a short time. He had, however, been in the Senate, and before that had taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for 12 years, had been a civil rights attorney and had been an Illinois state senator for 3 terms, so even though he had many years of experience and education in law and government at both state and national level, he was mocked by the right as an unqualified amateur.<br />
<br />
And you never heard anyone on the right say, "The people elected Obama so whatever his agenda is, is what the people want him to do."<br />
<br />
The office of President of the United States is arguably the most important and influential job on the planet.<br />
<br />
Why on earth would it be acceptable to have a President who doesn't know what he's doing - and, moreover, refuses to learn? <br />
<br />
And when people say they want someone in government who's 'not a politician' - I understand it if you're thinking of the word 'politician' in the derogatory sense. But government has to be run by people who have some idea about what they're doing! Why would you want someone in office who is incompetent?<br />
<br />
I've used the example of a person who's never been to medical school being handed a scalpel and sent in to operate on a patient. Sure, every surgeon has a first time operating, but he or she would have many years of education and practice on cadavers, assisting other surgeons, etc., before they would be allowed to cut into a patient. And there are tens of thousands of surgeons in the United States.<br />
<br />
But - forget about surgeons; if you were hired at McDonald's you wouldn't be allowed to take a single order or flip a single burger without the proper training. If even the lowest-paid service jobs require a certain expertise before being allowed to interact with the public, why in the world would it be acceptable to have someone in the most powerful position in the world be unqualified?<br />
<br />
This is a person who at any given time is four minutes away from wiping all life from the face of the earth. <br />
<br />
And to all those people who say, "Give the guy a chance - he's new to this" - he's not interested in learning about the requirements of the job. He's not interested in following any of the rules or protocols - or even laws - that are the parameters of this highly complicated and sensitive job. He insults our allies, but he kisses up shamelessy to our adversaries. He doesn't care about democracy; he prefers - let's be kind and say autocracy. He doesn't care about diplomacy; he prefers military aggression. If he really cared about the job, he'd be busting his ass 24/7 to learn about it. He'd be humble about his lack of knowledge and do whatever it took to become qualified. <br />
<br />
But he's not interested. <br />
<br />
All he's interested in is what he's been interested in his whole life: Donald Trump and his own glory, power and money. <br />
<br />
Laws, rules and protocols are just obstacles to his autonomy.<br />
<br />
And the sad thing - the awful, frightening thing - is that the Republicans could not care less. <br />
<br />
As long as they have a lock on every branch of the government, they will not do anything that will endanger their control of the White House, the House, the Senate and the Judiciary. They are so close to getting everything they have ever wanted with no interference from Democrats that there is nothing they won't put up with from this malevolent clown and his family of grifters and shills. They will not impeach him. No matter what. They will turn themselves inside out until their heads spin right off their necks to justify keeping Trump in office. <br />
<br />
Republicans know that even though they would have a President Pence to take his place that they would lose Trump's 'base' - those people are not Pence fans and would not be unquestioningly loyal to hiim. Trump's power is in the relationship beween a social dominator and his authoritarian followers, and you cannot just substitute another person into that relationship. They also know that the scandal of an impeachment would hamper their ability to pursue any legislation, and at the next election they would be wiped out the way they were after Nixon.<br />
<br />
So, as much as I am interested in Comey's testimony and the investigation into the Russian attacks on our elections and the question of Trump campaign collusion or complicity, I don't see it leading anywhere right now. I wish I could. But no matter what the outcome of these hearings and investigations, the fact remains that you cannot prosecute a sitting president. It's not that the president is above the law; it's that the job of the president is important enough that any criminal prosecution can wait until he is out of office. Impeachment is possible, but only by having articles of impeachment brought by the House, and subsequent prosecution by the Senate. And with Republican majorities in both bodies of Congress, that will not happen.<br />
<br />
I'm not ruling out the possibility of something so egregious happening, or being brought to light, that there is simply no way around it, because Trump is such a walking dumpster fire that there is no telling what he's capable of. In the four short months (although they seem interminable) that he has occupied the White House, he has done so many unimaginable things that nothing - absolutely nothing - he does would surprise me. But as things stand today, I don't see anyone being able to stop him for a good while. <br />
<br />
That does not mean that we should not fight him at every turn - fight against 'normalizing' his egregious, offensive, dangerous words and actions as 'a different way' of being President - not just about him, but about the precedent that his behavior sets for future Presidents, who may be a whole lot smarter, more cunning and more dangerous than he. We have to challenge him and fight him and expose him relentlessly, because every time he gets away with someone saying "Oh, he's different; he comes from the business world" or "That's just his personality" or whatever other excuses they make for his aggression, his vengefulness, his dictatorial tendencies, his disregard for any constraints - legal or moral - on his behavior, his lack of decency, his unwillingness to do what Presidents are supposed to do and act the way any democratic world leader is supposed to act, our democracy crumbles a little bit more. <br />
<br />
There may already be irreparable damage to our world standing and relationships with our allies; even when he goes, even if we get a new President who tries to repair the damage, because of how he has treated our best friends and most dependable allies, they are not sure that they can trust that another Trump won't come along and do the same thing again. This has caused a distance between us and our closest friends that may not be able to be undone. This he has done singlehandedly. In a matter of months.<br />
<br />
His aggression from the 'bully pulpit' has also encouraged physical violence in his followers, and his example has made it socially acceptable for white supremacists, anti-immigrants, anti-Semites, misogynists, and anti-LGBT people to take their hateful rhetoric to the level of physical attacks on people and property, as well as attacking the free press, both verbally and physically - so much that a man who physically attacked a reporter because he didin't like what the reporter said was elected to the House of Representatives and nobody said boo.<br />
<br />
So, without power to actually stop him at this point, our only choice is to continue to speak out, to make our voices heard, to witness and record, and most of all to refuse to accept him and his behavior as normal or acceptable. <br />
<br />
It is not. <br />
<br />
And to go along with it because "there's nothing we can do" is doing something - it is endangering our precious democracy in a way that it may not be able to recover from. Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-11384303522960714752017-03-22T12:41:00.001-07:002023-06-04T17:33:26.185-07:00We Don't Need a 'Different Kind of President' - We Need a Different PresidentEnough.<br />
<br />
Enough talking about how Trump is a
'different kind of President'. Enough making excuses for his
unacceptable behavior. Enough saying he should be 'taken seriously but
not literally'.<br />
<br />
Do you hear what you are saying, you idiots?<br />
<br />
You are saying that it's OK for the President of the United States to lie.<br />
<br />
And it's our job to deal with it and try to figure it out somehow.<br />
<br />
That is crazy talk, my friends.<br />
<br />
This
is not a question of Democrat or Republican, of left or right. To be
honest, Donald Trump could have just as easily been a Democratic
candidate. For most of his life, his political leanings (as well as his
party registration) have been aligned with the Democratic party. His
personal life certainly has not hewed to what would be considered
traditional conservative values, to say the least. And many of his
earliest stated positions are not typically Republican either - on
trade, on international relations, on health care, on Social Security
and Medicare.<br />
<br />
So, no, we're not talking Democrat or
Republican here. We're talking a dangerous authoritarian demagogue that
has managed to weasel, bluster and lie his way into the most powerful
office in the world.<br />
<br />
Simply put, we have a liar as President of the United States.<br />
<br />
I suppose you could call that a 'different kind of President'.<br />
<br />
Barely
two months in, and he has already insulted and damaged our relationship
with our closest allies (Great Britain, NATO), telegraphed support and
approval to some of the world's most despotic and dangerous rulers
(Putin, Duterte), and provoked an unstable and volatile adversary (North
Korea). He is so completely unfit for office that there is a serious
likelihood that he could get us into a nuclear confrontation. Like many
autocrats, he adores the trappings and public display of military power
(although avoided military service of his own). He wanted to parade
tanks down Pennslylvania Avenue at his inauguration. He has said that
"we have nukes - why don't we use them?" <br />
<br />
Unfortunately,
it seems that the Republican party is so invested in their agenda that
they don't care what he does as long as he signs what they want him to
sign. Removing him from office, even though they would still retain a
Republican president, would damage their ability to move legislation
with the speed that they need to enact all the pet projects that a
balanced government with any input from Democrats whatsoever would
prevent or at least mitigate - privatizing Social Security and Medicare,
eliminating the Department of Education, the EPA, neutering the
Department of Labor and the FDA, selling off federal lands, doing away
with any regulatory protections from pollution, poisons, workplace
regulations, etc., that could possibly hamper corporate profits,
eliminating consumer finance protections against predatory lending
policies, giving religious views of corporations priority over women's
right to healthcare and family planning of their choosing (to name only a
few.)<br />
<br />
This is their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and
you can bet they are not going to kill the Goose that lays the Golden
Eggs. They get the Golden Eggs, and we get the Goose.<br />
<br />
And this is happening in only two months of this Residency.<br />
<br />
He must go.<br />
<br />
Before
he destroys American democracy. Before the worst-case scenario, which
was unthinkable for any previous American president, but a possibility
now - nuclear war. <br />
<br />
Enough. We don't need a 'different kind of President'. We need a different President.Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-7506933732850806812016-11-09T13:44:00.001-08:002023-06-04T17:33:25.919-07:00Back To Hooterville Once Again! or, Plus ça change, plus c'est la même choseWow. In one ill-fated evening, I've been thrown back to how I felt on November 4, 2004.<br />
<br />
So, I guess I'll be firing up the ol' tractor and heading out into the back 40.<br />
<br />
I'm going to be cross-posting on my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thepriceofright/" target="_blank">"Price of Right" Facebook page</a> as well, but I think a blog is right for what's going on right now. I'm not going to inundate my friends and family with my opinions who don't really want to hear political stuff or who want to come over and argue. I'll continue to post music and cat stuff on my regular Facebook page. On this page, I am preaching to the choir.<br />
<br />
So I invite you to join me here!<br />
<br />
The following is the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thepriceofright/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINE&fref=nf" target="_blank">first post up on Price of Right:</a><br />
<br />
Last night, like many of you, I was in total shock. I love you all
for coming by and sharing your own thoughts and feelings with me, and
for your support. I have a lot more to say, and right now I only want to
say it to you.<br />
<br />
The main reason I wrote my book "The Price of
Right" was really to answer my own question, which is why people support
ideologies and policies which go against their own best interests. I
knew why rich people supported the conservative ideology, but why in the
hell did working people support these ideas that had an adverse affect
upon them?<br />
<br />
I learned several things on that journey.<br />
<br />
I learned that facts don't matter.<br />
<br />
I also learned that people have deep psychological - and physical, or
genetically-based - reasons for thinking the way they do, and that when
you hold a position like that, it is not going to be swayed by logic or
argument. So I quit arguing and trying to convince other people to
change their minds. People occasionally do, but not because someone
out-argued them on a blog or Facebook post.<br />
<br />
Instead, I decided
to focus on reaching out to the people who share the belief system I do,
and hoping to empower and encourage each other. Yes, I'm 'in the
bubble'. I'm in the 'echo chamber'. I'm not going to expend my energy
and emotion on people who my thoughts and feeliings are just going to
antagonize. And so, here, I'm not having people come shit on me and my
friends. There will be deleted comments and unfriending if necessary.
Being 'public' doesn't mean you get the right to come in and trash the
joint. This is my home, and I'm running it.<br />
<br />
Even in spite of how
devastated I am because of last night's catastrophic events, I still
believe that there is strength and power in coming together and working
for progress and positive change - even if we don't see the results in
our lifetime. We fight because it's right, not because we think we're
going to get our way. I believe this more than ever, even if I don't
'feel' it right now.<br />
<br />
It was, in fact, a day much like today - the
waking nightmare after a gruesome election - that gave me the impetus
to begin writing my blog "Last Left Turn Before Hooterville". I woke up
the day after the second Bush election in 2004 and I couldn't get out of
bed. I couldn't believe that after the previous four years he was still
in the White House. I experienced a profound sense of disorientation. I
didn't know where to turn or what to do.<br />
<br />
I had never written
before in my life, but I felt, like I feel now, that it was 'write or
die'. I started reading the comments on the Washington Post political
site, and got into a conversation with a guy who had his own political
blog. I went over there and for the first time felt like there were
people who thought the way I did and wanted to talk about it. So I
started my own blog. And that blog led me to a whole world of
progressive thought and progressive friends - and even a book contract!
I feel so lucky that I was able to have a platform to write exactly
what I wanted to say.<br />
<br />
So I invite you, my friends and loved ones, over here to chat with me - share some solidarity and hope, and channel our anger and frustration into action.<br />
<br />
And fuck those motherfuckers.<br />
<br />
Here is a link to the <a href="http://lastleftb4hooterville.blogspot.com/2004/11/welcome-to-hooterville.html" target="_blank">very first post I wrote on my Hooterville blog</a>.
It takes me back so viscerally to the way I felt then, which is the way I
feel again now. And I would take a thousand Dubyas over the
monster that has just bullied his way into the presidency.Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-77651367549610388182016-09-29T13:00:00.001-07:002023-06-04T17:33:37.362-07:00In Six Words: Why Government Should Not Be Run Like A Business - by Donald Trump <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNYo2SSQYt-ri341vjP5uKcLG_if__p670xOqmRWZyhlQWPjkIRA24qZhrwMsRS8WXrptv9uVhf0-jrnczh5xIANenz4lQIX5B7N4Cj3LB6iGduE-gqV0dwRTEqFUOMFnpRUGuQA/s1600/hqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNYo2SSQYt-ri341vjP5uKcLG_if__p670xOqmRWZyhlQWPjkIRA24qZhrwMsRS8WXrptv9uVhf0-jrnczh5xIANenz4lQIX5B7N4Cj3LB6iGduE-gqV0dwRTEqFUOMFnpRUGuQA/s320/hqdefault.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
A favorite argument - perhaps THE favorite argument - by conservatives, when discussing government, is that it should be run like a business. This is their justification for privatizing every government-controlled agency or organization. They say that running America like a business eliminates bureaucracy, waste, fraud and needless spending. That if a business was run like the government, that business would go under. That if America was run like a business, most of the problems we face today would be eliminated. <br /><br />And the corollary is, what's good for business is good for America<br /><br />This is a fallacy, and I think it's time we addressed this head on:<br /><br />Government and business have distinctly opposite interests.<br /><br />Business is, at its core, for profit. Not 'breaking even' and definitely not taking a loss. It is simple math. Dollars and cents, nothing more. <br /><br />And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that idea. <br /><br />There is nothing wrong with the idea that the aim of business is profit. This is what drives the economy and is the backbone of the world. Supply and demand. Incentive to create something, to work for something, to achieve the things that you want - this is one of the things that 'makes America great', if you will. <br /><br />But it is not the only thing.<br /><br />There are things that all people need that are not profitable - in fact, they cost.<br /><br />Having clean air, water and safe-to-eat food is not necessarily profitable, but they are necessary for our survival. We need to defend ourselves from attack. We need roads, we need health care, we need a national infrastructure, we need an educated people and - we need a legal system. We need laws to protect people from being hurt, damaged, stolen from or killed. <br /><br />We need laws for business as well, to make sure that business can operate fairly. What if we didn't have laws that enforce contracts? If a business sold widgets to someone in advance, and then the person just took off with the widget and didn't pay, without laws that enforce that business' right to have that contract honored - "I give you stuff, and you pay for it" - that business would have no recourse. And if someone broke into the business' warehouse and stole all their inventory, there wouldn't be a thing you could do about it. The legal system that protects us all - businesses and individuals alike - has to be created and enforced by We the People. And taking care of the interests of the Amercan people costs money in the short run, although it pays off in the long run - in quality of life, in freedom, in security, in progress. But not in quarterly profit.<br /><br />This is the difference between government and business. <br /><br />Business is like a powerful engine - with wheels and steering and brakes, it can go where you want it to go, but without parameters like steering and brakes, it can run over and destroy people. <br /><br />If the goverment is run like a business, then the only concern is the profit. And in business, people's welfare is not the most important thing. The only concern is the bottom line. For business, that's fine - it's the way it's designed. But the government exists for the interest and well-being of the people.<br /><br />And a perfect illustration of this was given to us by none other than Donald Trump.<br /><br />Last Monday, at the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said, "Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. He said, back in 2006, 'Gee, I hope it does collapse, because then I can go in and buy some and make some money.' Well, it did collapse."<br /><br />Trump replied, "That’s called business, by the way."<br /><br />In those six words, he made the case for not only why he is unfit to be President (or even dogcatcher) but why government should not be run like a business.<br /><br />Running the country like a business means money first, people second.<br /><br />Being a wealthy businessman (I don't say 'successful') is not a reason why Trump should be elected President. Because he is proud to profit by the hardship and losses of the American people. <br /><br />This is his priority, and it is his prerogative as a business person to at least attempt to do so.<br /><br />But the President is a public servant. The President's interest has to be first and foremost that of the American people, not his own wealth and power. Do you really believe that if those were to come into conflict, that the People's interests would prevail? <br /><br />Me neither.<br /><br />Donald Trump himself has told us in six words why he should not be President. <br /><br />Believe him.Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-27092698090929501672015-10-23T12:59:00.002-07:002023-06-04T17:33:28.973-07:00Get Out The Vote - Start NOW!<div data-contents="true" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-gQ0dHgkowyQbk0f-eWi7BiU7CldslPBSJNrQ44yLE8U5FPkqisIfOL_tvHgBIW6OJOdaR9BNu7aErq5LqgkBx0LTBgOenFE6gGSuGaJsri1ijkRmerMagSXmJ6Cyeq71zVvdbQ/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-gQ0dHgkowyQbk0f-eWi7BiU7CldslPBSJNrQ44yLE8U5FPkqisIfOL_tvHgBIW6OJOdaR9BNu7aErq5LqgkBx0LTBgOenFE6gGSuGaJsri1ijkRmerMagSXmJ6Cyeq71zVvdbQ/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="dictj-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$dictj">
<span data-offset-key="dictj-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$dictj.0:$dictj-0-0"><span data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$dictj.0:$dictj-0-0.0">Democrats, progressives, liberals, whatever - just a thought. The election is a year away. <a href="http://prospect.org/article/one-reason-democrats-lost-so-big-midterms-exceptionally-low-voter-turnout" target="_blank">When voter turnout is low, Democrats lose</a>. <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/3/progressives-need-to-stop-looking-for-a-hero.html" target="_blank">When voter turnout is high, we win</a>. We are the natural majority, but we don't vote as often as we should.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="dictj-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$dictj">
</div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="dictj-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$dictj">
<span data-offset-key="dictj-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$dictj.0:$dictj-0-0"><span data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$dictj.0:$dictj-0-0.0"><a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2012/09/art-voter-turnout" target="_blank">And Republicans like it that way. </a></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="3bg2-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$3bg2">
<span data-offset-key="3bg2-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$3bg2.0:$3bg2-0-0"><br data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$3bg2.0:$3bg2-0-0.0" /></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="3ovrr-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$3ovrr">
<span data-offset-key="3ovrr-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$3ovrr.0:$3ovrr-0-0"><span data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$3ovrr.0:$3ovrr-0-0.0">This next coming year is important - not just for the Presidential elections, but the downticket elections as well - city, county, state, boards of education, Congressional, gubernatorial. This is where we often drop the ball. This is how we lose the House and Senate, as well as the local elections that determine what goes on in our own communities, and where the right-wing fringe people get their footholds.</span></span><br />
</div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="3ovrr-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$3ovrr">
</div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="3ovrr-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$3ovrr">
<span data-offset-key="3ovrr-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$3ovrr.0:$3ovrr-0-0"><span data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$3ovrr.0:$3ovrr-0-0.0">Mid-term elections - those are vitally important and we don't participate like we should. And when the only people who are paricipating are the fanatical true-believers, they are the ones who get elected. </span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="bc13i-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$bc13i">
<span data-offset-key="bc13i-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$bc13i.0:$bc13i-0-0"><br data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$bc13i.0:$bc13i-0-0.0" /></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue">
<span data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0"><span data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0.0">Wonder how we got hijacked by the far-right religious fringe, and the ultra-Tea Party wackos who are hell-bent on bringing the whole government structure down, and don't care who gets hurt? Wonder how they got to set the horrific agenda before us and are seemingly unstoppable even by the leaders of their own party?<br /><br />It's because we are not getting out the vote. We're not voting on a local level, we're not voting in mid-terms (which is where our Congress and governors get elected) we're not participating on a national level - and these people ARE. Remember that.<br /><br />Please, please - start thinking and planning about voting and participating NOW. We have a year before the presidential election, and the primaries are coming up in the spring. If we're not happy with the way things are in politics, we need to do something about it now - not wait till after the elections and bitch.<br /><br />So, in conclusion - VOTE! Get your friends to vote. Get your family to vote. Help people who are not registered to vote to register, and if they need help getting to the polls, help there too. </span></span><br />
</div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue">
</div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue">
<span data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0"><span data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0.0">I also recommend becoming a pollworker! It really helps get you involved in the process. It's fun. Your fellow pollworkers are other people interested in the political processes, and, whether they share your political persuasion or not, they're usually pretty interesting people. You get a sense of pride from perfoming an important public service - dare I say THE important public service in a democracy. You get to meet your neighbors and people you might not otherwise run into - plus, it pays! I really enjoy it and look forward to it. I've been doing it for 10 years, and now my younger son does it with me. He came for the check and stayed because he liked it. Now he is on the list to do it every election.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue">
<span data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0"><span data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0.0"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue">
<span data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0"><span data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0.0">It's simple. When we vote, we win. Let's start thinking about this NOW.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue">
<span data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0"><span data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0.0"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue">
<span data-offset-key="4erue-0-0" data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0"><span data-reactid=".0.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$4erue.0:$4erue-0-0.0">Thanks!</span></span></div>
</div>
Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-72623996084213994502015-10-08T00:26:00.002-07:002023-06-04T17:33:36.005-07:00Thoughts on #BlackLivesMatter, White Privilege and MusicI was raised by a very liberal single mother in the '60s, and I make my living playing music that is rooted in the black community. I used to think I was 'color-blind' as if that was something to be proud of - that I didn't make a distinction between black and white, that I only judged people on the content of their character, etc. It took a lot of reflection, learning and listening to what black people were saying about their experience for me to realize that that was an attitude of racism and white privilege - that I had the <i>luxury</i> of not noticing color. Black folk never have that luxury. <br />
<br />
I sing and play soul music, jazz, R&B and blues, and I have a deep respect, inspiration and love for where it came from. I do not imagine that I 'sound black', nor would I ever try to. Even I find it extremely offensive when a white singer brags about 'sounding black' (although most of them definitely don't even though they think they do.) I can only imagine how a black person must feel when they hear that. But the cold reality is that I am allowed to go into that world - welcomed with open arms, in fact - do the best I can in it and succeed or fail on my own merit, but the same is not true for black folk in many primarily-white genres, such as country music. A Charley Pride or a Ray Charles several generations ago only illustrates the absolute rejection of black singers by Nashville - black <i>artists</i>, that is; backup singing or playing for a white artist is all good as long as you're '20 feet from stardom'. <br />
<br />
I realize that as a white person who performs in a predominantly black genre of music, 'cultural appropriation' is another aspect of white privilege that I have to examine. There is a long history of white artists performing music first created by black artists, and making more money from it than the original artist, such as Elvis, Pat Boone, etc. It is a very sensitive subject and still takes a lot of unpacking and questioning - especially for someone like me. Again, I am grateful to have been welcomed by my black musician friends, but that does not give me license to assume that I'm part of that experience as a black musician and what their obstacles are in this business.Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-79044670127729447552015-10-03T19:22:00.002-07:002023-06-04T17:33:37.972-07:00Hope You Like The Sh*t Show, Progressives - We Let It Happen. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgotGvcuHRm3Ane_kaoMGhEWUM4pkJgh_vRwZjLDXNa9Fj5ReFrcvgFYU2Ctlh3uB9Wn42h2YSTtQZoAYnZuynkwlwtebEFV8JU8S_DAsk_S0WsoiO__lHZugvZLwbaJk28isncAg/s1600/popcorn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgotGvcuHRm3Ane_kaoMGhEWUM4pkJgh_vRwZjLDXNa9Fj5ReFrcvgFYU2Ctlh3uB9Wn42h2YSTtQZoAYnZuynkwlwtebEFV8JU8S_DAsk_S0WsoiO__lHZugvZLwbaJk28isncAg/s320/popcorn.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Every single day, the Republican Party goes further and further into far-right-wing extremism - so much more radical than it was when George W. Bush was in office that it's hard to believe. Issues that we thought had been settled long ago are now under attack all over again - a woman's right to decisions about her own body, the separation of church and state, civil rights, voting rights, care of the environment, the right of workers to organize, Social Security, even the Department of Education and public schooling. Science itself is not just questioned, but utterly denied, both by religious extremist nutjobs and corporate behemoths whose interests are threatened by facts.<br />
<br />
Remember that there are two major lanes to this Republican Highway to Hell: Far-Right Religious Extremists (FRREs) and Big Business/Big Money Repubs (BBs). Neither of them can prevail on their own, but they both believe they can use the other to achieve their ends - and so far, they have been right. They have separate agendas, and they will ignore their differences as long as possible for the 'greater good' of Republican Party dominance. Intersecting with those two major lanes are the Tea Party nutballs and the Libertarians, who can share some values of both, but can throw a monkey wrench into the agenda of the two majors as well. <br />
<br />
Big Business (with a few exceptions) has absolutely no interest in the religious or social agenda of the Religious Extremists, but they sure do have an interest in an obedient, cohesive voting bloc that will pour all of its unmatched organizational resources into doing the bidding of whatever leader they believe in, so they will spout whatever the religious wackos demand of them - and those demands are getting more and more extreme and dangerous all the time. What does matter to Big Business are lower taxes and de-regulation, and they are willing to promise whatever they need to in order to get them. <br />
<br />
Another basic divide is between the Right Wing Elites and the Right Wing Populists, and this is where the Tea Partiers and Libertarians come in. Big Business is mostly about the Elites, and the FRREs mostly come down on the side of the Populists, but the BBs want the loyalty of the Populists, and the FRREs want the power of the Elites. <br />
<br />
Tea Partiers/Libertarians are a big factor here as well - they share some values with both sides. They are Populists (some religious, some not), but they want the lower taxes, military might and de-regulation that the BB Elites want - only more, and they are willing to pull the whole structure down to get it. BB Elites have no interest in pulling down the structure. They like it just fine the way it is, because it is specifically structured to benefit them at the expense of everyone else.<br />
<br />
These 3 Populist fringe factions (FRREs, Tea Partiers and Libertarians) are not all-powerful on their own but, put together, are such a sizable portion of the Republican Party today that Big Business Elites and old-style conservative Republicans have had no option but to go along and make whatever 'deals with the devil' that have to be made in order to hang on to power. Being the elitists that they are, they have looked down upon those factions as useful idiots that they can placate with promises and accessions to religious and social demands that don't affect the basic financial and corporate power structure (or so they think!). They have believed up to this point that they can control those fringe elements, but in the last few election cycles the traditional leaders of the party have lost any power they have over the religious and Tea Party fanatics, and are being pushed aside. They are still getting what they want - lower taxes, military spending and de-regulation - but the price they are paying for that is a drive straight through to Crazy Town. <br />
<br />
And this, my friends, is what has brought us to where we are today - to Donald Trump, to Dr. Ben Carson, to Carly Fiorina. To Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee. To the complete shutdown of a working government. To the eradication of the separation of church and state, and the dominance of religious belief over the rule of law, and over scientific fact. To out-of-control mass murders every few months - in the name of 'freedom'. To racism re-entrenched and intensified. To the literal destruction of the planet we live on.<br />
<br />
We have allowed this to happen.<br />
<br />
At some point, we - Democrats, liberals, progressives, whatever we call ourselves - must take ownership of OUR part in this.<br />
<br />
We have not stopped them, nor have we even made any more than a token and half-hearted effort to do so. <br />
<br />
When every few months innocent people are gunned down in mass murder-suicides, we don't stop those responsible - the gun lobby and Second-Amendment radicals who prevent any reasonable gun control legislation - any at all - from even being considered.<br />
<br />
When union after union is shut down and neutralized, we let it happen.<br />
<br />
When crazy laws are made like "Stand Your Ground" that allow people to murder with impunity, we let it happen.<br />
<br />
When Wall Street and banking greed decimated the economy, and we allowed them to skate off with nary a slap on the wrist, and actually become MORE powerful, profitable and too-big-to-fail as a result, while the rest of us have yet to recover from the damage they inflicted, we let it happen.<br />
<br />
When there are so few elected officials who stand up for real progressive values - and, don't lie; these ARE the values that most of us believe in - that you can count them on one hand, it's because we aren't electing them. <br />
<br />
When institutionalized racism and white privilege is the norm, we are not challenging it.<br />
<a href="https://berniesanders.com/" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<br />
<a href="https://berniesanders.com/" target="_blank">What Bernie Sanders is saying is absolutely true.</a>
<br />
<br />
<b><i><a href="http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/10/us_sen_bernie_sanders_says_x_i.html" target="_blank">We need nothing less than a political revolution.</a></i></b><br />
<br />
What we are up against is too strong to change with a few rallies, slogans and Facebook posts.<br />
<br />
It is going to take a <i>real</i> political revolution. From the ground up - from <i><b>us</b></i>. From all the people who have watched this happen. Standing by and hoping that our politicians will change this will not work. Expecting that if we deal fairly and respectfully with Republicans, they will meet us halfway will not work. It hasn't so far.<br />
<br />
I have been afraid for a long time that things will have to get terribly bad before people will demand a change. This is what happened during the Great Depression. It took people literally starving in the streets for an FDR to be able to implement something as radical as the New Deal. Republicans fought against it tooth and nail, of course, but the public embraced it and those policies got us out of the Depression and gave us the strongest, biggest middle class America has ever known - the very era that conservatives think of as 'the good old days when America was great', and say they want back, but their policies have destroyed. <br />
<br />
But without the devastation of the Great Depression, there would not have been the public will for the New Deal to happen. <br />
<br />
So I fear that things may have to get worse. <br />
<br />
Yes, I am supporting Bernie Sanders. I am sending him money. But, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/09/25/noam_chomsky_bernie_sanders_cant_save_america_partner/" target="_blank">as Noam Chomsky says</a>, Bernie Sanders cannot save America. Only a true political revolution can do that. Only a willingness to stand up and confront these Republican bullies toe-to-toe, which up till now the Democrats have not done. But they won't do it without the American people demanding that they do so. That was the first thing President Obama said when he got into office: "Make me do it." Mostly, we didn't.<br />
<br />
Until the American people say, "F*ck you, NRA. You're not killing our children any more."<br />
<br />
Until the American people say, "F*ck you, radical "religious" Republicans - we're keeping Planned Parenthood and giving them even more money because women have a right to affordable health care and you don't have the right to deny it to them."<br />
<br />
Until the American people say, "F*ck you, for-profit prison industry - you are not going to get rich by destroying the lives of Black Americans to fill your occupancy quotas."<br />
<br />
Until the American people say, "F*ck you, Wall Street and Big Finance - if you steal from us, you will pay us back AND go to jail."<br />
<br />
Until the American people say, "F*ck you, greedy Congress - full-time work should pay a living wage. Don't deny us that and at the same time vote yourself pay raises, gold-plated health care and fat pensions."<br />
<br />
Until the American people say, "F*ck you, corporate lobbyists - our government is not for sale. We will finance campaigns, not you." <br />
<br />
Until the American people say, "F*ck you, Supreme Court - money is NOT free speech and corporations are NOT humans."<br />
<br />
Until the American people stand up, say it and mean it, nothing is going to change.<br />
<br />
So, until then, progressives - enjoy the show. Because we can't just blame the Republicans. It's OUR show, too.Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-85777186688370897922015-10-02T23:28:00.000-07:002023-06-04T17:33:40.301-07:00Yes, I am #FeelingTheBern.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvaMJhmq6OM4Tgs_WskHxWJMMKqasIOd7Hm2fpPwKsP4IwvKyuW0XnBVfEVjkaDa4RYrThIsRQaIZYdxyH18YRJg41e7o9VWi13DmTOpMX9sA7gHoM-K0CXt7N7XXHgn8Do691SQ/s1600/political-class-quotes-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvaMJhmq6OM4Tgs_WskHxWJMMKqasIOd7Hm2fpPwKsP4IwvKyuW0XnBVfEVjkaDa4RYrThIsRQaIZYdxyH18YRJg41e7o9VWi13DmTOpMX9sA7gHoM-K0CXt7N7XXHgn8Do691SQ/s320/political-class-quotes-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
OK. Let me start by saying I love Bernie Sanders, and have for many
years, long before he was on most people's radar. He stands for my
values and the issues I think are important, and he always has. He has
never been anything less than authentic, passionate and committed to
liberal values.<br />
<br />
<br />
However, when people would ask me what I thought
about Bernie running for President, I was ambivalent. He is so
effective as a Senator and a member of Congress, and I was afraid that
with <span class="text_exposed_show">the political climate the way it
is, that he would not get very far. I wasn't sure that America was ready
for Bernie's message, even though I have been for a long time.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="text_exposed_show">
But, I have to say, I'm really excited about how America is responding
to Bernie. He is bringing it like no one else. Whatever happens, he is
getting the progressive message - the REAL progressive message - out
there, without apology, without compromise, without fear. He truly is
speaking for working people, for poor people, for social justice, for
civil rights, for a fair and living wage, for real democracy for all of
us, not just for the richest among us.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://berniesanders.com/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFoZfusL6VGXOU6wznHZCC3YOmjDyY4ScL6sKVpjmVbBdQjLodtKYkYd3SNaNBTa6B-2ID4jjmmMVzEmlszLaMAPtSy2pl0HrkLN7Oe4WTU8DsOCJa_blabBuES7pw6XosROnIRg/s320/BernieSanders-infrastructure.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://berniesanders.com/" target="_blank">Click here for more about Bernie!</a><a href="https://berniesanders.com/" target="_blank"><br /></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This is what I have
wanted to hear from a Democrat for years - really, all my life - and had just about given up
hope that it would ever happen. And, unlike most politicians, he's not
just saying what he thinks will get him elected - this kind of talk is
not what passes for 'conventional political wisdom'; it's the exact
opposite. He is saying what he has been saying all along, and his record
shows that he is not just saying it but doing it. He is calling for
real political revolution - and Americans are hearing him. If he is
courageous enough to get out there and say what no one else - not
Republicans, not even other Democrats - will say, then he has my support
all the way.<br />
<br />
I'm volunteering, I'm contributing, and I will be writing and talking. I'm ready for the revolution.<br />
<br />
So - yes, I <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/feelthebern?source=feed_text&story_id=10153579394346119"><span class="_58cl">#</span><span class="_58cm">FeelTheBern</span></a>. <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/berniesanders?source=feed_text&story_id=10153579394346119"><span class="_58cl">#</span><span class="_58cm">BernieSanders</span></a> <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/bernie2016?source=feed_text&story_id=10153579394346119"><span class="_58cl">#</span><span class="_58cm">Bernie2016</span></a></div>
Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-22304625690405646752015-09-11T13:27:00.001-07:002023-06-04T17:33:27.759-07:00Liberal Values are American Values<style>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe that liberal values are American values. Here's why: <br />
<br />
For starters, liberals fought for America's independence,
freed the slaves, and gave women the right to vote. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Mt. Rushmore Presidents--Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln,
and Roosevelt--were each considered radical liberals in their day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Below are major American achievements that liberals fought
for, and conservatives opposed:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Independence
from Great Britain:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Conservatives, who
then were called Tories, were against the War of Independence.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Separation of Church and State: This great achievement was eventually embodied in the First
Amendment of the Constitution's Bill of Rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was opposed by conservatives who wanted to preserve the special
status of established churches in Virginia (the Episcopal Church) and
Massachusetts (the Congregational Church).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Freedom of the Press:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Conservatives distrusted a free
press.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This provision, which was fought
for by liberals, also made its way into the Constitution's Bill of Rights.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>The Abolition of Slavery:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the outset of the Civil War,
abolitionists were regarded by conservatives as dangerous extremists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most were persecuted and many were
killed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some religious denominations
split over the issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today's Southern
Baptist Convention owes its origin to conservative Southern ministers who
believed that the Bible approves of slavery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Republican Party--which for decades was run by liberals--was formed
to prevent the spread of slavery into the western territories and states.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>The Pure Food
and Drug Act:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A liberal extremist by the
name of Upton Sinclair wrote a book called The Jungle which described
slaughterhouse practices so vividly that a reluctant, conservative Congress was
shamed into creating a federal agency with the responsibility to test all foods
and drugs destined for human consumption. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Women's
Suffrage:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Generations of women lectured,
wrote, lobbied, marched, and practiced civil disobedience in order to get the
right to vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were called liberal
extremists, and worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only a few early
liberals lived to see final victory in 1920. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Equal Rights For
Women:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Equal Rights Amendment, which
has been introduced in every session of Congress since 1923, was passed by
Congress in 1972 but failed to be ratified by the necessary number of
states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Conservatives successfully kept
it from becoming law. The dangerous wording of the Amendment is as follows:
"Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the
United States or any state on account of sex."</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Birth
Control:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the 1870s conservatives in
Congress passed the Comstock Law which made it illegal to disseminate
information about birth control practices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In 1938, in a case involving liberal extremist Margaret Sanger, Justice
August Hand lifted the federal ban on birth control.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Child
Labor:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Liberal extremists called
"muckrakers" exposed horrible abuses of hundreds of thousands of
child laborers. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson pushed the Keating-Owen Act through
Congress which banned articles made by children from interstate commerce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Supreme Court ruled it
unconstitutional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not until<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 did any
meaningful child labor legislation succeed.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The Repeal of
Prohibition<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">: </span>The 18th Amendment, which
prohibited the sale and use of alcoholic beverages, was opposed by liberals. It
was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>repealed in 1933. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Social Security:
Before FDR introduced Social Security in 1934, most elderly Americans lived in
poverty, yet it was fought by conservatives as a socialistic scheme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without it today, most elderly Americans
would still live in poverty.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>The Tennessee
Valley Authority:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This creation of the
Roosevelt era brought cheap electric power to rural areas of the economically
devastated Depression-era South.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Private
firms had passed on doing it themselves because it was too big and not
lucrative enough, but TVA was branded as Communistic.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The United
Nations:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The UN is a favorite whipping
boy of conservatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Conservatives in
another generation killed the League of Nations, which if properly implemented,
might have prevented WWII.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Undoubtedly
the UN is flawed and often ineffectual, but the world would be a more dangerous
place if there were no forum for all the nations of earth, rich and poor,
dangerous and peaceful, to talk, talk, talk before they fight, fight, fight.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Desegregation of
America's Armed Forces:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President
Harry S Truman, by executive order, ended Jim Crow practices in the U.S.
military.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His civil rights initiatives
split the Democratic Party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Strom
Thurmond, a staunch Southern conservative who later became a Republican Senator
from South Carolina, ran for President as a Dixiecrat, and carried four Southern
states.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Civil
Rights:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the fierce opposition of
conservatives, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed which made racial
discrimination in public places such as restaurants, hotels, and theaters
illegal, and guaranteed voting rights. President Lyndon Johnson, who had
supported segregation while he was a Texas Senator, was branded as a traitor by
conservatives.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The
Environmental Movement:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Muir,
Benjamin Harrison, and Teddy Roosevelt led in the creation of national parks
and the preservation of wilderness areas over the opposition of conservative
forces led by mining and timber companies and developers. </li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To be fair, it is true that conservatives have founded and
generously supported hospitals, orphanages, museums, schools and colleges,
historic preservation, and a wide range of philanthropies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have created parks and beautified
cities.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But conservatives have been on the wrong side of a shockingly
long list of major developments that have made American a better place to
live--as the above list should make clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(There are hundreds more that can be added.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is because, historically, conservatives generally have
been naysayers, defenders of the status quo.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometimes conservatives do get it right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that shouldn't surprise anyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you say No to everything, you're bound to
be right every once in a while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The next time you hear someone saying that liberals are a
threat to America, tell them to take a history lesson. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Harry Truman used to say, "The only new thing in the
world is the history you don't know."</div>
Alicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194369.post-22895992942453811542015-08-12T16:50:00.000-07:002023-06-04T17:33:28.020-07:00Now, What's Left? Time to Write a New Book?Hello, friends of Hooterville!<br />
<br />
It sure has been a while.<br />
<br />
Over the past few years, as most people have moved to Facebook as their primary way of staying connected to each other and to get the national news, I have tended not to write so much, especially politically. Not that I hide or lie about my political inclinations, but being that Facebook is open to everyone on a scale completely different than a blog, with my personal life and musical/work life as the primary focus, I have not been posting as a political writer. Occasionally I will write or share something of a political nature, but, to be honest, I'm not looking for a fight on my Facebook page.<br />
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But now, I am looking to start working on the follow-up to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Price-Right-Conservative-Agenda-America/dp/0977954595/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200697623&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Price of Right.</a> I want to expand on and further explore my ideas about why people end up with a particular political viewpoint, and I want to address some subjects that I did not talk about in my first book, such as racism and LGBT issues. I also want to try again to engage a certain group of people - the people like me a few years ago, who were progressive but uninvolved in politicsAlicia Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14458700009032102949noreply@blogger.com0