how to respond

I have never used a reader’s comment as the starting point for a new post. In general I feel as if it’s cheating, or taking advantage. We ought to be able to see and hear a wide variety of things without offense, or rebuttal. I do comment back with people I get to know via the blog, but in my mind that’s a lot different from using their comment as the basis of a post. Small distinction I supposed but after all, it’s my blog. Primarily, I see comments as a safe haven, a lace where anyone can come to share whatever’s on their mind.

But on this occasion I’m going to break that streak. The Comment:

…I’m an avid blogger, and found I haven’t been as interested [in blogging]. I feel disconnected from humanity, actually. I believe not just the U.S. but the entire world is going through a huge change. Maybe even a spiritual change. I don’t know. But God always wins in the end. And btw, don’t let the media bias and propaganda fool you. I’ve never said this outright with my blogging community before because of the hateful judgment, but I’m a MAGA and we are not “far-right, christian nationalists,” whatever that means. We are just patriotic Americans who love our country and want to see it made great again. I don’t know why that is so wrong. Why shouldn’t people from all countries around the world love their countries of origin and want it to be great? Anyway, blessings and continued good health from here on out for you and your wife.

I have nothing against patriotic Americans. On some levels patriotism ought to be a good thing: being proud of your country and wanting it to do well. But there are times that that patriotism is used as a cloak for ugly aggression, as a means of bullying the weak to give in to the greedy goals of the powerful. Patriotism has often been used to excuse racism and white supremacy. And it’s a great way for rich OLD men to get YOUNG poor men to fight for something that may have little importance: after all, wars are not JUST fought for noble reasons, sometimes they are fought for access to wealth, territory, and resources.

The reader says that they are not far-right Christian nationalists. And I look around at the churches and pastors who have flocked to the side of D. Trump and I say that sometimes we are judged by those we associate with, and far-right Christian nationalists HAVE been vocal supporters of the man. But not them only, a significant part of the Evangelical Christian movement in the U.S. has also claimed his as virtually another messiah. Which is the most absurd claim about someone who is almost never seen in church, has nothing about a Christian message in his platform and behaves in the most unChristilike ways possible.

The writer says they want to see American made “great” again. Well, to that I have to ask, how is your guy going to do that. He’s a bully. He doesn’t tolerate other opinions. He has been sued for his own (and his company’s actions) over 3500 times. His answer to an legal question has — for his entire life — been to run out the clock on opposition rather than to address the possibility that he might have done something, anything, wrong, or that someone else could possibly be right.

This is a guy who is not allowed to run a business in New York. He has been found guilty of defrauding students. and stealing from his own charities.

What is there possibly to make anyone consider that he is able to plot out a consistent and reasoned course for an entire nation when he has repeatedly run his own businesses into bankruptcy and now has multimillion dollar judgments against him. Who’s best interest is he going to have foremost in mind.

The other thing that puzzles me is why the Republican Party is happy with Donald Trump (I know the aren’t but they are willing to “go along” with him on the ballot). In 2020 there were 73,000,000 votes cast for Trump. Now all of those voters were not “party member” so they wouldn’t all be eligible as potential candidates, but with a group of tens of millions isn’t there anyone else in the country who is not a liar, a cheat, a marital cheater —in short someone the youth of this country might actually look up to for GOOD reasons that they could get behind as a candidate rather than risk democracy and the health of the nation on a multiple time loser, a crook, and despicable person.

How has anyone been hoodwinked into thinking that he is a GOOD candidate?

The only thing the Republican Party seems to want is for the Democrats to lose. They have no plan, they repeatedly vote against progress and actual solutions and constantly try to accuse Democrats of things they themselves have done. How about a little honesty.

a message from 2016

in the days just before Trump took office, Yale historian and Holocaust expert Timothy Snyder shared his thoughts:

Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You’ve already done this, haven’t you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.

2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don’t protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.

3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.

4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of “terrorism” and “extremism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “exception” and “emergency.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don’t fall for it.

6. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don’t use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps “The Power of the Powerless” by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.

7. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

8. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Bookmark PropOrNot or other sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.

10. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.

11. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

12. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

13. Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.

14. Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.

15. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.

16. Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.

17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.

18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)

19. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.

20. Be a patriot. The incoming president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.

Feel free to share, but please copy & paste the text into your own status or else it will not be viewable to all of your friends.

Dictatorship?

How Hitler, Stalin and Trump show it’s easier than you think

Andrea Chalupa discusses her graphic novel, co-authored with Sarah Kendzior, about authoritarianism and its dangers

Three zombies lurching your way is scary enough. Now imagine they’re Lenin, Stalin and Putin. This scene isn’t from a Kremlin-themed horror film, but rather a new graphic novel, Dictatorship: It’s Easier Than You Think! by Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa.

Through their day job, as co-hosts of the Gaslit Nation podcast, the authors have long warned about the dangers of authoritarianism, whether discussing January 6 or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now they are releasing a book, illustrated by the Polish artist Kasia Babis.

It’s a tongue-in-cheek look at dictatorship, a how-to manual with lessons from Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Putin, Kim Jong-un and many others whose stories offer time-tested tips on how to seize and consolidate power.

“We wanted to do a book on the dictator playbook to show people how unoriginal dictators are,” Chalupa says, “so they can better predict the next moves of an aspiring authoritarian.”

Some such moves, such as stigmatizing minority groups or employing propaganda, are well-known from history class. Others may seem counterintuitive. According to Chalupa and Kendzior, dictators are fond of both elections and constitutions. It helps, of course, if they win the popular vote by an overwhelming margin and if constitutional rights are guaranteed on paper but not in real life.

On the page, these tips and more are shared by an omniscient narrator who Chalupa says has Cary Grant’s looks and verve, Stephen Colbert’s snark and the devil’s ability to tempt.

One relatively new development for dictators is the increasing usefulness of technology when it comes to keeping civilians under surveillance. Chalupa notes that when her Ukrainian grandfather was in one of Stalin’s prison camps, inmates were allowed to speak to each other relatively freely. Today, China uses technology to keep a constant eye on Uyghurs in its own camps. Chalupa and Kendzior fault companies like Apple, Facebook and Google for doing business with China.

“When you have innovations in AI driven by companies in the west, it’s going to be used for authoritarian control,” Chalupa says.

“It’s only a matter of time before it starts spreading everywhere. You think you live in a democracy? Every single democracy is vulnerable. Nobody is immune to the authoritarian virus. If all the surveillance technology tools go unregulated, if there’s no vocal outcry against them from the public or elected officials in the EU, North America and elsewhere, if there’s no pushback against them, it’s going to be game over.”

When Chalupa and Kendzior conceived their book, they outlined it as if it were an infomercial, wondering what a Trump University course on dictatorship would look like, and proceeded accordingly. They also thought about Oscars-style awards for despots.

In one sequence, the narrator becomes an Academy Awards host. He dons a tuxedo, strolls the red carpet and presents the Oscar for Best Purge to Kim Il-sung, founder of the dynasty that rules North Korea. According to the book, nowadays Kim Jong-un not only continues the tradition of purges, he has extended it to canine pets of the ruling class.

As Chalupa points out, dictators can’t achieve power on their own. They require the help of “useful idiots”.

“In terms of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, all the sort of people we highlight throughout the project, the larger theme of the book is useful idiots. People helped Hitler have power. Why? What did they get out of it, or think they were getting out of it?”

The book looks at a Weimar Republic media baron, Alfred Hugenberg, who thought he could control Hitler and limit his danger to Germany: a fateful miscalculation. Meanwhile, Stalin’s brutality was whitewashed in the west thanks to figures including the celebrated playwright George Bernard Shaw and the New York Times journalist Walter Duranty, whose fawning coverage won a Pulitzer prize. One of Duranty’s contemporaries, the Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, who sought to expose Stalin’s atrocities, was the subject of Chalupa’s 2019 feature film, Mr Jones. Another voice of conscience spotlighted in Chalupa and Kendzior’s book is George Orwell, for his courageous opposition to Stalin and to authoritarianism in general.

“I think Orwell wasn’t alone,” Chalupa says. “He had a community working with him side-by-side” including “his wife Eileen, a remarkable poet in her own right”.

The rogues’ gallery wouldn’t be complete without Donald Trump. Recently indicted a second time, the 45th president plays a prominent role in the book. One aspect the authors emphasize is Trump’s dictatorial skill when it comes to inflaming supporters.

They highlight his tweets on the campaign trail in 2016: “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of ’em would you? Seriously. OK? Just knock the hell – I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise.”

Another sequence depicts Trump supporters drinking conspiracist Kool-Aid on January 6. A man wearing a red Maga cap downs a shot which makes his muscles expand and brain shrink. “Stop the steal!” he exclaims. Others, similarly addled, start threatening Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. Egged on by Trump, the mob attacks the Capitol. With the seat of government burning, Trump feigns innocence.

The book also examines US support for dictatorships abroad. In the 1970s, such support often came about through the then secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. Whether it was the coup against Salvador Allende that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile or coziness toward dirty war dictators in Argentina, Kissinger was key to the embrace of despots worldwide.

“He was like a ‘Where’s Waldo?’ during our research,” Chalupa recalls, noting “all the times he kept popping up – ‘there’s Kissinger again.’”

With so much material to work with, the authors had to make decisions about what to include. Their treatment of Hitler spotlights Mein Kampf and his brief alliance with Stalin, but there is not much mention of his antisemitism and the Holocaust.

“We sort of focused on the dictators themselves versus their atrocities,” says Chalupa, whose next project is a Holocaust-themed work about the American second world war reporter Dorothy Thompson. “It’s sort of like the Hitchcock method.”

She adds that “the focus is so much on useful idiots. It’s really the theme of the book. We’re not trying to minimize any atrocities” or “eclipse the victims”.

Chalupa noted that the book is geared toward younger readers, aiming to encourage them to learn more. Sadly, with things the way they are, it seems there will be no shortage of material should a sequel ever be planned. But Chalupa maintains a sense of hope.

“We’ve got to keep fighting,” she says. “We have no choice. Every single one of us, wherever [we are], should not check out, should not say, ‘OK, it’s out of my hands.’ It’s not up to you alone to fix it, but what we have the power to do, the bandwidth to do, is incredibly powerful.”

• Dictatorship: It’s Easier Than You Think! is published in the US by First Second

Daniel Ellsberg Dead

Daniel Ellsberg, a US government analyst who became one of the most famous whistleblowers in world politics when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing US government knowledge of the futility of the Vietnam war, has died. He was 92.

At a press conference in1971

Parenting Issues

---

I’ve been asked, recently, about how we move forward from some of the societal problems we struggle with. Well, I think the answer is both simple and impossible.

You don’t have to be evil to DO great evil

There are times in life that doing nothing is not the best course of action. When a bear is charging at you, the right thing to do is not to ignore it. When you are sick, you go to the doctor. Etc..

I don’t particularly think that any of the elected officials in the U.S. government are particularly EVIL. Even 45, who gives every indication of being simply a self-obsessed narcissist. I don’t think he intends harmful consequences.

But there are times in life when acting too slowly, when incompetence, when the inability to follow a train of thought such that other people suffer and die — well, that is simply not acceptable. The end result of such actions are evil, even though the person may be an OK sort of guy/gal.

I know that right at the moment there are a lot of people who are upset about the way in which Trump keeps talking about the “Chinese virus.” And yeah, I understand their point and yeah, it is racist and detrimental. But I refuse to be sidetracked by his words if that means that the American public focus on that and forget his actions and his outright lies. On the scale of things, his actions are far worse than his words and if he distracts us from what he’s doing because of what he’s saying he’s winning the public relations battle.

Are you angry yet?

It’s ironic that the argument about socialized medicine sounds very different in a world with not enough bed for pandemic patients because capitalist medicine never saw the need for excess capacity and empty beds! When people are in trouble they want government to have a plan to help them, they want government to step in, in a good socialist fashion. Capitalism got us to a point where we lack medical facilities, tests, and tools, but Oh, No, we can’t afford socialism. Our mutual shortsightedness will cost us even more now while we scramble to made up for past poor decisions. Those in government saw this coming and did nothing. Even now, not enough is being done because one man is afraid to admit his mistakes and his shortsightedness. How many will die because of him? If you aren’t angry, why not? This isn’t about political theory; people are suffering and dying because of one man’s arrogance & ignorance.

Good, but not too good

I’m not a huge George Orwell fan.  I read his books when I was young, remember a good deal about them, but never felt compelled to re-read and re-read and re-read them like I have with some other volumes.  Still, every once in a while I come across a statement from him and I have to stop and admire.

“On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.”

—George Orwell

There are exceptions to every specific statement, but I think Orwell pretty well hit the nail on the head here. It seems that we all have our idiosyncratic glitches — those places where we just don’t want to be like everyone else, or just don’t want to do what everyone else is doing, or just don’t want to go where everyone else is going; we seem to love darkness, we seem to relish secrets — and all the more if we can get away with something without being caught.

• 

Teens want to experiment with sex without getting caught (or pregnant). Drivers want to exceed the speed limit. Overeaters don’t want to gain weight. Runners want to run that extra mile without pain. Employees want to send out prospecting resumes from their work computer. There is this urge to be not quite as good as you’re supposed to be.

Personally, I think that’s partly the reason Capitalism is ultimately doomed to failure. As with a lot of “-ism’s” whether they work, and for how long, depends on the character of the people living the “-ism” Capitalism, Communism, Facism, Socialism (in alpha order — I’m not expressing preference here), all function more or less well depending on the character of the people living them. They (and all the other “-ism’s” are all subject to the character flaws of the people who make them work. And those people are the result of living for years under some other form of governance.

The Founding Fathers of the U.S. arrived here after years of living under a king in England. The government they conceived was their reaction to a monarchy — it wasn’t a pure anything. Communism under Stalin in Russia was significantly different from Communism under Mao Zedong in China or Castro in Cuba. In the same way the U.S. is significantly different under Trump than it was under Obama, or Abraham Lincoln, or William Howard Taft (who happened to have been the only person to have served as both President of the United States AND Chief Justice of the Supreme Court).

Not many people actually think that they are “bad” people. Children don’t generally grow up wanting to be evil. We all think we are pretty good — in our own heads. We justify our actions by looking at what we have lived through and deciding that given our circumstances we did pretty well.

But not many of us are actually striving to be really, really, good. And the ones who do often suffer the ridicule of their peers. No one likes a goody-two-shoes… there’s a reason we even have such an expression and others like it. Being too good isn’t appreciated. When someone around you is too good it’s easy to perceive that as judgment against you. It’s easy to get defensive about your own action and defend your little lapses (or big ones), but when you can’t defend what you have done it’s always easier to blame someone else for being judgmental or excessive.

A society can’t survive unless a large enough percentage if it’s citizens agree upon certain norms. The most important ones vary from “-ism” to “-ism” but government or society depends upon consensus and the more independent people want to be the less consensus there is. Society without consensus isn’t society, it’s anarchy.

I sometimes ponder how this impact the millions of people who say they are Christians. You know I am a man of faith and I do believe in Jesus, but I have long realized that I am not a Christian in the same way as some others. When I look around me, and think about how true Orwell’s assessment of humans might be, I find myself wondering how many of the people who go to church on a Saturday or Sunday actually want to live in the place they are told “heaven” or “paradise” might be. If we get tired being too good now, how would we feel if we found ourself there and “had to be” good all the time? Would that be heavenly at all? Or would that be more like punishment? It’s a very simple thought, but not at all that comforting to think about. And of course it’s none of my business. Any Creator doesn’t owe me explanations about why they have structured the universe as it is. It’s one of those thoughts that flies through my brain and sometimes lands on a synapse of two for a few moments.

I won’t ask you where you fall in the spectrum of wanting to be good, or how much of the time you are content to pursue that goal. It’s kind of like crimes, I think. Crimes are the things you do; not the thoughts you have. If it was a crime to think about murder, or cheating on your taxes, or throwing a brick through your neighbor’s window a lot more people would be in jail. No. Crimes are the things we do, not just think about. And that’s the way it is with doing good. 🙂