THE OXFORD HIGH SCHOOL MURDERS OUR CRUMBLING MESS

 

The text Jennifer (the Dickensian name) Crumbly sent to her son was in reference to the fact he was caught on his cell phone searching for ammunition for his brand new gun, a parental Christmas present to their son. The advice to her son should have been given never to search for anything gun related and certainly not carry a semi automatic pistol during school hours on school property.

After school officials reached out to Jennifer Crumbley regarding her son searching the web for ammunition, she texted her son saying, "LOL I'm not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught," prosecutors have said. The Parents Crumbly with their son Ethan Crumbly met in the principal's office after their son's internet search for ammunition and after the suspicious violent things he said and had sketched were discovered. Ethan Crumbly came up with the plausible excuse to school authorities and his gun-loving parents they could believe. He told them he wanted to design video games as a trade. How could any parent get angry at that? He was, after all, planning a career!

THE FATAL FLAW

After the meeting the decision to let Ethan stay in school was made and so was the FATAL FLAW -- THE FAILURE TO CHECK HIS BACKPACK FOR THE GUN during the office meeting with their son and school officials. They would have hit pay dirt, found the gun and realized the potential seriousness of his rantings. If they had done that and, in fact, found the gun in his backpack, police could have been called and arrests of all of them could have been made PRIOR to the dastardly shooting and murders. He was underage to be carrying a loaded gun hidden in his backpack much less carrying it onto school grounds. It seems everything was done for Ethan and his parents' benefit so as not to create a problem for his parents and/or for Ethan. The ONE IMPORTANT THING they failed to do was to CHECK THE BACKPACK!!

OUR NATION AWASH IN OVER 300 MILLION GUNS

Living in a gun culture, making guns seem oh so attractive and legislating everything in the states' power not to abridge gun owners' rights is part of the cultural toxic brew of our nation that led to the murders. It is what led to not thinking to search for and find the weapon in Ethan's backpack, disarm him and call the police who could have arrested him for a minor being in possession of a semi automatic firearm on school grounds yet, arrest his parents for negligence and thereby save lives. What a tragedy in our 300 million gun-saturated cultural mess.

THE TRUE REMEDY

Okay, I'll say it and risk conservatives and their sympathizers blowing their stack but what the heck I can say anything. It is still as of today a free country.

Repeal the Second Amendment!! Yes, there I've said it. Rewrite the glorious Second Amendment to create it as our Founders, I believe, meant it to be.

The Second Amendment as written states "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Place the emphasis on a "well regulated Militia" meaning the right to possess a gun was not guaranteed to everyone. If, however, you were a member of a well regulated militia like, for example, the National Guard or the police you were guaranteed the right to a gun. Otherwise, how could one ward off a radical insurrection perhaps like the January 6th radical onslaught of the Capitol by the extremist right wing of the Republican Party?

To provide for the common defense of the Republic and the State should be the main rationale for firearm possession in our now crumbling pistol-packing nation; the one our nation's right wing fascist-like extremist guerillas who attacked the Capitol want to dismember.

Abortion a Command or a Choice

 

The following is a letter I sent to the Supreme Court after reading a heart rending story entitled "I Wish I'd Had A Late-Term Abortion" By Dina Zirlott linked below.  I ask you not to second guess the rationale for a woman to be forced to carry a pregnancy to term before you read the article.  I think after reading it you will understand why she titled it as she did.

 

Because I spent many years at Children's Hospital dealing with my own physical maladies I many times saw birth defects of Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus in infants.  It was a shock to my system and to my young eyes.

My letter:

Dear Justices:  If you think you have already formulated your opinion on this volatile issue think again.  Do not second guess this excruciating rendition of a woman's life gone haywire after she had been brutally raped.  This article linked below entitled "I wish I had a late term abortion" by Dina Zirlott will, I think, or it should render you incredulous not that the author wanted a late term abortion but that nature committed the cruelest act dealing her and her fetus in the final stage of pregnancy knowledge of its most difficult medical reality.  It should render all of you at the very least to understand that the reasons for an abortion are at once voluminous and at other times unique.  

In the end, to ask no to command a woman to proceed with a pregnancy that is excruciatingly difficult for both the unborn child and the woman cursed to bear a hopelessly deformed child it should lead you to reflect on your decision and then think again knowing that you cannot possibly know all the realities of a pregnancy.   This case should lead you to keep abortion a legal choice because no one should be commanded to bring a pregnancy into the world that both the mother and child suffer an impossible medically compromised fate.  In the final analysis whether or not to have an abortion should be a choice that only the woman carrying the child can make because circumstances command her to make it.

 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/late-term-abortion-rape_n_5c630b8de4b0a8731aeabbd6

Rittenhouse -- right wing extremist

 

Why was Rittenhouse in another state from where he lived carrying an assault rifle? He says he was there to protect businesses like what -- the car lot? He was there, he said, to treat the wounded with his sparse "medical experience"? 

 

Why did the prosecution not bring out the fact that Rittenhouse was/is a member of the Proud Boys rightwingnut extremist white supremacist violent group? My guess is the judge would never have allowed that questioning even though it speaks to the essence of who Rittenhouse is and why he was in Kenosha and why he shot dead whom he did.

 

Why were there no questions about the relationship between the police and him? The police let him run with a shotgun and asked for the help of right wingnut extremist groups and people like Rittenhouse. 

 

This was a miscarriage of justice and a chilling victory and permission slip for right wing extremist supremacist groups to enter the stream of protest groups. Rittenhouse was/is a right wing extremist which tells you all you need to know about the essence of who he is, why he was there and why he shot dead whom he did. He was armed and ready for bear against Black Lives Matter, perfectly acceptable to many in Kenosha and, most especially, to the police.

PROFESSOR HEATHER COX RICHARDSON -- + MY COMMENT:

 

PROFESSOR HEATHER COX RICHARDSON -- MY COMMENT: CBO GIVES THIS BILL A THUMPS UP! PLUS OTHER ISSUES. START NOW TO VOCIFEROUSLY SUPPORT DEMOCRATS NATION WIDE. GIVE THE CORRUPT REPUBLICAN PARTY A RUN FOR THEIR DECEPTIVE FRAUDULENT MONEY. TELL THEM NO MATTER HOW THEY FIX IT DEMOCRATS WILL MEET THEIR DARK MAGIC WITH SOME MAGIC OF OUR OWN!

 

Professor Richardson

 

Today began with Republican leadership doubling down on its support for Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ), whom the House censured yesterday for tweeting a cartoon video of himself killing a Democratic colleague, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and attacking the president, Joe Biden. Only two Republicans voted with the Democrats in favor of the censure.

 

Former president Donald Trump issued a statement praising Gosar and saying the congressman “has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” In addition to the censure, the House stripped Gosar of his committee assignments, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said today that if the Republicans take the majority and he is elected Speaker, he will likely throw Democrats off committees and give Gosar and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who was stripped of her committee assignments in February after violent threats against Democratic colleagues, better committee assignments.

 

This morning, on the podcast of Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows went after McCarthy, suggesting that Trump should replace him. Then, on Trump loyalist Steve Bannon’s podcast, Meadows suggested that if the Republicans win control of the House of Representatives in next year’s elections, Trump should become Speaker of the House, which would drive Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “crazy.” Bannon suggested he could hold the position for 100 days and “sort things out” before running for president in 2024.

 

While the Trump loyalists were putting the screws to McCarthy, the economic news continued to be good. A report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on Thursday showed that the United States is the only G7 country to surpass its pre-pandemic economic growth. That growth has been so strong it has buoyed other countries.

 

Meanwhile, the administration's work with ports and supply chains to handle the increase in demand for goods appears to be having an effect. Imports through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are up 16% from 2018, and in the first two weeks of November, those two ports cleared about a third of the containers sitting on their docks.

 

Then the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its score for the Democrats’ $1.85 trillion Build Back Better Act. The CBO is a nonpartisan agency within the legislative branch that provides budget and economic information to Congress. The CBO’s estimate of the costs of the Build Back Better Act will affect who will vote for it.

Where have all the conservatives gone -- Liz Cheney in the crossfire

Liz Cheney has been ostracized from the Republican Party in her state of Wyoming. I am not a fan of Liz Cheney but she has shown herself to be a profile in courage. I hope she continues her stint in Congress and does not let the thoroughly corrupt mendacious Trump and those who support him define who she is and who we are. Shame on the Wyoming Republican Party and shame on all of them who do not stand up to that rancid man Trump.

There are no words to define the Republican Party in present time. I hope they lose mightily in every state where they have corrupted the vote. I hope our legal system stands in strong opposition to every ugly corrupt thing Trump attempts. I loathe that man Trump more than I can ever convey. Look at the fracturing of the American public he has done, look at how many lives he has ruined and how many died by his insane inaction against COVID and against the wearing of masks to stop it!  I hope the American people do not let him get away with all the corruption he has perpetrated. He is a sickening man. He is corrupting our nation and attempting to take democracy down and replace it with an authoritarian state placing him at the top for as long as he can. He calls American neo Nazis some good when, in fact, no Nazi is a good person.

Trump can take away a lot of things but I'm not going to let that lying excuse for a human take away my hope. I am hoping by some miracle those Nazi-like extremists to whom he appeals will be stopped. I hope as I did in the late 60's that my left wing slant will have done something humane and good. What I did not count on and failed to see was the nation states west were filled with arch conservative extremist ideologues and the south would always have many intractable racists. I once thought our liberalism and its quest for humanitarian policies of good would take root. Some have with immense struggle.

The great Howard Zinn with whom I was acquainted always said it does not matter what the opposition is. It matters that you oppose them and never stop. So onward I will oppose them with all the strength I have knowing that we want good for those who have never known what good is.

Without fail

 

The insane horror show that marks the Republican essence means we Democrats should win elections by gigantic margins. The operative word is should. The Democratic National Committee and its rational plans should be spread out to the entire nation. They and we must keep hammering away at the Democratic message and policies that HELP the middle and working classes.

What we, in fact, do support and are about should be emblazoned in a succinct message so that everyone in our nation understands their benefits and their family's benefits are at stake if Republicans control it all.  Our message should be shouted far and wide from every mountain top. The Republican Party today has been reduced to violent, right wing fanatics of gargantuan mendacious stupidity.  It is NOT the Republican Party of old. It is NOT the party of Lincoln, it is NOT the Party of Teddy Roosevelt and it is not even the Party of John McCain or Bob Dole.  The Republican Party is a cult composed of murderous liars without empathy and it is loaded for bear.  Its fanatical adherents would attack anyone and some would even kill and do now threaten anyone, including Congressional colleagues whom they thought advocated for a position they did not like.  That is not democracy that is emblematic of totalitarian dictatorships in history and now prevalent around the world.  Republicans have made it  a shameful part of the American tapestry and its cancer is spreading.

Democrats should win, because of what we advocate as FDR did in another time of national peril. If FDR had not won and someone like Lindburgh, the right wing fanatic, won it is not overstating the fact that Hitler would have been a US ally! Think on that and get out the Democratic vote without fail!

"Republicans Are Willing to Destroy Democracy to Retake Power" + My Comment

 

My Comment: The depths of tyranny in this nation are far, deep and violent. How will those who are rational, smart, nonviolent and sane in this nation and those who love democracy overrule the depths of depravity, of Qanon insane belief, stupidity and mendacity that are the monstrous threat to our democratic experiment. I pray dear God do NOT let this nation with a Republican ugly vanguard lapse into an authoritarian nightmare the Founders feared. I am monumentally frightened.

Republicans Are Willing to Destroy Democracy to Retake Power by Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky: https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-republicans-are-willing-to-jeopardize-human-survival-to-retake-power

The Last Word

Larry O'Donnell last night had on Jennifer Gosar, sister of the right wing crackpot representative Paul Gosar.  Paul Gosar threatened Andrea Ocasio Cortez's life and threatened to attack Joe Biden.

Paul Gosar put a video on Instagram and Twitter of him stabbing in the back and murdering AOC as well as threatening to attack the president.

Jennifer Gosar whom Larry had on last night was FANTASTIC rather like Mary Trump and equally as incensed. She calls on leadership in the House, the Senate, Speaker Pelosi and even to Merritt Garland to censure him and/or do what is necessary to punish him.

She said she wishes no one, whom she opposes, death but wishes rather they not get reelected. She was wonderful.

She asked where is the leadership; indeed where ARE they?

Jennifer Gosar is the exact opposite of her malevolent brother. She was articulate, brilliant and passionate. She got Larry O'Donnell's "Last Word"!

Supreme Court Hears Challenges To Texas Law Banning Most Abortions--The Texas anti-choice law is a hideous law.

 

I do not believe the state has a right to determine whether one proceeds with a woman's pregnancy or not. This is, as I see it, a personal decision that should be left to the woman who experiences the pregnancy. I surely do not believe that if an abortion is completed that a bounty could be collected by anyone who found out about it. That is noxious. Moreover, and worst of all, this law pertains to incest and to rape two loathsome occurrences to most all rational sensibilities. Just think of your own self if you were raped by your father, brother or uncle you would still be commanded to take your pregnancy to term. Who would sanction such an objectionable and repulsive thing?

If this is allowed as Texas has legislated it that would be a damnable and immoral thing especially to the new life created.  Ideally the blessed event of having a child would be irredeemably sullied and besmirched by the seemingly immoral appendages attached to this ugly law. Every child a wanted child is my mantra.   Save a woman's life by keeping this decision on whether to abort or not in the woman's hands and not in the hands of the state or anyone acting in place of the state. Making abortion illegal will, in fact, condemn some women perhaps even many to a hideous and untimely death.  Keep abortion medically safe and legal.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger Rips GOP As Party Of Lies, Conspiracy, Dishonesty

“I haven’t seen any momentum in the party move away from lies and towards truth,” said the Republican, who recently announced he won't seek reelection

 

 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/adam-kinzinger-rips-republican-party-trump-lies_n_617eb055e4b03072d705811d?fbclid=IwAR3JYyrOVJhwntkmrpcEUtxQsTci5prxgtQQBcdzlMiCMJwryl8VrM2Qqp4

 

Sepsis

During the 4th inning of the Red Sox/Houston playoff game I had to switch the channel or I was going to cry and I'm too big to cry over a kids game. I felt it in my bones that the malady, frozen bat syndrome, has spread like COVID over the Sox and is now spreading into their blood like sepsis.

Two games and in Houston yet is all they have to win to clinch the pennant making the malady fat chance syndrome the name of the game now. Sorry I am a realist. Prediction: Houston will clean the Sox clock to win the pennant and it will take less than game 7 to do it. I still am asking whaat happened? I will leave the professional analysis to ones more savvy than I to tell it. I just know the heart breaker Sox are destined to retain that mantle. I hope I am wrong.

Glad I switched to watch MSNBC and see how the democracy I once loved is going down in Republican flames, unable to pass even the voting rights act it once passed under Bush with overwhelming Republican support. I hope I am wrong on both counts because I am just plain sad.  

Our Trumpian times must come to an end because the king of fraud, Donald Trump, is crushing our democracy.  Our once democratic nation is dying unless there is a grand slam like change in the filibuster to save it. 

 

Colin Powell dead

 

He died of COVID despite the fact that he was vaccinated against it.

He regretted using his appearance at the UN advocating for the justification for invading Iraq saying Sadam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction when he learned later

that was not the case and that his "evidence" was wrong.  At least he expressed regret upon learning Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction and admitted that it was used as a justification for war that took thousands of lives. 

The fact that he died of COVID even though he was vaccinated against it is a worrisome occurrence.

Just heard Colin Powell had multiple myeloma which my father had.  It is very hard to treat and very immune system compromising.

One of my father's docs said that he would rather treat acute leukemia than multiple myleoma.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/colin-powell-dead-secretary-of-state_n_616d6211e4b01f6f7e4bc9a1

Dastardly Act

 My Comment: Shame on Republicans for trying to subvert our federal government. With the debt ceiling raised to only Dec. 3 it means that Republicans want to crash the federal government, its economy and the economies of the entire world. Not raising it further for spending Republicans under Trump created will demolish global economies as well. We may never in the foreseeable future recover. 

Do they care about their own families? No. They care about one thing -- power. They want it all. Republicans and Trump are immoral swamp creatures. Return them to power at your and our extreme peril. They are unethical, immoral and criminal beasts!

Professor Heather Cox Richardson thoughts below

Diminishing the Federal Government Oct 12, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson:

"Tonight the House voted to raise the debt ceiling by $480 billion, which should keep the country afloat until December 3. The vote was 219 to 206, with all Republicans either voting no or refusing to vote.

Republican representative Andy Biggs from Arizona moved to adjourn Congress rather than take the vote at all. Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) said he would not vote to raise the debt ceiling because government spending funds “tyranny” over people’s lives. He complained about “a border that’s not secure,” “Critical Race Theory being taught to our children,” and a litany of other Republican talking points.

The debt ceiling needs to be raised not to pay for future spending, but for past spending, including the $7.8 trillion the Republicans put on the national tab during the four years of the Trump presidency.

Permitting the nation to default on its debts would crash the economy and destroy our international standing, likely for the foreseeable future. But Republicans are willing to do that if it means regaining power by playing to their base.

With Democrats in control of the national government, Republicans are retreating to the states to launch their bid to take back national power. Having cemented their control of Republican-dominated states with new election laws that suppress Democratic voting or give control of certifying elections to Republican boards, Republicans are much more concerned about challenges from the right than they are about having to moderate their stands.

This has made them increasingly radical. Today, on the day that CNN reported that official deaths from coronavirus have reached 715,000, Ohio Republican representative Jim Jordan tweeted that Ohio should end all vaccine mandates. That would include vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, measles, mumps, and rubella, among other diseases.

Texas governor Greg Abbott went further. He signed an executive order prohibiting “any entity” from enforcing a vaccine mandate in Texas. This was not just a play to anti-vaxxers, but a declaration that his state is supreme over the federal government. Last month, President Joe Biden announced vaccine requirements for all federal workers and contractors, and today, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the Department of Labor announced a vaccine or testing requirement for any company with 100 or more employees.”

This is not the first time Abbott has made such a demonstration. In June, he and Arizona governor Doug Ducey sent a letter to the other 48 governors asking them to send reinforcements to the southern border to do the job the Biden administration was, they wrote, “unwilling or unable” to do.

Six Republican governors answered their call with support that was more symbolic than powerful. Florida governor Ron DeSantis sent 50 law enforcement officers; Ohio governor Michael DeWine sent 185; Nebraska governor Pete Ricketts sent 24. Iowa governor Kim Reynolds sent “up to 30” National Guard troops; Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson sent 40; and South Dakota governor Kristi Noem sent “up to 50,” allegedly funded by a private donation. She boasted of this deployment at the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) and on the Fox News Channel.

Those troops have been quietly brought home over the past few months, but their deployment demonstrated the states’ willingness to flex their muscles against the federal government and has forced the military into the center of the enforcement of right-wing ideology.

And, of course, the Texas anti-abortion law, S.B. 8, has offered a blueprint for other states to take away their citizens’ constitutional rights by turning over enforcement of the law to private individuals rather than the state. All constitutional rights—including all civil rights—could be overturned by vigilantes under this policy.

The Republicans’ resorting to cementing their power in the states echoes the path of southern Democrats in 1860. Aware they had lost control of the national government, they turned to radicalizing their states, then forced the states out of the Union quickly, before popular opposition could mobilize against secession.

When radicals took to the states to cement their power in 1860, the federal government had little power to stop them.

But in 1868, in the wake of the Civil War, Congress remedied that deficiency with the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. That amendment increased the power of the federal government over the states to protect civil rights. It declared, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

That same amendment protected the sanctity of the national debt, declaring that “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

How About those Sox

 

How about those Sox. Having grown up near Boston, I have a life long love for the Sox it's in my DNA no matter even in the 50's when they broke our hearts now the Bo Sox are thrilling. Maybe it's because I love Boston, often a bastion of liberalism and humane politics. 

The walk off winning homer in the 13th inning by Christian Vazquez made me cry with happiness. Kudos to Nat Eovaldi too!! It was so nice to basque in unity with my fellow Bostonians. Kiké Hernández crushed a solo home run over the Green Monster, increasing the Red Sox's lead to 4-2 in the 5th and the play of all plays a ground rule double in the 13th when the pitch bounced off Boston Red Sox right fielder Hunter Renfroe reaching for the ball, hit by Tampa Bay Rays Kevin Kiermaier, and then bounced over the wall after bouncing off Renfroe for a ground rule double during the thirteenth inning during Game 3 of and a run scored by Tampa Bay was waived back. Another thrilling moment!! Bottom of the 13th Christian Vazques's home run won it. There was pandemonium in Boston and all over Massachusetts and beyond. One of the greatest games ever!

Bo Sox lover

Tracking Trump's Troubles

A Blogger's Comment

"The age of right wing extremism is not just a phenomenon in America. It is happening all over Europe in Hungary, in France, in Britain and, yes, even in a Germany that once brought you the extermination of 6 million Jews and the murdering of 50,000,000 others in the theater of WWII.

Perhaps this Frontline special will ask the ever present question why. Why is this happening? Why in our democracy loving nation, a nation that won WWII against the Nazi menace does this nation find [itself bathing in Nazi propaganda] as evidenced by the January 6 insurrection of the Capitol right wing seditionists whose T-shirts read "6MWE" (Six Million Wasn't Enough) worn by the right wing extremist Proud Boys and another shirt which read "Camp Auschwitz." This was the flavor of the Donald Trump inspired overthrow of our nation complete with Confederate flags and present day American Nazi symbols.

Have we had enough of the Trump and his Republican choir boys subverting our true culture? I'd like to think so. Send this email to all you choose encouraging them to work against any possibility of a Trump victory or for that matter Republican anti-democracy victories in Congress as well as in state legislatures as they try to subvert elections through a second Jim Crow era targeting the voter elimination of Blacks and other persons of color who vote Democratic. If Trump fails perhaps Fascism will not gain a foothold anywhere else -- even in Germany."

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/german-neo-nazis-use-facebook-social-media-to-make-money/

My Comment

The question is "Why in our democracy loving nation, a nation that won WWII against the Nazi menace does part of this nation find itself sanctioning and bathing in Nazi propaganda?" The answer is that nearly one half of this nation is not necessarily democracy loving. Extremism on the right is accompanied by a large infusion of hate along with an extreme of nationalistic adulation. Fascism ushers in strong male leadership and that strong male leadership carries with it White supremacist rage and violence against those tribes they deem are composed of lesser men subverting the White race. Fascism is extremely nationalistic, extremely violent and it is extremely exclusionary. It is desirous of annihilating all those whom they think are desecrating the established White race.

Adolph Hitler set the stage for Fascism and mapped its violent trajectory in Germany. Here, there was nothing democratic about the adulation of the Confederacy. It was geared to overthrowing the established union, it was geared to the maintenance of slavery, the oppression of Blacks and it was geared to the elimination of troublesome Blacks who went against White power. Even when the south lost the Civil War in 1865, Reconstruction and ultimately a Jim Crow south saw to it that the loss of the Civil War did not mean Blacks would take their rightful place in the panoply of power. The struggle for equal rights by Blacks has been a permanent quest and hate in this country sees to it that the saga for equality and the relegation of Blacks to a lesser status continue.

Though part of the US pays lip service to democracy the reality is democracy can be relegated to the ash bin of history especially in the red states. Hate is a powerful vehicle for cementing Blacks to second class citizenship even though the Civil War ended over 150 years ago democracy be damned.

Mayberry In Truth

 

CBS "Sunday Morning," often a forum for nice news featured one of its segments a return to Andy of Mayberry, the Andy Griffith sitcom that  was "wholesome entertainment" beginning in 1960.  Ted Koppel had the distinction of interviewing a bus load of primarily white tourists to the recreated set.  The answers to the questions he asked were as if he took a trip to one of the Maga rallies for Trump where the responders gave a litany of false information they absolutely thought was true.  They reiterated, sadly, conspiracy theories about the virus and mostly did not support mandatory vaccination even though medical experts advocate for it.  Of course, they regurgitated the ever present big lie as to whether or not the election of Biden as president was a fraud.  Most resoundingly they said it was and that they had a plethora of evidence to back up their views.  It was as if they took a test that Trump engineered and they passed with the proverbial flying colors.  Most thought, of course, Biden is an illegitimate president.  Oh yes, they told Koppel, a journalist for over 20 years, that they, in fact, thought the media spawned "fake news" and was the enemy of the people as Trump has so often said.  Koppel offered no rebuttal to any of this which left me frustrated wishing I were on the bus to offer one or two or many oppositions.  Black Lives Matter protests were seen by them as subversive and violent but the January 6 true violent storming of the Capitol by right wing terrorists and Trump supporting trespassers to overthrow an election was seen as perfected by left wing radicals.  Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other right wing extremists were it was said photo shopped brandishing weapons and Confederate flags they used in rage both on police and on the Capitol itself.  In the final analysis four people died in this some even said friendly fire onslaught but oh it was also fabricated by Antifa and other left wing radicals. 

In truth I have watched Andy of Mayberry when I needed a rest from political discord.  I can understand that.  The problem is when these supporters in the Maga crowd refuse to believe in verified truth.  If they refuse to do that then what?  Who has had true power in Mayberry and in the US? Who has had power for centuries ever since the nation's founding? If you said white men always had all the power you would be right. That is why one complains about Mayberry. There is zero element of veracity in its portrayal.  It was portraying, in fact, a very southern town in North Carolina based on where Andy Griffith grew up but few blacks were ever seen or blacks were imperceptible in a crowd of people. None of the main characters or not so main characters was black. There were no stories about blacks and surely no stories about Emmet Til or Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglas and no stories about the history of slavery and certainly no stories of lynchings or segregated swimming pools or segregated lunch counters.  There were no stories about Jim Crow laws or literacy tests or grandfather clauses or counting jelly beans in a jar as tests to vote which blacks could not answer. 

This is why I look at Mayberry and ask what truth is there in each episode.  Mayberry was and continued to be a white man's illusion and a white man's fantasy for how white men of our modern era wished the south to be but in truth never was.  Andy Griffith's Mayberrry should read Mayberry of Bull Connor, of John Stennis and of George "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever" Wallace.  Maybe there is more truth in Mayberry to that!

I AM VERY VERY CONTINUALLY WORRIED

 

I am very very continually worried that the flouter of all laws Trump will, in fact, run for president in 2024.  I also worry about Democrats being so weak that the fact Democrats hold the House, the Senate and the presidency is now not Constitutionally worth the paper it is printed on.

Biden so desperately wants to ensure his presidency is of historical worth and I, with most progressives, want a solid infrastructure bill to pass because the dilapidated nation so desperately needs it. Most importantly the John Lewis Voting Rights Act negating Texas Republican's Jim Crow 2.0 is a must pass or other Republican red states may, in Pied Piper fashion, follow Texas's example which will send into shackles again persons of color and other voters who would and should ensure a Democratic majority.  

The Justice Department's effective assault on the most egregious usurpation of Constitutional rights against the Texas abortion law insanity in Nazi like fashion will make snitches of those who want to make healthcare providers of women pay the $10,000 bounty on women's heads if she chooses to end her own pregnancy after six weeks.  All of these things if not successfully fought by progressives make me want to leave the country, jump out a window, indeed, throw up or all three.  Justice against these things must prevail. 

I want the successful prosecution of the lawbreaker Trump, I want him in jail and I want the Justice Department to negate the Texas horrific draconian and unconstitutional law against abortion, a stare decisis reality. Most importantly I want the 1964 Civil Rights Act to count since a right wing SCOTUS emasculated it.

What will come of controlling all three branches of government only to find ourselves in a Hand Maid's Tale country with a Fascist Republican Trumpian cult-like Party impossible to overcome the most severe Constitutional abridgments even though Democrats hold power and are in the distinct majority!

I am very very continually worried that the flouter of all laws Trump will, as he said, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.   We must, as the majority, make sure he does not!

Fascism in America: Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richarson Inbox

 

Four years ago today, racists, antisemites, white nationalists, Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis, and other alt-right groups met in Charlottesville, Virginia, to “Unite the Right.” The man who organized the rally, Jason Kessler, claimed he wanted to bring people together to protest the removal of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a local park. But the rioters turned immediately to chants that had been used by the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s: “you will not replace us,” “Jews will not replace us,” and “blood and soil.” They gave Nazi salutes and carried Nazi insignia, and many brought battle gear and went looking for fights. By the end of August 12, they had killed counter protester Heather Heyer and had injured 19 others. After the governor of Virginia declared a state of emergency, the rioters went home.

The Unite the Right rally drew a clear political line in America. Then-president Donald Trump refused to condemn the rioters, telling a reporter that there were “very fine people, on both sides.”

In contrast, former vice president Joe Biden watched the events at Charlottesville and concluded that the soul of the nation was at stake. He decided to run for president and to defeat the man he believed threatened our democracy. Biden was especially concerned with Trump’s praise for the “very fine people” aligned with the rioters. “With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it,” Biden said, “and in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.”

Four years later, it is much easier to see the larger context of the Charlottesville riot. The political threat of those gangs who tried to unite in Charlottesville in 2017 recalls how fascism came to America in the 1930s: not as an elite ideology, but as a unification of street brawlers to undermine the nation’s democratic government.

In 2018, historian Joseph Fronczak explored the arrival of fascism in the U.S. In an article in the leading journal of the historical profession, the Journal of American History, Fronczak explained how men interested in overturning Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency in 1934 admired and then imitated the violent right-wing gangs that helped overturn European governments and install right-wing dictators.

The United States had always had radical street mobs, from anti-Catholic gangs in the 1830s to Ku Klux Klan chapters in the 1860s to anti-union thugs in the 1880s. In the 1930s, though, those eager to get rid of FDR brought those street fighters together as a political force to overthrow the federal government.

While they failed to do so in an attempted 1934 coup, Fronczak explains, street fighters learned about the contours of fascism once their power as a violent street force was established. He argues that in the U.S., fascism grew out of political violence, not the other way around. Mobs whose members dressed in similar shirts, waved similar flags, and made similar salutes pieced together racist, antisemitic, and nationalistic ideas and became the popular arm of right-wing leaders. In America, the hallmark of budding fascism was populist street violence, rather than an elite philosophy of government.

The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville had the hallmarks of such a populist movement. Leaders brought together different gangs, dressed similarly and carrying the emblem of tiki torches, to organize and attack the government. Rather than rejecting the rioters, then-President Trump encouraged them.

From that point on, Trump seemed eager to ride a wave of violent populism into authoritarianism. He stoked populist anger over state shutdowns during coronavirus, telling supporters to “LIBERATE MINNESOTA,” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN,” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” His encouragement fed the attacks on the Michigan state house in 2020. And then, after he repeatedly told his supporters the 2020 presidential election had been stolen, violent gangs attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn the government and install him as president for another term.

While that attempted coup was unsuccessful, the empowerment of violent gangs as central political actors is stronger than ever. Since January 6, angry mobs have driven election officials out of office in fear for their safety. In increasingly angry protests, they have threatened school board members over transgender rights and over teaching Critical Race Theory, a legal theory from the 1970s that is not, in fact, in the general K–12 curriculum.

Now, as the coronavirus rages again, they are showing exactly how this process works as they threaten local officials who are following the guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to require masks. Although a Morning Consult poll shows that 69% of Americans want a return to mask mandates, vocal mobs who oppose masking are dominating public spaces and forcing officials to give in to their demands.

In Franklin, Tennessee, yesterday, antimask mobs threatened doctors and nurses asking the local school board to reinstate a mask mandate in the schools. “We will find you,” they shouted at a man leaving the meeting. “We know who you are.”

Olympic Gold--Diversity at Work

The US leads in every medal category so far.  Total medals 113 to lead by 25!!!; Gold 39 lead by 1; Silver 41 lead by 9; and Copper 33 by 15

US leads in every category so far. WOW!

My Analysis:  We are number 1 in every category because we are a DIVERSE nation. It is our diversity that works for us. We have talent in this nation from every nation on the planet. Diversity is why we win. Wouldn't it be nice if the Republican Party realized that and STOP its plan to subvert it by suppressing the vote. If you suppress the vote you suppress the nation!

American Fascism and the Death of Democracy

 

Mary Trump, Donald Trump's niece, has a new book out entitled "The Reckoning." She was a wonderful interview and a must see on "The Last Word" last evening on MSNBC. Mary Trump is a psychologist and is very insightful as to the nature of the American electorate and brings to her argument much knowledge about the character and substance or lack of them of her uncle.  She was asked if she thought Trump was a fascist to which she replied yes, and thought about, as do I too, how Trump managed to get 74 million people to vote for him given his cruel bombastic essence, the mendacious character of his candidacy and the plethora of his administration's illegalities and ad infinitum lies over the past 4 years.

To understand the base of Trump's supporters we too must ask the question is he a Fascist.  If one looks to other eras in world history for the definition of a Fascist one need only look to 1933 Germany and Italy up through and including World War II.  The Webster's Dictionary definition of Fascism is "a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition." Clearly Donald Trump has designs on the echelons of in perpetuity power with him as the unquestioned authoritarian head forever if need be. 

It is clear from US history the interconnectedness of nationalism and race which has been part of US history since its inception and is an integral part of Fascist thought. Slavery, and the failure of Reconstruction, the institution of Jim Crow, literacy tests, lynchings, other killings of Blacks and segregation were prime examples of the cultivation of hate in American culture. The Republican dastardly attempts to deny persons of color the vote by institutionally guaranteeing dozens of laws across the nation are geared again to depriving Blacks and other persons of color the vote and ensuring white Republican control of all elections is the Republican right wing goal.  Certainly race and racism are to those who support fascist dictatorial movements a supreme ingredient of American fascism and one which Trump put his imprimatur on almost from the beginning of his trajectory to the presidency when he told the Proud Boys to "stand down and stand by." 

White supremacy is not new to the American political experience.  We fought the Civil War over it but what is new and what Trump delivered was a verbalization and an acceptance of it which was heretofore absent in American formal political parlance and campaigns for the presidency.  The members of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the American Nazi Party, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Base and numbers of militia groups across the country are standing by ready to do Trump's bidding whatever it may be.  When Trump called them to duty on January 6, 2021 and issued a seditious command they were there.  These groups are many in number and must have thought they died and went to heaven as Trump over and over again sanctions and advocates for their actions something that even Charles Lindbergh, supporter of 1933 Nazi Germany, could not do.  Trump tells mostly whites at a campaign stop to not be afraid to crack heads.  Mostly white men were at the staging of a coup at the Capitol, the seat of American democracy, using a variety of right wing supporters with a variety of symbols proclaiming 6MWE (Six million was not enough), sporting Camp Auschwitz tattoos and carrying an abundance of Confederate flags minutes before the election of Joe Biden was to be approved are more examples of Trump's treachery. Finally, Trump employs Hitler's use of the Big Lie, promoting consistently that the 2020 election was not lost by him but was stolen by the liberal left and Democrats when an abundance of authorities and even Republican courts clearly have found zero evidence of that.

These Fascist like groups are armed, they are violent, and the January 6, 2021 violent attack on the Capitol was an example of the brute force they would use to take democracy down.   American Fascism has a charismatic leader in Trump who advocates for American Fascism and the death of democracy. They tried this time to take it down and failed.  Maybe next time we will not be so lucky.  The threat to our democratic system of government is grave and immediate!

Join us and tell Congress to pass both the H.R. 1 For the People Act and H.R 4 the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.  Both are needed to Build Our Democracy Anew.