Tag Archives: politics

Executive Orders as Shock and Awe

Politics, Uncategorized

Through his EOs, Trump is using shock and awe to overwhelm the resolve of progressives and liberals.

But saying “don’t get distracted by what he says” isn’t enough. Saying “he’s trying to bring attention to himself” isn’t enough.

Ask yourself: why are his press conferences and media events being covered on live TV? Why are his EO signatures being covered? Why are he and his sycophants being interviewed on live TV?

If Hannah Arendt is right about how authoritarians use big lies and media events to draw attention to themselves and issue “declarations of intent”, why not “starve the beast” of that attention?

Get in the way of the most accessible news media when Trump is sucking up attention. Suck that attention right back in your direction. Hold more press conferences. Hold more media events. Hold more marches. Issue more lawsuits. Compete for that attention. Do it in the places and times which most matter.

Get. In. The. Way.

#DNCforum

America was founded by people who ran away. From religious persecution, from famine, from genocide, from bad economies, from cramped living conditions, from war, from dictatorship, from discrimination, from a lack of business opportunities, from prison, from sheer boredom.

All good reasons to run away. All the reasons why the the settler colonies of the United States of America, Argentina, Canada, Chile, Brazil, apartheid South Africa, Australia and New Zealand exist.

But Syrian war refugees will now not be allowed to run away to this settler colony, nor will refugees in 6 other countries.

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…”

-Carl Sagan

Trump’s Protectionism

Politics, Uncategorized,

The deep protectionism which Trump is signifying with his executive orders is a manifestation of a long history of perceiving ethnic competition for jobs in the United States.

The same people who support Trump’s trade-first supremacy over the national security-first supremacy which has shaped our post-WW2 policy are the same people who rage against undocumented immigrants “taking” jobs. Their ancestors raged and engaged in race riots against Negroes, Asians and even Eastern Europeans “taking” jobs in big cities.

The ethnic majority in this country, or at least those who take “America First” seriously, will now proceed to screw over or remove anyone who gets in the way of their economic security. Anyone.

I wonder if there is historic precedent in other countries for this trade-first emphasis.

Trump vs. the Southside of Chicago

Politics, Uncategorized, , , ,

Trump’s rage on Chicago is the latest manifestation of conservative rage against Chicago’s gang violence.

The gang violence is largely concentrated in the predominantly-black Southside.

The Southside of Chicago has always been a destination for the working class.

The Irish working class settled there for low skill jobs, committed violence against each other in gang warfare and killed Black working class emigres in race riots because they competed for jobs. The Black working class of the Deep South migrated to the Southside for low skill jobs and committed violence against each other in gang warfare.

Guess which group had more ability to get out of that hood?

Guess who is still stuck in the Southside after the low skill jobs have left?

This desire for hamfisted martial law against the Southside will score him points among his White conservative supporters.

None of those supporters give a shit about what produces young Black men killing each other in the Southside. They want explosions.

Get out of the Southside while you still can.

White paternalism, unfettered by tact, is about to get more innocent Chicagoans killed.

Progressive federal constitutional amendments:

  • Right to Vote Amendment
  • Equal Rights Amendment
  • Anti-Gerrymandering Amendment
  • Abolition of anti-commandeering rule
  • Campaign Finance Amendment
  • Abolition of Sovereign Immunity
  • Abolition of the Death Penalty
  • Restriction of the right to bear arms to the militia
  • Abolition of the Electoral College
  • Legalization of foreign-born presidents who have 20 years citizenship
  • Congressional Apportionment Amendment
  • Marriage Equality Amendment for race, sexual orientation and national origin
  • Reform of the 13th Amendment to absolutely abolish slavery and involuntary servitude
  • Legalization of federal referendums

Progressive state constitutional amendments:

  • the right to decent, safe, sanitary and affordable housing
  • the right to a clean, safe and sustainable environment
  • the right to full employment and balanced economic growth
  • an amendment regarding taxing the people of the United States progressively
  • the right to public education of equal high quality
  • the right to health care of equal high quality
  • The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation of equal high quality
  • The right to earn enough to provide adequate water of equal high quality
  • The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation
  • The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return that will give him and his family a decent living
  • The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad
  • The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment
  • Abolition of the Death Penalty
  • Right to Vote Amendment
  • Equal Rights Amendment
  • Campaign Finance Amendment
  • Marriage Equality Amendment for race, sexual orientation and national origin
  • Reform of the 13th Amendment to absolutely abolish slavery and involuntary servitude
  • Legalization of ballot initiatives
  • Equality of the law on the basis of pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth

Minority-access seats

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

What is more important to keep in legislatures: minority-access seats or party-competitive seats?

Example: creating one seat populated mostly by African-American Democrats in order to ensure a safe seat for a Democratic member of Congress. But in turn, creating 4 or 5 districts next door to be populated mostly by White American Republicans to make safe seats for Republicans. This is done mostly in the South and Midwest.

I’m asking this question because many Black Democratic legislators would rather have a seat at the negotiating table for Black legislators rather than have a seat at the table for Democrats.

Case in point: how former Rep. Corrine Brown sued to keep her own 5th district in north Florida as racially-gerrymandered as possible in order to secure a safe seat for Black congressmembers like herself while surrounded by White Republican safe seats. Today, while she has been replaced by another Black Democrat, her district still looks like a snake.

Maybe minority-access seats are terrible. Maybe, in the post-Obama era, we’ll have to discard these seats to help Democrats become more competitive.

In at least two other alternate realities, a lot of people are counting down the hours to better versions of #POTUS45: President Sanders and President Hillary Clinton.

In the former, in which someone more competent than Jeff Weaver was campaign manager, Sanders is planning a rousing speech harkening to the ghost of FDR, wondering whether or not this country is ready for positive mentions of “democratic socialism” in this inauguration speech.

In the latter, in which she campaigned harder in Midwestern states, Clinton is planning to celebrate the shattering of a glass ceiling, promote a theme of responsibility and extend an olive branch to those who hate her existence. And Bill would have worked out by now how he’ll use Twitter as First Gentleman of the United States.

Thirst for Purging

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

So the GOP have the perfect, most on-message political party in 2017. They cut out most of the voters who don’t fit their ideas, cowed the ones who remained, and now carry the nation on a narrow path which will benefit a smaller, privileged portion of the population.

The Tea Party and its predecessors defined themselves by how much they drove away White moderates from the GOP through purity tests. The result of their zealotry, combined with massive gerrymandering, is the incoming dominant status quo.

Being “better/more inclusive than the Tea Party”, combined with being massively distracted from gerrymandering, left us with a terrible Democratic Party. We screwed ourselves. The Obama-Clinton coalition is dying.

Meanwhile, born-again Berniecrats like Nina Turner are preaching fire and brimstone at progressive tent revivals. Berniecrats, now drunk with schadenfreude and motivated by revenge, threaten to make it exciting, thrilling and headline-grabbing to be a progressive in opposition. What they lack in respectability, they replenish with ideological consistency and bombast. In the age of Trump, the American people crave both, and those who want stability are in the minority.

So I’m OK with the progressive sentiment of purging/cowing the centrists and neoliberals from the Democratic Party. I look forward to it.

I’m reading about the “Concert of Democracies” idea put forward by neocons back during the Bush 43 administration. It would hypothetically be an alternative to the United Nations which would only allow democracies to become members.

In light of anti-United Nations sentiment among Trump and the GOP majority, two questions:
1. Would this Council of Democracies be a good alternative to the U.N.?
2. In our current conditions, and in light of our favorite admonition that “America is not a democracy”, would we even pass the necessary criteria for membership in this “Concert of Democracies”?