#quasi-democratically

[zvaigzdelasas]

No skin off my back, but isn’t the assumption of liberals that either the Republican Party would alter course and become more moderate or collapse into several smaller parties upon consecutive Democratic Party wins?

Or I guess “one party dominant” is still a distinctive political system from either orthodox multiparty liberal democracy or Marxist-Leninist single party democracy. Are American liberals typically supportive of Lee Kuan Yew? That would make sense

The most coherent plan I've seen is "unshakeable Democrat majority in all chambers until they completely trash the FPTP system, institute multi party democracy, and get rid of the electoral college, and every single SC justice becomes a democrat. Now obviously they wouldnt do this for quite a while, but -". Also has the assumption that the new parties would all be Good Parties.

As to LKY - literally have been trying to ask this exact question for months and have yet to get a meaningful response. Mainly bc vanishingly few US libs have even a rudimentary familiarity with any political system outside of North America and Europe, but for the few who do they'd have to actually consider the point "PAP actually does things that most Singaporean people want them to do, which is how they get elected again and again" which is the inverse of the carriage-driven-horse version of democracy they understand.

[idiopathicsmile]

begging the voting population of u.s. citizens on tumblr to vote this year, and specifically to vote in the way that most practically ensures trump doesn't win, not out of a liberal centrist "don't you hate the orange man hoho" impulse, but out of love and fear for the many, many, many marginalized populations whose lives will be concretely worse under a second trump presidency, out of paranoia that the current architecture of our american quasi-democracy will not survive a new formalized attempt at dismantling it, out of having done the research that no matter what you think of biden literally every stance of trump's is noticeably more disastrous.

i hate that these are our only two practical choices right now but hating it doesn't do anything to change the fact that these are our only two practical choices right now. a trump victory will also almost certainly send the mainstream democratic politicians scrambling even closer to the center; that is historically how the democratic machine reacts to defeat! which absolutely sucks, but the best way to lay the groundwork for progressive policies in the future is to start as far from zero as we can.

i am begging you: vote biden, and then protest every fucking thing he does. make that old man's life miserable. just please, please, please don't burn down your own country to try to make a point; who materially benefits from that?

[brrmian]

something that so many star wars fans somehow fail to realize is that george lucas always intended for the fall of the republic to be a completely unavoidable tragedy. that’s what makes it such brilliant storytelling.

placing the blame on just one party in the galaxy-wide farce that was the clone wars just isn’t interpreting the story the way its writer intended. neither is saying that all players should be held equally accountable. i don’t think the jedi were at fault for the state of the republic, and (despite the fact that he did horrible things) neither was anakin, on a galactic or governmental scale.

the real villain is palpatine, who shaped the government into a corrupt system by his own hand. the blame for turning a democratic republic into an authoritarian dictatorship (which it was long before it became the empire) under the noses of thousands of incredibly corrupt politicians must be placed entirely on him, and him alone.

by the end of the war, the jedi council recognized that they had already lost the ability to hold onto what it truly means to be a jedi. in their prime during the days of the old republic, the jedi knights were “the guardians of peace and justice.” they’re meant to as diplomats, peacekeepers, mediators, and public servants. when the clone wars began, they were essentially forced into being soldiers, generals, and quasi-politicians by palpatine and the senate. all of those things are antithetical to the jedi’s beliefs, but they had no other choice.

placing even the smallest bit of blame on the jedi for anything leading to the republic’s downfall—and their own—is not only unfair, it’s factually incorrect. the jedi order is a monastic organization. they have no say in the senate and no voting power. saying they’re corrupt, when in fact they were just as conned by palpatine as the rest of the galaxy, is victim-blaming and scapegoating.

palpatine shoved the jedi face first into fighting the war, and pretty much threw the clone army into their laps on top of that. the jedi had no say in the matter, and they certainly had no say in the war itself being started, either. because he controlled both sides, palpatine was able to make the CIS and the republic declare war on each other even though its citizens wanted the same outcome: political independence and survival. if not for palpatine’s schemes, the separatists would have been allowed to secede peacefully, the republic would have continued existing, and the war would have been completely avoided. but that was unfortunately not the case.

so in a galaxy thrown into an unavoidable war by its own secret dictator, with an army of sentient slaves suddenly at their command, and the risk of billions of deaths at the hands of the droid army imminently approaching, what do the galaxy’s official peacekeepers have no other choice but to do? be peacekeepers. why wouldn’t the sworn defenders of the galaxy be out on the battlefields trying to end the war? if they sat in the temple and did nothing, they simply wouldn’t be jedi.

the jedi were forced into a lose/lose situation. every religion and organization has faults, but that doesn’t place any blame on them for the catch-22 they were trapped into falling for. when the clone wars started—and the key point here is that it never should have in the first place—the jedi still needed to be jedi. unfortunately for them, that meant having positions of power not meant for them being thrust upon their shoulders. they couldn’t drop the burden, because that meant actively choosing not to save lives—but the other option, becoming soldiers despite the tenet of their beliefs that dictates they shouldn’t, was no better.

see what a cruel trap palpatine set? it’s like a fish being caught in a fisherman’s net. the net is spread out across the ocean floor, and the fish swim above it, not knowing that the trap is waiting to be drawn in around them from below. in the end, when the net starts to tighten, dragging them closer to the surface, they can’t swim fast enough to escape from the middle to the edge—and to safety—before the net is completely tied. it’s the cruelest kind of trap: the kind that gives you just the right amount of time to think you can escape while being sprung just quick enough to make actually escaping impossible.

in the end, the order actively chose to fight the war because they needed to. there was no other way to continue on as who they were. militarizing the order was not the right choice in a vacuum, but this was not that; this was a situation in which every galaxy-changing choice was the wrong one. the jedi knew they were making a decision that drew them farther away from their beliefs, but it was the lesser of an infinite list of evils, and they didn’t see the walls closing in on them until it was too late.

lucas himself has even said that the order was not corrupt or decaying from the inside, nor did they make a series of bad choices that ultimately led to their own destruction. they were always just trying to do the right thing—but unlike literally everything else in fiction, the jedi order’s death was completely unaffected by any of the choices they made. no matter what they did, they were always going to lose. the fall of the republic wasn’t caused by its defenders choosing what they saw as the least bad choice. it didn’t come down to any decisions, political or not, that the jedi council made with the limited tools that they had. it certainly didn’t come down to one emotionally unstable twenty-three-year-old’s slow descent into insanity, either. the republic and the jedi would still have been destroyed with or without anakin’s unhinged nervous breakdown.

anakin, just like the order, the republic, and the separatists, was taken advantage of by palpatine. even if a person’s choices are their own, they don’t exist in a vacuum.

anakin would have made better choices if not for palpatine, but he didn’t. the jedi order would have kept the peace if not for palpatine, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t. the republic, and democracy with it, would not have crumbled if not for palpatine. not the order, not anakin, not the separatists, and not the republic.

in the end, they were all just pawns in a decades-spanning plan, one that none of them saw coming until it was too late—and by then, it was already irreversible.

[qqueenofhades]

I'm not sure if you can answer this, but what is it that (in general, not just based on the current state of affairs) seems to cause people in more left leaning circles to constantly underestimate the danger that the far right poses?

Like, this seems to be a consistent pattern, given what I've read up on men like Ernst Thalmann and the like, who keep on treating the right wing as being less of a threat than the center or not as left as the left. For that matter, why do they keep insisting that the center is worse than the right, even when it's pretty evidently not the case?

My quasi-educated guess would be that it's because of something called "the psychology of small differences." See where people who live next door to each other, in the same neighborhood, or in the same country (or in countries right next to each other) hate each other far more than unknown people far away, because these people are almost like them but then aren't, and that's a threat to their identity and their sense of themselves. Hence we have leftists insisting that liberals or even centrists are somehow Much Worse!!! than literal far-right fascists, even if it makes no sense, because it doesn't have to do with logic, reality, or an objective appraisal of the situation, but a threat to their personal sense of themselves and/or selfish view of themselves as clearly the best and most moral ever. As such, something something people who almost agree with them, but not quite, are actually worse than their open enemies.

Also, I'm glad you mentioned Ernst Thalmann. People should read up on him. He was the leader of the German Communist Party from 1925-33, and played an explicit part in aligning them with Stalinist Russia and vigorously demonizing the liberal/left-wing establishment German political party, the Social Democrats, as "social fascists" who were obviously worse than the boorish failed artist Austrian populist guy running for the National Socialist Workers' Party:

....except the National Socialist Workers' Party was, you know, the Nazis, the guy running for them was Adolf Hitler, Thalmann spent so much time attacking the Social Democrats as "just as bad" that it was impossible for the German leftist and liberal/socialist/communist factions to work together, and Hitler was elected in 1933. Good thing nothing bad happened after that, right?

Anyway. Don't be Ernst Thalmann. The end.

[creature-wizard]

I know you talked about jill stein, but what are your thoughts on de la cruz or cornell west?

I don't really know anything specific about Cornel West at this moment. And I don't know a whole lot about de la Cruz, but I can say that she doesn't exactly demonstrate a clear grasp on how the US government actually works.

I can give some broad pointers on evaluating any third party candidate, though. Like, have they run for any local offices before, like county or state offices? Have they ever been elected to any local positions? And do they actually have any allies in Washington? Do they act like people who actually understand that you need to negotiate and work with other elected officials, most of whom will not be in their party? And do they actually express reasonable, grounded views, or are they promoting a conspiratorial or quasi-apocalyptic worldview? And very importantly, do they understand that third-party candidates don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected president without voting reforms, and do they actually push for said election reforms? Or are they wasting people's time and votes by running for president before said reforms are implemented?

Nobody who fails this test is worth taking seriously. Best case scenario, they genuinely just do not understand how the US government works, and have no actual political skill to speak of. Worst case scenario, they're being funded and promoted by people who do not want the Democratic candidate to win. (See for example: RFK Jr.)

[whencyclopedia]

Jay Treaty

The Jay Treaty, formally known as the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, was a controversial treaty signed by representatives of the United States and Great Britain in November 1794. It sought to resolve issues left over from the American Revolution (1765-1789) and establish trade between the two nations.

At the time of the treaty's signing, the United States appeared to be on the brink of war with Great Britain. Believing the United States to be reneging on agreements made in the Treaty of Paris, Britain refused to evacuate its troops from forts in the Northwest Territory and attacked American shipping in the French West Indies, seizing over 250 American merchant vessels and impressing their crews into service in the Royal Navy. Although many Americans clamored for war, President George Washington (served 1789-1797) believed the young republic was not strong enough to withstand another war with Britain. Instead, he dispatched John Jay, Chief Justice of the United States, to negotiate a treaty that would, hopefully, avert an armed conflict.

Jay succeeded in avoiding war, and even managed to strengthen commercial ties with Britain; the US was granted 'most favored nation' status at British ports, and American merchants were given limited trade rights in the British West Indies. However, the treaty came up short in many respects, as it significantly did not protect American sailors from future impressment. But the most controversial aspect was that the treaty created stronger political and economic ties between the United States and Britain, something that many Americans feared would lead to a re-emergence of aristocracy in the US. Riots broke out in many cities, and Jay was often burned in effigy. Even President Washington was abused in the press. A new political faction, the Democratic-Republican Party, emerged to combat the growing power of the pro-British Federalist Party. Revolutionary France, meanwhile, interpreted the Jay Treaty as an Anglo-American alliance and also began attacking American shipping, eventually resulting in the brief Quasi-War (1798-1800).

Background: The Threat of War

The Treaty of Paris of 1783 ended the American Revolutionary War, creating a state of fragile and uneasy peace between the fledgling United States and its former mother country, Great Britain. The treaty was generally regarded as favorable to the Americans: it more than doubled the size of the United States, whose borders now stretched as far west as the Mississippi River, and the British promised to evacuate their soldiers from these boundaries. In return for these concessions, Britain expected that all prewar debts owed by American borrowers to British lenders would still be paid and that state governments would stop confiscating the properties of Loyalists (Americans who had remained loyal to the British Crown during the Revolution). These were among the main components of the ten articles of the treaty, signed by American and British commissioners on 3 September 1783.

The ink on the treaty was barely dry, however, when troubles began to sprout. For much of its short existence, the United States had been plagued with economic difficulties; indeed, its recent attempt at a national currency, the Continental Currency, had failed after depreciating to the point of near worthlessness. State governments were imposing high taxes to begin paying off their own hefty war debts while Congress – under the terms of the Articles of Confederation – could not raise any taxes at all. Burdened by high taxes and inflation, many American debtors were unable to pay back their British creditors in a timely fashion. Additionally, many state governments were loath to take any pity on Loyalists, who were regarded as traitors; few were compensated for the properties that had been confiscated during the Revolution, with some states even continuing to seize Loyalist estates. Britain pointed to these two examples as evidence that the United States was not holding up its end of the bargain. In retaliation, the British maintained garrisons of troops in a series of forts in the Great Lakes region, which had been ceded to the US in the treaty. When the US complained, Britain promised that it would indeed evacuate these troops as promised – but only once the Americans had paid off all their debts.

Tensions between the two nations continued to simmer for the next decade. Then, in February 1793, Britain declared war on Revolutionary France. By this point, the French Revolution was in full swing; a French Republic had been proclaimed, King Louis XVI of France had lost his head, and hundreds of thousands of French citizen-soldiers were pouring into Europe to deliver liberty, equality, and fraternity at the points of their bayonets. Many Americans were quick to express their support for Revolutionary France, donning tricolor cockades, singing revolutionary songs, and opening political clubs called Democratic-Republican societies, in which they toasted the French Republic and denounced aristocracy. President George Washington, however, was more hesitant to offer support to the revolutionaries; such an act would certainly bring the US into conflict with Britain, a conflict that Washington knew they were not ready for. Instead, he issued a Proclamation of Neutrality on 22 April 1793, in which he promised to keep the United States out of the French Revolutionary Wars.

It did not take long for Britain to disregard this neutrality. Without offering so much as a warning, British ships began seizing American merchant vessels in the French West Indies, considering any ship carrying French cargo to be a valid prize. Over the course of the next year, around 250 American ships were captured and their crews were impressed into service with the Royal Navy.

Impressment of American Sailors into the British Navy

Howard Pyle (Public Domain)

At the same time, the British used their forts in the Great Lakes region to offer support to the Northwest Confederacy, a loose coalition of Native American nations currently at war with the United States. These were blatant acts of aggression that could not be ignored; many Americans, particularly those associated with the Democratic-Republican societies, began to demand war. Other Americans were not so hasty. The Federalist Party, a nationalist political faction led by Alexander Hamilton, was horrified by the chaos and bloodshed of the French Revolution and did not want the US to fall under the influence of Revolutionary France. On the contrary, the Federalists viewed Britain as the natural ally of the United States; they believed stronger ties with the former mother country were vital for the survival of the US. Influenced by these Federalists, and still desirous to avoid war, President Washington agreed to send an envoy to London to hopefully reach an agreement and pull the quarreling countries away from the brink.

Continue reading...

[tomorrowusa]

« The reason these colonial wars take a long time is that it’s the aggressor who needs to come to the conclusion that the attack was a mistake. Possibly, the Russians are already there. But they also have to conclude that the cost in blood and treasure is not worth the objective. They’re clearly not there yet. It usually also takes a change of team, unfortunately. And we have no indications of it, which is why the war is continuing. I think we should have a base scenario of some more years. If we get a solution earlier, that would be a bonus. »

— Poland's Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski in conversation with editor Ravi Agrawal at Foreign Policy. (archived)

One thing which many people don't get is that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a neo-colonialist war.

Some leaders in South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America give Russia a mulligan because Russia didn't have colonies in their regions. They fail to notice that Russia's colonies have been in the "near abroad" – Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Those areas are NOT natural parts of Russia which was just a principality called Muscovy about the size of Denmark at its inception.

As with any colonial war, the imperialist aggressor will keep wasting lives and resources until it belatedly reaches the conclusion that the cost of the war is too high. This can take a while because of the pigheadedness of the leader(s) of the aggressor country.

The US War of Independence lasted from 1775 until a de facto ceasefire in 1781.

Portugal kept fighting wars in its African colonies 18 years after France and Britain began the process of decolonization on the continent. It took the democratic revolution of 1974 in Portugal, with its overthrow of a quasi-fascist régime, to bring the troops home from the now former colonies.

So nobody should expect a quick and easy victory for Ukraine against the former colonial power which is foolishly attempting to subjugate it once again. Driving up the price which Russia has to pay for this geopolitical mistake is the most reliable way to bring this war to an end.

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

Dear Resident Rohan Expert:

I'm not sure if you have given any thought to this, but I could sure use your help! What are your thoughts about how Rohan's government is structured, specifically the King's council at Edoras? I have assumed the King rules with full authority, but with the help of a council of advisors... but how do you think those advisors are selected? How many? Are they military men? Nobility? Elected? Appointed? Are they inherited titles?

Any of your thoughts would be appreciated since your grasp of Rohirrim culture is sounder than of anyone around! Thank you in advance! 😊

Ooh, this comes very close to giving me the chance to answer the question, “What was Éomer’s tax policy?” 😂 (Which, as a public policy major, is something I wouldn’t mind knowing about!) I have thought about Rohan’s government, and I hope you find my answer useful or at least interesting—it’s always my goal to live up to the praise you give me and to make my Rohan even close to being as well contextualized as your Mirkwood universe!!!

I’ve tried to keep a general structure for Rohan’s government in my mind that is at least quasi-related to the way that Anglo Saxon lands were governed, since they were Tolkien’s model. The big deviations are: 1) there is no mixing of religion and government like the Anglo Saxons did, since Rohan has no organized religion; and 2) I like to keep my Rohan government a little more democratic in the sense that everything isn’t based solely on nobility, inheritance or wealth. That’s partly because I don’t vibe with that approach, but also I feel like Tolkien gave us hints that the Rohirrim are pretty laid back about stuff like that anyway (like, Théoden is shockingly casual about the whole issue of royal succession, and he’s totally willing to take advice from guys like Háma or Wídfara even though we have no reason to believe they’re particularly wealthy or elite nobles).

So, the king has ultimate authority in Rohan and, starting with Éomer, that power is equally shared with the queen (I have to believe that he really took in what he learned about Éowyn’s experience in Rohan and would want things to change, starting with his own wife!). The monarchs exercise their authority with the help of a council. That council is comprised of: 1) the advisors of the royal household, a small group that is at Meduseld with the king and queen every day; and 2) the officers of the court, a bigger group who are out in the towns and villages as representatives of the crown. The entire council meets formally a few times a year to discuss and make recommendations on significant issues, though the king and queen can call them more often if needed. And when the officers of the court are back at their homes in between formal council meetings, the advisors of the royal household give the day-to-day advice or handle emergencies that crop up.

The royal household advisors are chosen by the king/queen and would generally include trusted family members as well as others who have distinguished themselves as being particularly skilled in relevant subjects. There would normally be 7 of these, with each specializing in a particular area: defense, diplomacy, justice/law, treasury, trade, infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.) and public welfare (care of orphans, famine relief, what passed for public health in those days). But there could be more or less depending on the priorities of the particular king/queen, and the individual advisors might have their own staffs to help them.

The royal household advisors would often be members of the most prominent families in Rohan, if only because those are the people with the most access to the education and experience needed to become good at these things, but anyone can be chosen. And younger people of any background who are identified as being particularly bright and with a lot of potential might be referred to extra schooling/study with the idea of training them to be advisors, or work for them, in the future. (In my fics, this is how Gríma ended up in an advisor role – he failed out of éored training, but the brilliance of his mind was recognized, he was given the additional education to become an advisor on diplomatic affairs, got too close to Isengard and everything went to hell.) (It’s a good process, even though the one example I’ve just given is one where things did not work out well!)

The officers of the court who are spread throughout the land are chosen by their communities, though the king/queen can refuse to seat one that they don’t like or trust.* The king and queen decide how many officers there are, adding or subtracting as the population shifts, but there are generally 5 each from the West-mark and the East-mark and 3 from Edoras and its surrounding lands. These officers not only sit on the council that helps the king/queen set law and policy, but they’re also the first line administrators who see those policies carried out around the country (so, they hire the tax collectors in Dunharrow or the work crews that build the new road between Aldburg and Grimslade or whatever). That makes them kind of the face of the crown in most parts of Rohan where regular people are never going to see the king or queen (or, at least, not often). They can also draw on the expertise and knowledge of the royal household advisors as needed when carrying out royal policy.

Thank you again for the opportunity to write something that’s probably far too long about a niche topic that I find very interesting!! If anyone has their own ideas and thoughts—either complementary or conflicting—I would love to hear them. More Rohan for everyone! 👑🐎🗡️♥️

*A king/queen should really try to avoid doing this, especially if the person in question is really popular in their community and has any kind of independent power base. Don’t get me started on how Helm Hammerhand really fucked this up with a member of his own council and got a war started as a result.

[probablyasocialecologist]

A whole literature exists that analyses Zionist ideology, its meaning and significance, in ways that have mystified it into a quasi-religion, an identity, and a badge of honour for Jews. Yet, in its application to historic Palestine, Zionism was a simple, practical programme to take the land but not the people. Palestine, denuded of its Arab inhabitants, would become Jewish owned and so attain the Jewish ‘ethnic purity’ Zionism longed for. These aggressive and racist aims never changed over time, and no matter how much Palestinian land the state of Israel acquired, in Zionist terms, it was still short of the ultimate goal.

Ghada Karmi, One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:

After months of House Speaker Mike Johnson dragging his feet, the House finally voted 316 to 94 to advance the foreign aid bills for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Democrats made that happen—again. In fact, Democrats have been responsible for passing every key funding bill during Johnson’s tenure, a fact that continues to enrage the far-right Freedom Caucus. That, in turn, makes Johnson even more reliant on Democrats to keep his gavel.  The importance of this week’s success in the House is hard to overstate. For the first time in decades, the minority party bailed out the speaker in the Rules Committee—the most powerful committee in the House—to advance the aid bills to the floor. In fact, it’s called “The Speaker’s Committee” because it’s the vehicle the speaker uses to send their priorities—which are typically the priorities of the majority party—to the House floor. Three Republican extremists on the Rules Committee, the group former Speaker Kevin McCarthy installed in his negotiations to get the job last year, rebelled, leading all four Democrats on the committee—Reps. Jim McGovern, Mary Gay Scanlon, Joe Neguse, and Teresa Leger Fernández—to do the previously unthinkable and approve the package, sending it to the floor. 

Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that Democrats were united—this time—in helping Johnson. “Once we made that decision, it was clear that we would do what was necessary to make sure that national security legislation was considered by the entire House,” he said. They did just that, ensuring that the legislation moved forward Friday morning with Democrats in the majority—165 Democrats and 151 Republicans in favor. Which means that, at least for the purposes of this critical package, Johnson shared control of the floor with Democrats—a quasi-coalition government, for the time being. That will be cemented Saturday, when the House votes on final passage for the individual components of the package, and Democrats will undoubtedly hold the majority again.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)'s job has been bailed out by the Democrats, infuriating the House Freedom Caucus nutters.

[sappho114]

Genuinely gobsmacked that I saw someone I follow on here call not voting, or at least putting pressure on the democratic party, "single issue voting" and implied it was a lesser of evils and harm reduction.

I know some people are callous and ignorant and nasty but how can you think you're a good person if you ignore all of the everything else. Such a white middle-class mindset if all you see is a single issue, never mind being completely ignorant of electoralism at all. YOU are the single issue voter, bitch. YOU are the unreasonable little fuck.

Palestine deserves our advocacy because American money, American politics, and American munitions are directly responsible for all of it. It is not only condoned but encouraged daily by the same people these cunts want us to vote for. If you disagree with that, then you disagree with that. Just say it - don't be a coward and pretend like you care about their lives. Just fucking say it with your chest: its all a performative game to you. You only care so long as it doesn't potentially impact you.

Because let's face the facts, these people are also the same sorts who have no time, advocacy, or attention to any of the numerous imperial terrors that the democrats - or k harris specifically - have sown in only the past four years. All of which the current nominees had their hands in. Is it single issue voting if I don't want someone to be president when they've been ghoulishly and comically evil in regards to border policies, migrant concentration camps, reproductive rights malaise, LGBT+ rights, and for not enabling or encouraging but actively creating the new pandemic of militarized policing by using the National Guard to abuse, kill, and maim citizens that you don't agree with? These seem like more than one issue, all of which are perhaps adequate reasons to utilize one's electoral right and responsibility (as you see it) to vote for a candidate who has their interests or the country's interests in mind.

Like, sure, you can sit there and be an absolute dumbfuck and write off Palestine because you are a bad person but the unfortunate truth here is that by just voting for the people who make things worse - red or blue, same team different colors! - you're just another idiot who is choosing to crouch behind the curtain like every other ghoulish system-fellating moron who just doesn't have the guts to be uncomfortable for the five fucking minutes it takes to pressure Democrats into doing something, anything, other than rapidly whirlpooling into fascism.

If you hold those opinions you are simply uneducated politically, academically in history, socially, and you are letting your comfort mean more to you than actual people's lives - yourself included, because you're SO willing to let a million canaries die as long as you can go about your day without being challenged or feel complicated.

Every single civil rights advocate who was assassinated by the US government has quotes about how you people do this, too. Like, you are aware that you're that shade of person right? The white moderate, the quasi-liberal, the fucker who won't even acknowledge the knife is there. And don't think people didn't see you play pretend and immediate discard the BLM movement just as quickly as it went out of vogue because you were "tired" from COVID, not because you actually cared about black people.

Where was your advocacy and attention during Trump's first presidency? Why did it stop when the blue team switched into his chair and made so many things worse? Because that's your team?

All you need to do is shut the fuck up, to stop telling people to not feel for others, advocate for others, or adhere to their own moral codes. Nobody needs to know that you're a big coward pissbaby who is turning into the next ghoulish sycophant like Pete Bootychug and his ilk, gleefully wiping your brow of any and all social responsibility the moment you decide that voting for the Minnesotan police state guy and the woman who loves genocide and hates migrants get in office.

You can, and should, just fucking shut up if you want to vote so badly for them and do nothing else.

[darkmaga-retard]

By Fay Voshell

Viewers of the four-day Democratic National Convention were treated to more than a political gathering.  They saw a spectacle that has been the equivalent of a four-day-long religious retreat.  The services proved that the religious impulse never dies.  It just takes on new shapes and forms reflecting the core values of devotees.

Observers saw a number of quasi-religious ceremonies, including a liturgical procession of pilgrims dressed in white costumes symbolizing abortion pills.

Potential converts also were invited to visit a small chapel in the form of a van placed by Planned Parenthood.  There, disciples of the religion/political cult could observe the initiation rites deemed necessary for entrance into the realm of the 144,000 chosen of the left.

The Planned Parenthood high priests offered initiates the modern-day equivalent of cults promoting castration and child sacrifice in the form of free vasectomies and abortion pills.  Women got on stage and offered testimonies about the salvation abortion had afforded them.  Many of the female congregants wore white, a symbol of purity of mind and heart.

History has seen thousands of cults appear and reappear.  Nearly every one reached an apogee characterized by absurdities and extremes so ridiculous that the cult lost momentum and stalled.  Disciples fled, looking for inspiration elsewhere.

It is fair to say the DNC reached the height of absurdity and extremism indicative of a dying religious cult.  How many voters in a party devoted to death rituals are going to retain loyalty?  How many are going to imitate the plastic joy of Kamala Harris, devoted as she is to the extinguishment of all that gives life to civilization?

It might be wise to think about the fate of death cults, both recent and from the past.

[persephones-domain]

PRESSURE GOVERNMENTS TO DEMAND A CEASEFIRE

Europe is once again facing a turning point in terms of freedom of expression and speech: both are critically being threatened by faux democratic governments that are gradually revealing their imperialist filo-fascist nature.

European politicians and political parties are very much willingly turning a blind eye to the unconceivable monstrosities and horrors of genocide, ethnic cleansing, settler-colonial violence being perpetrated by the Ethnostate of Isra(h)el(l). And they are attempting to oppress and suppress the people's voices through violence and threats.

Social and political pressure MUST be exerted by the people on our representatives and there is very little time left to do so. We either react now, or we become complicit with state-backed mass annihilation of Palestinians and what remains of Gaza.

I'd like this post to act as a loudhailer for various resources, so please reblog with whatever valuable information and contacts you can - I'll begin by posting a letter, in Italian, that can be sent to varies addresses, demanding an immediate ceasefire. This has to be the starting point.

Object: Chiediamo il cessate il fuoco immediato a Gaza Text: Scriviamo per la catastrofe umanitaria a Gaza che vede protagonista la popolazione civile palestinese. Questo orrore ha tutte le caratteristiche di un genocidio (ex art. 6 Statuto di Roma della Corte Penale Internazionale; ex art. 2 Convenzione per la Prevenzione e la Repressione del Delitto di Genocidio) e si sta consumando sotto ai nostri occhi ma nella quasi assoluta indifferenza della comunità internazionale e, nello specifico, della politica italiana. Chiediamo il cessate il fuoco immediato. Chiediamo la protezione ai civili palestinesi. Chiediamo l’invio di ingenti aiuti umanitari senza condizioni. Chiediamo il ripristino di acqua, elettricità e connessione internet. Utilizzo il plurale perché questa è una questione vitale per chiunque abbia a cuore i diritti umani e il diritto internazionale. Le persone palestinesi (oltre 2 milioni, di cui oltre un terzo bambini e bambine) vivono sotto un bombardamento costante che ha colpito infrastrutture civili radendo al suolo il 50% delle abitazioni, e che ha portato fino a oggi all’uccisione di oltre cinquemila persone, di cui la metà bambini e bambine, e al ferimento di almeno quindicimila persone. Gli ospedali sono al collasso. Vi chiediamo di intervenire con massima priorità nelle sedi opportune per chiedere a Israele il cessate il fuoco immediato e l’invio urgente di aiuti umanitari. Il genocidio del popolo palestinese a Gaza può essere commesso solo con l’appoggio e la complicità della comunità internazionale ma soprattutto con il nostro silenzio. Vi prego, fermiamo l’orrore. In fede, Name Email addresses: dgmo.segreteria@esteri.it dgue.segreteria@esteri.it urp@esteri.it gabinetto@esteri.it stampa.farnesina@esteri.it sa.menichelli@governo.it info@antoniotajani.it segreteriavicepresidentetajani@governo.it sg.segreteria@esteri.it dgmo.segreteria@esteri.it dgue.segreteria@esteri.it stampa.farnesina@esteri.it urp@esteri.it gabinetto@esteri.it sa.menichelli@governo.it info@antoniotajani.it segreteriavicepresidentetajani@governo.it

[mariacallous]

The murder of Alexander Navalny and the advance of Russian forces ought to compel the West to unite to defend democratic freedoms.  

As Ukraine runs out of shells and soldiers, it is clear that Europe needs to find the resolve to sustain its war effort.

And as the American far right follows the instructions of Donald Trump and deprives Ukraine of aid, it is equally clear that stopping a Trump second-term is the objective that overrides all others.

Not just for the West in general, but for the United States in particular, whose democratic freedoms Trump threatens.

Surely these simple statements of political reality should not be so hard to grasp. Surely there ought to be an anti-fascist alliance from California to Kyiv.

Tens of millions of people should be putting aside their differences and uniting against a common enemy.

Our times are so frightening because they are doing nothing of the sort. Or, rather, not enough people are prepared to compromise to defend themselves and the best of their societies.

The pro-democracy alliance feels weak and unsure of itself.

Often now, it can seem as if the Kremlin is right, and that all it needs to do is to hold on in Ukraine until Western resolve crumbles.  Often now it also seems to be the case that all Trump needs to do is to count on the US warped electoral system and divisions among his opponents to deliver him power.

Anti-fascism sounds almost a romantic cause as it conjures up images of men and women uniting in the 1930s to defeat the Nazi enemy.

In truth, there was little romantic about anti-fascism in the past, and there is nothing romantic about it now. Putting aside your differences sounds well and good, but in practice it means you must abandon pretty much every principle you have.  You must ally with people you normally oppose, and choke your protests about ideas you normally abhor.  

The underexplored truth is that tyranny and the threat of tyranny remove choice. Alliances against today’s strongmen fly against the central belief of the consumer society that the market will meet our preferences down to the smallest of our whims. Most do not want to abandon their parochial concerns for the greater good.

Two groups make my point for me: US leftists and British Conservatives.

Leftists are the first to shout “fascism”. And yet with Trump making no secret of his desire to install a quasi-dictatorship, they cannot oppose him.

Or rather they cannot lift their eyes and accept that the only way to beat Trump is to vote for the compromised Democrats.

Writing in the current issue of the Nation, a left-wing US journal from the old school, D.D. Guttenplan goes through the reasons why leftists may let Trump win by default.  A little too discreetly for my taste, he refuses to say whether he believes letting Trump win by default is the right thing to do. (“Choosing the lesser evil is never inspiring,” he concludes with a touch of lawyerly caution, “Still, it’s a choice all of us will have to face.”)

Yet Guttenplan is clearly right that disgusted left-wing voters may put their purity before the necessity of stopping Trump’s return to power.

In the swing state of Michigan, American Arab voters are infuriated by Biden’s support of Israel.  "Vote for Palestine. No Biden," say the fliers being handed out at Detroit mosques.

In a tight race it would not take many staying at home or voting for a minor candidate to hand the state and possibly the presidency to Trump. More broadly, and across the US, disgusted left-wing voters have plenty of candidates looking to lure them away from the Democrats.

Cornel West, a leftish academic calls Biden a war criminal and says Israel and the US are “intertwined in genocide”. You could say that Robert Kennedy Junior was a left alternative to Biden. His conspiracy theories appeal to sections of the youth and black vote, who might otherwise have gone Democrat. And once again in tight races, it won’t take many switchers to hand swing states to Trump.

Launching her campaign Jill Stein, the Green candidate, and yet another leftist looking to take votes from Biden, declared there was no difference between Republicans and Democrats .

“The political system is broken. The two Wall Street parties are bought and paid for.”

In normal elections, the radical left can just about get away with pretending there are no differences between the major parties – it’s never true, but they can get away with it.

But the whole point about totalitarian parties in the 20th century and the anti-democratic strongmen of our day is they are not like other democratic parties because they do not accept democracy.  The failure to face the obvious means that a significant minority in the US can believe two contradictory thoughts at once

They believe that Trump will bring fascism and white supremacy back to power in the US.

And yet and at the same time they say that they are entitled to indulge their secondary political interests, even if they help the fascist white supremacist return to power as they do it.

Put it like that they sound like silly and spoiled hypocrites. You feel the need to tell them that Biden’s industrial policy represents a decisive break with neo-liberalism and that a Trump presidency would be a disaster for Palestinians.

But in truth you miss the point if you go off into policy debates.

In normal times, the position of American leftists would be defensible.

Politicians do not own voters. If you are an Arab-American, who objects to the US supporting Israel, why should you vote for Biden?

If you are a US socialist, who damns the Democrats for not being socialists, even though they never promised to be socialists, you are entitled to say that they have failed to be radical enough for your tastes and cannot expect your support.

At a visceral level, you may well feel a greater hatred for centrists, who have diluted progressivism, than for the right, who say what you like about it, is at least honest by its own lights.

The lesser of two evils is still evil, and is not a great choice to offer those who want nothing to do with evil in any of its manifestations.  

The problem with this argument in a crisis is that it fails to capture the choices, or lack of choice, when democracy is in danger. The question is not which version of American policy towards Israel you should vote for but whether you will still have an effective vote if Trump wins again.

The only realistic way out of this dilemma for US leftists would be to argue that a second Trump presidency would not be so bad, and that mainstream American liberals were descending into hysteria when they talked of a potential dictatorship.

Funnily enough they could have said that during Trump’s first term. Trump and the Supreme Court judges he appointed did some terrible things but democracy itself was not in danger.

But by refusing to accept the result of the 2020 presidential election, storming Congress, trying to get crooked election officials into key posts in state governments where they might rig the ballot, and embracing anti-democratic doctrines from Orbanism to Christian nationalism, the US right has made it very clear that it is a threat to democracy this time around.

I have not seen a single prominent figure on the US left try to deny it and argue it is OK to boycott the Democrats because Trump poses no danger.

After watching the far-right storm the capitol, no one can seriously make that argument. But the worst of the US left cannot go on to accept the grim, anti-fascist conclusion that they need to abandon their dearly held principles and do whatever it takes to stop Trump regaining power.

Nor can the worst of the the UK right.

Last week the British had to endure the spectacle of Liz Truss, a former prime minister, no less, endorsing the far right propagandist, Steve Bannon.  At his urging, she declared that this country is not in visible decline because of her policies and the policies of her Conservative party but because of “friends of the bureaucratic establishment and…friends of the deep state” who “work together with the bureaucrats…to keep things the same”.

Truss has come out for Donald Trump. As has Boris Johnson. What an extraordinary moment we are living through. Two British prime ministers are backing a man who organised a coup against his own country’s constitution and stands every chance of being condemned as a criminal by a succession of courts.

The double think of some US leftist is repeated on the British right

Conservatives say that they absolutely believe in resisting Vladimir Putin in Ukraine and defending the wider security of Europe.

Yet they also cheer on Donald Trump, whose supporters are already sabotaging the Ukrainian war effort, and who has made it clear that he will undermine NATO if and when he returns to power.

They are doing it for the same reason as US leftists. They cannot tolerate breaking with their side in the culture war. They cannot aid their opponents. They would rather carry on as before than accept the need to change.

Fight fascism. It sounds so easy. But the compromises required to defend our societies from authoritarian threats at home and abroad are too much for too many people to bear.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By Michael Tomasky

The last Congress, the 117th, which sat from January 2021 through January 2023, was controlled by Democrats on both sides of the Capitol. These lawmakers worked in concert with a new Democratic President, so naturally, we witnessed an unusual amount of legislative activity.

Wanna guess how much? The 117th Congress passed, and Joe Biden signed, 362 laws. Now it practically goes without saying that a hefty majority of these were small-bore matters—relatively inconsequential in policy terms. There were the proverbial post office renamings, the Harlem Hellfighters Congressional Gold Medal Act, the Big Cat Public Safety Act, and the like. Still, an unusually high number of them were very consequential indeed: the American Rescue Plan, the hard infrastructure bill, the CHIPS and Science Act, and several more. They were aimed at helping people and businesses through the pandemic, solving aching public needs, creating jobs, reshaping industrial policy, and more. Whatever else you want to say about them, these people were earning their paychecks.

The 118th Congress—the current one; the one that opened with the clown show where Kevin McCarthy needed 15 ballots to be elected Speaker by his own party—has not been quite the hive of productivity that its predecessor was. So far, seven months into its term, it has passed, and the president has signed, 12 bills. They’re on track, if they can possibly keep up this scorching pace for the next 17 months, to pass maybe 44, even 45 or 46 bills!

And what laws they are! They’ve renamed a veterans’ clinic. They’ve toasted the 250th anniversary of the Marine Corps commemorative coin. Oh, but it hasn’t all been ceremonial. They’ve also pressed forward with the racism for which they are so widely and justly known, notably the bill that revoked part of Washington D.C.’s criminal code—McCarthy called it soft on crime, and Biden quasi-reluctantly signed it to avoid that age-old tag. The only law of any real consequence was the increase in the debt limit, on which the supposedly out-of-it Biden ran circles around the supposedly spry Speaker.

As far as improving the lives of working- and middle-class people, McCarthy’s majority has done absolutely nothing. But by God, don’t call them the “Do-Nothing Congress.” Oh, no! They’ve done stuff. For example, they’ve investigated Hunter and Joe Biden over, under, sideways, and down.

I wonder how many public dollars James Comer and Jim Jordan, respective chairs of the House’s Oversight and Judiciary committees, have spent trying to prove crimes that probably don’t exist but that they insist, every week, will be pitilessly exposed for all the world to see in just a little while, you’ll see—you’ll all see. In fact, Democrats: Why not tell the world how much they’re spending? I’d assume you have access to the basic budgetary materials. How about a Biden Goose Chase Clock toting up the taxpayer dollars being wasted on this sham?

Those two just get more ridiculous every week. Last week, you’ll recall, Comer’s committee had a closed-door session with yet another star witness, Devon Archer, a former Hunter Biden business partner who was supposedly poised to finally blow the lid off the whole thing. “The walls are closing in on the Bidens,” Comer crowed on Newsmax Monday night.

In the end, Archer’s testimony—taken that afternoon, released later in the week—did nothing of the sort. Which Comer might have known if he’d even bothered to show up at his own hearing, which he did not do!

As for Jordan—well, his special new “deep state” committee or whatever it’s called has been an even bigger abuse of the taxpayer dollar. Just Google “Jim Jordan deep state committee” and look at the headlines: “Inside Jim Jordan’s Disastrous Search for a ‘Deep State’ Whistleblower”; “Jordan’s ‘weaponization’ panel is all conclusions, no evidence”; “Jim Jordan’s ‘Weaponization’ Committee Is Misfiring.”

But hey, don’t be too hard on him. He may have other matters on his mind. In late June, the Supreme Court decided that a lawsuit brought by former Ohio State University wrestlers against a team doctor who was found by an investigation to have sexually abused 177 young men from the 1970s to the 1990s can move forward. Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach during part of the period in question; he has always denied any knowledge of the abuse. Two former wrestlers, however, in a complaint to the Supreme Court, allege that Jordan was aware of the behavior of “Dr. Cough” and did nothing: “Because Coach Hellickson, Assistant Coach Jordan, and the athletic department treated Dr. Strauss’s behavior as acceptable, John Doe 23 believed there was nothing he could do to address his discomfort with Dr. Strauss.” CNN reported back in 2020 that six ex-athletes charged that Jordan knew.

This is one of the reasons I laugh these days when I hear Republicans say of Democrats, as McCarthy and others did during the D.C. criminal code debate, that Democrats are soft on crime.

And oh yeah, the other (and main) reason: Donald Trump. Today’s Republicans are the softest-on-crime bunch of legislators in the history of the republic. They wanted, until they got hooted out of town for it, to “expunge” Trump’s impeachments! I’m putting that in scare quotes because there’s actually no such thing as an “impeachment expungement,” but you know, there was no such thing as holding family members guilty for someone’s crimes until Stalin decreed it, either.

The GOP’s lies are operatic, bald-faced, and so nakedly and obviously untrue that one experiences a kind of wonderment just watching these people actually go out in public before cameras and say these things. Here was McCarthy, for example, shortly before Trump’s arraignment: “I could say the same thing that Hillary Clinton says about her election that she lost.… I can say the same thing about those in the Democratic Party from the leadership on down about George Bush not winning, that Al Gore did. But were any of them prosecuted? Were any of them put in jail?”

I mean … what?! Do I even have to answer that? Clinton made some noises about votes being off but conceded to Trump the day after the election. Gore fought the 2000 outcome to the Supreme Court, as anyone would have, but the court issued Bush v. Gore on December 12 and Gore conceded on December 13. Neither egged on a riot on our most sacred national building (a riot that McCarthy denounced at the time himself!). I can’t help but think that when these guys and their handlers sit around dreaming up what they’ll say next, they just howl to one another: “We can say anything—the mainstream press, drunk on their weird notion of ‘objectivity,’ can’t really challenge us because if they do, we can accuse them of showing liberal bias, and the gullible idiots on our side will be our echo chamber!”

I’d call these people a joke, but it’s far worse and more frightening than that. They are a menace. Congress has been littered with racists and drunks and bribe-takers throughout its history. But it has never been this bursting at the seams with people like this. They lie about everything. They denounce and seek to destroy our system of government. They use their power to conduct taxpayer-funded fishing expeditions for which they have no evidence, where they’re just praying they get a bite so that, in classic fascist-projection fashion, they can accuse Biden of that which they know Trump to be guilty.

And as for trying to do anything to improve the lives of the American people—i.e., doing their jobs? Please. Don’t be naïve. To their mind, American people don’t need health care or wages or a cleaner planet. They need tax cuts and guns and protection from those 100 or so transgender high school female athletes (yes, in the whole country) and, most of all, Donald Trump as their President for life. Come to think of it, the fewer laws these maniacs pass, the better.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Reagan’s Republican Party of 1981 was very different from Herbert Hoover’s of 1933: it had become the refuge of millions of formerly Democratic white conservative voters in the Solid South who resisted the civil rights reforms of the 1960s. Accordingly, behind his cheerful veneer Reagan made sure that he tapped into the fierce resentments of federal authority, dating back to the Civil War and Reconstruction, that fueled that resistance. Before they were done, the Reagan Republicans had absorbed into their coalition an array of aggrieved Americans, including quasi-theocratic white Christian nationalists, the gun-manufacturing lobby, antiabortion militants, and antigay crusaders. The antigovernment fervor that grips the nation today is the long-term product of the right wing that Reagan called to arms (literally, in the case of the National Rifle Association) forty-odd years ago. It was his attorney general Edwin Meese, in tandem with the newly formed Federalist Society, who started packing the federal judiciary with the conservative judges who have gutted federal protections for voting rights, abortion rights, and more, while inventing, with fake history presented as “originalism,” an individual’s Second Amendment right to own and carry military-grade armaments. It was the Reagan administration that eliminated the FCC’s fairness doctrine, which mandated that broadcasters provide balanced coverage of controversial public issues, paving the way for right-wing talk radio inciters like Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy and, on cable TV, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News to amplify antigovernment paranoia. The Reagan White House also harbored the former Nixon aide Pat Buchanan as its communications director. Buchanan’s politics were rooted in the 1930s America First isolationism of Charles A. Lindbergh and the diatribes of the right-wing “radio priest” Father Charles Coughlin, with their eccentric fixations on imaginary Jewish internationalist cabals. In the waning days of Reagan’s presidency, Buchanan remarked that “the greatest vacuum in American politics is to the right of Ronald Reagan.” He tried to fill that vacuum himself, nearly defeating President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 New Hampshire primary with his “pitchfork brigades.” His convention speech later that year laid out the culture wars to come. Then he followed up with another bid for the Republican nomination in 1996 and an independent campaign in 2000. All those efforts failed, but their stark themes of isolationism, lost national greatness, immigrant invasion, and racial fear provided a template for Donald Trump’s MAGA campaign a quarter-century later. “American carnage” was the favored far-right image at least two decades before Trump.