After Pearl Harbor

https://time.com/6125923/america-wrong-lessons-pearl-harbor/

“On Tuesday, December 7, 2021, we will remember Pearl Harbor, the 1941 Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base on Oahu, Hawaii, for the eightieth time.”

“We imagine that everything changed overnight. But, as the historian Richard W. Steele carefully documented, by early 1942, only two months after the attack, members of the Roosevelt Administration were already worrying that the public had lost interest. On February 16, Time ran a story with the headline, “THE PEOPLE: Smug, Slothful, Asleep?” It catalogued a list of warnings expressed by everyone from Eleanor Roosevelt to James Landis, the executive head of Civil Defense, to Edward R. Murrow that, as Murrow put it, Americans “do not fully appreciate the need for speed … do not quite understand that if we delay too long in winning the victory we will inherit nothing but a cold, starving embittered world… Already there are signs that we’re coming to accept slavery and suppression as part of the pattern of living in this year of disgrace.”

“1n 1941, organizing chaotic violence and suffering into a story with meaning, propaganda posters soon gave graphic representation to these concepts. Sometimes featuring a fist raised in defiance or a tattered flag, they enjoined the American public to “Avenge Pearl Harbor” by making bullets or ships, buying war bonds, or joining the navy or coast guard “NOW.”

“Relentless calls to “remember” served as a goad to revenge, and the propagandists’ message gave us a vocabulary still in use today for framing American violence.”

“World War II was an aberration in so many ways: the existential threat posed by fascism, the unequivocal necessity of our participation, and the decisiveness of Allied victory are only the most obvious. Betrayed by the last twenty years, we grasp in vain to retrieve an elusive glory. Our tragic postwar mistake was in thinking that the consequences of World War II could be endlessly duplicated. Over the years we have somehow developed a capacity to be surprised when American military might doesn’t establish, as it once helped to do, a new world but instead, after twenty wasteful years of occupation, fitful nation-building, and unfounded confidence, are left right back where we started. There is a cruel and particular irony in the paradox that a country the imagination of which has always been knit so tightly to the future—to the seductive dream of beginning anew—now finds itself in the position of hoping that history will miraculously repeat itself.”

I would disagree with the author concerning our hope for some kind of miracle. We are, instead, those of us with some ability to think critically anyway, terrified of fascism…again. The most terrifying fact of all is that so few Americans believe the lessons of the holocaust and lesser genocides apply to us. That it cannot happen here.

But there is some hope:

“This is really crazy-“

What is “crazy” is that these media talking heads don’t seem to understand how extreme and radicalized the right has become. There is no talking to Trumpists and they are looking forward to everything burning to the ground. They actually believe their white grievance fantasies will make America into that reality tv show their hero attempted to replace democracy with. The news commentators do not live with them like I do. I am scared.

No Society, No Truth, No Government, Only Money

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/25/society-thatcher-reagan-covid-pandemic?curator=MediaREDEF

“-something Margaret Thatcher had said in an interview in 1987, in remarks that are often taken as a definition of modern conservatism. “Too many children and people have been given to understand ‘I have a problem, it is the government’s job to cope with it!’” Thatcher said. “They are casting their problems on society, and who is society? There is no such thing!” 

“-a declaration made by Reagan in his 1981 inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Thatcher and Reagan often conflated the two – to diminish both – but society and government mean different things. Society usually means the private ties of mutual obligation and fellowship that bind together people who have different backgrounds and unequal education, resources and wealth. Government is the public administration of the affairs of people constituted into a body politic as citizens and equals. Society invokes community, government polity.”

“According to the Reagan-Thatcher worldview, there is no such thing as society. There are only families, who look after one another, and individuals, who participate in markets. The idea that government is the solution to people’s problems rests on a mistaken belief in the existence of society. This mistaken belief leads to attempts to solve problems such as ill health with government programmes such as government-funded healthcare, as if these were problems of society, rather than problems of individuals. Government programmes like these will also interfere with the only place where real solutions are to be found, which is the free market.”

Wiki: Jill Lepore has been contributing to The New Yorker since 2005.[15] In the June 23, 2014 issue she criticized the concept of Creative destruction, associated with Austrian-born political economist Joseph Schumpeter.[16] The response of one of those whose work she discusses, fellow Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen, was that her article was “a criminal act of dishonesty—at Harvard, of all places”.[17]

For Neoliberals, “creative destruction” applied to democracy is just another way to worship Mammon. Almost every day we are being warned, crystal clear warnings, that a proto-fascist right is, without a doubt, going to overturn the next election.

Yet nothing is being done about it.

It is said by historians, “we are all children of Rome.” The defining principle of Roman Empire was “divide and conquer.” What is being used to divide and conquer the American people is obvious- it is a FOMO (a variation of the free rider problem)/NIMBY/ Red-baiting-Firehose of Falsehood. A powerful weapon. Just apply these and other big lies over and over until it disconnects the individual from the truth completely. Then you have divided and can conquer.

And it appears we are about to be conquered.

“The left wants to destroy us…they despise America, they hate America.” So transparently terrifying as the definition of Orwellian.

“-Steve Bannon has targeted the top 20 clerks in the 5 states in which president Trump lost-“. So transparently terrifying as it is a clear unashamed plan to overthrow the government.

“-these are people who are on the move because of the information age… there’s just alot of resentment against what’s perceived as the corporate cultural elite.” So transparently terrifying that the 1 percent think this is going to go their way when it will inevitably turn into the same apocalypse that incinerated Europe when the Fascists came to power.

“The argument on the right is “we on the right” don’t control the media, we don’t control the universities, we don’t control the corporations, we only have a shot at controlling the state.” What is terrifying is how the people we listen to all seem to know what the various terms they are using mean while the rest of us are now completely confused about what is liberalism, democracy, conservatism, etc. Most Americans have been dumbed down and then lied to with propaganda to the extent that we have no clear idea of what the different political and ideological systems actually stand for. And that is dangerous, according to Rachel Maddow…and I believe her.

The Oklahoma National Guard is not going to have to get vaccinated?

SecDef says, “-must follow directions-“. This could be the beginning of something very bad. The Covid variants are very worrying…what if the mortality rate goes up?

When you can’t trust doctors or the supreme court then we are in big trouble: It cannot be stated any clearer than this and we will not be able to say we did not know-

The Model Day of the Rope

Americans are all sure nothing like the Rwandan Genocide could happen here.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Shut off power and communications and within a few weeks mass murder of the other becomes the bright new future. Everyone wants to do their part and start over once those enemies of the righteous are exterminated.

But once it starts that minority of staunch conservatives who happen to be the wrong ethnicity or color will find themselves disappeared almost instantly. After that there will be no turning back and the bulldozers will be digging mass graves and dump trucks emptying the bodies into them 24/7.

https://www.salon.com/2021/11/09/historian-nancy-maclean-were-seeing-a-right-wing-plan-built-on-decades-of-disinformation/

“-it really does do alot of damage to people when the right wing content, these conspiracy theories, the crazy stuff, is free to them, but you have to pay to get the truth.”

Which means we have already lost the propaganda war.

DANGER! DANGER!

“-should American democracy prevail in the years of fight that lie ahead between this extremist movement that is gaining in strength, not decreasing in strength.”

And there it is…the Europeans are calling us a backsliding democracy and we are in terrible danger from our own despicable corrupt proto-fascist politicians.

Billionaires

“-government is more powerful than any corporation and the only reason they think it tilts the other way is because we poor public servants are always looking for some fat private sector payoff down the road.”

“Take the iphone, essentially a collection of defense department research and National Science Foundation grant projects packed into one shiny machine.”

What has happened is the corruption of the balancing act between conservatives and progressives in America. We have lost our way and cannot find that place in the middle that used the best of both sides and kept the worst in check. We are self-destructing. There was never a time when we were in danger of becoming a communist regime but wealth inequality and the commiserate greed has now made fascism the greatest danger we have ever faced.

“Fratricides centered around the narcissism of minor difference.” Chris Hedges

https://scheerpost.com/2020/12/21/chris-hedges-the-great-delusion/

Too Stupid To Survive

The movie is described in wiki as “-a satirical tackling of the climate change crisis.[4]“

The movie was delayed by the Covid Pandemic and after seeing the trailer last night it keeps coming to mind. There is a conspiracy theory about the virus being engineered in a Chinese lab that is pretty thin. I have written before on why humankind needs to expand into space as an insurance policy and an engineered pathogen is at the top of that short list. A pathogen designed to be highly contagious, persistent, and 100% lethal is not that big of a challenge with present technology. Any doomsday cult with a converted billionaire as a true believer could end our species.

The subject of the movie itself is second on that list of things that could kill us all. The dinosaurs are the lesson we keep ignoring in favor of marketing shoes and pickup trucks. We are likely too stupid to survive and that is the great filter that keeps intelligent life from spreading into the cosmos. Third on the list is a super-volcano epic and this could also be triggered by an impact.

Considering our present course toward civil conflict in the United States the real cause of our probable extinction really is that we are just too stupid. Before Trumpism I never would have believed humans are such incredible idiots.

Company Over Country

They fine-tuned their algorithm to make people angry. For money.

29:10 “-in some ways we live in a world- where truth is eroded- incredibly partisan ideological views of the way that the world works that claim to be representations of truth.”

“Contested narratives” aside, some things are harmful and some things are helpful. Rittenhouse is now saying he supports BLM, but he killed two people on that side of the street. So…what about language driving people to kill that Facebook is making billions off of?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-gop-dark-money-group-giving-big-to-white-supremacists/ar-AAQXjoF?ocid=msedgntp

“According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, VDARE, which received $70,000 last year and nearly $2 million in 2019, “regularly publishes articles by white supremacists.” YAL, which received $1.3 million through Donors Trust in 2020, has been affiliated with the white nationalist and the neo-Nazi organization Identity Evropa. The group removed its president after multiple women leveled allegations of sexual assault in January. And another $600,000 went to the New Century Foundation, which SPLC, the Anti-Defamation League, and academics consider a white supremacist group.”

It is all dragging us down into chaos…and that is not a ladder.

I Did To

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kevin-mccarthy-said-in-an-hours-long-floor-speech-that-no-one-elected-biden-to-be-fdr-prompting-aoc-to-shout-i-did/ar-AAQT3YO?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

When the republican leader said no one elected Biden to be FDR, AOC yelled, “I DID!”

It is completely obvious by now that the republicans are going to try and overthrow democracy and replace it with autocracy. Sadly, the one percent have invested mountains of money in brainwashing the masses, and most Americans do not understand what is going to happen. It is going to happen and the left is not going to submit as the right expects them to.

When Trumpism meets McCarthyism. Capitalism is essentially self-predatory. It builds empires and then inevitably melts down. America is all about NOT self-destructing and that makes the neoliberal right the enemy of democracy. These republican elected officials and media influencers are responsible for tens of thousands of people dying needlessly and that is truth, that is fact. The right is blatantly pushing multiple big lies, shamelessly. America is headed for a civil war. Again, it is obvious to any critical thinker that the right is going to overthrow democracy and impose autocracy. It is happening.