Electors With No Coherent Strategy Leave Us Facing The Trump Reich

In the end, the great Electoral College resistance and 'fail safe' check on Trumpian power went out more with a whimper than a bang. An effort by anti-Trump activists to stop him reaching 270 fell pathetically short. Activists who had urged electors to back efforts led by academics (e.g. Prof. Lawrence Lessig) to cast their ballots at variance with election results to keep Trump from reaching the magic number came to practically nothing. With counts still ongoing in California and Texas, the number of electoral college members who attempted to cast a protest vote was likely to reach at least nine. Wow, nine of 538!

What happened? Basically a combination of too little will to overturn the Electoral College as a mere rubber stamp, and too little actual strategy. Specifically, I place the preponderance of blame on two factors: 1) A disorganized effort to thwart the fascists with too many distracting and unrealistic alternative choices, and 2) An unwillingness to rock the boat and just play it safe, especially among Republican electors.  As for the much ballyhooed "Hamilton electors', they turned out to be more a myth than reality.  If a person had to, he might have counted them on one hand, if that.

The result was predictable: with only external protests erupting - as in Madison, WI-  Trump cakewalked to his official electoral victory as millions tuned in to updated tallies, aghast.  While many of us expected it to be an uphill fight, we didn't believe the electors- charged with being the last bastion to protect the Republic would simply surrender their duty so easily.

But there were some interesting moments. More than 200 demonstrators were on the steps of Pennsylvania’s capitol in Harrisburg on Monday morning, waving signs and chanting in chilly, 25F(-4C) weather. They thundered: “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!” and “No treason, no Trump!”

In respect of the latter, some on the Left have circulated that Trump ought to be hung for treason as a punishment for colluding with the Russkies to ambush Hillary, if ever impeached. There are several things wrong with this proposition including you can't just hang the man after being impeached (if he ever is, especially for "treason") and besides, there is as yet no proof Trump knew all along what was going on and "colluded". Besides, the Left has bigger things to worry about as I will get to.

Meanwhile, several dozen protesters gathered outside South Carolina’s statehouse in Columbia, waving signs with messages imploring electors not to back the president-elect.  But anyone familiar with the South ought to have known this would be a fool's errand. Most of those electors fly Confederate flags in their homes and would have laughed at the objectors.

Vermont was the first state to report the results of its vote. As expected, all three electors voted for Clinton. Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia and South Carolina followed for Trump, and Delaware for Clinton as the totals started to mount.

After a Hawaiian elector cast a vote for Bernie Sanders, the total was Trump with 304 votes and Clinton with 227. It takes 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency. Texas put Trump over the top, despite two Republican electors casting protest votes. Then there was Washington state which actually saw an elector or two voting for Colin Powell. In other words, they were 'all over the map' and had no coherent strategy to take down 'the Donald'.

In many cases, the Republican electors had taken their own kool aid, Jonestown-style, even as they were implored to do the right thing. Many admitted that they had been deluged with emails, phone calls and letters urging them not to support Trump. Many emails were part of coordinated campaigns, all trending with the same theme I had elaborated in my post from yesterday.

Lee Green, a Republican elector from North Carolina, told the Associated Press:

“The letters are actually quite sad  They are generally freaked out. They honestly believe the propaganda. They believe our nation is being taken over by a dark and malevolent force.”

Dark and malevolent force? But what would one call a faction that has ascended to power by way of foreign intervention in the election, fake news and racist vitriol? Also, is led by a tweet-happy lunatic who (as recorded in a Sunday Review NY Times piece:) has:

"encouraged violence among supporters; pledged to prosecute Hillary Clinton; threatened legal action against unfriendly media; and suggested that he might not accept the election results.This anti-democratic behavior has continued since the election. With the false claim that he lost the popular vote because of “millions of people who voted illegally,” Mr. Trump openly challenged the legitimacy of the electoral process. At the same time, he has been remarkably dismissive of United States intelligence agencies’ reports of Russian hacking"

And as the piece further pointed out, political scientist Juan J. Linz definitely showed Trump passed the "litmus test" for an anti-democratic leader. His indicators included: a failure to reject violence unambiguously, a readiness to curtail rivals’ civil liberties, and the denial of the legitimacy of elected governments.  All of which ought to incite lots of foreboding on the Left and especially among those who value civil liberties.

As my sister-in -law Krimhilde put it on learning of the electoral college results: "It reminded of the day Hindenburg turned over the Chancellorship to Hitler....and then the Reichstag fire"  Sometimes, indeed,, people who ought to know better lose track of the historical patterns, and resonances.  But maybe that's because they never learned history in the first place.

Her reference to the "Reichstag fire"  evoked the singular event many Germans (who were alive then) trace to the establishment of the Nazi Third Reich. It occurred on 27 February 1933. Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch council communist, was caught at the scene of the fire and arrested for the crime. Most Germans alive then -including Krimhilde, and three former Wehrmacht soldiers I spoke to in 1985-  believe the fire was a false flag and the kid was a patsy. A decoy used expediently to take the blame, as much as the Warrenites have tried to use Lee Oswald for assassinating John Kennedy.

But never mind, it led to pivotal changes in the nation, leading it to be unrecognizable within a few years. For example:

-  'The Decree for the Protection of the People and the State'  issued on Feb. 28, 1933 and which abolished basic rights, authorizing preventative arrest. That is, if you were even suspected of committing a "crime against the state" (including speaking out against it) you were arrested.

- March 22, 1933, the concentration camp at Dachau, outside Munich, was opened. Among the first dispatched there were journalists who flouted the 'Decree for the Protection of the German People' which limited freedom of the press.

- August 2, 1934, Paul von Hindenburg dies, and Hitler becomes Chancellor and Fuhrer.

So, looking at the parallels to previous history, there is more than ample basis for fear among those who value civil rights, liberties.

Of course, it's understandable why many other electors punted. Take the case of the sole Republican, Christopher Suprun of Texas, who said: “Since I announced my intention to vote according to my conscience, I have received about half a dozen death threats against me and my family."

Make no mistake we can expect many more such threats as Trumpeters become emboldened after Trump's inauguration and especially the massive protests being planned to disrupt that event. These are people who fall into a proud group Chris Suprin referenced when he said:

“More happily, a person I’ve known for years who traces his ancestry back to the American revolution told me he thinks his forebears would have been proud of what I’m doing, which made me feel pretty good.”

And my own ancestor, Conrad Brumbaugh - who fought in the Revolutionary War- would have too!

Meanwhile, Wirt A Yerger Jr, a Republican elector in Mississippi, said: “I have gotten several thousand emails asking me not to vote for Trump. I threw them all away.”

But what would one expect from a Rebel yokel who likely has the Confederate flag flying over his home and draped on every wall?

The first prediction I have for Trump's first year will be a sober one: a false flag, in many ways like the Reichstag fire, that he will use to invoke Martial law and the repeal of civil liberties under the "continuity of government" provisions. Also, look for a repeal of habeas corpus, which loophole had been left in place on account of the Military Commissions Act (2006) and the most recent National Defense Authorization Act.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

A Chilling Thought: Once He Gets In Trump May Never Be Removed Via Elections

Again, on display in the last half hour of 'Morning Joe' , was the incredible human capacity to embrace fancy, groundless hope, and baseless suppositions. This was when host Joe Scarborough was presented with multiple rational ways in which Trump, and his administration, could flout existing laws and the constitution with impunity.  Joe, bless his Repuke heart, simply believes based on history that the constitution and "separation of powers" will protect us against any extreme Trump maneuvers.

But as his guest pointed out, that didn't stop Bush from using the Patriot act in various ways it was never intended (and is still on the books - to arrest protesters as "domestic terrorists") as well as undertaking NSA mass surveillance on scales that flout the 4th amendment of the Bill of Rights, specifically against warrantless searches.

Then we beheld honorary national "historian -in- chief"- actor  Tom Hanks -  at a recent confab at the Museum  of Art in NYC  imploring us all to "Calm down".  Hanks,  the same guy who three years ago wanted to save Americans from being "snookered" (by accepting Lee Oswald was set up as a decoy in the JFK hit),  said we have "nothing to worry about" and "our Constitution will protect us".

For any who really believe that I suggest reading how Germans fared after Hitler got the Enabling Act passed in Germany, e.g.

http://www.dw.com/en/the-law-that-enabled-hitlers-dictatorship/a-16689839

Most true experts, not Hanks, are of the belief that under the right conditions - and especially with ALL branches of government (including Supreme Court) controlled by one party, it can happen here.  Let's also register that millions implored Obama to remove the part of the (2006) Military Commissions Act repealing Habeas Corpus, to no avail.  Obama repeatedly used the bromide that "there is nothing to fear" and no one would ever be locked up for no good reason. More sober minds, however, kept telling him 'yes, that's fine if you're there, but one day you won't be and a strong man type could take your place'.

Now that situation looms over us as a confirmed authoritarian narcissist - in many ways like Adolf Hitler- prepares to assume office on January 20th. This is even as many (even on the media  left) pooh pooh Hitlerian comparisons as:"hysteria". But just yesterday, the bombastic buffoon issued  a warning against those who used the First amendment for flag burning, tweeting:

"Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag, If they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or a year in jail"

A year in jail for exercising first amendment rights? As I pointed out in a post from two years ago (July 24):

"in the case Texas v. Johnson (1989) flag burning was upheld as symbolic free speech which could not be curtailed under the 1st amendment. " This was upheld in a 1990 Supreme Court decision (7-3) ( United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310  ) which declared an earlier  opposing law  impermissibly discriminated upon viewpoint .

Now Trump wants to tear that protection down, and I also suspect- inflated ego and thin skin that he has - he will also try to implement the earlier Patriot Act provisions against demonstrations and mass protests. Hell, he could even invoke the "continuity of government" provision introduced under Reagan.

Reagan’s Executive Order 12656, issued in 1988,  stated that Continuity of Government procedures were called for in the event of "any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States."   In the 1980s COG planning was being handled by Louis Giuffrida. According to an article by Alfonso Chardy (‘Reagan Aides and the `Secret’ Government’, Miami Herald, July 5, 1987.) the stated plans included "suspension of the Constitution," along with detailed arrangements for the declaration of martial law.

Get that? Suspension of the Constitution. And if you don't believe Trump would resort to any ruse to implement it, to advance his own ends - including perhaps to remain in power (despite the 22nd amendment), you really are a political and historical Pollyanna.

Look, already this overgrown,  authoritarian 'boss' baby is fulminating about the election recounts, and recklessly citing Infowars conspiracy BS that he really won the popular vote. The man is certifiably unstable just as Hitler was (though in the Fuhrer's case it likely was from syphilis).  If he was the least bit rational, as well as temperamentally suited to be a true chief executive, he'd settle down and grasp that if he REALLY won - and didn't have the votes rigged for himself - he has nothing to fear. His outbursts merely show he's terrified of losing those 3 states and having his totalitarian agenda overturned.

His very active paranoia, as well as his carping about "rigging" during the campaign,. indicates to me that once in office he will essentially piss on amendment XXII and remain there using any ruse to justify it. "Terrorist threat?" Insurrection? Need for extended martial law?

Further, the Repukes themselves may well abet him in this, grasping there may be no other Republican who can win the presidency after four horrific years of Trump or worse, eight. In that case, they may wager better to repeal the 22nd amendment  - or Trump does it via a specious executive order. And if you believe the Dems will be our saviors here you're also dreaming, because Trump may find some ruse to lock them up too.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 326; cf. p. 38), "Contingency plans for the continuity of government" were implemented on September 11, 2001. Those suspicious of what COG means today have pointed to a number of post 9/11 steps to facilitate the implementation of martial law, including the creation of a new military command (NORTHCOM) for the continental United States. They note also Homeland Security’s strategic plan “Endgame”, whose stated goal is the creation of detention camps designed to "remove all removable aliens," including "potential terrorists."
Even worse, later mutations of COG under the Bushites  equated political dissent with treason. In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"…activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"

According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”    It could also include opposition politicians, representatives if their words are interpreted as "sedition" - say under a new GOP-Trump passed law. Again, if this transpires the Constitution will become "just a piece of paper" as John McCloy once described it when he approved internment camps for Japanese Americans.

Clearly most COG plans are shrouded in extreme secrecy, effectively unregulated by Congress or the courts. But what ought to get the hackles of any sentient American up is their potential to be yoked to an overreaching surveillance state.  All this is within Trump's purview, authoritarian that he clearly is.

Those who understand history and especially those who take George Santayana's quote seriously:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. "

know it is stupid to dismiss Trump as just another clown. No, once he has the power of the office - and allies in his cabinet and congress- he becomes much more. He becomes a massive threat to every principle this nation holds dear.  Those convinced the constitution will protect them may want to do more research into the continuity of government process as well as elimination of habeas corpus via the Military Commissions Act.

Once this narcissist authoritarian assumes office, there is no way his enormous ego will allow him to accept people want him gone, even in an election.  And if (by his own words) he wouldn't accept the results of an election in this cycle, what makes you believe he'd accept them in a future one?  A paranoid who is indispensable in his own mind is a dangerous leader indeed. Ask the Germans!

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/stephen-pizzo/70079/time-to-chose-american-or-vichy-american


Excerpt:

"Now, having spent a big chunk of my adult life as a journalist, I am familiar with the sin of hyperbole, so I don’t write this with a careless hand. But everything I have seen and heard to date about Trump and those he is surrounding himself with, I am quite certain we Americans face a choice not entirely dissimilar to what the French faced in 1940. And that the time has arrived for every American to make a choice: America, or Vichy-America?

Whether you make that choice explicitly or by inaction, that choice will be the most important decision you will make as a citizen and person. It will mark, forever, exactly who you are."

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bruce-ticker/70063/that-scary-hidden-agenda

Trump's 'Founder of Isis' Nonsense Shows He's Unqualified To Be President

Anyone who's viewed any of Hitler's mass rally speeches would have seen how the German dictator was devoid of any capacity for irony or sarcasm. The speeches, laced with hate, were direct, straight on attacks aimed at targets of the Fuhrer's will. It could be the German press one day, Marxist- Socialists another, or Jews another.

Donald J. Trump's speech style is much the same: a loose cannon with no degree of temperance, judgment or subtlety - far less capacity for irony or sarcasm. Simply, he doesn't know what the words mean. Hence, for Trump to now back track on his insane comment that "Obama is the founder of ISIS'  - saying it was "sarcasm" - would be about like claiming Barry Goldwater's infamous remark: "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice" was intended as sarcasm.

No, it isn't. Sarcasm would be a comment along the lines of: "Jeez, did you see that attack Obama made on ISIS yesterday? There must have been over a thousand of those little buggers killed."  Thus, it fulfills the basic definition of irony used in the context of imparting contempt.  Also, you don't get to repeat it over and over like Trump did. You get one shot in your main speech and that's it.

But when Trump elaborates when asked and even adds: "Obama created the terror group ISIS" he's already stepped off into whackadoodle land, to the same extent so-called global warming critics assert it is  a "global conspiracy to create alarm".

For example, on the conservative Hugh Hewitt radio talk show yesterday, Hewitt said to Trump who was on the line:

"I know what you mean. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace."

And Trump retorted:

"No, I meant he is the founder of ISIS, I do! He's the most valuable player, I give him the most valuable player award. I give her too, by the way, Hillary Clinton."

Game over, sarcasm excuse blown to hell. Busted! Including the nonsensical defense by some right-tards that "if Trump said it was raining cats and dogs would you believe it?:  Errr, no,  only that  HE believes it,  especially if he repeats himself over and over on a nationally syndicated radio show!

As if to try to help Trump out of his self-created shit can, Hewitt then interjected:

"But he's not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He's trying to kill them"

Trump never even tried to take the lifeline offered:

"I don't care. He was the founder. The way he got out of Iraq - that was the founding of ISIS"

When Trump did backtrack, invoking specific policies as "evidence" he went off the beam further, showing himself devoid of historical knowledge as well as irony. He said:

"We should have never been in Iraq, we were going to destabilize the Middle East.

But after Bush Jr. launched the ill-advised invasion in March, 2003,  Trump was all for it, stating in one call in interview:

"It looks like a tremendous success from a military standpoint."

But by 2007, Trump's feelings had changed and he was calling for U.S. troops to come home. He said in one CNN interview:

"You know how they get out, they get out! Just declare victory and leave!"

But Obama did just that, carrying out the 'Status of Forces' Agreement struck by Bush Jr. in 2008, which mandated U.S. troops leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

So, if anything, Trump should be on his hands and knees licking Obama's wingtips for doing exactly what Trump wanted at least for the past nine years. And if anyone could be blamed for the rise of ISIS it was Gee Dumbya for barging into a secular Iraq in the first place - setting the stage for factional battles between Shia and Sunni - the latter spawning ISIS.

Trump's loose lips don't stop there and we already beheld his reckless remark in a NC speech about "the second amendment people"  purportedly solving the problem of a Hillary presidency. The Secret Service, according to an MSNBC report, was so ruffled they actually filed the comment for future reference - say in case some unhinged Trumpkin takes it literally and acts out. "Free speech"? No, reckless speech that has the potential to trigger violence.

The there was Trump's remark after being asked about Military Commissions  trying American citizens at Guantanamo and being placed in its detention camp. He told an interviewer:

"Well, I know they want to try them (American citizens who commit terrorist acts) in our regular court systems and I don't like that at all.  I would say they could be tried there."

But Trump seems not to know, or doesn't care, that the Constitution guarantees U.S. citizens a trial in a court of law, not before a military tribunal out of country. Those in doubt may wish to check the Sixth Amendment to the Bill of Rights, where we read:

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed."

Trump's reckless statements show he clearly isn't fit to be commander -in-chief of this country, especially given foreign governments regularly monitor every syllable spoken or physical gesture made as a sign telegraphing intent. Might Trump deliver the wrong signal to someone who then takes it as a prompt to act? Possibly. The point is, as former NSA Director Michael Hayden put it, we can't take that chance.

By any and all legal means then, Trump must not become President of the United States,

At the same time don't interpret that to mean we glorify Hillary to the extent of not criticizing  her or overlooking her own numerous faults. We cannot allow a malignant fear of Trump (who is doomed to lose in a landslide) to curtail honest scrutiny and critiques of Clinton. Also, once she ascends to highest office  we need to hold her feet to the fire. Mainly we cannot allow ourselves to be blinded by careless use of labels.. The degree to which many idiot liberals are actually calling her "progressive" is actually enough to make a true progressive puke. She is no progressive, get that through your heads.  I don't give a damn how many times she uses the tautology that a "progressive is one who makes progress". This is meaningless marketing-PR jabber, the type of piffle used by a corporate Democrat for marketing to ideological lame brains who don't know any better.

See also:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/11/hate-trump-still-hold-clinton-accountable

Excerpt:

"Clinton should be pushed relentlessly by the left on her economic policies and history, for starters. While she made fun of Trump on the stump for having “a dozen or so economic advisers he just named: hedge fund guys, billionaire guys, six guys named Steve, apparently,” she is living in a glass house funded by Goldman Sachs and should be throwing no stones. We’ll see whether she does in the big economic policy speech she is due to give on Thursday.

Let’s not act like Clinton is a dove when it comes to matters of life and death.

She has embraced the endorsement of neocon John Negroponte and is even reportedly courting the endorsement of Henry Kissinger. As secretary of state, Clinton controversially supported not designating the 2009 ouster of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya as a coup , even though he was woken up by armed soldiers and forced onto a plane and out of his country in his pajamas. She has since defended her role in that situation."

Is the U.S.A. Off Its Rocker? Most Other Nations Believe So

Scene at an astronomy workshop for secondary school teachers in Georgetown, Guyana in August, 1978. After each session I was peppered with questions about the U.S. its foreign policies and educational system.

To anyone born after 1996 or so, it is unlikely the nation would appear to have "lost its marbles" (although older citizens should have seen warning signs from the Reepos' impeachment of Clinton for a sex act, and Bush's sleeping  (errrr, sitting, reading a child's book) on the job when the 9/11 terror attacks struck  - then using it as an excuse to pump up the defense -security enclave to monstrous proportions while also repealing habeas corpus in the Military Commissions Act of 2006).

But though the evidence may be marginal in terms of a recent time perspective it is in so-called "neon lights" for those of us who've been paying attention to the national scene since the early 1960s.

We've watched the United States  slowly deteriorate in terms of its quality of life (from the time only a single parent had to work to support a family) to now when even two wage earners can't earn enough for decent housing, food and utilities.  We've seen the decaying infrastructure all around us as once grand bridges - as well as water and sewer systems built in the 1950s-60s - are now coming apart literally,  with no effort to replace or maintain them. In the intervening years we've also seen the nation- spellbound by rhetoric-  unravel its already flimsy safety net, fail to replace it even as organized labor has been diminished. This coinciding with the erosion education in most of our schools. Let' not even get into how our national legislature  has been brought to a standstill, and create the greatest degree of economic and social inequality in almost a century.

As I also learned when I worked for 20 years in Barbados, Americans who live abroad — more than six million  worldwide currently-  also face hard questions about our country. We're peppered  by people we live among, whether Europeans, Asians,  West Indians or Africans, who ask us to explain everything that baffles them about the increasingly odd and troubling conduct of the United States.  Polite people, normally reluctant to risk offending a guest, complain that America’s trigger-happiness, cutthroat free-marketeering, and “exceptionality” have gone on for too long to be considered just an adolescent phase. Which means that we Americans abroad are regularly asked to account for the behavior of our rebranded “homeland,” now conspicuously in decline and increasingly out of step with the rest of the world.

Questions I've had to confront over two decades have included:

* Why do so few average Americans understand science?

* How can your people speak of the rule of law when your presidents break international laws to make war whenever they want?

* How can American voters cede the power to blow up the planet to one lone, ordinary man with a 'football'?

* How can Americans throw away the Geneva Conventions whenever it suits your fancy?

* Why do you Americans like guns so much?  Why do you kill each other at such a rate?

* How can so many average Americans still be so blind to the reality of climate change?

Often my attempts to address such questions, whether in college classes, cocktail parties (at the British High Commissioner's) or even following astronomy workshops at the Harry Bayley Observatory, were met with stark skepticism. For example, I'd say: 'Well - it just happens that America possesses the largest nuclear arsenal in the world and when a person becomes President he "inherits" the responsibility for when to key in the 'football' should the Russians, or whomever launch a first strike.'

At other times - such as the first question and last - I'd simply admit the  inferiority of the American educational system in most cases, to the British,  which system is still used in the West Indies. I'd also refer to the power of local school boards which were directly responsible for doing their own thing and omitting critical areas (say like evolution in biology, or large civil protests in American History) if they didn't like them.

But to many foreign citizens,  since the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, the most baffling and important question of all is: Why do you send your military all over the world to stir up more and more trouble for all of us?

Most West Indians, including Bajans, saw no point or purpose to our involvement in Vietnam, for example, and didn't see it as our business to intervene in an Asian civil land war. (They also thought the 'Domino theory' to be an excuse to butt in, like the "Bush doctrine") Others are still seething over the involvement of the U.S. in blowing up a Cuban airline (CU-455) r off Barbados' southwest coast on October 6, 1976. The bombing cost 73 lives and was the bloodiest terror episode in the Western Hemisphere before 2001.

The other event which riles people no end is the assassination of a "good and decent American president", John F. Kennedy, and most foreigners are well aware of the background of the CIA's involvement and don't buy that "one lone gunman" did it. They concur it was a conspiracy and plausibly forged by our security state in league with the military.  They also are convinced it paved the way for our future psychosis - since the truth has been kept concealed by our officialdom - who refused to even release key files 50 years after. See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/germans-tom-hanks-wasting-his-time-with.html

Did I resent the barrage of questions? Only some of them, and some of the time. But mainly it indicated the extent of curiosity about the U.S. but also that most Americans have no idea just how strange we seem to much of the world. As noted in the link above while we were in Germany two years ago, those German observers were far better informed about us than the average American is about them.

We already know this is partly because the “news” in the American corporate media is so parochial and so limited in its views both of how we act and how other countries think.  And while our people can afford to keep their noses in smartphones, Ipads and remain deaf, dumb and blind to external reality, foreign citizens can't be so cavalier. After all, who knows when we will threaten  to be at war with the next enemy of the moment? America’s belligerence alone, not to mention its financial acrobatics, compels the rest of the world to keep close track of us. 

Most unnerving to me, in Barbados visits-  especially last year and in 2010, and in two European visits (in Austria and Germany in 2013 and Switzerland last year) was the subtext of American "insanity" that lingers on the tongues of many. Our actions then, speak louder than our principles and words and often contradict them - indicating at least a cognitive dissonance, but to many being out of touch with reality.

For example, as my German friends Reinhardt and Elli put it:  How is it ordinary Americans in startling numbers have been persuaded to dislike “big government” and yet support (by their votes) representatives, bought and paid for by the rich?  How to explain that?

And as one Bajan friend who'd recently visited the U.S. put it: How can we allow our roads and bridges to collapse while we hail each new high in the DOW? Is that not insanity? Are not the roads, bridges needed for transport and the water mains needed for water conveyance more important than an artificial number that can change any given day? I have  had no answers for such questions. So I have had to admit (from their perceptions)  the country is indeed off its rocker.

Others have pointed out that we spend more on our health system than any other nation yet are ranked below Slovenia in assorted charts? Is that not insane? Well, uh yes, I guess so. I do point out that the ACA (Obamacare) has made a dent but not nearly enough and many states (like Texas) won't even accept a key part of it, Medicaid.

Some other writers along these same issues have opined that  "crazy may be too strong a word, too broad and vague to pin down the problem" but I am not so sure.  Yes, it is possible Americans are merely “ill-informed,” “misguided,” “misled,” or “asleep,” and could still recover sanity.  But I still keep returning to Einstein's fundamental definition of insanity: doing he same thing over and over, while expecting a different result.

And that description fits the U.S. to a tee: starting new wars and military adventures but expecting a different outcome each time - but it never comes; playing loose with the financial markets and almost bringing them down with swap derivatives- then five years later passing a law to make it possible again. Allowing infrastructure to crumble year after year while we chase the magic numbers in the DOW - and are no better off with our basic property. And opining how we have 'advanced on race' but always seem to revert to what we were, as in the 1950s, 1960s.

The country as a whole needs a head check and needs one soon. I am sure few Rwandans in 1990 saw the signs their nation would unravel and suffer a massive breakdown and genocide in 1994, just as I am sure few Germans saw it in 1933, just after Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor simply on the basis of getting a plurality of votes. 'Why worry about that guy?' they joked. 'What can he do?  (Big business, meanwhile, like Krupp - believed they could manipulate him to their own ends). They soon found out otherwise and that der Fuhrer had his way with them.

Hopefully, our people come to their collective senses - meaning sanity - before they make similar mistakes. Say like electing Ted Cruz and Chris Christie next year as Vice-President and President, respectively.

Why Russians Hate Neoliberal Imperialists - And Americans Should Too! (2)

"At the heart of neoliberal narratives are ideologies, modes of governance, and policies that embrace a pathological individualism, a distorted notion of freedom, and a willingness both to employ state violence to suppress dissent and abandon those suffering from a collection of social problems ranging from dire poverty and joblessness to homelessness" - Henry Giroux, 'The Politics of Cruelty - America's Descent Into Madness' (smirkingchimp.com)

In the previous installment I examined how Russia was brought to its economic knees using the "shock doctrine" of the Neoliberal capitalist imperialists, documented in excruciating detail in Naomi Klein's book,  'The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism' (2007).    But as Klein describes, the shock doctrine's basis of "disaster capitalism" was to deliberately use assorted confected crises - whether military  or economic- to justify subverting the will of many other nations and their citizens to make the world "safe" for global capital. In one chapter where Klein coins the term "disaster capitalism" she analogizes it to the electric shocks delivered via certain tortures, say to a person's head & genitals. The shocked victims became so mentally incoherent, terrified -  that they were ready to accept just about anything demanded of them.


In the aftermath of what the Neoliberals did to Russia, it perhaps wasn't surprising they'd turn their eyes to the U.S. itself. But how to do it? Capitalism in a way was already entrenched, at least in terms of a mixed economy, i.e. which also had aspects of mild socialism (for example, inherent in social insurance). But the Neoliberals and their military shock troops ensconced in a de facto shadow government (exposed in Kathryn Olmstead's Challenging the Secret Government, Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1996) needed a way to: a) keep citizens hostage to the Neoliberal imperative, which demanded ever increasing removal of economic security - especially in "entitlements", and b) demanded an ever expanded military  -surveillance structure to halt  anti-capitalist protests in the country, as well as establish global capital beach heads in others. This meant dramatically inflating the military-  surveillance budget. The problem was how to do it, given the old enemies had been brought to heel.

The ideal way to instill shock (in an already market-hostage consumer nation) if one wished to ramp up surveillance and defense budgets (at the cost of entitlements),  would be an attack on American soil - which would then be milked for all it was worth as justification for increased security-defense spending. The attack would be such that 99% of Americans would be so traumatized that they'd be prepared to give up anything (except maybe shopping), even long established rights- liberties, just to be protected from further attacks. If the attack was large enough or spread out, the putative security state could exploit it to instill more fear, paranoia by subsequent use of color coded "alerts". The media would help by replaying the images which would then permeate every neuron of every sentient citizen in every state - much the same way the public slaughter of John F. Kennedy has been emblazoned in the minds and eyes of later presidents to make them understand they aren't the real heads of state, only puppets. If the enemy was also demonized enough, it might rival the Cold War boogeyman of "Reds under the bed" confected by the McCarthyites and their latter-day  clones.

Whether one is a "9/11 Truther"  or shares a milder perspective (like me, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-responsible-was-bush-for-911.html) it is indisputable that the Bushite regime - shoehorned into power by five Supremes - benefited enormously by the 9/11 attacks. Not only did Bush's approval rating soar from the toilet (35%)  to over 90% in days, but within barely five years the defense budget had doubled, from 2.4% of GDP to 4.9% while the surveillance budget had exploded even more - thanks to the provisions in the "the Patriot Act" which most of our dutiful reps didn't even bother to read before they signed it into law.

Worse, these reprobates rolled over like beaten whelps as the Bushites pumped the false basis for invading Iraq - seeking to validate a nearly 10 -year long invasion that would suck our own nation dry in its domestic resources, as it ramped up deficits - which of course, was the plan. It was part of the shock doctrine to generate monstrous debt,  the better to justify cutting those nasty entitlements as the Neoliberals demanded.

Thankfully, at least one true patriot and courageous citizen, Joe Wilson, had the guts to expose the Bushie's "yellowcake- Niger" fakery (part of what they claimed was the reason to attack Saddam, since otherwise we'd all be incinerated in a nuclear cloud). However, his wife Valerie Plame paid the price by being outed by the Bushies as a CIA agent. Talk about treason! But some Americans- who now blather about Ed Snowden - seem lost at sea as to who are true traitors and who are patriots.

Amidst all this changes were being made in terms of mass surveillance. Though the Bushies were caught red-handed illegally going around the 1978 FISA law to get illegal wiretaps - of those terrible 'terrists,  at least suspects- a wimp congress looked the other way and actually approved the illegal wiretaps by CHANGING the law! Never in the history of these United States has a bigger consortium of treasonous rats been exposed. And to make it even worse, a subsequent congress actually approved the extension of the bastardized law several years later.

The seeds of the shock doctrine applied to the U.S.. were already well in hand. In her Chapter 15 ('The Corporate State') Naomi Klein describes in detail how the U.S. was transferred into a massive corporate state with the security apparatus to back it up. (Red flags about too many energetic citizen protests to globalization had already appeared with the anti-WTO Seattle protests in 1999, made famous in the movie, 'The Battle of Seattle'). So the privatization forces (who also at the time were making a full court press to privatize Social Security based on the Bush Texas plan)  needed mass surveillance to identify would-be trouble makers, and they also needed something more: a martial law fallback position to lock up anyone they deemed too 'activist".

Thus does Klein, in the opening paragraphs of Chapter 15, introduce us to the continuity of government (COG) program I'd blogged on earlier, i.e. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/between-skeleton-key-and-cog-how-close.html

She writes (p. 390):

"In the heat of the mid-term elections of 2006, three weeks before announcing Donald Rumsfeld's resignation, George W. Bush signed the Defense Authorization Act in a private Oval Office ceremony. Tucked into its 1400 pages was a rider that went almost completely unnoticed at the time. It gave the president the power to declare martial law and 'employ the armed forces' - including the National Guard - overriding the wishes of state governors in the event of a 'public emergency' in order to 'restore public order' and 'suppress disorder'"

Klein added that the declared emergency could  'be almost anything' including "mass protests".  Obviously, the Seattle 1999 anti-World Trade Organization protests had given the Neoliberal imperialists a wake up call and they weren't about to take it any more. Hence also, the way they bore down on Occupy Wall Street in 2011, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/national-security-state-spied-on-occupy.html  to the extent of even aiming sniper rifles at them in Houston.

Klein notes that before Bush's treachery martial law could only be enacted in a time of actual insurrection. Worse, deploying military on American soil violated the Posse Comitatus law.

As time went on, the corporate gangster war-surveillance state was consolidated in multiple ways. But like the proverb about the frog who jumps from boiling water when dumped into it, but is boiled alive while immersed if the water temperature is increase only 1 degree at a time , Americans (most) were oblivious as their nation was slowly transformed into a fascist police state. Or maybe they were still too shocked from the events of 9/11 to do anything, especially with the Bushies manipulating them with a series of yellow, orange and other "alerts".

Because in 2006, right under their noses, the Military Commissions Act was passed which effectively removed the age old right of habeas corpus. Not long after the National Defense Authorization Act (of 2011, then 2012, then 2013, and soon 2014) which codified the indefinite military detention of American citizens without requiring they be charged with a specific crime or given a trial. (See also: http://truth-out.org/news/item/17070-indefinite-surveillance-say-hello-to-the-national-defense-authorization-act-of-2014

In Klein's examination we also learn that the Bush martial law insertion via hidden rider to implement continuity of gov't could be traced back to John Foster Dulles who defined a two -pronged priority for the country: 1) defeating communism, especially as manifested in Russia, and 2) protecting multi-national corporations - through whatever means necessary including coups staged in non-cooperative nations, who refused to allow resources to be exploited. Thus, the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala using the CIA to protect the profits of United Fruit.

Dulles made it clear that "coups and military interventions were the means to the end" of corporate hegemony- to thereby arrive at stable environments for business to prosper. Translation: make every country with ripe resources plum for the taking and be prepared to put down any nation or its government that got too uppity. Oh, and kill any upstarts!


But why worry? After all, we now know actual American citizens can be killed at the will or discretion of the executive.  Anyone paying attention? Maybe the shock doctrine has indeed worked because it has imposed shocks that benumb the populace into ceding everything away as they mutate into consumers - away from citizens.

Interested readers may then ponder the 14 characteristics of fascism, noting in particular: Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -because of fear of enemies and the need for security, Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - people rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe, Supremacy of the Military (Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding);  and Obsession with National Security -- Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

See more at: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/10/14-characteristics-of-fascism.html

A Free Country? Only Rhetorically!

"Jeebus! All I did is copy a picture of Smokey the Bear and they give me Ten YEARS!"


Too Many 'Muricans have this pie-eyed delusion they inhabit a "free country". Perhaps it's a result of getting bombarded daily by the corporate-paid pols with words like "freedom" and "liberty" or maybe it's the codswallop being fed them for the reason we're in Afghanistan, i.e. that all those troops are "fighting for our freedoms". Who can say?

But, if that's truly the case, then riddle me this: How come congress is slowly but surely retrenching all the most basic freedoms and no one, or barely anyone, is paying any attention?

Let's even forget for the moment that habeas corpus, one of the most cherished principles of jurisprudence, was basically repealed under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. But an even more (if that can be conceived) insidious threat to Americans' freedoms is the congressional attack on the other great principle known as 'Mens rea' - embodying the notion that a citizen can't be held accountable for an alleged crime unless he knows exactly what he's done and moreover that his accusers have established his malicious intent.

But according to an article appearing on the front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal ('As Federal Crimes List Grows, Threshold for Guilt Declines') tens of millions may have real reason for worry and our troops may well be placing their lives on the line for nothing. Why, because today "there are more than 4,500 crimes in federal statutes, plus thousands more embedded in federal regulations", most of which have been added to the penal code since 1970.

Are we freeer because of these additions? Hardly! And certainly not when 1 in every 100 Americans is locked up and 2 of every 100 is under some control by the penal process- whether on parole, probation, jailed or under bond. Indeed, more Americans are locked up per capita than in Russia and China combined.

By comparison, and for historical perspective, back in 1790 only 20 federal crimes were listed in the then federal statutes. So what happened? Is it really true that the evolved complexity of our civilization has made necessary nearly 225 times more laws? Or is it more realistically a case that because our congress critters literally believe they are "law makers" they actually have to make them each and every year, irrespective of quality or the effect on Americans' liberty?

Let's cite another historical perspective, that of mens rea under English common law, which has also been a staple of American jurisprudence since the founding of the Republic. By this venerable standard, prosecutors not only had to demonstrate a crime was committed but also had to show intent. Thus, it wasn't enough to call "Thief!" on a person with some item or property, the prosecution had to show the item belonged to another person.

But that standard now seems to have been eroded by an over-active set of legislators. But don't take my word.

As the WSJ piece notes, "one controversial new law can hold animal rights activists responsible for any protests that cause the target of their attention to be fearful, regardless of the protestors' intentions".

This 'Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act' is some serious shit! Thus, if those who oppose the fur trade happen to show up at some Gala in Hollywood or New York City, and toss pig's blood onto a mink stole to demonstrate, then they can be hauled off to spend five years in federal prison if they caused any "fear" in their targets. Hell, they can be found liable if they even hold a sign up (never mind any direct overt actions) that shows a baby seal being clubbed, or whatever. If said sign arouses fear, they have had it under the new guidelines. Of course, if their target knows the law, then they can easily game it and discover their "fear" in assorted altercations with protestors.

Advantage poor widdo corporate "Target" and game over for protestors...and "free speech".

Andy Weissman, a New York attorney, is quoted in the piece as saying that "requiring the government to prove a willful violation is a big protection for all of us". Well, no shit, Sherlock! I mean if intent or malice of forethought is dispensed with, anyone can be locked up on any pretense or fiction that may emerge in a prosecutor's mind.

And how bad is the erosion? According to the Journal's analysis (ibid.), "more than 40% of non-violent offenses created or amended during two recent Congresses, the 109th and the 111th (the latter of which ran through last year) had weak mens rea requirements at best.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, usually no friend of liberals or libertarians, recently lobbed a volley at Congress, tasking them for "passing too many fuzzy or imprecise laws" and leaving the details to be sorted out by higher courts. In most cases, the congress critters deliberately punted on the mens rea protections to make their work loads lighter, just as they have done regularly when allowing lobbyists to write their legislation for them (as was the case with the 2003 Medicare law that introduced a prescription drug "benefit"- that was laden with corporate welfare.)

Jay Apperson, a former Chief Counsel for the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, said the erosion of mens rea is partly due to the "hit or miss way American legislation is written". Apperson adds (ibid.) that most members "don't think about it. Not out of a malevolent motive, they just don't think about it".

Well, maybe they damned well should! They are toying with people's -citizens' lives here and those same citizens are the ones who pay their salaries. If they won't or can't do their jobs properly, which entails vetting legislation - especially to do with criminal law- properly, then they should vacate those offices!

It's better they do that than to undermine citizens' actual freedoms while troops are overseas allegedly "fighting for them". Maybe those troops need to keep a closer eye on our own congress critters, rather than the Taliban!