The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Ron Bulman]

3 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Historian Nancy MacLean: We're seeing a right-wing plan built on "decades of disinformation"

MacLean published "Democracy in Chains" four years ago — and says it's "gut-wrenching" to see it come to life

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

November 9, 2021

Excerpts

How are you feeling? For some time, you have warned the American people about the anti-democracy campaign being waged by the libertarian right-wing. That's all coming together right now. 

MacLean: It's dispiriting. I believe that more people are understanding what's going on in this country with the democracy crisis, but I do not think it is happening on a scale and in a timely enough way to stop what's unfolding before us. It's just gut-wrenching, to be frank. People who should know better are not behaving as they should. The Biden administration is running into exactly the same roadblocks the Obama administration did.

So the Republican Party won't compromise? What did they think was going to happen when the Republican Party was taken over by libertarian donors and a base that's been fed red meat by Fox News for 25 years?

America's political class continues to behave as though it is shocked and stunned by the Republican attempts to nullify democracy, as seen on Jan. 6 and in the ongoing coup attempt. Are they in denial? Is this willful ignorance? Are they so invested in a broken political system that they refuse to admit the obvious and respond appropriately? How do you make sense of this lack of urgency?

MacLean: First, I do not believe that they are a monolith. It is important to emphasize that fact because there are people who do know better. This includes Pramila Jayapal of the Progressive Caucus, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Sheldon Whitehouse and others. There have been some bold and outspoken and truth-delivering voices who we should applaud. But it is a real challenge to persuade their colleagues to speak to these truths about the country's democracy crises.

I'm not denying that it's a complicated operation. If the Democrats need 60 senators to get anything substantive done and you're dealing with the likes of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, it's a challenge and it's frustrating. But I do believe that the leading Democrats could do more with the bully pulpit to help the American people understand the origins of the democracy crisis — and what is at stake for their day-to-day lives if this right-wing libertarian and larger anti-democracy cause is allowed to advance, as it has been doing for years.

What and who are the elements in this anti-democracy movement?

MacLean: There is an elite element and the voters they count on to advance the goals. The elite elements are parts of the corporate libertarian Koch network. The large number of donors and institutions they fund include the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, Americans for Prosperity, the State Policy Network and many others.

This network also includes supposed scholars, faculty, and students at over 300 institutions at present. The corporate-libertarian cause knows that the world they want to create is unpopular. Therefore, they have to get the votes to advance their agenda by relying on the religious right.

The religious right has now been boiled down to a base consisting of white nationalist Christian evangelicals in various forms, who are anti-science for example. In my opinion, it was fairly easy to persuade them to reject climate science and to embrace the Big Lie about the 2020 election and all the other lies and untruths being pandered by the right-wing movement and its media.

We are now also seeing the religious right overlapping in significant ways with white supremacists and the larger white power movement. In this country we are in real trouble in that regard because of how these white nationalist identities are being used to promote vigilante actions.

What did you see on Jan. 6?

MacLean: To my eyes, it was a fulfillment of these decades of disinformation and agitation of the worst impulses held by some Americans. For example, these very self-interested right-wing forces who oppose taking action to stop the global climate crisis are willing to leverage racism, homophobia, sexism and other antisocial behavior and values to achieve that goal.

There is plenty of evidence showing that the Koch donor network has funded and continues to back the politicians who spurred on the events of Jan. 6 and the Big Lie, and refused to certify Biden's election.

The mainstream news media are complicit in so much of this because of their "both sides" script. The mainstream news media needs to recognize that there is an imminent threat of autocracy in the United States.

Please take time to read the full Salon article.  It's important imho.  Nancy MacLean, as well as Jayne Mayer are National treasures.  I'd vote for that ticket for President over anything out there.  Democracy In Chains and Dark Money should be read by everyone who cherishes Democracy and has the sense to fear fascism sneaking up on it. 

[W. Niederhut]

20 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Please take time to read the full Salon article.  It's important imho.  Nancy MacLean, as well as Jayne Mayer are National treasures.  I'd vote for that ticket for President over anything out there.  Democracy In Chains and Dark Money should be read by everyone who cherishes Democracy and has the sense to fear fascism sneaking up on it. 

Thanks for speaking up, Ron.

Duke University Professor Nancy MacLean is not a mass media pundit or a talking head.  She's a bona fide scholar.

IMO, we should all look to reputable scholars, historians, and economists for informed perspectives on current events, rather than getting our ideas and opinions from political pundits.

Disclaimer:   I'm biased about MacLean because she and I both graduated magna cum laude from Brown University as undergrads.  I didn't know her, because she's a bit younger than I.  (She later earned a Ph.D. in history, whereas I went to med school, but I did major in American Studies at Brown-- as did John F. Kennedy, Jr., who enrolled at Brown the year I graduated.)

Edited November 10, 2021 by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Historian Nancy MacLean: We're seeing a right-wing plan built on "decades of disinformation"

MacLean published "Democracy in Chains" four years ago — and says it's "gut-wrenching" to see it come to life

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

November 9, 2021

Excerpts

How are you feeling? For some time, you have warned the American people about the anti-democracy campaign being waged by the libertarian right-wing. That's all coming together right now. 

MacLean: It's dispiriting. I believe that more people are understanding what's going on in this country with the democracy crisis, but I do not think it is happening on a scale and in a timely enough way to stop what's unfolding before us. It's just gut-wrenching, to be frank. People who should know better are not behaving as they should. The Biden administration is running into exactly the same roadblocks the Obama administration did.

So the Republican Party won't compromise? What did they think was going to happen when the Republican Party was taken over by libertarian donors and a base that's been fed red meat by Fox News for 25 years?

America's political class continues to behave as though it is shocked and stunned by the Republican attempts to nullify democracy, as seen on Jan. 6 and in the ongoing coup attempt. Are they in denial? Is this willful ignorance? Are they so invested in a broken political system that they refuse to admit the obvious and respond appropriately? How do you make sense of this lack of urgency?

MacLean: First, I do not believe that they are a monolith. It is important to emphasize that fact because there are people who do know better. This includes Pramila Jayapal of the Progressive Caucus, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Sheldon Whitehouse and others. There have been some bold and outspoken and truth-delivering voices who we should applaud. But it is a real challenge to persuade their colleagues to speak to these truths about the country's democracy crises.

I'm not denying that it's a complicated operation. If the Democrats need 60 senators to get anything substantive done and you're dealing with the likes of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, it's a challenge and it's frustrating. But I do believe that the leading Democrats could do more with the bully pulpit to help the American people understand the origins of the democracy crisis — and what is at stake for their day-to-day lives if this right-wing libertarian and larger anti-democracy cause is allowed to advance, as it has been doing for years.

What and who are the elements in this anti-democracy movement?

MacLean: There is an elite element and the voters they count on to advance the goals. The elite elements are parts of the corporate libertarian Koch network. The large number of donors and institutions they fund include the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, Americans for Prosperity, the State Policy Network and many others.

This network also includes supposed scholars, faculty, and students at over 300 institutions at present. The corporate-libertarian cause knows that the world they want to create is unpopular. Therefore, they have to get the votes to advance their agenda by relying on the religious right.

The religious right has now been boiled down to a base consisting of white nationalist Christian evangelicals in various forms, who are anti-science for example. In my opinion, it was fairly easy to persuade them to reject climate science and to embrace the Big Lie about the 2020 election and all the other lies and untruths being pandered by the right-wing movement and its media.

We are now also seeing the religious right overlapping in significant ways with white supremacists and the larger white power movement. In this country we are in real trouble in that regard because of how these white nationalist identities are being used to promote vigilante actions.

What did you see on Jan. 6?

MacLean: To my eyes, it was a fulfillment of these decades of disinformation and agitation of the worst impulses held by some Americans. For example, these very self-interested right-wing forces who oppose taking action to stop the global climate crisis are willing to leverage racism, homophobia, sexism and other antisocial behavior and values to achieve that goal.

There is plenty of evidence showing that the Koch donor network has funded and continues to back the politicians who spurred on the events of Jan. 6 and the Big Lie, and refused to certify Biden's election.

The mainstream news media are complicit in so much of this because of their "both sides" script. The mainstream news media needs to recognize that there is an imminent threat of autocracy in the United States.

"MacLean: To my eyes, it (the Jan. 6 scrum) was a fulfillment of these decades of disinformation and agitation of the worst impulses held by some Americans. For example, these very self-interested right-wing forces who oppose taking action to stop the global climate crisis are willing to leverage racism, homophobia, sexism and other antisocial behavior and values to achieve that goal."

---30---

I wonder if academia is the place to become grounded. The above sentence strikes me as self-righteous and congratulatory, while simultaneously demonizing political adversaries. 

I wish all academics, especially in macroeconomics and political science, could spend a couple decades "in the real world." 

Perhaps social science academics should not even be hired until age 55, and then after career somewhere. This would not apply to anthropologists and so on, but if someone wants to teach about economics and politics, I would like to see some experiences somewhere. 

As for the Jan. 6 scrum, even WaPo is belatedly admitting those lulus were not part of a larger plan and mostly unconnected to anybody. A spontaneous riot among rabble. 

It occurs to me that if 9/11 was the masterplot that some believe it was, then the elite Donks must be in on it, or, at the least, choose to be silent about it.

If W. knows for a fact what happened on 9/11, how do MacLean and elite Donks not know? 

Is MacLean silent about 9/11, as the elite Donks have become part of the coverup?  

What does that say about MacLean? 

 

 

[Matt Allison]

A lot of hand wringing here about media outlets...  

Look, thanks to the internet, we all have access to any view we want. Hundreds of thousands of "media outlets". So it really doesn't make a ton of sense to blame the messenger instead of simply blaming the consumer.

But also thanks to the internet, facts are more accessible to us than at any other point in history. If you're being intellectually honest with yourself and others, it isn't difficult to get an accurate view of a news item. It really isn't.

Judge a person on how they deal with facts.

[Ron Bulman]

A coup to prevent a coup?

The Silent Coup Against Donald Trump Emerged in a Super-Secure Meeting Room (msn.com)

[Matt Allison]

2 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

A coup to prevent a coup?

The Silent Coup Against Donald Trump Emerged in a Super-Secure Meeting Room (msn.com)

You can bet if Milley did anything out of line, Trump's GOP would have already insisted he be punished. But he didn't. Milley was defending the Constitution and to call it "a coup" is absurd and clickbait.

[Steve Thomas]

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.236632/gov.uscourts.dcd.236632.35.0_2.pdf

 

“Presidents are not kings”

 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

)
DONALD J. TRUMP, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v. )
)
Civil Action No. 21-cv-2769 (TSC)
)
BENNIE G. THOMPSON, in his official
capacity as Chairman of the United States
House Select Committee to Investigate the
January 6th Attack on the United States
Capitol, et al.,
)
Defendants.

 

IV. CONCLUSION
For reasons explained above, the court will deny Plaintiff’s request to enjoin Defendants from enforcing or complying with the Select Committee’s August 25, 2021, requests because Plaintiff is unlikely to succeed on the merits of his claims or suffer irreparable harm, and because a balance of the equities and public interest bear against granting his requested relief.

Date: November 9, 2021


Tanya S. Chutkan
TANYA S. CHUTKAN
United States District Judge

 

Steve Thomas

[Dennis Berube]

10 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

IMO, we should all look to reputable scholars, historians, and economists for informed perspectives on current events, rather than getting our ideas and opinions from political pundits.

One doesn’t need someone else’s  perspective in todays world. If you simply stop watching/reading the MSM and listen to what central bankers are saying, its very obvious what “current events” are about, another “new world order” attempt where central bank controlled corporations own everything including the human mind. If you still think thats a theory, you aren’t paying attention. Again, the passports are critical to this plan and we see freedom of speech under vicious attack by the democrats and their minions champion the effort while going mad over Trump. 

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2021 by Dennis Berube

[W. Niederhut]

Ben & Dennis,

     As a follow up to your comments about Professor Nancy MacLean, I should mention that she is an unusually informed source of information about the social and political history of the current GOP.

     Before MacLean published her highly acclaimed history of the Koch Machine-- Democracy in Chains -- she wrote a book about the history of the reincarnation of the KKK after 1915.   As most people know, the reincarnated KKK was a very popular, powerful political movement, even in places like Colorado and Indiana-- a white supremacist prototype of modern day Trump-ism.

https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Mask-Chivalry-Making-Second/dp/0195098366

     As for the misanthropic libertarian Koch Machine, it bought the GOP during the past decade. 

     More specifically, the Kochs bought control of the U.S. Senate in 2014, which is still largely controlled by our American plutocracy-- 50 GOP Senators + Manchin + Sinema. 

      And they bought the SCOTUS, including the truly disastrous 5-4 SCOTUS rulings on Citizens United and Shelby v. Holder.

     While I agree with the Michael Hudson/Jeff Carter commentary (above) about the current corporate Democratic sabotage of the progressive agenda, it largely ignores the elephant in the room.

     To wit, 50 GOP Senators have repeatedly sabotaged the Freedom to Vote Act, the Build Back Better legislation, and any attempts to roll back the 2017 Trump/GOP tax cuts for billionaires.

Edited November 10, 2021 by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

8 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ben & Dennis,

     As a follow up to your comments about Professor Nancy MacLean, I should mention that she is an unusually informed source of information about the social and political history of the current GOP.

     Before MacLean published her highly acclaimed history of the Koch Machine-- Democracy in Chains -- she wrote a book about the history of the reincarnation of the KKK after 1915.   As most people know, the reincarnated KKK was a very popular, powerful political movement, even in places like Colorado and Indiana-- a white supremacist prototype of modern day Trump-ism.

https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Mask-Chivalry-Making-Second/dp/0195098366

     As for the misanthropic libertarian Koch Machine, it bought the GOP during the past decade. 

     More specifically, the Kochs bought control of the U.S. Senate in 2014, which is still largely controlled by our American plutocracy-- 50 GOP Senators + Manchin + Sinema. 

      And they bought the SCOTUS, including the truly disastrous 5-4 SCOTUS rulings on Citizens United and Shelby v. Holder.

     While I agree with the Michael Hudson/Jeff Carter commentary (above) about the current corporate Democratic sabotage of the progressive agenda, it largely ignores the elephant in the room.

     To wit, 50 GOP Senators have repeatedly sabotaged the Freedom to Vote Act, the Build Back Better legislation, and any attempts to roll back the 2017 Trump/GOP tax cuts for billionaires.

W-

 

What are Nancy MacLean's views on the panopticon national security state? 

 

[Ron Bulman]

On 11/9/2021 at 8:43 PM, W. Niederhut said:

Thanks for speaking up, Ron.

Duke University Professor Nancy MacLean is not a mass media pundit or a talking head.  She's a bona fide scholar.

IMO, we should all look to reputable scholars, historians, and economists for informed perspectives on current events, rather than getting our ideas and opinions from political pundits.

Disclaimer:   I'm biased about MacLean because she and I both graduated magna cum laude from Brown University as undergrads.  I didn't know her, because she's a bit younger than I.  (She later earned a Ph.D. in history, whereas I went to med school, but I did major in American Studies at Brown-- as did John F. Kennedy, Jr., who enrolled at Brown the year I graduated.)

Both Nancy MacLean and Jane Mayer's works Democracy In Chains and Dark Money should be read by all.  The Koches/Libertarian party did buy out the republican party many years ago.  They, the 1% own it a well as as the M$M.  The latter is used to manipulate the former.  If you don't believe me, read the reviews, and the Books.

Amazon.com: Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America: 9781101980972: MacLean, Nancy: Books

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right: Mayer, Jane: 9780307947901: Amazon.com: Books 

[W. Niederhut]

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

W-

 

What are Nancy MacLean's views on the panopticon national security state? 

 

Ben,

      I'm not aware of anything that MacLean has written on that subject, but I suspect that she disapproves of unwarranted government surveillance of the citizenry.

      Her area of expertise is social and political history.

     

[Ron Bulman]

5 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

W-

 

What are Nancy MacLean's views on the panopticon national security state? 

 

I'm not W but actually that's what her book is all about.  The circling of the captivated prisoners for observation,   Kind of like Martino and others on the Isle of Pines, No?  No.

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ben,

      I'm not aware of anything that MacLean has written on that subject, but I suspect that she disapproves of unwarranted government surveillance of the citizenry.

      Her area of expertise is social and political history.

     

Verily, nothing shows up in a Google search. MacLean is completely uninterested in the national security state that has run the country since 1963.  I wonder how and why, but let that go...

Here's the thing: I am sure MacLean is very smart, even if having lived a somewhat cloistered life. I actually roughly agree with her regarding the Koch empire, and affiliated right-wing organization, movements--as far as it goes.  

But...the bulk of today's M$M is not aligned with the Koches, but rather with the multinational-globalists, the national security-Deep State, Silicon Valley, Wall Street end entertainment-media. And the Donks have become subservient to the donor class aforementioned.

Today's M$M is the WaPo, NYT, CBS, NBC, ABC, Salon, Slate etc., and you know the rest.  They are not kowtowing to the Koches. They are embedded with the Donks, who are kowtowing to the donor class. 

The Koches may have influence inside Fox-WSJ, although even there Trump pushed the Koches aside, and rather easily. Fascinating story. Remember Trump told the Koches to buzz off. 

If I had to cut the media pie, I would say 80% is now standard Donk-M$M fare, and 15% 'Phant props, and 5% alt-news. 

From my perspective MacLean has been barking up the same tree so long, she hasn't noticed the forest has changed around her.  Which can happen in academia. 

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

The Hill headline:

GIGANTIC Pentagon Budget & GUTTED Social Spending EXPOSES Where Politicians' TRUE Loyalties Lie