There’s a new book out called White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy. I haven’t read it but it did give me an idea for a fun drinking game. Every time you hear the phrase “threat to democracy” or a variant thereof between now and the presidential election, you take a drink. The downside is you’ll be dead long before November and you’ll never find out who gets elected. The authors of the book were interviewed on MSNBC this past week. One of the authors, Tom Schaller, said this: “First of all, [white rural voters] are the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay demographic in the country. Second, they’re the most conspiracist group: QAnon support and subscribers, election denialism, Covid denialism and scientific skepticism, Obama birtherism. Third: anti-democratic sentiments. They don’t believe in an independent press, free speech, they’re most likely to say the president should be able to act… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Democracy
Seven Years
We’ve had seven years and counting of Hitler and Nazi references directed at Trump and his supporters, but in recent months we’ve had an opportunity to see who the real Jew-haters are in our country. And they’re not MAGA Republicans. Amazingly, the Hitler references continue. They haven’t stopped. This seems self-destructive. We’ve had seven years and counting of “Democracy is in danger” from a party that rigged the 2016 Presidential primary so Bernie Sanders wouldn’t win, rigged the 2020 Presidential primary so Bernie Sanders wouldn’t win, colludes with intel agencies, corporate media and Big Tech to lie, spy and censor. Amazingly, “Democracy is in danger” continues, even as they prosecute political opponents and take names off ballots. You can’t vote for the wrong candidate if his name isn’t on the ballot, right? Forget democracy. Democracy is dead. We had to take away your right to vote for the candidates of… Read more →
A Time For Choosing
This is a time for choosing. Will we choose democracy over autocracy?Community over chaos?Love over hate? These are questions of our time that I ran for president to help answer. And of which Dr. King’s life and legacy will guide us forward. — President Biden (@POTUS) January 16, 2023 That depends. Is aggregating state and corporate power to censor the internet democracy or autocracy? Is it community? Is it love? Read more →
In Which We Learn That You’re Much More Likely to be Killed by a Bed Than by a Political Extremist
‘We are a tinderbox’: Political violence is ramping up, experts warn — Los Angeles Times Politically motivated violence has ebbed and flowed throughout U.S. history. Currently, America is going through an upsurge in right-wing violence, according to researchers who track attacks and other incidents. They say today’s climate is comparable to that in the mid-1990s, when a similar wave of right-wing violence culminated in the 1995 bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people. I’ll call bullshit on that. In fact, to avoid having to repeat myself, I’ll call bullshit on most of the article. It’s extremely slanted. There were 9,625 threats against members of Congress and their families last year, according to the Capitol Police — more than twice as many as in 2017. How many of the threats were carried out? I’ll estimate zero. “Death threats” are the biggest scam . . .… Read more →
Arrested and Conceivably Killed
To be fair, the plan to kill children is still under review. 🙂 Michael Beschloss on MSNBC warns America is just "six days away" from the end of democracy, historians, and the rule of law. And the start of a brutal GOP dictatorship in which our children could be "arrested and conceivably killed." https://t.co/4kFJuORA8r via @mediaite pic.twitter.com/SPByfPIV1k — Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) November 3, 2022 Read more →
Republican Extremists
Shannon Brandt, 41, struck and killed [18-year-old Cayler Ellingson] with his Ford Explorer SUV early Sunday in an alley. His mother said Ellingson called and asked her if she knew Brandt (she did). The boy called again a short time later and said that “‘he’ or ‘they’ were chasing him.” The mother could no longer reach him after that. Court documents said, “Brandt admitted to striking the pedestrian with his car because he had a political argument with the pedestrian and believed the pedestrian was calling people “to come get him.” He claimed the teen was part of an unspecified Republican “extremist group.” Brandt was released on bond. — dailysignal.com He was a MAGA Republican, a threat to the country like Joe Biden said. So I crushed him with my truck. To make America safe for democracy. Read more →
Julian Assange and the Farce of US Press Freedoms
The eleven-year persecution of Julian Assange was extended and escalated on Friday morning. The British Home Secretary, Priti Patel, approved the U.S.’s extradition request to send Julian Assange to Virginia to stand trial on eighteen felony charges under the 1917 Espionage Act and other statutes in connection with the 2010 publication by WikiLeaks of thousands of documents showing widespread corruption, deceit, and war crimes by American and British authorities along with their close dictatorial allies in the Middle East. This decision is unsurprising — it has been obvious for years that the U.S. and UK are determined to destroy Assange as punishment for his journalism exposing their crimes — yet it nonetheless further highlights the utter sham of American and British sermons about freedom, democracy and a free press. . . . But putting oneself in Assange’s position, it is easy to see why he is so eager to avoid… Read more →
I’m Actually Old Enough to Remember Freedom of Speech
Poland Proposes $13.5 Million Fines for Tech Giants Engaging in Ideological Censorship — The Epoch Times I’m actually old enough to remember when the USA, not Poland, carried the torch for freedom of speech. We took it for granted I suppose, but Poland has much more recent experience with being told what they are not allowed to think, say or write, and they don’t like it. Na Zdrowie, Polska! Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote the following: I was born and raised among people for whom freedom was the most precious of values. In Poland we are so attached to freedom because we know what it is like when someone tries to limit it. For close to 50 years we lived in a country in which censorship was practiced, in which Big Brother told us how we are meant to live and what we are meant to feel, and what… Read more →
Thomas Jefferson: I’m Spinning In My Grave
My fellow Americans – I read a Rasmussen report stating that 47% of voters think the presidential election was stolen via fraudulent behavior by Democrats. You might say, well, those 47% are just the Republican losers, but the numbers include 30% of Democratic voters and 39% of independents. Huge: "How likely is it that Democrats stole votes or destroyed pro-Trump ballots in several states to ensure that Biden would win?" Democrats – 30% – 20% say Very Likely (VL)Unaffiliated – 39% – 29% say VLRepublicans – 75% – 61% say VLAll Voters – 47% – 36% say VL https://t.co/NMDryxyLzq pic.twitter.com/EblRuV2AXY — Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) November 20, 2020 As I understand it, on election night, ballot counters in several states (WI, MI, PA) all got tired at the same time, sent Republicans home, then caught a second wind and found hundreds of thousands of Biden ballots. If you think of it… Read more →
Camille Paglia on #MeToo and Damsels in Distress
The big question is whether the present wave of revelations, often consisting of unsubstantiated allegations from decades ago, will aid women’s ambitions in the long run or whether it is already creating further problems by reviving ancient stereotypes of women as hysterical, volatile and vindictive. My philosophy of equity feminism demands removal of all barriers to women’s advancement in the political and professional realms. However, I oppose special protections for women in the workplace. Treating women as more vulnerable, virtuous or credible than men is reactionary, regressive and ultimately counterproductive. Complaints to the Human Resources department after the fact are no substitute for women themselves drawing the line against offensive behavior — on the spot and in the moment. Working-class women are often so dependent on their jobs that they cannot fight back, but there is no excuse for well-educated, middle-class women to elevate career advantage or fear of social… Read more →
Ayatollah So
In Iran you can vote for anyone for President so long as that person has been approved by the Ayatollah Khameini. We Americans call that system a dictatorship. Voters in America recently discovered that they live under an Iranian type of system and didn’t know it. In the primaries, voters participate in some sort of ritualistic placebo voting while party leaders select the candidates. . . . Thanks to social media, and Trump, America will get its first taste of real democracy. If it doesn’t work out, we can always go back to the Iranian model and hope for our self-awareness to diminish over time. — Scott Adams Read more →
Always Costly
In democratic societies, there exists an urge to do something even when the goal is not precise, a sort of permanent fever that turns to innovations (which) are always costly. — Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1831) Read more →
We’ve Fallen Behind France in Moral Fortitude
The President yesterday denounced the “extent of the fraud” and the “shocking” and “brutal” response of the Iranian regime to public demonstrations in Tehran these past four days. “These elections are an atrocity,” he said. “If [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad had made such progress since the last elections, if he won two-thirds of the vote, why such violence?” The statement named the regime as the cause of the outrage in Iran and, without meddling or picking favorites, stood up for Iranian democracy. The President who spoke those words was France’s Nicolas Sarkozy. — WSJ.com Read more →