12-03-2017, 01:12 AM
(12-03-2017, 12:20 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:(12-02-2017, 12:36 PM)rds Wrote:(12-01-2017, 05:06 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: One thing that many learn in a Crisis Era that there are worse things than death.
At this point, I think the point of no return has been passed. I expect the elections of '18 will be rigged. Who knows what the leaders will decide what the margin shall be, but you can bet the fascists will keep their majority.
At this point most of the Trump voters are in a magically thinking death cult. Since '12 I've given up trying to talk to them. As they say, Obama was a Kenyan, Hillary is the greatest Machiavellian Witch ever, Bill is the Grand Wizard of Satan, and if you want to sample pedophilia go to Comet Pizza, order a Pizza with extra cheese and your basest wishes will be fulfilled.
I used to have hope, thinking that as things got really bad, that they'd see the light again. But, I no longer believe that. What changed my mind was some doc on the Battle of Berlin I watched. I'd always assumed the Nazi's saw the light as the Red Army marched in, but I was wrong. They died by the hundreds of thousands thinking victory was just around the corner. There was no redemption at the end. And worse yet, the 'good' Germans remained alive to feel the full wrath of the Soviets who were in no mood to listen to excuses.
Everything tells me this current American Era is going to end poorly. The only question is will it happen in my lifetime? I've got at most 20-25 years left, and maybe even less. But, end it will, in total disaster.
The hope still lies in the fact that in 4Ts, the darkness lies before the dawn. The Nazis of course are a good example. Even despite Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, the years after the war were better. The Crisis ended in The West, and liberation finally came east in 1989 too. So the Trump Nazis may have to be fought and defeated too. The hope for transcending political polarization can only be pushed so far. When the other side is as bad as the Nazis, or as the Trump followers are getting to be, as MacArthur said, there is no substitute for victory. If this victory cannot be had at the legitimate ballot box, then war and disaster beckons. But, it will end, and rebirth and liberation are possible.
Without hope we are doomed. I am satisfied that on the whole the American people are better than the rapacious elites who dominate the economy and politics. We handled same-sex marriage well. We have few problems with those who commit sexual harassment losing privileged roles in society. Membership in a hate group is good for a stigma. Most of us recognize human rights and civil liberties as precious. Practically nobody wants lynch mobs or terrorism to solve their problems.
It is the President and the lobbyist-led Congress that infuriates us for falling shorts of our own standards of decency.Maybe we judged Obama a bit too harshly -- but most of us recognize President Trump as an unmitigated disaster. Polls suggest that the Republicans stand a good chance of losing at least the House of Corporations next year. We still exercise our First Amendment rights.
We are less than a year away from finding out whether the democracy that wise men considered necessary in 1776 and codified in a Constitution in 1787 remains a reality. If that democracy has been hollowed into an empty shell, then perhaps we will need to see 55 new republics (fifty states, DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the American Virgin Islands) Some of those republics will combine into their own federations; some might splinter. I can imagine my state petitioning to join Canada.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.