Empty Kevin

Kevin McCarthy grew up in Bakersfield. He's as empty as a wine bottle in an abandoned treehouse. Will he end up as second in line for the presidency? 

Hope Hicks

Hope Hicks worried that January 6th might damage tRump's legacy, which is like worrying that your bad breath might stink up a cesspool.

Useless complaints about grammar, diction and punctuation

Below are some useless complaints about problems in logic, diction and punctuation.

1. Avoid the Oxford comma, the one that should not come before the "and" in a series like red, white and blue. The purpose of the Oxford comma is to demonstrate that the author does not know what a comma in a series means. (It means "and" in this case.) So unless you want to write "red, white and and blue," get a grip on the series comma and its meaning.

2. "Tranche"! Tranche is a fancy word for a portion of something.  It's from Old French, and what could be more elegant, unless you find, like me,  Old French beyond your reach. In that case you could use "portion" instead. For the last year every host on MSNBC has been required to use "tranche" twice in each paragraph; enforcement of this rule is finally easing.

3. Tranche has been replaced by the word "reticent," which MSNBC hosts apparently think means "reluctant." So they say things like, "Trump was reticent to give up his plan to use force." In English a reticent person is one who is inclined to keep her thoughts to herself. 

4.  Begging the question is always used incorrectly on television. It does not mean that someone has said something that automatically demands you question it. It is an argument that takes the form the X is true because everyone knows that  X is true. The question and answer are based on the same assumption in the hope that you won't notice. 

5. Rhythm?  These days sports talkers demand that athletes do things in rhythm. If Klay Thompson misses a long shot, it's because he hasn't gotten his rhythm. Or so they say. I believe that professional sports is hard enough already. Demanding people play basketball in rhythm is asking too much. And next announcers will be demanding rhyme. 

6. Pronouncing silent letters. Nearly everyone now pronounces the silent letters in "often," "kiln" and "arctic." The last person I heard say "kiln" correctly on  TV was Al Gore, so I know I've lost. 

 

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Exceptionalism

From time to time American exceptionalists claim that America is exceptionally hated, more hated than Russia, "and everyone knows that." But do we?

To check on America's reputation, I turned to The Reputation Institute, a real organization, not a name from a superhero movie. According to The Reputation Institute, Canada has the best overall rep but falls short in critical aspects like brand-name products. America does not have the best reputation, not even among tourists, who prefer France. (America comes in second on the tourism scale.)

According to The Reputation Institute, "The US was considered about average in terms of national reputation, known mostly for its technology sector and its recognizable brand-name products. One reason that pushed the US out of the list of the top 20 reputations was the US Supreme Court ruling in favor of super-PACS, a decision that has caused many people at home and abroad to lose trust in the American political system."

That analysis seems dated, but The Reputation Institute points out that it is itself known as "the world's leading research and advisory firm for reputation. We provide  the single-best way to measure, communicate and manage reputation performance." They add that certain places where the rights of women are being curtailed  (Afghanistan? Florida? ) can expect to lose standing in the next survey. 

Trans

A million or more Americans identify as trans. Estimates differ. Currently trans people are under attack by the Repubs, who need minority groups to hate, to accuse of cannibalism, pedophilia, etc. Preaching murderous hatred is how Trumpers gain power.

There's a sense in which trans people do not need a defense. They've done nothing wrong.  

Why War?

H. W. Brands, a historian, often asks his classes, "Why does war exist? Nearly everyone is against war."

Brands suggests partial answers. One reason war exists is that civil relationships can't resolve all disagreements. Our founders believed that slavery would wither away, and it did wither in the North. But not in the South. It took a war to end American slavery.

Another answer is that war simplifies complex issues. That is a comfort. And in a war the ends can sometimes justify the means--to a degree, war liberates fighters from morality. We firebombed Tokyo and incinerated 100,000 civilians. 

Maybe there is something more basic. We are a branch of the chimpanzee family, sharing about 98% of our DNA. Studies show (some disagree) that chimpanzee groups are naturally violent within the group and against other groups. Chimps and humans are the only mammalian species known to attack each other in well-organized onslaughts. Or so some (but not all) experts say. 

The Evidence

The Republican try at minority rule has had some success, particularly in their Gerrymandering. But many tactics  have not worked. 

There's a basic weakness in their reasoning. Repubs think that if they make voting difficult, people of color won't register or make their way to the polls.  That would leave voting to white folks. The Repubs think that if voters need extra identification, well, black people aren't up to getting IDs and will not bother to register. Repubs think that banning drop boxes will get their candidates elected. 

The evidence suggests otherwise.

also on FB under "SusanandGaryGoss"

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Trump, loser, may soon be facing criminal trials. He will join a list of historic national leaders. Aaron Burr, a former Vice President, was tried for treason but not convicted. Spiro Agnew, as crooked as a skunk's ball sack, resigned as VP  in 1973 and pled no contest to tax evasion.  He was fined $10,000 and placed on three years unsupervised probation. 

Original Joe's

Original Joe's famous Italian steak restaurant opened in San Francisco's Tenderloin in 1937. The version we visited is in Daly City; it is well known. We ate there for about $65 each without drinks. 

It's somewhat curious. The place has two large parking lots, and both (as our son-in-law had warned us) were full when we arrived at noon on a Friday. We parked on a residential street. 

Every well-cushioned seat in the place had a bum in it except for our table, which we had reserved. The food tasted good. Our server was adequate and expressionless--he spilled only one glass of water on Susan. There was a dude lurking in the men's room to pass out towels. Very 1937. 

We had a good feed and a great time with our friends, but I wonder why the place is so extra popular.

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Banksy

On Sunday we learned that someone had painted a Banksy mural on the back wall of the Masonic Lodge in Windsor, California. Amazing news even, as my daughter Maggie wrote, if it's a fake. Susan and I went to look at it. We found maybe eight people standing around it, chatting and taking photos. 

Windsor is an undistinguished but pleasant new town here in wine country. I understand that there is another Windsor someplace. Maybe a Banksy will put our Windsor on the map. 

There exists an outfit that authenticates Banksy work, Pest Control. Perhaps we will hear from them.

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Farce

 Now that the farcical orange fellow has called for a suspension of the Constitution so he can be installed as president for life, what will the Repubs do? Think of the dismayed party core, the thousand professional political operatives who manage winning campaigns and good public relations. And think of the rich donors frantically attempting a dismount. 

It's been crowded on the back of the orange tiger, and now the tiger has jumped off a cliff. 

At this point it looks like the Repubs can't win with Orange or without him; he will savage them if they reject him. 

Stupid

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: "Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice." You can't negotiate with the stupid. Facts don't matter. Reason falls on plugged ears.

Ron White: "You can't fix stupid."

George Carlin pointed out that half the population is of below average intelligence. 

One sign of stupid people is that their decisions tend to harm those around them and also harm themselves. Like the old folks living on social security who vote for grotesque Republican leaders who shout on TV that they will cut social security. Or like the Oathkeepers. 

Democracy is in a constant struggle with stupidity.

also on FB as SusanandGaryGoss

MacGuffin

In movies a MacGuffin is an object needed for the plot and character motivation but unimportant in itself. For example, the Maltese Falcon or Hunter Biden's laptop.

Because we are chimpanzees

Something that occurs once a day--a sunrise, for example--is not news. For the last three years, America has averaged nearly two mass shootings a day. Most are not news. About 580 shootings a year are ignored by MSNBC. 

What may be news is the quick rise of a new profession, victim counseling services. That's what Americans have in place of gun control, because we are--in terms of DNA--members of the chimpanzee family. 

I am tempted to end all my sentences with "because we are chimpanzees." Like Americans, chimps have choices. They decide to do this or that. But they don't reason linguistically. They just react like a MAGA solid-bonehead shooting strangers. 

"A new study shows that chimpanzees are like humans in another important way — their natural capacity for violence," according to the Harvard Gazette. But isn't it the other way around, that humans are like chimpanzees?

Special Counsel Jack Smith

The attorney general appointed Jack Smith as special counsel in the federal Trump investigation. What does that mean? Below is what I've read.

1. The attorney general believes there is a strong case. No one appoints a special counsel to handle a weak case.

2. Jack Smith famously prosecutes cases that are not slam dunks. That is, Smith sometimes loses, because he will prosecute even if he might fail. He is likely to charge the pink bonehead. 

The Parents of Marjorie Taylor Greene

Marjorie Taylor Greene, currently a leader in the House of Representatives, has called for the execution of Former-President Barack Obama.  

How did Marge earn a bachelor's degree from the otherwise respectable University of Georgia? Why has Mr. Greene waited until now to divorce her? Is it true that she cheated on him with a polyamorous tantric sex guru? 

Who raised this awful person? 

I read that Greene was born in Milledgeville, Georgia, which might be a weird place. Her father was Robert Taylor, not the movie star, whose real name was Arlington Spangler Brugh. What sort of parent was Bobby Taylor? Does Marge have a mother? When she was a child, what did her mother teach her?

Marge may not be as coarsely stupid as she looks. Consider a tweet she wrote: "For how many years has the American people's money been sent to foreign counties in the form of aid but nothing ever changes?" This praise of our foreign policy--a conservative's goal is to make sure that nothing ever changes--might put her in the mainstream of American political babble, or is she a racist lackwit?

Caught in a 'Trap

The Republicans look trapped, but of course the future can veer off in a new direction.

As things stand, the Repubs can nominate tRump, a loser, for President, or they can nominate someone else, and tRump will rage and rage at the candidate, who will lose. 

The Repub might win if the Democratic candidate dies during the campaign. Or if the Dems nominate an old favorite who is toxic. 

I suggest the Dems nominate someone new with a "moore"  or "mer" sound in her or his name. 

Little Russia

I figure Hitler miscounted when he set out to conquer the world: there weren't enough Germans to go around. Putin may be making a related error. 

In terms of population, Russia is slightly larger than Mexico. In Russia deaths outnumber births. Russia is losing about 1% of its population each year. Among the white ethnic Russians, the birthrate is about 1.6 children per woman. The replacement rate is 2.1. 

These facts may help explain why Putin set out to add the white inhabitants of Crimea and now Ukraine to Russia. It may explain his practice of rounding up small Ukrainian children, telling them their parents no longer want them and then shipping them into Russia to be adopted. 

Black Women

For some years MSNBC has run a morning news show hosted by black women on the weekends, when viewers are still asleep.  The show has had several different hosts, none of which the Big Guys seemed able to get along with. I suspect that the hosts have been too black, too feisty and too female. 

The latest host to get fired is Tiffany Cross, someone the Big Guys claimed did not meet their network standards (for how women of color should behave on air). 

Cross's show presented points of view seldom seen on network television. I watched it regularly. It was a break from the same old canned stuff. Now I can look forward to more of the identical scripts and clips that get repeated at hourly intervals. 

Hammer Time

The Republicans once were the party of the rich. They ran popular hate campaigns that encouraged armed militancy, but the basic function of Republicans was to shift money from poor people to rich people like Paul Pelosi. Today's party, while helping the rich out of habit, has a different main  focus, which is cruelty directed at women, children, minorities and liberals. Hitting an old Pelosi on the head with a hammer is humorous now. Cruelty is campaign fodder. Hammer time! Watch the MAGAts on TV chuckle. 

The Supreme Court's Function

The current court, dominated by somewhat deranged lawyers appointed for life, relies on a theory called "originalism." Originalists believe that the constitution should be given the meaning it might have had at the time it became law.

The argument is that Americans should be bound forever by the reasonings of a small group of rich white sexists 240 years ago.

Is tRump Evil?

In a TV interview Maggie Haberman responded to a question, "Is Donald tRump evil?" with a dodge. She said something unclear about tRump's tolerance for evil behavior. 

Some thoughtful people hesitate to call anyone evil, probably because it is the worst thing you can say about someone. But "evil" is a word. We know how to use it. We understand that Hitler was evil, occupying a coffin at the far end of immoral extremity. 

Donny tRump is morally despicable. Of course he is. My response to his behavior is horror. He's earned the greatest form of condemnation. No matter what other people do, he will continue to lie, rape and pillage. He should be confined someplace outside of society. He's evil. 

Propositions: How To Vote

As usual Californians will vote in November on many propositions. 

1. My opening stance is to vote no on every proposition. Many propositions are crooked deals cooked up by giant corporations or crackpot billionaires intent on screwing voters in ways that even the state senate refuses to do.

2. I have no way to determine independently if a proposition is a good idea. Vote no. We pay good money to the governor, the assembly and the senate to cope with complex matters.

3. If a proposition is supported by every decent source, like the nurses' union and leading  democratic socialists, then I might vote yes.  Maybe.

Power Rangers

 I don't know how widely this will be reported. I saw it on local TV news. There's a restaurant in Oakland where on Fridays the wait staff dress up as power rangers (a colorful Japanese superhero program for small children). Last Friday a man was chasing a woman along the sidewalk, attempting to strangle her, and the woman darted into the restaurant. The man followed her in and was immediately thrown down and captured by masked power rangers (and some customers). They held him for the police. As the police took him away, one commented that the man appeared to be emotionally disturbed. 

Putin

I heard last week that the young man who murdered 17 children and staff at Parkland High School had been sentenced to life in prison. I also heard a report on a six-year-old girl who had been badly injured in Ukraine by a Russian missile. Her legs had to be amputated.  

So far Putin has murdered about 1,230 Ukrainian children. Unable to defeat the Ukrainian military, Putin is attempting to horrify Ukrainians into accepting him as their dictator for life. He is deliberately murdering unarmed civilians, children and adults, much like the Parkland killer.  Unlike the Parkland killer, Putin is rational. He has miscalculated--he's losing his war. And he is 100 times worse than his American counterpart. 

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Cultural Difference

As many have read, several members of the Los Angeles City Council were recorded on their phones making racist remarks. For example, council member Martinez said that immigrants from Oaxaca are short and ugly. 

I have a Mexican-American immigrant student, a hard-working and charming woman I will call Rosa. She's learning English slowly. Like me Rosa is not talented in language acquisition, but we blunder along. We talk. She was telling me about her younger son's friends in grammar school and mentioned that one friend is from Oaxaca. So I told her about Martinez's racist remarks. 

"Oh yes," Rosa said. "My son his friend from Oaxaca is short. And ugly."  

Liberation

Jack de Selby was speculating recently about who had gained the most from the women's movement. He first argued that men had gained the most, in that they could now enjoy more honest relationships with women. But then he noted that AOC and Elizabeth Warren had been able to move beyond being bartenders and teachers and develop leadership roles. In the end he decided that the one person who had gained the most was probably Marjorie Taylor Greene. Seventy years ago Greene would have been abandoned in the suburbs to suck beer and beat her kids with a coat hanger.   

Citizen Fetus

One of the rather thin arguments against calling Robert E. Lee a traitor is that to be a traitor, you must first be a citizen. In 1860 there was no legal definition of citizenship in the United States. It's hard to  prove that Bobby Lee was an American citizen, so how can we prove that he was a traitor?

Of course, Lee had served in the American army, and he had sworn the usual oath of allegiance to the United States many times to guarantee his loyalty. In return he had gotten a free college education, a job, etc. 

Citizenship was finally defined in 1868, after the Civil War, in the fourteen amendment. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States   . . . are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." So I did not become a citizen until I was born in Compton, California. Here is something for originalist Republicans to work on. Why hasn't citizenship been conferred on fetuses?  

Covering Wine

Our Sonoma County newspaper ran a challenging headline on the front page Wednesday; they are "Expanding Our Wine Coverage," which may be impossible. It's brave of them to try.

Success!

The American women's basketball team won a world championship against China a few days ago. The women's team is the most successful team we have in any sport. It wins and wins. 

I tried to watch and record the game, but it was not available. I searched. I did find a place that promised to show the game in Spanish, so I recorded that. What I recorded turned out not to be a basketball game.

When I realized that no station was covering the American team, I switched and looked for someone covering the game from China. I did find that, but it cost too much. 

The game was not mentioned on television or in a newspaper here in Sonoma County. If women win a world championship and no one mentions  it, did it really happen?

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Representative

Right now, after tRump has been exposed as an idiotic, irresponsible, childish huckster who would stomp your kitten to death for fun, more than 40% of our voters still support him. Why? What does this tell us about voters?

A fascist has been elected to lead Italy. Elected semi-fascists lead Sweden, Hungary and Russia. What does this tell us about representative democracies? Asking for a friend.

Maury Wills

Maury Wills died this week. And a few months back, Tommy Davis died. The two of them, along with Sandy Koufax, once won three World Series titles for the Dodgers.

Davis twice led the lead in hitting. Wills was the first player to steal 100 bases in one season. He changed the game. The Dodgers' offense consisted of Wills singling, stealing second and stealing third. Then Davis would drive him home. Koufax would pitch a shut out, and the Dodgers would win. 

I'm a Giants fan, but why aren't Wills and maybe Davis in the Hall of Fame?

New Zealand Recruitment

In 2018 the police and other security forces in Germany killed 11 people. In New Zealand they killed one man. In the United States police killed 1,503 people in 2018, and in the Philippines police probably killed around 6,000--the number is approximate. I'd like to focus on the comparison between New Zealand (1 death) and the USA (1,503 deaths). What factors explain the difference?

One attempted explanation is the bad apple theory (bad apples killed 1,503 people). Another theory is that if we retrain the police, they will develop new, gentler personalities and kill fewer people.  

NZ has about one-seventieth the population of America. To be fair, we should multiply New Zealand's one death a year by 70, making the difference a less striking 1,503 to 70.  Also NZ has a commonsense system of gun control. The main difference, maybe, is that the police academies in NZ  won't admit a potential shooter. Shooters get screened out in prolonged testing. For police academies (and Harvard) the old rule applies: what comes in is what goes out. New Zealand hires nonviolent officers. 

 

 

Are Chimpanzees Fascist?

Do chimpanzees, our close relatives, resemble MAGA fascists?

Only in part. Chimpanzees lack religion and capitalist elements, and, unlike fascists, chimps do not reject the Enlightenment.   

Consider this: MAGAts and chimpanzees are bothf    aq extremely traditional. 

For fascists action is beautiful in itself. Thinking is emasculating. Chimpanzees often act without reflection. 

Disagreement is treason for fascists. Chimps seldom disagree with the Leader. 

Fascism seeks unity by exploiting a natural fear of difference. Attacking chimps with strange smells is basic to chimpanzees. 

Chimps will sometimes band together to attack the Leader. Fascists also experience the fear and humiliation involved in being of inferior status. Fascists and chimps may have different ranks and feel a lack of a clear social identity, but they do claim membership in a common, superior tribe.

Fascists and chimpanzees are extremely suspicious of the intentions of other tribes, who are suspected of evil plotting against them.

For chimps pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. Fascists also regard life as a long struggle with enemies for food. Fascists argue that the minorities have too much food, which they will forfeit at the conclusion of the permanent war against everyone else. (How a permanent war can end remains unexamined by chimpanzees.)

Chimps and fascists believe they belong to the best-led group in the world. The different ranks share a kind of shadowy mass elitism. The male fascist engaged in permanent war is a hero in his own eyes. But individuals have no voices. The Leader speaks for all of them. This can result in what Mark Leibovich calls "trickle down idiocy."

So Long, Rasta Charlie

In the newspaper I read an article by Austin Murphy illustrating a mix of human motives. Back in 2005 Santa Rosa, California, commissioned dozens of artists to paint uncolored statues of characters found in the Peanuts cartoon strip created by Charles Schulz. About 70 statues, painted in 70 different styles, were then placed in strategic spots around the city.

Schulz and his family are the pride of Sonoma County.

Artist Maria Krahn painted a tan-colored reggae version of the Charlie Brown statue, most likely because she likes reggae and she has a half-Jamaican daughter. 

The Rasta Charlie was seen in more than one spot but ended up in front of a store in Montgomery Village. It proved a draw for the store and remained there until now. 

Recently a woman filed a  complaint with the corporation that owns Montgomery Village, a huge, somewhat upscale shopping area. The woman stated that Rasta Charlie was racist, just Charlie Brown "in blackface." I  believe she spoke of cultural appropriation.  

On the basis of two complaints by one woman, the corporate  management of Montgomery Village told the store that Rasta Charlie has to go.

Sherman

 "I have never been a politician, and therefore undervalue the excited feelings and opinions of present rulers, but I do think, if this people cannot execute a form of government like the present, that a worse one will result."

William T. Sherman

Life's Hard Choices

I'm not a fan of Noam Chomsky, but he does speak for the antiwar movement I support. 

Chomsky has characterized the Russia-Ukraine war as criminal and stupid, comparable to the attack America made on Iraq. Chomsky understands our government's failure to live up to treaties with Russia and so on, but history, in his opinion, does not justify Putin's slaughter of Ukrainians.

He points out that Great Powers violate international laws at will. That is what they do. I would caution this: before violating international law, make sure you actually are a Great Power.

Chomsky has called for a cease fire, a withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine and negotiations that produce a peace pact satisfactory to both nations. That is probably how the war will end, and he asks, Why not end it now?

But ending a war requires statesmen, who are in short supply, according to Chomsky. It probably means not threatening Putin with a war crimes trial and allowing him, someone many consider a Fascist, to return to a seat at the world table. 

  

What Is Wrong with the New Zealand Police?

From 1990 to 2015, the New Zealand police killed 21 people, an average of less than one a year. In 2015 the American police killed 1,146 people. What went wrong in New Zealand? 

This failure has been studied, of course. Brian Klaas discusses it in his book CORRUPTIBLE. To simplify what Klaas found, the government of New Zealand goes to great lengths to recruit and hire as police officers people who will not shoot other people. This is an old story--you get the kind of officer you recruit. 

You could, of course, retrain the New Zealand officer to shoot more, but it wouldn't work. The officer going into retraining will be the same officer when retraining ends. 

 

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The Camp Robber

So far we don't have a rational explanation for why tRump stole different sets of documents from the government.  Various plots and plans have been suggested, but maybe they miss the obvious. Mr. tRump is not a planner. He doesn't know what he wants or why. He runs on the instincts of a five-year-old, which, in some ways, resemble the instincts of a Canada jay or camp robber. 

Canada jays are fascinating birds who boldly steal food and shiny things from campers. These jays glue stolen food above the snowline in trees to use in winter. Unlike sensible birds, they raise their young in the harshness of winter, not in the spring.

Mr. tRump raised his children in a kind of permanent winter, and as he prepared to exit the White House, he automatically stole all sorts of things to take with him. He took love letters to ruthless tyrants, a letter of welcome from President Obama, top secret gossip about world leaders, boxes of junk and God knows what. He then stashed stolen objects in many different rooms in his castle and went on to visit the rooms and sort items and maybe never had a plan at all. 

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Attack of the Magats

It seems probable that tRump will be tried for one or more of his crimes. That will enrage his more toxic followers, the Magats, which include thousands of heavily armed white nationalists, Nazis, racists, women haters, play soldiers and militia members. 

We'd better be ready. Maybe the tRump trials should be held on an aircraft carrier 100 miles off shore, but of course that won't happen. 

If the next insurrection is better coordinated, we might see armed attacks on state capitols etc. 

Hispanics on Roe

Where do American Hispanics stand on a woman's right to choose?

Growing up with two Irish Catholic grandparents, I learned their attitude of "what the priest doesn't know won't hurt him."The belief that modern Catholics conform to doctrine is not well founded. 

In a recent poll commissioned by the National Institute for Reproductive Health, 78% of Latino voters agreed that "each woman should have the right  to make her own decision." 

The reversal of Roe by the Extreme Court has had the effect of adding Hispanics to the Democratic camp, reversing an earlier trend. 

Samaritans

When he discovered that Samaritans still exist, John Howard de Selby attempted to become one. This proved difficult given that the religion does not accept converts. They regard themselves as the genuine and pure old-style Israelites. 

The history of the people of this ancient religion remains debatable, but we know that in  772 BCE they were conquered by the Assyrians.  

The Samaritans (or Bene Yisrael) and the ancient Israelites were closely related. They may have once been one people, but they divided in a religious schism. Eventually the Maccabees, not supportive of diversity, crushed the Samaritans. 

Today the remaining 1,000 Samaritans live in two small villages in or near Israel. Their religious book is the first five books of the Torah or Old Testament. They pray in Hebrew, and the Israelis, after rejecting them, have granted the Samaritans the right of return. De Selby has twice been denied Israeli citizenship. 

Genders?

The Grace Christian School in Florida has asked all gender non-conforming students to leave immediately. The school gives as its reason, "We believe that God created mankind in his image: male (man) and female (woman), sexually different but with equal dignity."

It's unclear why Grace Christian maintains that their bisexual God would reject students born in what the church describes as His image. Or should it be Their image?  Asking for a friend.

Maeve O'Sullivan

The morning paper contained a charming photo of Maeve O'Sullivan, teacher of the year 2022. She meets her first graders at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Healdsburg. 

I suspect that many local people know Maeve, who has one of the better Irish accents in town. You might encounter her at the senior center, where she sometimes brings her class members for interactions with the truly old. 

Maeve's husband is Prof. Chris O'Sullivan, the often published author who teaches history at the University of San Francisco. O'Sullivan was once named "the smartest man in Healdsburg," which Jack de Selby credits in part to Sullivan's choice among potential life partners. 

It's Who You Know

There is a new study out that shows that the best indicator to predict upward mobility in America is who your friends are. My brother, who sent me the study, and I have understood that for some time.

We were born into a working-class family. Our father began work as a roughneck in the oil fields. (An oil-field roughneck is an untutored laborer.) Our mother was a high-school dropout. But in 1948 they bought four acres for four thousand dollars on the Palos Verdes peninsula (near Los Angeles). Our father came from a horse trading, very small ranch family, and he just wanted to be around acreage, horses, saddles and guns, I think. 

It turned out that Palos Verdes resembled a bucolic Beverly Hills. My brother and I grew up in countryside where all our friends had begun life in the upper middle class. We actually rode around on horses. Eventually, of course, like our friends we automatically enrolled in college, read Rilke, learned professions, etc. 

America is no longer the world leader in upward social mobility. I forget exactly where we are ranked-- about 25th among nations.  But if you want your children to climb through our caste system, see the plan above.

Fascism Defined

Umberto Eco, best known in this country for  THE NAME OF THE ROSE  and FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM, grew up in fascist Italy. He worked later as a  mystery writer, semiotician, medievalist, etc. I'm borrowing from his 14 point definition of fascism here. 

As you read the definition, consider how much applies to Victor Orban, Trump, Putin, Saudi Arabia, etc. (A modern curiosity is the fascist leader who calls himself an anti-fascist.)

1. The fascists develop a cult of the traditional, which often includes retreat into obscure religions, occult beliefs, Christian nationalism, etc.

2. Modernism is rejected by fascists except for its technology. The Enlightenment and reason itself are seen as depraved. Fascism is a form of deliberate irrationalism. Fascist do not need facts to support their beliefs. They "know" things without evidence.

3. Action for action's sake is beautiful and can be taken without reflection. Just act. Drive your pickup into a parade or demonstration. Thinking is emasculating. Intellectuals are degenerates. 

4. Disagreement with fascism is treason, and so is support for diversity.

5. Fascism exploits an inherited human fear of difference. Fascists target new folk, particularly those of different appearance. New folk are not fully human, not entitled to vote, etc. (This applies to Amerindians because the American nation was built by white men, its only full citizens.)

6. Fascism grows from real or imagined social frustrations, often from a blocked middle class that feels pressure from the lower classes.

7. Fascists often have nothing to boast of except being born in the nation. They feel besieged. Some group is plotting to take away their waning power, and they suspect it is the Jews. 

8. Fascists feel humiliated by the prosperity of people of color. 

9. Life should be lived for struggle. Permanent war. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. Fascists expect Armageddon, a final battle. 

10.  Every true citizen should be a member of the fascist party. The party will be organized in a military fashion, and the ersatz soldiers will be the new elite (though they will be scorned by the leadership, which considers them fools, easy to manipulate).  

11. Education exists to create a cult of heroism and death. A fascist craves a heroic death and killing in general. 

12. Few male fascists get chances to play the hero, so they transfer their will to power into sexual matters. They attack women and gays. 

13. Individuals have no rights. The people are viewed as a lump having a common will. The leader is the sole interpreter of what the lump wants. This kind of populism is contrasted against democracies, which are seen as weak and rotten and easily defeated in battle. 

14.  Fascism speaks Orwellian Newspeak, using an impoverished vocabulary and elementary syntax. They push big, simple lies. 

It seems to me that American libertarianism is an awkward fit with fascism. But the whole movement is moronic, so I don't suppose it matters.

Changing the Game

The greatest players change the game. 

When I was a student at UCLA back in the fifties, I lived in the cheapest housing available, and so did black athletes. One of my roommates was the starting tailback on the undefeated football team, Sam Brown. He and several friends had grown up in Oakland, and one day Sam insisted that I go with him and the team to a UCLA basketball game against USF. Someone they knew from Oakland played on the USF team, and Sam told me I would see something different. 

Attending a game with Sam and his friends was always different. They would sit together and shout insults at the oppenent like nothing I had ever heard before.

USF had a very tall center (Bill Russell) Sam had grown up with. Russell and a teammate (K. C. Jones) had worked out defensive schemes on their own. Russell took down more than 20 rebounds--he could jump. He defended the rim. UCLA won the game, but USF was undefeated the rest the season and the next season and took two NCAA finals. 

Russell and Jones were drafted by the Celtics, where they won eleven or twelve titles. They changed the game. Russell also marched with MLK and became the first black manager of any major league team. He died this week. Always his own man. Hats off. 

Trump's Comedy

Sometimes I think of Trump as a standup comic without jokes. He has set-ups but no punchlines.

The great comics don't memorize jokes and go out on stage and repeat them like robots. They improvise. It's a strategy. They're just talking, often in a somewhat transgressive way. Like court jesters they say things polite society keeps mum. When they get to a punchline, it seems natural.

Trump walks up to a mic and starts improvising, but what he says goes nowhere, and it has grown repetitive. He's lost in a personal fog. If he has a point, it's that he is a victim of a system that made him a billionaire. And maybe he is a kind of victim but of a family of pimps and cheaters  who made sure he would never know love or friendship. 

Corrupt Systems

Trump brazenly corrupted the Republican party in open defiance of everything Thomas Dewey cherished. How was that possible?

Social scientists have an answer. Corrupt people are drawn to join a corrupt system, which they see as a welcome opportunity. Corruption snowballs.

People who otherwise would have become pimps or embezzlers in corporations recognized Trump instantly, and they decided to enter politics. They made easy money by preaching racism and sexism to the ignorant. They adopted Trump's crudeness, which some voters read as honest leadership. The worst elements in the party took control.

 

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Title IX

If you watched the world track championships, you saw American women do astonishing things. I won't try to list their accomplishments here. They were the best team by a huge margin. I will mention that the American women's soccer team is ranked first in the world. So is the women's basketball team. And why is that?

Title IX.

The country got something right. Even Nixon got this one right--fifty years ago he signed Title IX into law. The opportunities for athletic American women opened up. And American women, unmatched in their diversity, enrolled in the high level programs suddenly available to them. For some, especially those born into poverty,  their intelligence, strength, speed and training have meant everything.

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Our Creation Myth

According to Jack de Selby, some of our ancestors spoke a language we now call Proto-Indo-European, the ultimate mother of Latin, Greek, French, German, Irish, Spanish, English and so on. By looking at what current languages have in common, linguists have reconstructed parts of the original language. In a similar way they have reconstructed aspects of West Asia's and Europe's original creation myth. 

The scientists have to be cautious, of course, in working so far backwards, and the results tend to be limited. But western civilization's original explanation for our creation went something like this:

In the beginning there was nothing.

Ancient forces met in the nothingness, creating a  primeval being that was two things at once (twins, for example).

An animal appeared and served as food for the double beings.

Gods appeared who sacrificed a primeval being (one of the twins) and made the universe from parts of its body.

Versions differ but some include the concept that one half of the double being allowed itself to be sacrificed. 

What To Do?

Maybe telling us to vote isn't enough, We already did that and won by 7 million votes. We put the Democrats in charge, yet in our red states, women have been partly enslaved by religious extremists, who see women as disposable incubators. 

The Democrats can't seem to stop voter suppression. Isn't voting fundamental to their own party's survival?

Crackpots sit atop our legal system. There is no absurdity they will not make the law of the land. 

Why is tRump, who incited an insurrection that caused the deaths of five people, not on trial for manslaughter? In any other country. . . .

I watched a panel on MSNBC today. No fight in them. 

What are we supposed to do now? Vote again? 

War with Iran

Of course I voted for Biden, although as far as I could tell he had never been a leader or a progressive. Then on Thursday I read in our local paper that he was prepared to use force against Iran "as a last resort." 

My first reaction was to consider if there was a way to take back my vote. Why haven't we learned by now not to make unprovoked attacks on other nations? I did not vote to kill the men, women and children of Iran.  

Later it became clear that Biden's remark had been insufficiently primitive to placate the Israelis and Saudis. Biden was trying to avoid or postpone bloodshed "as a last resort." What he wants is a nuclear nonproliferation treaty with Iran. He doesn't want a war.

If the nations of West Asia decide to fight it out (as part of their social evolution), let's watch from a distance. When they are done killing, we can send in food and medical help.

The Bad Stuff

 

I read recently that 100 years ago, marijuana, heroin, and morphine were available over the counter at local drugstores. Maybe so. But beer was illegal. 

Some News from Florida's Fascist Governor

 DeSantis wants college students to disclose political views

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill this week asking college students in public universities to disclose their political views.

Students will take a survey every year, about their stance on political issues.

Starting in July, it will be time for a new controversial law to go into effect, designed to take the political temperature of every public college and university in Florida.

Signed by DeSantis this week, House Bill 233 requires students and faculty to fill out a survey to declare their political beliefs, and assess what the governor calls, "viewpoint diversity" on public college campuses.

"We Have the Ability to Stop This."

A deeply unhappy commentator on TV today said of the mass killings in America, "We have the ability to stop this." But we don't. That's the problem. We would stop the killing if we could.

Polling shows that Americans have lost faith in the media, the Extreme Court, the congress, the presidency, etc. On average American institutions get a 27% approval rating. 

The two institutions above 50% are small businesses and the military. 

What most ordinary people want (gun control) our current system cannot provide. Voters have lost faith in the system. Now change will come. But it might be for the worse. 

Highland Park, Illinois

The mass shooting today in Highland Park is about the 306th mass killing incident in America this year. That works out to about 50 a month.

The state politics of Illinois may be more crooked than average, but they aren't irrational. Left to their own devices, the people and leaders of Illinois would have enacted measures to reduce mass murder. But our Extreme Court won't allow that. 

These murders are on the Court. Over many decades the Court has blocked sensible local attempts to keep guns out of the hands of crackpots. We are now at a point where we can change the Extreme Court or resign ourselves to almost two mass murders a day, every day. 

Repacking the Extreme Court requires a leader who is dedicated and somewhat ruthless, an FDR or LBJ. The Democrats need a leader.  I hope they find one.

Texas

Texas is considering replacement of the word "slavery" in textbooks with the term "involuntary relocation." Have they considered what the term "involuntary" might do to the fragile self-esteem of white children? How can whitefellas grow up to be supremicists if they are subjected to this kind of indoctrination? I expect lawsuits and good news from our Extreme Court.

TheTerrible Disappointments of Donald Trump

The most unexpected revelation about the Jan 6 insurrection may be the discovery that the  ex-president genuinely wanted to take part in storming the capitol. When thwarted by his secret service driver, the then-president of the United States of America grabbed the man by the throat and tried to choke him.

Donald had planned to sit in Nancy Pelosi's chair and put his feet on her desk. He'd hoped to march through the senate waving a Confederate battle flag.  He'd wanted to be the warlock wearing a helmet with horns. And he'd planned to take a dump on the floor and smear the wall with feces.  But it was not to be. 

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Enslaved

On January 1, 1808, a law pushed through by Thomas Jefferson took effect, banning the importation of enslaved people. 

From 1808 to the start of the Civil War, the number of enslaved people rose from about 750,000 to 4,000,000.   Some smuggling took place, mainly via Florida and Texas, who, for a while, had not yet joined the nation they would degrade. But most of the additional enslaved people were (in a sense) manufactured through a forced birth program using enslaved women of color. 

In those days an enslaved human being was worth the equivalent of several tens of thousands of dollars. If a whitefella who owned women forced them to give birth, he could get rich.

Today's supreme Court majority, composed of four women haters and a hand-maiden, has handed Texas and Florida the right to return to the forced birth policies of slavery. 

This time around there I see no financial advantage for owners, except to increase the number of workers competing for each job. But the court decision does give states the right to clamp down on women, control them, push them down the social ladder. The oppressors of women must be elated. 

Women (and many sons, brothers, husbands and fathers) will rebel. Some major city leaders have already announced a refusal to enforce the new slave laws. The fight has just begun.  

 

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The Agenda

You can't have a meaningful superior caste (white, male and supreme) without the contrast of an inferior caste.  Of late that contrast became dimmed somewhat by increasing the rights of women, gays and people of color. The job of our rogue Supreme Court is to turn that around. They intend to push women, gays and people of color back down what they were allowed in 1880. 

The struggle against Fascism seems to be eternal. It lurks deep in the human mind, a basic part.  We won't eliminate Fascism. We should never stop fighting it.

The Militia

One of the problems that come with installing crackpots on the Supreme Court is that some may be poor readers.  Justice Thomas, for one, has probably attempted  to read the Second Amendment and failed. 

Thomas is an originalist, which means he tries (inadequately) to find the original meanings of the Bill of Rights. He now claims that the Second Amendment tells us that individuals have the right to carry concealed handguns into grocery stores for self-protection, although self-protection is not mentioned in the Amendment. It's not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. Thomas made up this fiction.

According to Thomas and Kavanaugh, the fellow who was arrested in front of Justice Kavanaugh's home had every right to stand on the sidewalk there armed with a concealed .44 (needing no permit). 

As always I'd like to help out Kavanaugh and Thomas, so I'll remind them that the original point of the Second Amendment was to make it easy for southern states to form well-regulated militias and put down slave revolts. That makes the ruling by Thomas and Kavanaugh right, of course, if the National Guard is made up of gents marching proudly with concealed handguns.

Originalism

When James Madison was cobbling together the Bill of Rights, he opposed including the Second Amendment. But Southern white leaders insisted on including it. They wanted to insure the right to form local militias (to put down slave revolts). 

There is nothing in the amendment about owning guns for self defense or owning guns to overthrow the government. The amendment is about militias.

Originalists on the Supreme Court ought to be deciding gun issues with one thing in mind. Does the issue help or hurt the quick formation of militias (like the national guard)? That was the original intent.

I served in the army and not a militia, but my brother served in the California national guard. We were issued rifles, of course, but for some reason we were not allowed to bear our rifles off the base and into restaurants, bars or movie theaters. Because that would have been insane. 

The root problem with originalism is that our Constitution was written by a collection of unbathed, long-dead, white male racists. The claim that American women and people of color are bound to the end of time by a document written by 50 stinking bigots is, in my opinion, unreasonable. 

The Language Game

 

THE LANGUAGE GAME  by Christiansen and Chater is an attempt to explain how our species became so talkative. Here is part of a review by Rebecca Chaffey:

. . .  language, according to Christiansen and Chaten, is not so much an invention as an improvisation, a “community-wide game of charades, where each new game builds on those that have gone before.” It is constantly re-contrived generation after generation. Children acquire words and phrases not by assimilating rules or by vocalizing according to patterns they were somehow born to express but by jumping into the game and extemporizing freely.

“We talk without knowing the rules of our language just as we play tennis without knowing the laws of physics, or sing without knowing music theory. In this very real sense, we speak, and do so skillfully and effectively, without knowing our language at all.”

The Worst Court Ever

Our current Supreme Court has six members on it committed to repealing or misreading any law that gives women or people of color the rights reserved for the white male caste. Our court was carefully assembled to block legal attempts to weaken racism or sexism. But is it our worst court ever?

I looked at the constitution, in which the Supreme Court is called "the supreme Court." The word "supreme" is not capitalized.  I don't know why, but I'm for it.

What our founders--slave owners--expected of the court, I do not know, except that it should defend slavery.  I can see how the court turned out. It's the most authoritarian branch of government, consisting of nine unelected attorneys with jobs for life. Throughout our history (with some exceptions) the court has found inventive reasons to help suppress women, Amerindians, black people, brown people and poor people. 

When liberals get bills passed and signed by presidents, the court's job is to gut those bills. 

I grew up under the Warren Court, an exception, as I have finally realized. Our current court is like our courts before and after the Civil War.  A bigoted Supreme Court is normal.

Exactly Who Attacked on January 6?

Urged on by the Republican Party, domestic terrorists attacked the House and Senate on January 6. Many were arrested and are beginning to stand trial. Social scientists started asking who these stupid bastards were. 

I was surprised by the outcomes of the studies that have been conducted.

1. Were the rioters white and male?  Yes. No surprise there.

2. Were many insurrectionists from rural areas? No. The rioters came from big cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. 

3. Did they belong to militias? Maybe 10% were militia members.

4. Were they poor? No. Many were professionals or business owners. Only 7% were unemployed.

5. Did they come from red states?  For the most part they came from blue states. 

6. Were they impetuous young men? Most were early middle-aged, in their late thirties or forties. 

7. What motivated these fools? The rioters turned out to be white males living in liberal cities where women and people of color had begun to win the rights and respect formerly available only to white men. In short, the mob was motivated by the Great Replacement Theory. 

There are those who believe that every advancement by women or people of color is subtracted from the white male position of superiority. In  a sense that is true. In order to create a superior caste, you first have to invent an inferior caste. (See our original Constitution.) If later on the inferior castes get elevated, well . . . . 

Yeats

The Attorney General has decided not to prosecute Mark Meadows for his rejection of a subpoena by the House to testify. 

Not a surprise. The Publicans are killers. Some Democrats have fight in them, but on the whole the party is listless.  As Yeats wrote:

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity. 

Long Beach

 As I started the sixth grade, my family sold their home in Compton and moved to the Victoria Apartments in Long Beach. It was closer to where my father worked as a machinist at the Union Oil refinery in Wilmington. Gasoline was rationed—in World War II—and he had to get to work. 

The apartment house sat on the beach. We all ran around in bathing suits. My mother acquired a local nickname. She was known as “the body.”  Her best friend there, Delma, a blonde young woman from Oklahoma, was known as "the face."

Three or four sex workers lived in the shabby apartment house. For them time passed slowly in the afternoons, so they asked my mother to teach them how to knit. As my brother and I (and Delma's son Raymond) ran through the lobby, we’d pass the women and our mother sitting on couches and knitting away, talking about whatever. 

LGBTQ

 

Below is a quote from Reuters:

KYIV (Reuters) - As volunteer fighters Oleksandr Zhuhan and Antonina Romanova pack for a return to active duty, they contemplate the unicorn insignia that gives their uniform a rare distinction - a symbol of their status as an LGBTQ couple who are Ukrainian soldiers.

Members of Ukraine's LGBTQ community who sign up for the war have taken to sewing the image of the mythical beast into their standard-issue epaulettes just below the national flag.

Corrupt

De Selby's wife, a mysterious old woman, said yesterday, "If you're not corrupt, it's your own fault."

Massacres

For several days now the cable news programs have been devoted entirely to one topic, the latest massacre of school children. But that's not news. Mass killings happen almost weekly. Massacres, like time zones, are now a standard part of American lives. They aren't news. 

This phenomenon is uniquely American. Frequent massacres are not allowed in other countries.

I want to see something done to stop the killing. I don't listen to people talking about it anymore. No point. I want action, not words. Confiscate the weapons of war. 

We will not get action as long as the Republican Party holds offices. The country needs a second party but not a party that does nothing to stop the killing. Never vote Republican.

I'm Talking Here

Suppose an alien from outer space asks me what it is like to take part in a human conversation. 

In a conversation, when I start a sentence, I usually don't know how the sentence will end. I'm improvising. That's how we do it. 

Much of the time this conversation is effortless. My sentence finds an ending. As I begin a sentence, I watch the people I'm talking to, checking if the gestures, expressions and language (often naturally metaphorical) are understood. 

A conversation is a collaboration, with everyone checking responses, making encouraging nods, interrupting, repeating key words and so on--while taking into account the context, the time and place and who the people are. We do this easily. 

I'm talking here.

  

  

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Language

When I volunteered at my library's literacy program, I found myself coaching English as a second language, I did not know how to do that, but my student and I made do. She had to learn English.

Most of the time we just talked. I would ask Noemi questions. She would answer in English. Because she had little English, that was a struggle. She would try a few words. My face would show I did not understand. She'd say something in Spanish, and maybe I got a clue, so I would repeat the Spanish word. She would be looking at me closely. She would gesture. I would smile, and she would attempt a four syllable English word, pronouncing each syllable incorrectly. It would finally dawn on me what she meant. We would go on. And we made progress.

Here's the point. A conversation between humans is a collaboration. It's nothing like two computers exchanging information. It's more like improv. And that is how the first human talk began in Africa a million years ago, like a game of charades, pointing, gesturing, face to face.  

Climate Migration

When I first began to read about climate change, almost the first thing I learned was that global warming would drive massive chunks of migration. That was about 30 years ago.

As deserts grow, people go where the food is. 

A fairly recent example is what happened in Syria. The crops failed several years in a row. The farmers moved to the city, where the food was, and demanded help. They got none. They ended up starting a civil war, which was crushed by the Russians, using artillery, bombers and poison gas. 

Climate migrations have begun. 

Legacy Americans

Legacy Americans

When I first heard the term "legacy Americans," I thought it was a reference to the last of the Mohicans. Jack de Selby jumped on my mistake, as he often does, telling me that legacy American is a name for blue-eyed American people of Northern European origin who alone have the right to govern. 

Legacy Americans, de Selby explained, consider themselves rightful heirs to the nation, indigenous hicks who deserve special privileges. Everyone else is an outsider. Legacy language should be the only language. Only legacy holidays should be celebrated. All politics should be identity politics. That is normal.

When immigrants appear, legacy Americans fear replacement. In the past in America when white males seemed about to be outvoted by minority groups, the solutions were simple. Legacy Americans turned to violence (the KKK) or they turned a minority group into honorary white males, which enlarged the legacy ranks.

The original genuine white males came from England, France and Northern Europe. They got to vote first. On the verge of being out-registered, American legacy voters turned white women into second class white males. White women got to vote. That was about a hundred years ago. 

As needed the Catholic Irish, Jews, Italians, Greeks, Turks, Arabs and so on became second class white males. Even so, legacy voters are about to be outnumbered again. 

De Selby predicts that soon Hispanics will become second-class whites. That's already happening. After Hispanics the next large group to make the grade will likely be Chinese-Americans or, maybe, people of mixed background like President Obama. (De Selby is guessing.) At the same time new minorities will be growing; some race will always be there to provide a feared opposition.

Gender Discrimination

According to Jack de Selby the Supreme Court has mistakenly tackled the abortion controversy from the end instead of the beginning. Don't ban abortions. Ban erections. Make erections punishable with ten years in prison. (Erections are not mentioned in the Constitution, so they are not protected, according to Justice Sammy Alito.)

THE PEACE PROJECT IS GONE

The original Healdsburg Peace Project began as a University of California student exercise. That happened a long time before Susan and I returned to California. The project then went dormant until it was reanimated by local progressives like Bob and Laura and Robert and Heidi around the time of the crackpot second war against Iraq.

For more than 20 years the project met at the town square in Healdsburg on Thursday evenings and held up signs calling for peace. And then we would usually adjourn to someone's house and enjoy a potluck dinner and an argument.

The Peace Project won an award or two. We joined many larger demonstrations. Over time important leaders died. People moved away. Some of us got old. The generation that had opposed wars of aggression in the 1960s was going. And now the Peace Project has shut its doors. The friendships remain, and we'll be seeing you, as the song goes, in all the old familiar places.

White Identity

In HOW CIVIL WARS START, Barbara F. Walter notes that dictators often seize power by being elected in a democracy. They do this as champions of identity politics. 

Often you can spot identity-based dictators because they refer to political opponents as insects. Putin recently characterized his Russian opponents as bugs that fly into your mouth and you spit them out. Calling your opponents bugs is common to ultranationalists on many continents.

In identity politics you base your political actions on what you consider best for your own religion, race, gender, social caste or whatever. In America if you are a white man and you demand what is best for white men, you are practicing identity politics as part of a faction so large it gets taken as the norm. For instance, Mitt Romney is opposed to cancelling student loans, because it would be of little benefit to his identity group of rich white males. 

It is hard to change the minds of voters practicing identity politics; their politics are baked into their identities.

Democracies depend on the ability of voters to change their minds. Democracies depend on voters accepting diversity and accepting losses at the polls. According to Walter, when the voters devolve into hardened factions that will not admit political defeat, that leads to violence and civil war. 

War

On TV today I watched a Ukrainian couple being interviewed. They were running west to get away from Putin's SS troops, but they told the interviewer that America had started the war. All Putin had ever wanted to do was negotiate, they explained. 

Determining who started an aggressive war could not be more simple. Who first sent troops across another nation's border? But you do have the option of conspiracy theories. Some theorists, for example, tell you that America started World War Two. Never mind that the war began years before the Japanese attacked us and that Germany declared war against us the next day. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Marjorie Taylor Greene is as stupid and ugly as you can get and as mean as a rattlesnake, and she has won high office. This is the land of opportunity!

Fascism Has a Bad Name

Fascism has a bad name, of course, but 1945 was a long time ago. Is Don Trump a Fascist? What is a Fascist? I looked it up.

1. A Fascist government is a dictatorship for life led by one sociopath. 

2.  The dictator is often an ultranationalist intent on ruling everyone who speaks his native language. Hitler began by absorbing Austria and conquering Czechoslovakia, which had many Germanic citizens. 

3. In a Fascist system elections are rigged. Political opposition is suppressed with violence. Secret police assassinate opposition leaders. 

4. Fascists believe that the liberal democracies (anocracies) are obsolete, timid and easily swept aside in wars. 

5. Extreme nationalism motivates Fascist regimes to commit genocides, massacres and forced deportations. 

6. Human rights are discarded in favor of violence against a scapegoat group that includes torture, mass murders, etc. This tends to make a dictator more popular within his own ethnic group.

7. Sexism and homophobia are rampant in Fascist systems. 

Don Trump, experts agree, does not quite qualify as a Fascist. He's too erratic, weak and stupid to meet this very low bar. Of course, there are other national leaders around the world who do qualify as Fascists, although they will not use the term themselves.