Category Archives: Authoritarianism

Congratulations Corporations, The Next President Will Be Your Business Partner (Updated)

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It hasn’t sunk in yet but yesterday’s vote to allow Republican election-rigging and keep the filibuster marks the end of democracy. From here on out the fight is over. Republican efforts to rig the next elections will now accelerate. They know they have a free hand to do what they want. The public will tune out, understanding that nothing can change.

Billionaires and corporations funded and engineered the effort to keep the filibuster. Their thinking is that they’re at the top of a system rigged in their favor, and the filibuster keeps anything from changing. The filibuster has maintained their position at the top of the pyramid, blocking all efforts by the people to use government to change the rigged system. All Republicans were part of this pay-for-play operation, of course, but so were many Senate Democrats under Obama, and now Manchin and Sinema.

The corporations and billionaires think the current system of paying politicians to keep the money flowing to them has been locked in.
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Fight Fascism

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I just got back from the UK where my Chinese step-mother-in-law and step-grandmother-in-law told me about living through the Cultural Revolution. Somehow personal stories make it more real. Some of us remember what happened in Chile. Some of us remember the treatment of the “Freedom Riders.”

Fascists types (I count the Cultural Revolution/Stalinist types there, too) will just line people up and shoot them, throw them from helicopters, take people’s houses and businesses, and laugh at the sub-humans they do it to while they do it. It’s a personality type not an ideology. If ‘fascism’ is the wrong word I’ll use another.

When collapse happens, they come out and play.

Nothing is more important than stopping the forces of fascism from getting control once they are unleashed – as they are now. Even if it means getting “in the foxhole” with the Lincoln Project, or Liz Cheney or whatever it takes. We still have the institutions that currently keep that crowd from living their dream. Collapse is collapse and that crowd is just itching to start the mayhem.

It is imperative that we fight that.

Sheriff Fascism Follows Republican Laws

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“I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,” Trump said.

“We’re going to find out who is willing to die for freedom.” – Mark Lamb, Sheriff, Pinal County, Arizona

Today’s example of America’s new breed of fascist law enforcement: Resist democracy, choose which laws to enforce.

Politico, He Calls Himself the ‘American Sheriff.’ Whose Law Is He Following?, (Emphasis added, for emphasis)

Since taking office in 2017, Lamb has become the face of a new online streaming service called the American Sheriff Network and of a nonprofit coalition of sheriffs called Protect America Now; he also founded a charity, the American Sheriff Foundation. Lamb is a frequent talking head on Fox News and Newsmax, where he derides President Joe Biden’s and Vice President Kamala Harris’ handling of immigration, and he has spoken at political events like a Turning Point Action summit a few months ago in Phoenix …

As much as he glorifies law enforcement, though, Lamb is selective about which laws he chooses to enforce. He takes a hardline approach on immigration, for example, but when it comes to the government telling people to get vaccinated — or declaring the 2020 election legitimate — he fashions himself as more of a vigilante resister, with a heavy dose of anti-government, sometimes militant rhetoric.

Lamb supported the “stop the steal” campaign in Arizona and has expressed sympathy for the Jan. 6 rioters. He has called vaccine mandates “garbage” and spoke at a recent anti-vaccine rally in Phoenix, where he told supporters, “We’re going to find out what kind of patriots you are. We’re going to find out who is willing to die for freedom.”

* “Protect America Now, which was founded by a Republican strategist and two businesspeople”

American Democracy in the Rear-View Mirror?

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“We saw it in the 1930s in Italy, Germany, Spain and Japan; today it’s happened in Hungary, Turkey, Egypt, Russia, The Philippines and Brazil, and is well underway in Poland, India and multiple smaller countries.”

Thom Hartman, writing at Raw Story in The new ‘businessman’s conspiracy’ authoritarian plot is closer than you think,

History shows that most democratic nations don’t realize how serious their fascism problem is until it overtakes them altogether. We saw it in the 1930s in Italy, Germany, Spain and Japan; today it’s happened in Hungary, Turkey, Egypt, Russia, The Philippines and Brazil, and is well underway in Poland, India and multiple smaller countries.

… Fascism isn’t just about the merger of oligarch and state interests; it also requires a repudiation of the rule of law and the institutions of democracy itself.

… We’ve seen this movie before, and, tragically, history tells us most countries only recognize their fascism problem in the rear-view mirror after it’s consumed their democracy.

It is happening here,
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