Georgia Goes To The Dark Side

"Sweet Georgia Brown," "Georgia On My Mind," "Midnight Train To Georgia," "Walkin' Back To Georgia," "Oh, Atlanta," "Lonely Night In Georgia"-- These are just a few of the many songs that have spoken of Georgia as a desirable place to be.

No more.

Back in the divided-city era I was on a night train passing through Berlin. I wondered if I would be able to see when we passed from West Berlin to East. Soon I got my answer. In the blink of an eye we passed from the western section into the eastern, and it was as if a curtain had been drawn across the view. We passed from a brightly lighted urban scene with lots of pedestrian and auto traffic to a dark land with barely any lights other than streetlights and virtually no traffic.

That's how I'm now thinking of Georgia. As a bleak benighted blotch on the southeastern coast of the United States. A place that has welcomed Jim Crow back to the South and whose government wants to put people of color "back in their place." It is a shameful, hurtful, Trumpesque, racist, tyrannical government occupying the state capitol. 

Should we be surprised? Governor Brian Kemp is a Trump sycophant of the first order, and he was badly shamed in 2020, first when Biden won the Georgia presidential vote, and secondly when two senatorial runoff contests elected Democrats, flipping power in the Senate.

It was interesting politics for a while, as a desperate lame-duck president tried every dirty trick in the book, including armed insurrection and bullying elected state officials. It was refreshing to see Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, demonstrate that some politicians do have spines, when he rebuffed Trump's order to "find" him nearly 12,000 votes so the state wouldn't fall to Biden.

But fall it did, just as surely as it fell to William Tecumseh Sherman in late 1864. Tyrants will always fall and Brian Kemp is no exception. Signing a shockingly restrictive electoral bill into law, Kemp made it a point to say how proud he was to have restored voting integrity to Georgia, meaning he has made it far more difficult for people of color to vote. Read his speech for a fine example of doublethink at work.

By now I'm sure you've all seen the video of state Representative Park Cannon, who is Black, being handcuffed and led away from the governor's office as she was trying to gain entrance. This in the midst of a crowd of other politicians and a lot of media representatives. Such blatant racism and barbaric behavior is a Trump legacy. Kemp is clearly following his master's wishes.

Republican-majority legislatures in 40 states are trying to pass restrictive electoral laws similar to Georgia's. That is why it's so critical that S.1, the For The People Act of 2021 be passed quickly. So once more I ask you to contact your senators, regardless of party, and urge them to work toward its passing. You should also contact Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, urging him to move quickly to disable the filibuster rule during debate on S.1 so it will have a clear path to passing. This single bill will quash the racist laws now gestating in several state legislatures. For the good of the nation, it must be passed.

Maintaining democracy is hard work. It is people like us who have to do that work by keeping our representatives in Congress focused. Please never lose sight of that.

We are the people. We are America.

--- Diogenes, 3/30/2021

Too Stupid To Live, III

I frequently wonder how we ever became the apex species on planet Earth.

Maybe we're not. In The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Douglas Adams posits that mice are actually the predominant species here and we are their lab rats.

But I digress.

This is my third use of the "Too Stupid To Live" title, and the fifth (I think) post about American stupidity. That in itself says something about the wealth of material to be found on the topic.

At the top of my stupid list today are anti-vaxxers, those who refuse any kind of vaccination for themselves and their children. They might truly be too stupid to live, because they're setting themselves up for infection, and some of the newer strains of COVID-19 that are appearing are more deadly than the original.

These people believe that vaccines are another part of the great world conspiracy that's out to get them. They believe that vaccines contain actual disease, or tracking chips, or a virus to turn them into aliens, or . . . you get the idea. They've either fallen into one or more bizarre conspiracy theories or have watched way too many episodes of The X-files.

I group anti-vaxxers with flat-earthers and others who neither believe nor respect science. I've never understood that attitude. Perhaps they don't or can't or won't try to understand science and therefore dislike and mistrust it. Well, I was lousy in sciences in school, but that hasn't hampered my respect of science generally or of the people who work in it.

Maybe they resent scientists because they feel somehow inferior to them. Whatever the reason, it is unreasonable not to take all necessary steps to protect one's family's health. To withhold potentially life-saving medication from a child is the starkest form of cruelty and should be criminalized as a type of abuse.

Even Donald Trump spoke in favor of vaccines, although he did next to nothing to have them developed and had no plan to distribute them. He even had himself vaccinated early on, albeit in secret.

I put anti-vaxxers at the top of the stupid list because their behavior is hazardous to children and could endanger public health. But it was a toss-up between first and second.

Second goes to those behind the latest attacks on Asian-Americans.

Since the first Chinese immigrants arrived in America they've had problems. They were feared and persecuted for their style of clothing, their language that few round-eyes could understand, their clannish society, and their food.

Beginning in the 1850s large numbers of young Chinese men were recruited for work on America's growing railway system, in mines, and in other industries. Unrest began to mount with the fear that foreigners were taking American jobs, and in 1882 Congress passed a law that DJTrump would have been proud to call his own: The Chinese Exclusion Act, which severely limited Chinese immigration and naturalization. The exclusion spread to other Asian ethnicities, and it was not until 1952 that Asians regained the right to immigrate and become citizens.

During WWII as many as 120,000 Japanese-Americans were detained in internment camps in the American West. They and many others lost homes and property, and were profoundly traumatized by this treatment by what they thought of as their government.

Now once again Asians are being targeted by ignoramuses who think they bear some kind of responsibility for spreading COVID-19. And once again the blame for igniting the violence falls to the former Ignoramus-in-Chief, Donald Trump, who stupidly continues to call COVID-19 the "Chinese virus."

Throughout history plagues and diseases have sprung from southwestern China due to some still unknown natural cause. Many, if not most, including COVID-19, are zoonotic diseases that spread from animals to humans.

Again because of Trump's lies, his followers believe the virus was made in China then spread by Chinese. The recent attacks, however, have irrationally and indiscriminately harmed Asians of all ethnicities, including many who were born here. These are cowardly crimes, often targeting elderly or other vulnerable people. The violence is not simply sinophobia; it is rooted in America's long history of racism and the xenophobia preached by Trump.

Unless and until COVID-19 is proven to have been manufactured, we can only understand it in terms of other pandemics. Call it a freak of nature or an act of God, but there is presently no evidence that humans had a hand in making it.

Finally we get to the plain dumb anti-maskers whose tribal customs include dancing around a fire made of face masks.

In the 1960s women burned a variety of things including bras that they felt were imposed on them by a male-dominated world. Denouncing "enforced femininity" they also discarded high heels, mascara, and other items that made them look the way men liked them to look. 

Those of us on the male side burned our draft cards in protest of being made to participate and maybe die in a war we believed to be unjust and illegal.

People who burn masks are just whining. All sorts of ridiculous reasons are given for not wearing masks, none of which stand up to rational evaluation. My favorite is that being made to wear a mask violates their  constitutional rights. 

Sorry, folks. The Constitution does not give you a right to disobey a valid order to wear a mask. If the president or a governor or even a mayor says you must wear a mask for public health reasons and backs it up with a fine, you better do it or face the costs.

We're still in a public health crisis and need to respect and protect one another. That means keeping your breath to yourself within a mask. 

Wise up, shake off idiocy and join the rest of us.

 

--- Diogenes, 3/23/2021

 

 

So here we are. Biden is settled in, Trump is out and under legal attack, most of his worst policies have been overturned, huge numbers of people are being vaccinated against COVID-19, and stimulus checks are in the mail. Time to kick back and enjoy victory, right?

No!

The freedom song "Because All Men Are Brothers" contains this affirmative lyric: "Until all tyrants perish our work shall not be done."

I keep that song in the front of my head to remind me not to relax. It's all too easy to look at our progress so far and think we're out of danger. Not so. Think about the 43 state legislatures that are working hard to pass racist bills that will severely hinder access to voting for people of color. Think about Congress, where people loyal to Trump still have influence. Think about Trump himself, who could still rally his cult if he wished. The struggle continues.

We have not rid ourselves of the tyrant Trump. He is still free, and because he enjoys the freedoms he longs to take away from everyone else, he can still speak his mind, spreading hate and spewing lies.

Our work is to support in any way we can those who are trying to get Trump out of the way in the long term and to prevent him from holding office ever again. We should be talking to our communities and to anyone who might listen about the importance of keeping our guard up. If we're lucky we might change some minds.

In the short term we have to be telling our senators to use every bit of their influence to get the For The People Act 2021 passed in the Senate. Without passage of that bill into law the next election will see so many minority voters denied access to the polls that we'll think we've traveled in time to the 1930s.

I recently received a sticker in the mail from Planned Parenthood with the message "We Won't Go Back." That should be the byword for everyone who doesn't want to see this country dragged backward, because that's where Congressional Republicans would take us if they could.

Make no mistake. The Republican Party has a reactionary racist heart deeply rooted in Jim Crow. It is a cruel accident of history that Lincoln's party had the same name used by contemporary Republicans. They blaspheme every time they mention him.

That said, and keeping in mind the caveats above, we are seeing light. President Biden hit the ground running, with an aggressive reform program. Many of Trump's more odious policies and programs have been countered or repealed, 107 million Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine thanks to an administration that can not only make plans but can implement them, the American Rescue Plan Act is starting to provide some much-needed relief, and the number of new COVID-19 cases is declining precipitously.

On another front, Trump is facing a slew of civil and criminal suits. The furthest advanced, alleging election interference, is in Fulton County, Georgia, where the district attorney has impaneled a grand jury to look at the case. I have to wonder if there's any competent lawyer in the country who will defend him. 

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” 

That maxim is as true now as it was when the abolitionist Wendell Phillips first spoke it 169 years ago. Democracy is a high-maintenance entity. It requires constant oversight lest evildoers attempt to cripple or hijack it as Donald Trump attempted several times.

We must be watchful and vigilant. The Framers gave us the Constitution to protect us against tyrants. We must be true to that legacy. We must speak and act boldly, fearing no one who would despoil our birthright.

                "Let every voice be thunder, let every heart beat strong.
                        Until all tyrants perish our work shall not be done."¹

 

--- Diogenes, 3/16/2021    

 

¹ Tom Glazer, "Because All Men Are Brothers," c. 1948.

 

The Great Enemy Of Democracy, Part 3

There's a war being fought over the right to vote. Both sides agree that voting is our foundational right. They differ on who should have it.

As of late February there were no fewer than 253 bills with the goal of restricting voting access on the calendars of 43 state legislatures.

There is one bill in front of Congress that would quash them all, and it has Trump worked up in a big way:

"Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress are racing to pass a flagrantly unconstitutional attack on the First Amendment and the integrity of our elections known as H.R. 1. . . . Their bill would drastically restrict political speech, . . . And turn the Federal Election Commission into a partisan political weapon. In addition, it virtually eliminates voter ID requirements nationwide, effectively ends all registration deadlines. . . . Requires states to give ballots to felons, automatically registers every welfare recipient to vote, and puts unaccountable unelected bureaucrats in charge of drawing congressional districts."¹

Nonsense! H.R. 1, or the For the People Act 2021, has these goals: "To expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and implement other anti-corruption measures for the purpose of fortifying our democracy, and for other purposes."²

H.R. 1 is a huge, sweeping bill that aims to undo years of unjust electoral legislation, restore the vote to perennially disenfranchised groups, expand voting access to all eligible Americans, reduce the influence of huge political donors while making it easier for small donors to have an impact, do away with the racist practice of gerrymandering, and strip away layers of racist barriers to voting that date back to the Jim Crow era.

Trump hates it. Republicans fear it.

Let's look at just a few things Trump doesn't like about it:

We'll get that "unconstitutional" nonsense out of the way first. H. R. 1 is above all about making voting as easy and efficient as possible, which is fully in accord with the history of the Constitution. Six of the 27 constitutional amendments expand access to voting.

Now to his specific complaints from CPAC. H.R. 1 will:

"Drastically restrict political speech." Subtitle C of the bill calls for greater accountability and transparency regarding political advertising and greater security against foreign involvement in elections. Subtitle D, cutely titled "Stand By Every Ad," requires full disclosure of all who pay for every ad. Openness and honesty and light in dark corners--of course Republicans don't like it.

"Make the Federal Election Commission a partisan weapon." For years the FEC has been stymied by having 6 members divided equally by party, so it became paralyzed and unable to act. H.R. 1 reduces the membership to five (2 Rep., 2 Dem) with an independent chairperson and gives the commission more enforcement authority over election irregularities. Commission members are term-limited to avoid staleness. Trump and his cronies have been happy with a toothless FEC that let them get by with all kinds of shenanigans. No more.

"Eliminate voter ID requirements nationwide, effectively end all registration deadlines." H.R. 1 promotes internet voter registration and requires automatic registration for everyone who provides their information to a state office (e.g. DMV, public assistance, or a state college). Registration becomes an opt-out, rather than an opt-in procedure. The bill further requires all states to offer same day registration to ensure no voter misses out due to any event or phenomenon that might have prevented their early registration.

"Require States to give ballots to felons." That would be felons who have completed any prison sentence. Trump is terrified of this section for one reason: About 55% of the approximately 5 million Americans who can't vote due to a felony history are Black and Latinx.

"Automatically register every welfare recipient to vote." Noted above regarding registration in state programs. Of course people in need should be able to vote. They're Americans.

"Puts unaccountable unelected bureaucrats in charge of drawing congressional districts." Trump talking about accountability? That's rich. Subtitle E will end partisan gerrymandering by establishing uniform rules for all states. Nonpartisan commissions with equal party representation and representation from significant minority communities will be responsible for redrawing districts equitably. Far from being unaccountable, these commissions will face the highest accountability: meetings will be open and voters will judge for themselves whether they have acted fairly.

H.R. 1 will provide voting access to uncounted Americans who have been disenfranchised by reason of race, poverty, disability, criminal history, or shamefully kept from the polls by their own states. Republicans want to count only "legal" votes--i.e. votes for Republicans.

This incredibly important piece of legislation affects us all directly. It has passed the House. The Senate version, called S. 1, is up next. Please contact your senators and urge them to pass it.

Trump tried to wreck democracy and disenfranchise all of us. 

He failed. Our turn.

 

--- Diogenes, 3/9/2021

 

¹ Donald Trump remarks at CPAC, 2/28/21. I have edited for brevity and typos only.

² Link to full text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/text    Link to annotated checklist: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/annotated-guide-people-act-2021#t1-top 

 

 

 

 

The Great Enemy Of Democracy, Part 2

Donald Trump is not a competitor. To be a competitor one accepts the rules of the contest, competes fairly, and is prepared to accept defeat. Trump does none of these. The greatest insult he can hurl at someone is "loser." 

In the Trumpverse there are only winners and losers, and he is the champion winner. Winning must be accomplished at any cost. Fairness isn't in Trump's lexicon. It's a word that losers use. True winners fight, cheat, gouge, and bite. Winning is all that matters. For a natural-born winner losing is impossible.

Consider a few statements from his CPAC appearance:*

"No president has ever lost an election after carrying Florida, Ohio, and Iowa. And I won them all. . . . I won 94% of the primary vote, no incumbent president who received more than 75% of the primary vote has ever lost an election.

"So how the hell is it possible that we lost? It’s not possible. I got more votes. I got more, which is me, when I say I, I’m talking about we. We, we got more votes than . . . any incumbent president in the history of our country."

Setting aside the question of veracity, Trump here turns to meaningless historical coincidence to explain away his loss, because in his mind losing is simply impossible. He can't accept that more people voted for someone else than for him.

He attacks the electoral process itself and lays into the Supreme Court; he even blames COVID-19: 

"They [Democrats] used COVID as a way of cheating. That’s what happened, and everybody knows it. Hundreds of thousands and millions of ballots, . . .

"I mean, it’s being studied, and the level of dishonesty is not to be believed. We have a very sick and corrupt electoral process that must be fixed immediately. This election was rigged, and the Supreme Court and other courts didn’t want to do anything about it.

"They didn’t have the courage, the Supreme Court. They didn’t have the courage to act, but instead, used process and lack of standing. I was told the President of the United States has no standing. It’s my election. It’s your election. We have no standing. . . . They didn’t have the guts or the courage to make the right decision."

Trump's inventiveness in slinging blame is astounding. Who else would blame a virus? But he must cast blame, because he can never lose.

He goes on to set out what must be done to ensure a "fair" election, i.e. one in which people who oppose him would face barriers to voting:

"We must have voter ID, voter ID. . . . We need universal signature matching. . . . There should be a 100% requirement to verify the citizenship of every person who votes, and there must be a chain of custody protections for every ballot, every ballot. 

"We need one election day, not 45, 30, one day like it’s been. . . . One day, one day, and the only people that should be allowed to vote by mail are people that can be proven to be either very sick, or out of the country, or military where they can’t do it. One day.

Trump's lack of understanding of the Constitution shows in these statements. Determinations on the method of voting are are the purview of the states.

Trump's ultimate goal is the remolding of the United States of America into his ideal state, which I've been calling Trumptopia. He sees himself as a potentate ruling over a state devoid of minorities, and closed to immigration:

"It’s insane within his first few hours Biden eliminated our national security travel bans on nations plagued by terrorism. His first priority was to open our borders to un-vetted travelers from Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and many other countries where strict vetting cannot occur.

"Biden’s radical immigration policies aren’t just illegal. They’re immoral. They’re heartless. And they are a betrayal of our nation’s core values. It’s a terrible thing that’s happening. 

"The Biden policy of releasing criminals into the US interior is making America into a sanctuary nation where criminals, illegal immigrants, including gang members and sex offenders are set free into American communities.

"The Biden people are pushing a bill that would grant mass amnesty for millions of illegal aliens while massively expanding chain migration."

Trump's rabid xenophobia paints all foreigners as criminals bent on raping, looting, and destroying America. They seem to be waiting by the millions just on the other side of international borders or in the arrival lounges of airports from where they will pounce on us.

Let's parse just one of the above paragraphs:
"Biden’s radical {?} immigration policies aren’t just illegal. They’re immoral. {How are the policies radical, illegal and immoral? What laws do they violate? What moral code do they insult?} They’re heartless. {Is he now expressing sympathy for the migrants?} And they are a betrayal of our nation’s core values. {Which values? America has always been a refuge for anyone seeking a better life--e.g. Trump's draft-dodging grandfather Friedrich, who immigrated in 1885}. It’s a terrible thing that’s happening." {Note the negative reinforcing language and innuendo.}

Watch and listen. It's painful, but all Americans should be listening to Trump's pronouncements, noting his lies and calling him out. He's no longer news, so the major networks won't be covering him so much. But his cult army is still out there and we need to pay attention to what they're hearing.

To be continued.

--- Diogenes, 3/6/2010

*These quotes are taken directly from the published transcript. I have edited them for length and cleaned up a few typos.

 

The Great Enemy Of Democracy, Part 1

I have a friend who wears a pin with the Union Jack design and the caption "Make America Great Britain Again." Donald Trump would be OK with that if he could emulate King John, who is universally considered the worst English king ever.

Of course it's not the United States of America he wants to reign over. It's his branded autocratic state, Trumptopia, a cloud cuckoo land where being great again means being white and dumb. 

In his appearance at CPAC February 28 Trump rehashed his Big Lie with embellishments, and lashed out fiercely against the Biden administration. In full tyrant mode he predictably blamed the Democrats for all the misdeeds he perpetrated while in office and took credit for their achievements. 

The whining was whinier, the self aggrandizement bigger, the boasts more boastful, the threats against democracy more vile--a clear sign of his desperate need for attention. Only Fox News televised the event, unfiltered and with no fact checking.

Brainwashing is Trump's primary weapon. He wields it like a sledgehammer, but he understands the basic theory, which is really pretty simple.

First you identify the core subjects. Not hard. Trump aimed directly at lower-class, lower-income white Americans who are inherently bigoted through generations of racism. He played on their fear of losing jobs to foreigners, on their anger at the rise of minorities, and on their perception that everybody is against them. And he commiserated with their indignation at having to accept a Black president.

He rolled out the most absurd conspiracy theories, but because it was he, an important white man in the news and on social media, they listened and believed. They were hooked.

Reeling them in: 

You start with the Big Lie, bringing it out early and repeating it as often as possible. Tell your followers the same thing continually and with conviction, and they will come to believe it and repeat it. 

You tell it even when it makes no sense to tell it. Why talk about mail-in voting months before the election? To get it into your subjects' heads. You say forcefully that the upcoming election will be corrupt. How do you know this? Are you a prophet? Doesn't matter. Get it into their heads. You start talking about how there's rampant corruption in the electoral process, especially in areas with high Latino and Black populations. Get it into their heads.

You use negatively reinforcing language: The corruption is terrible, the situation is disgusting, the voting fraud is massive, the opposition's policies are crazy, insane, and the media and anyone else who disagrees is fake--always, always fake.

You plant seeds of insecurity: "Everybody knows this, everybody agrees I'm right." If they don't know what the subject is, they'll scramble to learn. You ask open-ended and leading questions: "What's that all about?" Having opened the door, you tell them what it's all about. Finally you throw a crumb to their knowledge: "You know what went on there, don't you?" Well, yes, they do know, because they've been told by the Leader.

That takes care of the plebes. But you also have to have support from higher-ups, so you go to work on Republican politicians.

Trump is a master at exploiting weaknesses and vulnerabilities. He went straight to every politician's greatest fear: losing elections. With lost elections come reductions in power, visibility, access, influence, respect, and self confidence. 

Trump promised Republican politicians freedom from those fears if only they would fall into line behind him. And he was careful to point out how many conservative Americans he could control. 

He played the upper crust just as he had the commoners, but additionally, by lesson and by example, taught them Doublethink: the ability to hold two conflicting ideas in one's mind simultaneously.¹ Thus they could echo the Leader's practice of saying one thing while meaning the direct opposite--and over time they would come to believe what he and they said.

Having constructed his cult, Donald Trump, the Great Pretender and Liar-in-Chief, launched his campaign to become an autocrat.

To be continued.

 

--- Diogenes, 3/4/2021

 

¹ See my January 13, 2021, post: "2020(21) = 1984"