31 Wednesday Mar 2021
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20 Saturday Mar 2021
I don’t know if the groups and leaderships attending what the SPLC might refer to as “Neo-Confederate” and “Neo-Nazi” are authentically homegrown perennials or stylish annuals that keep seeding themselves from year to year, but it has occurred to me that world always moves on around its hotheads, especially the archaic and romantic who may wish to hold on to what they believe they once had. So from the awesome conversation with the world at my desktop, here’s a note on all of that.
I would think the Southern Far White Right in part the great-great grandchildren of settlers and the last of the pioneers, invariably white and looking for their place in the developing New World and who bore with them from one generation to the next the legends of the settling of the west. Farms, ranches, railroads, trading posts, towns, cities, dirt tracks, and highways. Where are they now? Ill-educated, some; overrun, for sure, and no longer the law and the outlaw with a few Mexicans around for decoration. They’re working for their hires; the children of slaves are bosses (some, I’m sure); John Wayne’s a foggy memory; Denzel’s more the memory for America’s middle aged; Bond’s partner is a black woman . . . .
The cities may be cool or mildly restive with all while the rural lanes, whether real or just winding through the heart, may be still what they were and now surrounded by an alien colorful all-inclusive all-tolerated multi-gendered multicultural powerful hypermodern New American political and lifestyle culture.
Bureaucracy, law, and technology may support American domestic security, but it sure can’t solve cultural issues involving birthrights and expectations about how the world should work. It’s understandable that we would have some disappointed-struggling sons of old white sons for whom official favor might seem (by themselves) deserved.
Who would stop history?
The processes attending conquest and the establishment of sovereignty across geopolitical space and time give way, inevitably, to periods of Administration either, Genghis style, for sustained plunder or, alas, for The Good, i.e., for renewed husbandry, shepherding, and stewardship of all that may be valued in peace. These days, bloody expansions needs must give way to community care, development, and trade, mere avarice proving insufficient for the defense of sustained new wealth.
My correspondent accused me of holding hackneyed views in relation to what I’ve labeled the “Far White Right”, a term invented for Donald John Trump’s not-so-colorful base. Members of the FWR, I was told, were also highly educated and wealthy and enamored of the American Dream, so I was told. My response –>
If “They both believe in and live the American dream”, wherefore the racial angst and want of (renewed) privilege?
Wherefore the want of racially-based political ascendance and dominance?
I’m inclined to publish my own words, but, as always would be interested in seeing what a true political topology looks like for those now deeply resenting the darker hues along with Jews.
I had also inserted a link to Far Out Lefty Noel Ignatiev’s book, How the Irish Became White.
Here’s the thing about race and white boys and black boys and girls and all the shades and stances between –>
As a species . . . .
Hitchhikers thumbs, cars, old shoes, planes, ships, and trains and legions of defenders, traders, and raiders — we sure do “get around” and have gotten around, and there’s nothing to undo it.
The mentalities of criminals and extremists seems always archaic, self-adoring, and self-aggrandizing as if humiliation and mortification somewhere near has compelled repair and some former perceived noble state of affairs may be found forward with an heroic defiance of the future.
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19 Friday Feb 2021
Political deja vu — The United States has been here before with its “arch conservatives” and cowardly isolationist and possibly related anti-Semitic and paranoid tendencies. For reference without much ado: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Committee | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Party_(1943) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_L._K._Smith | https://www.nytimes.com/1976/04/16/archives/gerald-lk-smith-dead-anticommunist-crusader.html |
Among the slashed and burnt of The Great Liar’s One-Term Presidency, John Bolton stands out for greater backbone, discretion, experience, and integrity.
I believe Bolton when he suggests he leveraged his experience in national security to participate in the Trump Administration in order to produce his — not Trump’s — brand of guidance. As Trump required greater sycophancy, Bolton would also leave the malignant narcissist’s den.
The Republican Party, once the Party of the visionary Abraham Lincoln, has in the 20th Century seen equally embarrassing and shamefully self-centered days. That has become something for critically reasoning and independent Americans to take into consideration as the West with its ideas about compassion, freedom, goodness, and real human productivity faces an anachronistic, feudal, and implacable enemy in Moscow and, in post-Cold War association with it, Beijing and Tehran as well.
Tehran, worn by its own conflict-promoting behaviors over time and by sanctions, has shown no signs of retreat in relation to its nuclear missile and warhead programs nor its will, repeated with dulling frequency, to see Israel and the west destroyed for its own marauding and politically absolute ends. Where has the Republican Party (with its increasingly familiar white supremacist attachments) really stood on the Moscow-Tehran relationship? Where has it stood with regard to the rise of the proto-fascist New Nationalism in the United States as well as within NATO (have a look into authoritarian and feudal urges in Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Turkey)?
Here is a junction in time in which the United States, once leader of the free world — the modern open democratic world, either stands firm against politically retrograde but technologically sophisticated states or slips backward itself into some system of immense power and wealth lording over a hapless constituency whose political voice becomes so much noise to those working the levers for their own enrichment according to class and degrees of ruthlessness.
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18 Thursday Feb 2021
I’m not inclined to leap far into conspiracy-think. However, wind turbine technology appears engineered and manufactured by transnational corporations and firms well aware of freezing weather, so this nonsense about renewable energy failing in Texas (why not on the North Sea? Why not in Germany?) just doesn’t hold ice water.
Super conservative angst, disinformation (received or sent), and viciousness get in the way of the public’s more cool-headed gathering and perception of variables contributing to disasters. That discomforting aspect of our collective national psyche notwithstanding, I would ask news (and weather) editors and readers to simply consider the full suite of possibilities in the unfolding of dramatic stories. In this one, finger pointing at wind-generated energy overlooked frozen instruments (!) in other energy systems. Well Whisky Tango & Foxtrot, where is Homeland Security on the Big Dallas Freeze? And may the investigative journalists be all over the possibility, just that (!), of external meddling involving massive critical — and technologically delicate or vulnerable — systems.
Of course, there are other possibilities, much including the architecture and engineering in a region better known for heat than cold and successive building generations in a political environment resistant “global warming” the potential for coming extremes in the known environment.
Still, has the drama been only about old engineering and new weather?
I may be tilting at windmills.
Maybe not.
While some wind turbines did freeze, failures in natural gas, coal and nuclear energy systems were responsible for nearly twice as many outages as renewables, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot), which operates the state’s power grid, said in a press conference on Tuesday.
Frozen instruments at gas, coal and even nuclear power stations were among the main problems, Ercot director Dan Woodfin said, according to Bloomberg.
Farrer, Martin and agencies. “US conservatives falsely blame renewables for Texas storm outages.” The Guardian, February 17, 2021.
Patel, Nilay. “Hard Lessons of the Solarwinds Hack.” The Verge, January 26, 2021.
Last March—if not before, as a report by the threat-intelligence firm ReversingLabs suggests—a hacking team, believed to be affiliated with Russian intelligence, planted malware in a routine software upgrade from a Texas-based I.T. company called SolarWinds, which provides network-management systems to more than three hundred thousand clients. An estimated eighteen thousand of them downloaded the malware-ridden updates, which were embedded in a SolarWinds product called Orion. Once they did, the hackers were able to roam about customers’ networks, undetected, for at least nine months.
Halpern, Sue. “After the Solarwinds Hack, We Have No Idea What Cyber Dangers We Face.” The New Yorker, January 25, 2021.
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17 Wednesday Feb 2021
Tags
American Exceptionalism, American foreign policy, American History and Worldview, American International Relations, American Optimism, FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, medieval v modern, Westrern Realpolitik
For the American President’s navigation: the rise of Hitler and fascism in Germany, Italy, and Spain; the development of an expansionist imperial Japan; polarization in the United States between the forces of self-serving fascist sentiment related to business and popular interest in the Far Left answers to abuses generated in Far Right circles.
Add the global Great Depression.
I have not yet reached the middle of this eye-opening and insightful history, but the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “working the issues” rings clear and sound for this day.
I have made much and will continue to make much of the tensions between politically medieval and modern worlds, and my own energies and hopes are with the modern world, its potential great breadth in personal freedoms, and its obligations as steward of the earth and humanity.
Whoever you may be and wherever you are in the world — and whether you enjoy or have to make yourself do this kind of reading (smile) — this volume will set the benchmark for understanding the United States and the western civilizational project in the appreciation and defense of humanity.
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15 Monday Feb 2021
Sinema is considered a moderate or conservative Democrat and a proponent of bipartisanship.[4][5] During the 116th Congress, she voted with President Donald Trump‘s position roughly 25% of the time, the third-most of any Democratic senator, behind Joe Manchin and Mark Kelly.[note 1][6]
Wikipedia. “Kyrsten Sinema”.
NO to the inclusion of a $15 minimum wage in the latest COVID relief plan; YES to the Navajo Nation’s COVID related ‘Major Disaster Declaration’ — Arizona’s one-year-old Senator has chosen for navigation between deeply polarized camps a middle mixture of open bisexuality, conservative thought, and freedom-loving liberal ends.
BallotPedia. “Kyrsten Sinema”.
Everett, Burgess. “The most influential Democrat you never hear from.” Politico, February 12, 2021.
GovTrack. “Sen. Kyrsten Sinema”.
Kyrsten Sinema, U.S. Senator for Arizona
“To force me to do these things and then participate in the ensuing coverup is more than any government has the right to demand,” he wrote. “Then, the same government has turned around and abandoned me. They offer no help, and actively block the pursuit of gaining outside help via their corrupt agents at the DEA [the VA’s Survivors’ and Dependents’ Educational Assistance]. Any blame rests with them.”
Dolsten, Josefin. “6 years on, parents of Jewish Army vet who took own life still fight for change.” The Times of Israel, August 5, 2019.
Sgt. Somers served two tours in Iraq and was diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries and PTSD upon returning home. He lost his life to suicide in 2013. After Sinema learned of Sgt. Somers’ story, she worked with his parents, Howard and Jean Somers, to introduce and successfully pass the Daniel Somers Access to Care Act, which ensures veterans who worked in classified jobs can receive behavioral health services in an appropriate care setting. Now, Sinema is working with the Somers to expand their network of support concept.
Sinema, Kyrsten. “Sinema Introduces Daniel Somers Network of Support Act.” Senator’s Senate Web Page, May 14, 2019.
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) will be Arizona’s first female senator. The lawmaker is not new to making history, especially when considering the very conservative state that launched her political career, but identity was not a dominant narrative of her historic campaign.
The former Mormon was the first person sent to Congress to claim no religion. After winning her congressional seat in 2012, she was sworn in on the Constitution, forgoing the Bible chosen by Christians — the dominant religion for members of Congress, especially those from Arizona.
Scott, Eugene. “Kyrsten Sinema broke a slew of barriers with her Senate win. So how was identity a nonissue in her race?” The Washington Post, November 20, 2018.
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11 Thursday Feb 2021
Accusation in a Mirror, Inverted, Projected;
Agenda-Driven Disingenuous Speech, Bent and Twisted (More Than Some);
Appeals to Emotion with Incitement Absent of Empiricism and Logic;
Defamation and Slander, Conspiracy Laden, Hazy, Vicious;
Disinformation;
Lies;
Innuendo.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation
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05 Friday Feb 2021
Tags
https://apnews.com/article/world-news-arrests-moscow-russia-e94fb42740961916ca7686ee475a59c1 “Moscow’s jails overwhelmed with detained Navalny protesters” – 2/5/2021.
https://apnews.com/article/alexei-navalny-russia-jail-52c598a1929341e955d131fddff0d735 “Navalny urges Russians from jail to overcome their fear” – 2/4/2021.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55938042 – “Russia Navalny trial a ‘low point’ in EU-Russia relations, says Borrell” – 2/5/2021.
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/05/964434008/russia-expels-diplomats-from-3-countries-saying-they-attended-pro-navalny-protes – 2/5/2021.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55954162 – “Russia expels European diplomats over Navalny protests” – 2/5/2021.
Event by Free Russia Foundation
Saturday, February 5, 2021 at 2 p.m. EST
Boris Nemtsov Plaza, Washington, D.C.
34–50°F Mostly Cloudy
Price: Free
Public · Anyone on or off Facebook
Join us for the third weekend of protest against the poisoning and jailing of a pro-democracy Russian politician Alexey Navalny by the Russian authorities!
We demand justice and freedom for Alexey Navalny and thousands arrested over two weeks of protests in Russia! We demand an international investigation of the poisoning of Alexey Navalny by Russian Security Service officers!
Putin’s navigating his oligarchic (and mafia) state back to the 19th Century must seem surreal to Russians aware of the modern democratic open societies of the west. Here in the United States, not only “everything goes”, too much goes 🙂 and the wildness in social chaos and exuberance may need some cultural shaping and trimming through natural normative adjustments in years to come, but that such processes take place with the most spacious freedom on earth may speak well to results in the future. Russia, on the other hand, seems to have embarked on official reversions to absurdities as a militarized white Christian (ROC) talking up its nationalist pride while being handled roughly by pernicious forces, wealthy and ruthless, destined, so far, to add to the woes of ordinary and less connected Russians.
Posted by Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation fives years ago –>
Related background –>
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