“Above all — Try something!” (FDR)
I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.
– Michael Jordan
Decades ago, arms dealers and gun manufacturers hi-jacked the NRA, making it the official political arm of a domestic terror organization, the #AmericanTaliban, operating openly within the USA.
Prior to that, factions of the #AmericanTaliban such as KKK, “Hydra”, #GOPspectre and the Talibangelicals infiltrated the highest levels of the US government.
The KKK was a festering cancer of sore remnant losers from the 1800s who were allowed to keep openly glorifying the only time in history when domestic enemies (calling themselves the Confederate, waged war against the Constitution of the United States of America. These losers poisoned the minds of their children, and their children’s children for generations.
It’s not “just” racial hatred…
Survival (attempts) of the (un-)fittest
This mix of demented hate groups (The #AmericanTaliban) bred psychopaths which intensified their hatred towards fellow citizens, for generations after generations.
From their infiltrated positions within the purported “justice” system, they subverted court decisions concerning the death penalty, gender discrimination, police brutality, and all kinds of civil rights abuses.
Their motivation, more than anything, were driven by parasitical ambitions. Their nature, specie and method has always been extreme hypocrisy. Their distorted world view: projection.
Two common denominators between all factions of the #AmericanTaliban (and their global counterparts) are a narcissistic glorification of systemic inbreeding, and the rampant psychopathology which eventually stems from that.
There have always been people who think the world as we know it is about to end. Some have actively sought to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Arthur Robinson appears to be the source of Robert Mercer’s sanguine view of nuclear radiation: in 1986, Robinson co-authored a book suggesting that the vast majority of Americans would survive “an all-out atomic attack on the United States.” The Mercers believe that for people outside of the blast zones, the radiation will actually make them healthier. — The New Yorker
Peter Thiel , the billionaire who co-founded PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook, is in one sense a caricature of outsized villainy: he was the only major Silicon Valley figure to put his weight behind the Trump presidential campaign; he is known for his public musings about the incompatibility of freedom and democracy, and for expressing interest in a therapy involving transfusions of blood from young people as a potential means of reversing the aging process.
In 2011, Thiel applied for citizenship to New Zealand in the eventuality that if some kind of apocalyptic scenario occurred, Thiel would get on his private jet and fly to a property there — roughly the size of lower Manhattan — and sit out the collapse of civilisation before re-emerging.
In the two days following the 2016 US Presidential election the number of American oligarchs who enquired about the process of gaining New Zealand citizenship increased by a factor of 14 compared to the same days in the previous month. New Zealand, the furthest place from anywhere, is a kind of new Ararat: a place of shelter from the coming flood. — The Guardian
Fears concerning an apocalypse have been felt occasionally even by, normally, sensible individuals. However, at the turn of the 20th century, when also the end of the millennium was nearing, considerable psychological unrest and apocalyptic expectation grew. Not all but many frightened citizens stocked up on bottled water and extra guns in the late 1990s.
Especially the #AmericanTaliban went into a tailspin. Under their traditionally transparent cloak of hypocrisy they made a frenzied and blatant power-grab for the Presidency of the United States of America.
The Constitution permits Congress to remove presidents before their term is up if enough lawmakers vote to say that they committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The process is called impeachment.
A Senator explained in 1998 how #GOPspectre’s power-hunger had reached such a psychotic level that republican officials didn’t care that they could be observed openly and brazenly undermining America in the process:
Impeachment was designed to protect the country and its integrity
against Political crimes. Impeachment is not a tool of punishment to be
used against a President because his opponents personally dislike or
even hate him. I don’t believe it is in the best interest of the
nation that we endure a trial in the Senate over these issues for the
next six to 12 months. Impeachment, in this case, does not serve to protect the nation. In fact, setting a precedent of standard so low for impeachment would serve to undermine the very rule of law that we are trying to uphold.
I underestimated the right wing’s ability to ignore reality. There are Republicans voting for impeachment who I thought would not. And there probably were a couple of dozen Republicans who thought maybe they’d get lucky and the world would end on Wednesday.
It didn’t take long before individual #GOPspectre members were caught almost literally with their pants down. One of the hypocrites, Bob Livingston, admitted like a true psychopath: “I just can’t believe that somebody would do that to me”.
Dan Burton, Helen Chenoweth and Henry Hyde, were among the Republican officials, who had to admit infidelities after having been exposed by a prominent magazine owner:
I just wanted to expose hypocrisy. If these guys are going after the President, they shouldn’t have any skeletons in their closet. This is only the beginning.
— Larry Flynt
GOPspectres’s hate-driven politics had been festering in America for a long time by 1998. The manipulation, prejudice, voter suppression, fear-mongering and brazen propaganda, were old news at least to investigative reporters and watch-dogs. Voter suppression — also known as caging — is any action or behavior intended to deter an individual or group from voting.
For some reason, the US System had always failed to protect its people properly. For all its ivy league schools, laureates, professors, agents, and veteran politicians, “We the People” kept falling prey to psychopaths.
Veterans remained shamefully treated. Whole cities and states were gentrified. Modern day slavery persisted; enabled and protected by the courts. Elections were increasingly rigged, with impunity. In more recent times #GOPspectre’s rancid tactics had the fingerprints of the likes of Karl Rove and Lee Atwater, James Bopp and the brothers Charles Koch and David Koch all over them. The coup attempt through Presidential impeachment proceedings in the last years of the millennium didn’t go unnoticed for the world, and especially for America’s foreign enemies.
The frivolous and reckless disloyalty of the #GOPspectre, #AmericanTaliban and the American oligarchs, caught the attention of Russian President for Life, Vladimir Putin.
The failure of US leaders and academics between years 1776 to 2000 to secure democracy in terms of majority rule, was exposed during Election 2000 due to flaws in the US electoral system that Americans had not paid attention to.
#GOPspectre’s global display of disloyalty to America in 1998, followed by the equally kleptocratic exhibition in Florida during the 2000 presidential election, made Putin smile wryly and suggest to reporters that maybe America needed help with its elections.
The five members of the majority were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
Among the four dissenters, two justices, Stephen G. Breyer and David H. Souter, agreed with the majority that the varying standards in different Florida counties for counting the punch-card ballots presented problems of both due process and equal protection. But unlike the majority, these justices said the answer should be not to shut the recount down, but to extend it until the Dec. 18 date for the meeting of the Electoral College.
Justice John Paul Stevens said the court’s action ‘’can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land.’’
His dissenting opinion, also signed by Justices Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, added: ‘’It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today’s decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.’’
‘’We do risk a self-inflicted wound. A wound that may harm not just the court, but the nation.’’ — Justice Breyer
9 people, several of them handpicked by the Republicans, substituted their opinions with the clear will of the people; and they did it behind closed doors, then literally snuck out the back.
This whole #AmericanTaliban circus was all Vladimir Putin needed.
Some asked — Could it happen again?
Putin knew it would.
Systemic failure
https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Government-Republican-Destroyed-Legislative/dp/0670018201
The System had failed the people monumentally — again. This inauspicious start of the new millennium and century would continue over the next 18 years.
Soon after the republican George W. Bush lost the election but wrestled the office from the rightful President, Al Gore, the USA was attacked in 2001, resulting in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people.
In 2003, General Colin Powell falsely claimed grounds for creating 1–2 million widows, 5 million orphans, about one million dead, 4,424 dead troops and 31,952 wounded in action (WIA); plus laying the groundwork for the organization that would become ISIS.
Powell never owned up to his lies, claiming that no one could have known, despite millions demonstrating on the streets around the globe, officials resigning in protest, including high-ranking British officials, and CIA voicing dissent. As revenge for the latter, the Bush-Cheney regime (with Karl Rove) leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer, putting more American lives in harms way. Once again an action with Karl Rove’s treacherous fingerprints all over it. To put it mildly, #GOPspectre’s globally televised spectacles dishonored the many Americans who have died in operations that remain, even to this day, unacknowledged. Cheney, Karl Rove and #GOPspectre acted to demoralize those patriots who serve and will serve, while emboldening the enemies of the USA.
The truth behind the willful ignorance of Powell, Blair, Bush, Cheney and other war-mongers, is that there were incredible amounts of blood money to make for sociopaths. Some 10 arms dealers profited tremendously since G W Bush almost literally took office. Government Sachs and the G W Bush administration pulled of staggering heist after heist, authorizing itself through the Department of the Treasury to pump $1.5 trillion into Goldman Sachs and other failing banks and financial institutions. The culprits were never fired or prosecuted but walked away billions richer. Another $1 trillion went into “war funding”. Most of the money of course going to private contractors. When taxpayer money is spent, those billions naturally end up in various private bank accounts. With Pentagon paying $640 per toilet Seat (money laundering) and bankers pocketing $1 billion, honest Americans ended up footing the bill, and the country entered the Great Recession in 2008, the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression.
In addition, the NRA openly buys politicians and have them work full-time to keep Americans in harms way by making the USA a national shooting gallery. The US death toll from gun violence, between 1968 and 2011, eclipses all wars ever fought by the country — combined. The #GOPspectre also cashes in $9 billion on those lost lives and the misery of grieving relatives and society.
Failed by the system, the people “failed” their nation
In essence, the domestic terrorism of the #AmericanTaliban and oligarchs took its natural toll on eligible American voters.
Between homelessness, starvation, job search, being executed on the streets with impunity by the police; watching war profiteers and plutocrats rob the country on trillions of dollars, again with impunity; dodging bullets from nazi and KKK terrorists on shooting sprees; making the effort to vote just to see the candidate who lost the election “win” the presidency — not only once but in two election cycles; and ultimately being let down by the democrats who failed to right these wrongs when in power, people had a hard time voting in 2016.
Jon Stewart really tried..
During all these years, from 1999–2015, Jon Stewart fought daily battles to keep the American people vigilant about the erosion of everything good that the USA stood for and had achieved through great struggles and pains. As host of the Daily Show he was that preacher (Reverend Scott) in the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure, who relentlessly attempts to lead passengers to safety. And as in the movie, most didn’t heed his warnings.
American fascism
There are alarming similarities between Trump and Hitler. We are now facing threats to the survival of the human species.
Earlier generations had problems explaining how Hitler was possible. How will future generations, if we survive, explain how a Russian asset with dementia could run around the White House doing what he wanted with a so-called Superpower for 2 years.
How was this allowed to happen?
Well it was, and it did.
Powerful democrats didn’t do enough about the electoral flaw in the voting system, or about the festering cells that were breeding enemies of the state for decades. Furthermore, an immense amount of money funded the coup and is spent in an all-or-nothing effort to keep Trump in power. Willful ignorance from a baffling number of people, like Susan Sarandon and Mimi Kennedy, played their part. Maybe they belong to the 12 million Americans who believe lizard people run the USA, a theory popularized by David Icke (a Jim Jones type who also is as demented as the senile Donald Trump). #GOPspectre and Putin moreover found ways to “frie the brains” of some 30% of voters and turn them into a mindless #deathcult, like in the TV-show Braindead (2016).
In addition, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Michael Flynn et al, ran interference on behalf of Putin (and their self-interests).
Most people went through the 5 stages of grief.
A relatively small number of people recognized immediately that the #AmericanTaliban was attempting a coup which would make the Election 2012 the last free elections in the USA — ever. That’s how the hashtags #resistance and #theresistance were born.
Many people are still stuck between denial, and bargaining:
But millions wanted to “do something!”, take streets if necessary and sought leadership, which proved to be found everywhere and nowhere. 1–2 Republican electors served as the checks and balances that they were supposed to be, and refused to place their votes for Trump. One such name Christopher Suprun, who made his declaration known through the New York Times:
Fifteen years ago, I swore an oath to defend my country and Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. On Dec. 19, I will do it again.
People were given hope by heroic acts of other patriots such as Sally Yates, Kerry O’Grady, James Comey, who also stood up for their oaths to protect the Constitution from enemies — foreign and domestic.
However a clear galvanizing and unifying voice has been missing. Most would-be leaders joined the chorus of people who screamed “at the TV” through Twitter, joining feeble echo-chambers, who day after day are easily distracted by #fake45’s bright and shiny “counter-measures” (objects).
Jon Stewart has the charisma, skills, experience to be the galvanizing force that America needs. But it seems that the air went out of him after he had to shout ‘the end is near’ ‘our beds are burning’ for nearly 20 years without people waking up, until it was too little, to late. He seems to have resigned to the “Slowdancing in a burning room” vibe.
So is that it? #GOPspectre keeps attacking democracy, people march, others keep dying, DNC officials write very “sternly worded tweets” and everyone crosses their fingers and hope for Mueller to finish his investigation?
America and the world needs real leadership, someone coordinating, galvanizing novel and radical ideas and an acting commander-in-chief.
Is there really no one out of Americas 300+ million citizens, and the world’s billion+ brains out there who can step up to the task?
No one, anybody?
Franklin D. Roosevelt:
The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever.
We need enthusiasm, imagination and the ability to face facts, even unpleasant ones, bravely. We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our system from which we now suffer.
We need the courage of the young. Yours is not the task of making your way in the world, but the task of remaking the world which you will find before you.
May every one of us be granted the courage, the faith and the vision to give the best that is in us to that remaking!
