Posts by msbellows@c.im
(DIR) Post #AdfIRq2e7AWsTCrMuW by msbellows@c.im
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@NMBA @VeroBalderasI Agreed. "Democracy is a better idea than fascism, but the liberal international order does not exist because it is a better idea. It exists because the democratic powers built bigger and better guns, killed millions of fascists, overthrew fascist governments, tried and hanged fascist leaders, and liberated or coercively democratized former fascist countries.... The liberal international order rests on a founding act of violence, of which the Normandy campaign was a crucial part. It was justified, of course, because it was also an act of self-defense against the fascists’ attempts to found their preferred world order on the rest of us."https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/why-visit-normandy-reflections-on-a-birthplace-of-the-liberal-international-order/
(DIR) Post #AjX52rJTfW7OUGYsxk by msbellows@c.im
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Know what would destroy the Roberts Court faster than anything? A Judges' Revolt. If I were a federal judge, I'd decline to honor any of the controversial Roberts Court decisions. I'd openly say, "that decision is not good law because the Court as currently constituted is corrupt and illegitimate, and to follow its decrees would be to violate my oath to the Constitution."Impeach me. Do it. See if you can get the Senate votes. Otherwise, I'm appointed for life. Now imagine if dozens of federal judges, trial and appellate, did the same thing. Yes, I am a lawyer. Yes, I am serious.
(DIR) Post #AjX52xpxPffEijnuQC by msbellows@c.im
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@uoou In the U.S., we're allowed roughly 3.5 years out of every four to fight like hell for progressive change, including working hard to promote progressive candidates. But once we know who the Democratic nominee will be in a presidential election year, that pauses, and our job is to support and elect that Democrat. Period. Because the alternative is fascism. No one's angry at progressives for pushing hard-left 7/8 of the time. It's when they KEEP pushing AGAINST THE ONLY PARTY + NOMINEE WHO CAN PREVENT FASCISM, DURING AN ELECTION CAMPAIGN, that we get just a wee bit testy.
(DIR) Post #AmiCiNxHrc5vy6cwm8 by msbellows@c.im
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I seldom use the term "must-read," but this article (^@wdlindsy ) is a must-read, esp. for anyone who understandably but mistakenly believes Biden has been an economic neoliberal. He's not. Biden's been aggressively UNDOING economic neoliberalism (and Harris seems to be on board)."Biden and Harris... put a stake through neoliberalism": https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/07/26/biden-and-harris-broke-the-suffocating-washington-consensus-on-economics/Some highlights: (short 🧵):
(DIR) Post #AmiCiOOwCoDFLrZ1sG by msbellows@c.im
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For anyone worried that Harris won't do the right thing about Gaza, here are a few reasons for optimism:https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/07/21/joe-biden-drops-out-election/kamala-harris-israel-policy-00170077https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/politics/harris-netanyahu-israel-hamas-ceasefire/index.htmlhttps://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/25/harris-israel-gaza-war-palestinians-netanyahu.htmlhttps://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/14/kamala-harris-gaza-palestinians-00131633https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/kamala-harris-gaza-speech-watered-down-cease-fire-rcna141750
(DIR) Post #AqIMLFbOt1Ve2G6JAu by msbellows@c.im
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It's okay to protect yourself. Survival itself is an act of resistance.Every trans person alive four years from today will be a victory for us and a failure for them.Every queer person alive four years from today will be a victory. Every Black person alive four years from today will be a victory. Every immigrant alive four years from today will be a victory. Every liberal person and spiritual person and freethinking person and socialist person and differently-abled person and *kind* person alive four years from today will be a victory. It's okay to take care of yourself. Survival itself is an act of #resistance.
(DIR) Post #AqIMLGoCOvLDmF62lM by msbellows@c.im
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Hey, you know those folks who periodically pop up claiming both parties are equally bad and even if voting third party helps Trump win it would just hasten the necessary collapse of neoliberalism?I have a new answer for them. It's a quote from William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," which I'm currently reading:"The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 per cent of the vote. But the 63 per cent of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out. The Communists, at the behest of Moscow, were committed to the last to the silly idea of first destroying the Social Democrats, the Socialist trade unions and what middle-class democratic forces there were, on the dubious theory that although this would lead to a Nazi regime it would be only temporary and would bring inevitably the collapse of capitalism, after which the Communists would take over and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Fascism, in the Bolshevik Marxist view, represented the last stage of a dying capitalism; after that, the Communist deluge!”That didn't work then, and it won't work now. Politics in a democracy IS compromise, and the lesser of two evils is less evil.
(DIR) Post #AqIMLHWVkAmpzfpQpc by msbellows@c.im
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Napoleon returned to power after being imprisoned on Elba.Hitler returned after being imprisoned for the Beer Hall Putsch.Trump has returned after being voted out and then convicted of 34 felonies. Who will be America's Wellington? Our Eisenhower?
(DIR) Post #Ar3II0L8FeSKvVsbHk by msbellows@c.im
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What's the better "Brangelina"-style nickname for the U.S.'s new power couple?
(DIR) Post #ArgOKSJFPQFD8qzH6m by msbellows@c.im
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I'm trying to imagine how difficult it will be for a future, sane US government to locate and remove all the Russian backdoors, keystroke loggers, etc. that will have been planted in federal computer systems before this is done. It boggles the mind.
(DIR) Post #ArgOKUQPXlA9heM1YG by msbellows@c.im
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"Democracy is a better idea than fascism, but the liberal international order does not exist because it is a better idea. It exists because the democratic powers built bigger and better guns, killed millions of fascists, overthrew fascist governments, tried and hanged fascist leaders, and liberated or coercively democratized former fascist countries.... The liberal international order rests on a founding act of violence, of which the Normandy campaign was a crucial part. It was justified, of course, because it was also an act of self-defense against the fascists’ attempts to found their preferred world order on the rest of us."https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/why-visit-normandy-reflections-on-a-birthplace-of-the-liberal-international-order/
(DIR) Post #Ax8fodNs1EoRGiDtKq by msbellows@c.im
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security today released a new ICE recruiting poster, under the stilted and sexist tagline, "Which way, American man?"Why did they use that weird language? Because it's a dog whistle, something ordinary humans won't notice but that those attuned to it will respond to. And it's literally a Nazi dog whistle. William Gayley Simpson was a Presbyterian pastor who decided Christianity wasn't workable and consciously decided to become a racist instead. In 1978 he published a book, "Which Way, Western Man?" – a manifesto calling on white men to defeat all other races. Some nuggets include:"Let me preface what I am about to say by declaring frankly that I am prepared to accept violence on the part of our people. The Jews’ hold on our throat is not going to be relaxed until we break their grip. Hitler felt that he had to take to the streets. All normal approach to his people was barred. Today, we are confronted with much the same situation here.""The point is to reveal organized Jewry as a world power entrenched in every country of the White man’s world...."You might think that 1978 is too long ago for anyone to remember, but this book was republished in 2003 by a neo-Nazi group called the National Alliance, and is a bestseller among neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.In other words, the federal government is recruiting Nazis and other racists to join ICE, which is being deployed in cities across the country and arresting both citizens and non-citizens alike. Folks, this literally is fascism. You think I enjoy posting this stuff here all the time? I don't. But this literally is fascism. They're literally following the Nazi playbook. And they'll follow it to the very end.Unless we stop them.Sources: https://share.google/nT0dJ8jYEQYeVoLgA https://share.google/TTsKfI8dw9ZZAwCo3^ @jaykuo https://universeodon.com/@jaykuo/115017214198700669