Posts Tagged ‘BIRTH CONTROL’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on March 26, 2018 at 12:03 am
“All revolutions,” said Ernst Rohm, leader of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted thugs, the S.A., “devour their own children.”
Ernst Rohm
Fittingly, he said this as he sat inside a prison cell awaiting his own execution.
On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Stormtroopers. The purge was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The S.A. Brownshirts had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohm, their commander, urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own legions as the nation’s defense force.
Frightened by Rohm’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohm—or they would get rid of him.
So Rohm died in a hail of SS bullets—as did several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies.
SS firing squad
Among the SS commanders supervising those executions was Reinhard Heydrich—a tall, blond-haired formal naval officer who was both a champion fencer and talented violinist.
Ultimately, he would become the personification of the Nazi ideal—”the man with the iron heart,” as Hitler eulogized at Heydrich’s funeral just eight years later.
Reinhard Heydrich
Even so, Heydrich had a problem: He could never escape vicious rumors that his family tree contained a Jewish ancestor.
His paternal grandmother had married Reinhold Heydrich, and then Gustav Robert Suss. For unknown reasons, she decided to call herself Suss-Heydrich.
Since “Suss” was widely believed in Germany to indicate Jewish origin, the “stigma” of Jewish heritage attached itself to the Heydrich family.
Heydrich joined the SS in 1931 and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service. But his arrogance and overweening ambition created a great many enemies.
Only a year later, he became the target of an urgent investigation by the SS itself. The charge: That he was part-Jewish, the ultimate sin in Hitler’s “racially pure” Nazi Germany.
The investigation cleared Heydrich, but the rumor of his “tainted” origins persisted, clearly tormenting the second most powerful man in the SS. Even his superior, Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer-SS, believed it.
When Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 by Czech commandos in Prague, Himmler attended his funeral. He paid tribute to his former subordinate at the service: ”You, Reinhard Heydrich, were a truly good SS-man.”
But he could not resist saying in private: “He was an unhappy man, completely divided against himself, as often happened with those of mixed race.”
Those who dare to harshly judge others usually find themselves assailed just as harshly.
A modern-day example is Rick Santorum, the former United States Senator from Pennsylvania (1995 – 2007) and a Republican candidate for President in 2012 and 2016.
Rick Santorum
From his entry into politics, Santorum has been a fierce opponent of legalized abortion and even birth control. Among his comments on these issues:
- On why abortion should be illegal even in rape cases: “I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created—in the sense of rape—but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you.”
- On criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortion: “I believe that, that any doctor who performs an abortion—that—I would advocate that any doctor that performs an abortion should be criminally charged for doing so.”
- On de-funding Planned Parenthood: “I can’t imagine any other organization with its roots as poisonous as the roots of Planned Parenthood getting federal funding of any kind. This is an organization that was founded on the eugenics movement, founded on racism.”
- On opposing birth control: “One of the things I will talk about [if elected President in 2012] that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.’ It’s not okay, because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
Like the Nazis, Republicans are eager to lecture their fellow citizens on “how things are supposed to be.” And to enforce their beliefs on “how things are supposed to be” with draconian laws.
So it no doubt shocked Santorum—and his anti-abortion supporters—when he found himself accused of being “soft” on abortion.
The attack came in the form of pink fliers appearing on car windshields at many South Carolina political events in January, 2012.
They were the work of Elizabeth Leichert, an anti-abortion activist.
Dated January 18, 2012, the flier read:
“Like many Christians I know, I was originally very attracted to Rick Santorum’s positions – especially on the Right to Life issue.
“But that was before I began digging into his record….
“Did you know Rick Santorum’s wife, Karen, had a six-year affair with an abortionist named Tom Allen?”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 15, 2017 at 12:42 pm
Republicans and their Rightist allies have repeatedly compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. But their propaganda campaign draws heavily on the Nazi leader’s own advice.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.
“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
Adolf Hitler
Consider the vocabulary Right-wingers use to describe their political adversaries:
“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”
In recent years, the GOP has targeted gays and lesbians as America’s subversive enemies.
These attacks have come as thinly disguised as efforts to “restore religious freedom.”
In December, 2014, Republicans in the Michigan House of Representatives passed “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
The bill allows public agencies and private businesses to refuse service to anyone under the claim that their “religious beliefs” had been affronted.
And the State government is legally prevented from intervening if a person claimed that his/her “deeply-held religious beliefs” was the reason for acting—or not acting—in a certain way.
Thus:
- An emergency room doctor can refuse service to a gay or lesbian needing medical care.
- A pharmacist can refuse to fill a doctor’s prescription for birth control, or HIV medication.
- A DMV clerk can refuse to give a driver’s license to someone who’s divorced.
- An employer can deny equal pay to women.
The bill is modeled on a proposed law that the Republican House and Senate in Arizona sent to Governor Jan Brewer in 2014.
Under threat of a nationwide boycott of Arizona if the bill became law, Brewer vetoed it.
Republicans have introduced similar “right-to-discriminate” legislation in other states as well:
- On March 26, 2015, its governor, Mike Pence, signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This will allow any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.
- In Kansas, lawmakers voted to exempt individuals from providing any service that was “contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
- That bill passed the state’s House chamber on February 11, 2014, triggering national backlash. It stalled in the Senate and didn’t advance beyond that body.
- In January, 2014, South Dakota Republicans introduced a bill to let businesses refuse to serve same-sex couples on the grounds that “businesses are private and that their views on sexual orientation are protected to the same extent as the views of private citizens.”
- The South Dakota bill—which was killed in February, 2014—would have made it illegal for a gay person to file a lawsuit charging discrimination.
Republicans claim they want to “get the government off the backs of the people.” But their fixation on regulating the sexual lives of Americans ensures government intrusions of the most intimate kind.
Since 9/11, Republicans have warned that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on America.
Ironically, Right-wing legislators, in elevating religion above the secular law, may have laid the legal foundations for making that possible.
What will happen when some Muslims claim their right–guaranteed in Islamic religious law–to have as many as four wives?
And when they claim that the “religious freedom” laws protect that right?
Republicans have defended such legislation by equating gays with child predators.
In fact, the Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute states that 90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and friends, and the majority are men married to women.
Yet Republicans and their Rightist allies have refused to condemn such heterosexual—and Right-wing—child molesters as Dennis Hastert and Josh Duggar.
Josh Duggar, the “all-American” child molester
On May 21, 2015, responding to press leaks, Duggar resigned as director of the Family Research Council, a Right-wing organization dedicated to fighting sexually-oriented issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion and pornography.
In 2002-3, as a 14-15 year-old, Duggar had fondled the breasts and vaginas of five underage girls—four of whom were his own sisters.
And on October 28, 2015, Hastert—Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007–pleaded guilty to structuring money transactions in a way to avoid requirements to report where the money was going.
Dennis Hastert
The reason: To conceal the truth about his past as a child molester. Hastert had abused four young boys when he was their high school wrestling coach. One was only 14 years old.
Despite such setbacks, the politics of “smear and fear” have been good to Republicans—and their Right-wing allies.
The Republican “base” refuses to learn that those who portray themselves as morally superior are:
- Hypocrites, who are in effect saying: “Do as I say, not as I do,” or
- Fanatics, who intend to force their version of morality on others.
So long as millions of hate-filled Right-wingers support the endless succession of “two minute hates,” Republicans will continue to target an endless series of victims.
The good news: As blacks, Hispanics, women, gays and others become a significant political force, Republicans will stop attacking them and court them for votes.
The bad news: Republicans will move on to find other still-helpless scapegoats for America’s troubles.
1984 NOVEL, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BIRTH CONTROL, BLACKS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DENNIS HASTERT, DISABLED, DISCRIMINATION, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EDWARD R. MURROW, ENVIRONMENTALISTS, FACEBOOK, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GAYS, GEORGE C. MARSHALL, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE ORWELL, GOP, GREAT SOCIETY, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HISPANICS, HIV MEDICATION, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN STEINBECK, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, JOSEPH STALIN, JOSH DUGGAR, KGB, LEE ATWATER, LEON TROTSKY, LESBIANS, LIBERALS, LUCILLE BALL, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDICAL CARE, MEIN KAMPF, MICHAEL DUKAKIS, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MITT ROMNEY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PETE SEEGER, POLITICO, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, RELIGION, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RICK SANTORUM, ROBERT WELCH, RODNEY KING RIOTS, SALON, SCAPEGOATING, SEATTLE TIMES, SHARIA LAW, SLATE, SOCIALISTS, SOVIET UNION, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TRANSGENDERS, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UP, UPI, USA TODAY, WILLIAM L. SHIRER, WOMEN, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on November 14, 2017 at 12:12 am
In 1953, Red-baiting Wisconsin United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy finally overstepped himself.
He attacked the leadership of the United States Army as “a hotbed of traitors” and convened an inquiry through the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
But the hearings backfired, exposing McCarthy as the bullying demagogue he was. A Senate committee voted to condemn his behavior, charging that he had “acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
Although McCarthy remained in the Senate another two and a half years, his political influence had ended.
Yet even without McCarthy, Republicans rode the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1992.
After holding the White House for eight years under Dwight D. Eisenhower, they lost it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon B. Johnson.
By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations and race riots, Americans turned once more to those who preyed upon their fears and hates.
They elected Richard Nixon, who promised to end the Vietnam war and crack down on “uppity” blacks and antiwar demonstrators.
The same strategy re-elected him in 1972.
After Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976 and lost it in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, Republicans held the White House until 1992.
During the 1970s and 1980s, they continued to accuse their opponents of being devious agents—or at least unwitting pawns—of “the Communist conspiracy.”
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant.
George H.W. Bush
Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow.
Thus, the Republican charged that he might have been “programmed” as a real-life “Manchurian candidate” to become, first, Governor of Arkansas—one of America’s poorest states—and then President.
What made this charge all the more absurd: The Soviet Union had officially dissolved in December, 1991.
Republicans continued to accuse their opponents of being “Communists” and “traitors.” But these charges no longer carried the weight they had while the Soviet Union existed.
Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.”
When riots flared in 1992 after the acquittal of LAPD officers who had savagely beaten Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush blamed the carnage on the “Great Society” programs of the 1960s.
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—and their right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace.
Two highjacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center in New York and one struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Exit The Red Bogeyman. Enter The Maniacal Muslim.
Consider:
- Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-Minn.): On July 13, 2012, she sent letters to the Inspectors General of the Departments of Defense; State; Justice; and Homeland Security, demanding a “a multi-department investigation into potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the United States Government.”
- Rick Santorum: On supporting the racial profiling of Muslims: “Obviously, Muslims would be someone you look at, absolutely.”
- Mitt Romney: “Based on the numbers of American Muslims in our population, I cannot see that a Cabinet position [for a Muslim] would be justified.”
The 2008 election of Barack Obama pushed the Republican “treason chorus” to new heights of infamy.
Barack Obama
Almost immediately after Obama took office, he came under attack by an industry of right-wing book authors such as Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
The following titles vividly reveal the hates, fears and ambitions of their authors–and audience:
- Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda by Sean Hannity
- How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy by Stephen Moore
- The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists by Aaron Klein
- The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency by Ken Blackwell
- Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies by Michelle Malkin
- Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster by David Gratzer
- Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policicies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America by Christopher C. Horner
- America’s March to Socialism: Why We’re One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades by Glenn Beck
- The War On Success: How the Obama Agenda Is Shattering the American Dream by Tommy Newberry
- Liberalism is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions by Michael Savage
- Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by Ann Coulter
Yet despite Right-wingers’ slanderous and fear-mongering claims, the United States actually prospered during the Obama years.
- Thanks to government loans from President Obama, American capitalism was saved from its own excesses during the George W. Bush administration.
- Employment went up. CEOs did extremely well.
- In contrast to the corruption that had plagued the administration of Ronald Reagan—whom Republicans idolize—no such scandals haunted the Obama Presidency.
- There had been no major-scale terrorist attacks on American soil–as had occurred on 9/11 under President George W. Bush.
- Millions of Americans who had been unable to obtain healthcare did so under Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
- Obama actually stood up to Russian President Vladimir Putin—as opposed to his successor, Donald Trump, who constantly praised him.
1984 NOVEL, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BIRTH CONTROL, BLACKS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DENNIS HASTERT, DISABLED, DISCRIMINATION, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EDWARD R. MURROW, ENVIRONMENTALISTS, FACEBOOK, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GAYS, GEORGE C. MARSHALL, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE ORWELL, GOP, GREAT SOCIETY, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HISPANICS, HIV MEDICATION, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN STEINBECK, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, JOSEPH STALIN, JOSH DUGGAR, KGB, LEE ATWATER, LEON TROTSKY, LESBIANS, LIBERALS, LUCILLE BALL, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDICAL CARE, MEIN KAMPF, MICHAEL DUKAKIS, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MITT ROMNEY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PETE SEEGER, POLITICO, PROPAGANDA, RAW STORY, RELIGION, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, RICK SANTORUM, ROBERT WELCH, RODNEY KING RIOTS, SALON, SCAPEGOATING, SEATTLE TIMES, SHARIA LAW, SLATE, SOCIALISTS, SOVIET UNION, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TRANSGENDERS, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WILLIAM L. SHIRER, WOMEN, WORLD WAR 11
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 13, 2017 at 12:19 am
The Right’s fixation on transgender “dangers” is only the latest in a long string of “enemies” painted by the Republican party.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the “enemy” was blacks. The key to winning votes of racist whites without appearing racist lay in what Republicans called “the Southern Strategy.”
It was this that won Richard Nixon the Presidency in 1968 and 1972 and the White House for George H.W. Bush in 1988.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires.
“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites….
“‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’
“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”
Lee Atwater
At the end of his life, Atwater recognized the monster he had helped unleash.
Like Reinhard Heydrich—the designer of the “Final Solution” who, on his deathbed, begged forgiveness for his crimes—Atwater, in a 1991 article for Life, apologized to former Democratic Presidential nominee Michael Dukakis for the “naked cruelty” of the 1988 campaign.
But blacks have by no means been the only targets—and victims—of Republican hate campaigns. A partial list of these would include:
- Liberals
- Women
- Socialists
- Secularists
- Disabled
- Environmentalists
- Hispanics
- Gays
- Lesbians
And now transgenders.
George Orwell’s classic 1949 novel, 1984, serves as a better guide to Republican electioneering than any official statement of the GOP.
1984 is set in a futuristic dictatorship called Oceania, whose constantly alternating mortal enemies are Eurasia and Eastasia.
A daily fixture of life in Oceania is the “Two Minutes Hate.” During this, Party members must watch a film depicting the Party’s enemies and express their hatred for them in exactly two minutes.
Chief among these is Emmanuel Goldstein, who is obviously based on Leon Trotsky, the longtime antagonist of Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union for almost 30 years.
The “Two Minutes Hate” serves as a form of brainwashing, whose purpose is to whip ordinary citizens into a frenzy of hatred and loathing for whoever the Party designates as it—and their—-mortal enemies.
Since the end of World War II, Republicans have regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-approved thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence–by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.
Joseph McCarthy
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Americans were already growing increasingly fearful of Communism:
- Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had not withdrawn the Red Army from the countries it had occupied in Eastern Europe during World War II.
- In 1948, the Soviet Union developed—and demonstrated—its own atomic bomb, an achievement U.S. scientists had claimed would not happen for at least a decade.
- In 1949, China fell to the triumphant armies of Mao Tse Tung.
But anti-communism as a lever to political advancement sharply accelerated following McCarthy’s speech. Republicans—resentful at being denied the White House since 1932—seized upon anti-communism as their passport to power.
No American—no matter how prominent—was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer—”a Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
Among those accused:
- Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who had overseen America’s strategy for defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan
- President Harry S. Truman
- Playwrights Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller
- Actors Charlie Chaplin, Zero Mostel, Lloyd Bridges, Howard Da Silva, Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield
- Composers Arron Copland and Elmer Bernstein
- Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who presided over the creation of America’s atomic bomb
- Actresses Lee Grant, Delores del Rio, Ruth Gordon and Lucille Ball
- Journalists Edward R. Murrow and William L. Shirer, who had chronicled the rise of Nazi Germany
- Folksinger Pete Seeger
- Writers Irwin Shaw, Howard Fast, John Steinbeck and Dashiell Hammett
Even “untouchable” Republicans became targets for such slander.
The most prominent of these was President Dwight D. Eisenhower–labeled ”a conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy” by Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society in 1958.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 27, 2017 at 12:28 am
No shortage of pundits have sized up Donald Trump–first as a Presidential candidate, and now as the nation’s 45th President.
But how does Trump measure up in the estimate of Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine statesman?
It is Machiavelli whose two great works on politics–The Prince and The Discourses–remain textbooks for successful politicians more than 500 years later.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Let’s start with Trump’s notoriety for hurling insults at virtually everyone, including:
- Latinos
- Asians
- Muslims
- Blacks
- The Disabled
- Women
- Prisoners-of-War
These insults delight his white, under-educated followers. But they have alienated millions of other Americans who might have voted for him.
Now consider Machiavelli’s advice on gratuitously handing out insults and threats:
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“I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one.
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“For neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy–but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”
For those who expect Trump to shed his propensity for constantly picking fights, Machiavelli has a stern warning:
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“…If it happens that time and circumstances are favorable to one who acts with caution and prudence he will be successful. But if time and circumstances change he will be ruined, because he does not change the mode of his procedure.
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“No man can be found so prudent as to be able to adopt himself to this, either because he cannot deviate from that to which his nature disposes him, or else because, having always prospered by walking in one path, he cannot persuade himself that it is well to leave it…
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“For if one could change one’s nature with time and circumstances, fortune would never change.”
Then there is Trump’s approach to consulting advisers:
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, Trump replied; “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
Donald Trump
This totally contrasts the advice given by Machiavelli:
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“A prudent prince must [choose] for his counsel wise men, and [give] them alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else.
-
“But he must be a great asker about everything and hear their opinions, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way, and in these counsels…comport himself so that every one may see that the more freely he speaks, the more he will be acceptable.”
And Machiavelli has potent advice on the selection of advisers:
- “The first impression that one gets of a ruler and his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him.
- “When they are competent and loyal one can always consider him wise, as he has been able to recognize their ability and keep them faithful.
- “But when they are the reverse, one can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.”
Consider some of the advisers Trump has relied on in his campaign for President:
- Founder of Latinos for Trump Marco Gutierrez told MSNBC’s Joy Reid: “My culture is a very dominant culture. And it’s imposing, and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, you’re gonna have taco trucks every corner.”
- At a Tea Party for Trump rally at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Festus, Missouri, former Missouri Republican Party director Ed Martin reassured the crowd that they weren’t racist for hating Mexicans.
From the outset of his Presidential campaign, Trump polled extremely poorly among Hispanic voters. Comments like these didn’t increase his popularity.
- Wayne Root, opening speaker and master of ceremonies at many Trump campaign events, told Virginia radio host Rob Schilling: People on public assistance and women getting birth control through Obamacare should not be allowed to vote.
Comments like this are a big turn-off among the 70% of women who have an unfavorable opinion of him–and anyone who receives Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security.
- Trump’s spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, claimed that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were responsible for the death of Captain Humayun Khan–who was killed by a truck-bomb in Iraq in 2004.
Obama became President in 2009–almost five years after Khan’s death. And Clinton became Secretary of State the same year.
When your spokeswoman becomes a nationwide laughingstock, your own credibility goes down the toilet as well.
Finally, Machiavelli offers a related warning that especially applies to Trump: Unwise princes cannot be wisely advised.
-
“It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised, unless by chance he leaves himself entirely in the hands of one man who rules him in everything, and happens to be a very prudent man. In this case, he may doubtless be well governed, but it would not last long, for the governor would in a short time deprive him of the state.”
All of which would lead Niccolo Machiavelli to warn, if he could witness American politics today: “This bodes ill for your Republic.”
2003 IRAQ WAR, ABC NEWS, ASIANS, BARACK OBAMA, BIRTH CONTROL, BLACKS, CBS NEWS, CNN, DISABLED, DONALD TRUMP, ED MARTIN, FACEBOOK, HILLARY CLINTON, HUMAYUN KHAN, KATRINA PIERSON, LATINOS, MARCO GUTIERREZ, MEDICAID, MEDICARE, MSNBC, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, OBAMACARE, PRISONERS OF WAR, SOCIAL SECURITY, TEA PARTY, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DISCOURSES, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRINCE, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, WAYNE ROOT, WOMEN
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 8, 2016 at 9:41 am
No shortage of pundits have sized up Donald Trump as a man and Presidential candidate.
But how does Trump measure up in the estimate of Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine statesman?
It is Machiavelli whose two great works on politics–The Prince and The Discourses–remain textbooks for successful politicians more than 500 years later.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Let’s start with Trump’s notoriety for hurling insults at virtually everyone, including:
- Latinos
- Asians
- Muslims
- Blacks
- The Disabled
- Women
- Prisoners-of-War
These insults delight his white, under-educated followers. But they have alienated millions of other Americans who might have voted for him.
Now consider Machiavelli’s advice on gratuitously handing out insults and threats:
-
“I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one.
-
“For neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy–but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”
For those who expect Trump to shed his propensity for constantly picking fights, Machiavelli has a stern warning:
-
“…If it happens that time and circumstances are favorable to one who acts with caution and prudence he will be successful. But if time and circumstances change he will be ruined, because he does not change the mode of his procedure.
-
“No man can be found so prudent as to be able to adopt himself to this, either because he cannot deviate from that to which his nature disposes him, or else because, having always prospered by walking in one path, he cannot persuade himself that it is well to leave it…
-
“For if one could change one’s nature with time and circumstances, fortune would never change.”
Then there is Trump’s approach to consulting advisers:
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, Trump replied; “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
Donald Trump
This totally contrasts the advice given by Machiavelli:
-
“A prudent prince must [choose] for his counsel wise men, and [give] them alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else.
-
“But he must be a great asker about everything and hear their opinions, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way, and in these counsels…comport himself so that every one may see that the more freely he speaks, the more he will be acceptable.”
And Machiavelli has potent advice on the selection of advisers:
- “The first impression that one gets of a ruler and his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him.
- “When they are competent and loyal one can always consider him wise, as he has been able to recognize their ability and keep them faithful.
- “But when they are the reverse, one can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.”
Consider some of the advisers Trump has relied on in his campaign for President:
- Founder of Latinos for Trump Marco Gutierrez told MSNBC’s Joy Reid: “My culture is a very dominant culture. And it’s imposing, and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, you’re gonna have taco trucks every corner.”
- At a Tea Party for Trump rally at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Festus, Missouri, former Missouri Republican Party director Ed Martin reassured the crowd that they’re not racist for hating Mexicans.
From the outset of his Presidential campaign, Trump has polled extremely poorly among Hispanic voters. Comments such as these guaranteed his poll figures wouldn’t improve.
- Wayne Root, opening speaker and master of ceremonies at many Trump events, told Virginia radio host Rob Schilling that people on public assistance and women who get their birth control through Obamacare should not be allowed to vote.
Comments like this didn’t increase Trump’s popularity with the the 70% of women who have an unfavorable opinion of him. Nor with anyone who receives Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security.
- Trump’s spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, claimed that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were responsible for the death of Captain Humayun Khan–who was killed by a truck-bomb in Iraq in 2004.
Obama became President in 2009–almost five years after Khan’s death. And Clinton became Secretary of State the same year.
When your spokeswoman becomes a nationwide laughingstock, your own credibility goes down the toilet as well.
Finally, Machiavelli offers a related warning that especially applies to Trump: Unwise princes cannot be wisely advised.
-
“It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised, unless by chance he leaves himself entirely in the hands of one man who rules him in everything, and happens to be a very prudent man. In this case, he may doubtless be well governed, but it would not last long, for the governor would in a short time deprive him of the state.”
All of which would lead Niccolo Machiavelli to warn, if he could witness American politics today: “This bodes ill for your Republic.”
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, AMERICAN NAZI PARTY, ANTI-SEMITISM, ARCHER SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, BARACK OBAMA, BARRY GOLDWATER, BIRTH CONTROL, BLACK LIVES MATTER, CBS NEWS, CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964, CNN, DONALD TRUMP, ED MARTIN, FACEBOOK, FLORIDA, FOX BUSINESS, FOX NEWS, GEORGE W. BUSH, GRETCHEN CARLSON, HILLARY CLINTON, HUMAYUN KHAN, IRAQ WAR, JOHN MCCAIN, KATRINA PIERSON, KU KLUX KLAN, LATINOS, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MARCO GUTIERREZ, MEDICAID, MEDICARE, MEXICO, MICHELE BACHMANN, MITT ROMNEY, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW YORK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, OBAMACARE, OMAROSA MANIGAULT, PAUL MANAFORT, PRINCESS DIANA, ROGER AILES, SOCIAL SECURITY, STEPHEN BANNON, TEA PARTY, THE APPRENTICE, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE NEW NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRINCE, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOTER ID LAWS, VOTING, WAYNE ROOT, WELFARE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on September 8, 2016 at 1:21 am
In late July, Donald Trump’s new spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, accepted an impossible mission that even Jim Phelps would have turned down:
Convince Americans that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were responsible for the death of Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed by a truck-bomb in Iraq in 2004.
Appearing on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on August 2, Pierson said: “It was under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that changed the rules of engagements that probably cost his life.”
Katrina Pierson
Totally ignored in that scenario:
- President George W. Bush lied the nation into a needless war that cost the lives of 4,486 Americans and wounded another 33,226.
- The war began in 2003–and Khan was killed in 2004.
- Barack Obama became President in 2009–almost five years after Khan’s death.
- Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State the same year.
- Obama, elected Illinois U.S. Senator in 2004, vigorously opposed the Iraq war throughout his term.
Pierson’s attempt to rewrite history touched off a frenzy on Twitter, leading to the creation of the hashtag #KatrinaPiersonHistory. Its purpose: To mock Pierson’s revisionist take on history.
Among the tweets offered:
- Hillary Clinton slashed funding for security at the Ford Theater, leading to Lincoln’s assassination.
- Obama gave Amelia Earhart directions to Kenya.
- Remember the Alamo? Obama and Hillary let it happen.
- Obama and Clinton kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.
Not content with blaming President Obama for the death of a man he never sent into combat, Pierson claimed that Obama started the Afghanistan war.
Appearing again on CNN, Pierson said the Afghan war began “after 2007,” when Al Qaeda “was in ashes” following the American troop surge in Iraq.
“Remember, we weren’t even in Afghanistan by this time,” Pierson said. “Barack Obama went into Afghanistan, creating another problem.”
In fact, President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Millions of Americans who lived through 9/11 remember that.
When your spokeswoman becomes a nationwide laughingstock, your own credibility goes down the toilet as well.
In July an Associated Press/GfK poll found that half of Americans saw Donald Trump as “racist”–and only 7% of blacks viewed him favorably.
There are numerous reasons for this:
- His enthusiastic support by racist white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.
- His “birther” attacks on President Obama as a non-citizen from Kenya–and thus ineligible to hold the Presidency.
- His attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement and calling on his supporters at rallies to rough up minority protesters.
Since 1964, blacks have overwhelmingly voted for Democratic Presidential candidates. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s won their loyalty with his support for and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
President Johnson signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act
Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater opposed it–as did the majority of his party.
Since 1964, fewer than six percent of blacks have voted for Republican Presidential candidates. Whites have not only remained the majority of Republican voters but have become the single most important voting bloc among them.
John McCain received four percent of black votes in 2008 and Mitt Romney received six percent in 2012. When a Republican collapses into single digits among blacks and other minorities, it reduces the number of white votes a Democrat needs to win the presidency.
To counter this, Donald Trump has turned to his Director of African-American Outreach: Omarosa Manigault.
Trump made the appointment just hours before the first night of the Republican National Convention.
Omarosa Manigault
Manigault is best known as the villain of Trump’s reality-TV show, “The Apprentice”–where she was fired on three different seasons. Her credentials include a Ph.D. in communications, a preacher’s license, and topping TV Guide’s list of greatest reality TV villains in 2008.
During the Clinton administration she held four jobs in two years, and was thoroughly disliked in all of them.
“She was asked to leave [her last job] as quickly as possible, she was so disruptive,” said Cheryl Shavers, the former Under Secretary for Technology at the Commerce Department. “One woman wanted to slug her.”
In her role as Trump’s ambassador to blacks, Omarosa has inspired others to want to slug her. Appearing on Fox Business, she ignored Fox panelist Tamera Holder’s question on why blacks should support Trump,and then mocked her “big boobs.”
Manigault isn’t bothered that blacks regard Trump so poorly in polls: “My reality is that I’m surrounded by people who want to see Donald Trump as the next president of the United States who are African-American.”
Appointing as your public relations director a woman who gratuitously insults and infuriates people is not the move of a smart administrator. Nor the move of a smart Presidential candidate.
If Donald Trump becomes President, he will inherit the authority to appoint thousands of officials to domestic and foreign agencies. Voters have a right to judge him on the quality of the appointments he has already made to his own campaign.
A review of those named within this series gives serious cause for concern.
9/11 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, AMERICAN NAZI PARTY, ANTI-SEMITISM, ARCHER SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, BARACK OBAMA, BARRY GOLDWATER, BIRTH CONTROL, BLACK LIVES MATTER, CBS NEWS, CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964, CNN, DONALD TRUMP, ED MARTIN, FACEBOOK, FLORIDA, FOX BUSINESS, FOX NEWS, GEORGE W. BUSH, GRETCHEN CARLSON, HILLARY CLINTON, HUMAYUN KHAN, IRAQ WAR, JOHN MCCAIN, KATRINA PIERSON, KU KLUX KLAN, LATINOS, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MARCO GUTIERREZ, MEDICAID, MEDICARE, MEXICO, MICHELE BACHMANN, MITT ROMNEY, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW YORK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, OBAMACARE, OMAROSA MANIGAULT, PAUL MANAFORT, PRINCESS DIANA, ROGER AILES, SOCIAL SECURITY, STEPHEN BANNON, TEA PARTY, THE APPRENTICE, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE NEW NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRINCE, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOTER ID LAWS, VOTING, WAYNE ROOT, WELFARE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on September 7, 2016 at 12:18 am
Even the Secret Service can’t protect Donald Trump from the notoriety of his supporters.
The current manager of Trump’s Presidential campaign is Stephen Bannon, who’s under fire for anti-Semitic remarks and having been registered to vote at a vacant house in Florida.
But before Bannon signed on, his predecessor was Paul Manafort, whom Trump hired to add stability to his often scattershot campaign.
Paul Manafort
For Trump, Manafort came with a dangerous liability: His longstanding ties to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine–which inevitably led to Vladimir Putin.
For years, Manafort worked for Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin protege who was deposed as Ukraine’s president in 2014 amid widespread demonstrations.
In August, the New York Times unearthed handwritten ledgers that listed $12.7 million in cash payments to Manafort from Yanukovych’s political party between 2007 and 2012.
Trump’s own ties to Putin were already facing increasing scrutiny for a number of reasons:
- Trump’s and Putin’s public expressions of admiration for each other’s toughness.
- The removal from the Republican party platform, written at the convention in Cleveland in July, of references to arming Ukraine in its fight against pro-Russian rebels who have been armed by the Kremlin.
- In July, high-ranking Democratic officials–including presumptive Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton–were embarrassed by a hack of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails. This was quickly traced to Russian hackers allegedly working on behalf of the Kremlin. Their alleged motive: To tip the election in favor of Trump.
- Trump drew more suspicion upon himself by inviting Russia to find 30,000 emails deleted from the private server used by Clinton while she was Secretary of State in the Obama administration: “I think you will probably be mightily rewarded by our press.”
Added to Manafort’s embarrassing ties to Russia was another minus: He and Trump didn’t get along. Trump had begun calling him “low energy”–a term he once aimed at his former GOP rival, Jeb Bush.
Manafort wanted Trump to bring more self-discipline to the campaign and concentrate his fire solely on his Presidential rival, Hillary Clinton. Instead, in late July, Trump ignited a days-long feud with members of a Gold Star family, costing him support within the veterans community.
Manafort also wanted Trump to establish a conventional chain-of-command organization typical of a Presidential campaign. But Trump resisted, preferring to improvise and rely on his instincts and the counsel of his family.
In late August, Trump fired him.
Foreign policy nearly always plays a major role in Presidential elections. Yet Trump has shown a surprising lack of respect for a detailed knowledge of it.
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, Trump replied; “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
In late August, former Republican Congresswoman (2007-2015) Michele Bachmann claimed that she was now advising Trump on foreign policy.
Michele Bachmann
A member of the Right-wing Tea Party, Bachmann has said that diplomacy “is our option” in dealing with Iran–but wouldn’t rule out a nuclear strike.
Among the statements she’s made:
- “I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?'”
- “Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.”
- “President Obama waived a ban on arming terrorists in order to allow weapons to go to the Syrian opposition….U.S. taxpayers are now paying to give arms to terrorists, including Al-Qaeda.”
- “I’m a believer in Jesus Christ. As I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end time history.”
A woman who believes that God causes earthquakes and hurricanes, and that mankind has arrived at “End Times,” can hardly be a comfort to rational voters.
Another Trump adviser is former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. His assignment: Prepare Trump for the upcoming fall debates with Clinton.
But Ailes comes with huge notoriety: In July he was fired from Fox News on multiple charges of sexual harassment.
At first, only Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson dared accuse him. But then more than two dozen women came forward to accuse Ailes of sexual harassment.
On September 6, Carlson reached an out-of-court settlement with the parent company of Fox News for a reported $20 million.
At least two other women have settled with Fox, an anonymous source told the New York Times. And others may be planning to file lawsuits.
All of which makes Ailes the poster boy for sexual harassment.
Trump has been married three times and has often boasted of his sexual conquests–including ones he believes he could have had.
(Shortly after the 1997 death of Princess Diana, he told a radio interviewer he could have “nailed” her if he had wanted to.)
In a mid-March CNN/ORC poll, 73% of female voters voiced a negative view of Trump. Associating with a notorious sexual harasser like Roger Ailes can only do even more damage to his candidacy.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on September 6, 2016 at 12:08 am
“The first impression that one gets of a ruler and his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him.
“When they are competent and loyal one can always consider him wise, as he has been able to recognize their ability and keep them faithful.
“But when they are the reverse, one can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.”
So wrote the Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli more than 500 years ago in his famous treatise on politics, The Prince.
And his words remain as true in our day as they were in his.
Niccolo Machiavelli
They are especially important to remember when evaluating Donald Trump’s talents as an administrator.
In pursuing the Presidency, he is seeking the most powerful office in the world, one that would give him authority to appoint thousands of officials to domestic and foreign agencies.
Consider some of those he has placed around him in his campaign for President:
Founder of Latinos for Trump Marco Gutierrez told MSNBC’s Joy Reid: “My culture is a very dominant culture. And it’s imposing, and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, you’re gonna have taco trucks every corner.”
At a Tea Party for Trump rally at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Festus, Missouri, former Missouri Republican Party director Ed Martin reassured the crowd that they’re not racist for hating Mexicans: “Donald Trump is for Americans first.
“He’s for us first. It is not selfish to support, or to be for, your neighbor, as opposed to someone from another nation. And Mexico, Mexicans, that’s not a race. You’re not racist if you don’t like Mexicans. They’re from a nation.”
From the outset of his Presidential campaign, Trump has polled extremely poorly among Hispanic voters. This is perfectly understandable, given his comments about Mexicans as:
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
Trump has also promised to “build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
Donald Trump
These comments made Trump the winner of the Republican primaries, where voters always nominate the most extreme Rightist candidate.
But the general election phrase requires Republican and Democratic candidates to appeal to both their base and beyond it. As a result, Trump is now desperate to attract the votes of Hispanics.
Comments such as those by Marco Gutierrez and Ed Martin guarantee this won’t happen.
Wayne Root, opening speaker and master of ceremonies at many Trump events, told Virginia radio host Rob Schilling that people on public assistance and women who get their birth control through Obamacare should not be allowed to vote:
“If the people who paid the taxes were the only ones allowed to vote, we’d [Republicans] have landslide victories. But you’re allowing people to vote. This explains everything! People with conflict of interest shouldn’t be allowed to vote. If you collect welfare, you have no right to vote.
“The day you get off welfare, you get your voting rights back. The reality is, why are you allowed to have this conflict of interest that you vote for the politician who wants to keep your welfare checks coming and your food stamps and your aid to dependent children and your free health care and your Medicaid, your Medicare and your Social Security and everything else?”
Wayne Root
According to a March Gallup poll, 70% of women–or seven in 10–have an unfavorable opinion of Trump.
Such comments as Root’s aren’t going to increase Trump’s popularity with them. Nor with anyone who receives Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security.
Donald Trump’s new campaign manager, Stephen Bannon, was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery, and dissuading a witness in 1996, after an altercation with his then-wife, Mary Louise Piccard, in Santa Monica, California.
Picard also said in a 2007 court declaration that Bannon didn’t want their twin daughters attending the Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles because many Jewish students were enrolled there.
Stephen Bannon
Not only is this certain to lose Trump votes among women, it will make him unpopular among Jews. A campaign manager charged with anti-Semitism could cost Trump heavily Jewish states like New York and Florida.
In addition: Bannon and another ex-wife, Diane Clohesy, were registered to vote at a vacant house in Florida, a possible violation of election laws in a key swing state.
Republicans have vigorously denied voting rights to tens of thousands on the pretext of “voter fraud.” More than a dozen states still have voting restrictions in place since 2012.
A Washington Post investigation found just 31 credible cases of voter fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of an estimated 1 billion ballots cast in the U.S. during that period.
Meanwhile, voting rights groups have been fighting back–and winning.
“Voter ID” laws in Texas, Wisconsin and North Carolina have been found discriminatory against minorities–who traditionally vote Democratic.
With evidence of Republican fraud like that supplied by Trump’s own campaign manager, victories against “Voter ID” laws may well increase.
1984 NOVEL, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BIRTH CONTROL, BLACKS, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, DENNIS HASTERT, DISABLED, DISCRIMINATION, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EDWARD R. MURROW, ENVIRONMENTALISTS, FACEBOOK, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GAYS, GEORGE C. MARSHALL, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE ORWELL, GOP, GREAT SOCIETY, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HISPANICS, HIV MEDICATION, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN STEINBECK, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, JOSEPH STALIN, JOSH DUGGAR, KGB, LEE ATWATER, LEON TROTSKY, LESBIANS, LIBERALS, LUCILLE BALL, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDICAL CARE, MEIN KAMPF, MICHAEL DUKAKIS, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MITT ROMNEY, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, PETE SEEGER, PROPAGANDA, RELIGION, REPUBLICANS, RICHARD NIXON, RICK SANTORUM, ROBERT WELCH, RODNEY KING RIOTS, SCAPEGOATING, SHARIA LAW, SOCIALISTS, SOVIET UNION, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, THE WASHINGTON POST, TRANSGENDERS, TWITTER, WILLIAM L. SHIRER, WOMEN, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 23, 2016 at 12:05 am
Republicans and their Rightist allies have repeatedly compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. But their propaganda campaign draws heavily on the Nazi leader’s own advice.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.
“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H1216-0500-002 / CC-BY-SA, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons
Consider the vocabulary Right-wingers use to describe their political adversaries:
“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”
In recent years, the GOP has targeted gays and lesbians as America’s subversive enemies.These attacks have come as thinly disguised as efforts to “restore religious freedom.”
In December, 2014, Republicans in the Michgan House of Representatives passed “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
The bill would allow public agencies and private businesses to refuse service to anyone under the claim that their “religious beliefs” had been affronted.
And the State government would be legally prevented from intervening if a person claimed that his/her “deeply-held religious beliefs” was the reason for acting–or not acting–in a certain way.
Thus:
- An emergency room doctor could refuse service to a gay or lesbian needing medical care.
- A pharmacist could refuse to fill a doctor’s prescription for birth control, or HIV medication.
- A DMV clerk could refuse to give a driver’s license to someone who’s divorced.
- An employer could deny equal pay to women.
The bill seems modeled on a proposed law that the Republican House and Senate in Arizona sent to Governor Jan Brewer in 2014.
Under threat of a nationwide boycott of Arizona if the bill became law, Brewer vetoed it.
Republicans have introduced similar “right-to-discriminate” legislation in other states as well:
- On March 26, 2015, its governor, Mike Pence, signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This will allow any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.
- In Kansas, lawmakers voted to exempt individuals from providing any service that was “contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
- That bill passed the state’s House chamber on February 11, 2014, triggering national backlash. It stalled in the Senate and didn’t advance beyond that body.
- In January, 2014, South Dakota Republicans introduced a bill to let businesses refuse to serve same-sex couples on the grounds that “businesses are private and that their views on sexual orientation are protected to the same extent as the views of private citizens.”
- The South Dakota bill–which was killed in February, 2014–would have made it illegal for a gay person to file a lawsuit charging discrimination.
Republicans claim they want to “get the government off the backs of the people.” But their fixation on regulating the sexual lives of Americans ensures government intrusions of the most intimate kind.
Since 9/11, Republicans have warned that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on America.
Ironically, Right-wing legislators, in elevating religion above the secular law, may have laid the legal foundations for making that possible.
What will happen when some Muslims claim their right–guaranteed in Islamic religious law–to have as many as four wives?
And when they claim that the “religious freedom” laws protect that right?
Republicans have defended such legislation by equating gays with child predators.
In fact, the Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute states that 90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and friends, and the majority are men married to women.
Yet Republicans and their Rightist allies have refused to condemn such heterosexual–and Right-wing–child molesters as Dennis Hastert and Josh Duggar.
Josh Duggar, the “all-American” child molester
On May 21, 2015, responding to press leaks, Duggar resigned as director of the Family Research Council, a Right-wing organization dedicated to fighting sexually-oriented issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion and pornography.
In 2002-3, as a 14-15 year-old, Duggar had fondled the breasts and vaginas of five underage girls–four of whom were his own sisters.
And on October 28, 2015, Hastert–Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007–pleaded guilty to structuring money transactions in a way to avoid requirements to report where the money was going.
Dennis Hastert
The reason: To conceal the truth about his past as a child molester. Hastert had abused four young boys when he was their high school wrestling coach. One was only 14 years old.
Despite such setbacks, the politics of “smear and fear” have been good to Republicans–and their Right-wing allies.
The Republican “base” refuses to learn that those who portray themselves as morally superior are:
- Hypocrites, who are in effect saying: “Do as I say, not as I do,” or
- Fanatics, who intend to force their version of morality on others.
So long as millions of hate-filled Right-wingers support the endless succession of “two minute hates,” Republicans will continue to target an endless series of victims.
The good news: As blacks, Hispanics, women, gays and others become a significant political force, Republicans will stop attacking them and court them for votes.
The bad news: Republicans will move on to find other still-helpless scapegoats for America’s troubles.
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THE PERILS OF SCAPEGOATING: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on March 26, 2018 at 12:03 am“All revolutions,” said Ernst Rohm, leader of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted thugs, the S.A., “devour their own children.”
Ernst Rohm
Fittingly, he said this as he sat inside a prison cell awaiting his own execution.
On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Stormtroopers. The purge was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The S.A. Brownshirts had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohm, their commander, urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own legions as the nation’s defense force.
Frightened by Rohm’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohm—or they would get rid of him.
So Rohm died in a hail of SS bullets—as did several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies.
SS firing squad
Among the SS commanders supervising those executions was Reinhard Heydrich—a tall, blond-haired formal naval officer who was both a champion fencer and talented violinist.
Ultimately, he would become the personification of the Nazi ideal—”the man with the iron heart,” as Hitler eulogized at Heydrich’s funeral just eight years later.
Reinhard Heydrich
Even so, Heydrich had a problem: He could never escape vicious rumors that his family tree contained a Jewish ancestor.
His paternal grandmother had married Reinhold Heydrich, and then Gustav Robert Suss. For unknown reasons, she decided to call herself Suss-Heydrich.
Since “Suss” was widely believed in Germany to indicate Jewish origin, the “stigma” of Jewish heritage attached itself to the Heydrich family.
Heydrich joined the SS in 1931 and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service. But his arrogance and overweening ambition created a great many enemies.
Only a year later, he became the target of an urgent investigation by the SS itself. The charge: That he was part-Jewish, the ultimate sin in Hitler’s “racially pure” Nazi Germany.
The investigation cleared Heydrich, but the rumor of his “tainted” origins persisted, clearly tormenting the second most powerful man in the SS. Even his superior, Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer-SS, believed it.
When Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 by Czech commandos in Prague, Himmler attended his funeral. He paid tribute to his former subordinate at the service: ”You, Reinhard Heydrich, were a truly good SS-man.”
But he could not resist saying in private: “He was an unhappy man, completely divided against himself, as often happened with those of mixed race.”
Those who dare to harshly judge others usually find themselves assailed just as harshly.
A modern-day example is Rick Santorum, the former United States Senator from Pennsylvania (1995 – 2007) and a Republican candidate for President in 2012 and 2016.
Rick Santorum
From his entry into politics, Santorum has been a fierce opponent of legalized abortion and even birth control. Among his comments on these issues:
Like the Nazis, Republicans are eager to lecture their fellow citizens on “how things are supposed to be.” And to enforce their beliefs on “how things are supposed to be” with draconian laws.
So it no doubt shocked Santorum—and his anti-abortion supporters—when he found himself accused of being “soft” on abortion.
The attack came in the form of pink fliers appearing on car windshields at many South Carolina political events in January, 2012.
They were the work of Elizabeth Leichert, an anti-abortion activist.
Dated January 18, 2012, the flier read:
“Like many Christians I know, I was originally very attracted to Rick Santorum’s positions – especially on the Right to Life issue.
“But that was before I began digging into his record….
“Did you know Rick Santorum’s wife, Karen, had a six-year affair with an abortionist named Tom Allen?”
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