Posts Tagged ‘THE DISCOURSES’
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 25TH AMENDMENT, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, ENGLAND, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION (FAA), FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMPEACHMENT, INISPECTORS GENERAL, JAMES COMEY, JOE BIDEN, JULY 20 1944 BOMB PLOT, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUNICH CONFERENCE, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POPULAR VOTE, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRANSPORTATION SAFETY ADMINISTRATION (TSA), TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 4, 2020 at 12:10 am
In September, 1938, as Adolf Hitler threatened to go to war against France and England over Czechoslovakia, most Germans feared he would. They knew that Germany was not ready for war, despite all of their Fuhrer’s boasts about how invincible the Third Reich was.
A group of high-ranking German army officers was prepared to overthrow Hitler—provided that England and France held firm and handed him a major diplomatic reverse.
But then England and France—though more powerful than Germany—surrendered to Hitler’s demands for the “Sudetenland”—the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia, inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans.
Hitler’s popularity among Germans soared.
The plotters in the German high command, realizing that public opinion stood overwhelmingly against them, abandoned their plans for a coup. They decided to wait for a more favorable time.
It never came.
Adolf Hitler and his generals
Less than one year after the infamous “Munich conference,” World War II erupted.
Most Germans blindly followed their Fuhrer right to the end—believing his lies (or at least wanting to believe them), serving in his legions, defending his rampant criminality.
Germans paid the price for their loyalty to a murderous dictator—not just on the battlefield, but through countless rapes, murders and the wholesale destruction of their cities. And from 1945 to 1989, Germans living in the eastern part of their country paid the price as slaves to the Soviet Union.
Americans have learned nothing from this warning from history about subservience to a madman.
In 2016, almost 63 million Americans elected Donald Trump—a racist, serial adulterer and longtime fraudster—as President.
Upon taking office in January, 2017, Trump began undermining one public or private institution after another. Among his outrages:
- Repeatedly and viciously attacked the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Publicly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA, National Security Agency) which unanimously agreed that Russia had subverted the 2016 Presidential election,
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for investigating that subversion.
- Gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak highly classified CIA Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
- Allowed predatory corporations to subvert Federal regulatory protections for consumers and the environment.
- Shut down the Federal Government for more than a month on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay.
- Threatened members of Congress with treason charges for daring to challenge him.
- Since being acquitted of impeachable offenses by the Senate, fired the Inspectors General (IG) of five cabinet departments in six weeks.
Donald Trump
Through all those outrages, House and Senate Republican majorities remained silent or vigorously supported him.
Democrats seemed unable to cope with Trump’s legislative agenda and his personal attacks on Twitter and in press conferences.
Even when the press unearthed his latest corruptions, the public didn’t care.
And now, with the 2020 Presidential election fast approaching, Trump has unleashed his latest outrage—while Americans who could stand against it do nothing: Trump now is laying the groundwork to discredit the outcome if he loses.
And it’s increasingly looking as if he will.
His tactics: Make it difficult to vote, guarantee voting is slow and complicated and raise questions about the outcome.
He wants to claim that if former Vice President Joe Biden wins, he was elected through a fraudulent mail-in vote.
Republicans have not protested any of this. Nor would they likely protest if Trump illegally occupied the White House in the face of massive vote fraud—on his part.
(His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote in 2016—but lost in the Electoral College. But that didn’t prevent Trump from claiming that he would have won the popular vote except for massive fraud—which never happened.)
Whatever happens, Trump will claim he won.
In 2012, after President Barack Obama defeated his endorsed candidate, Mitt Romney, Trump tweeted:
- Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice!
- The world is laughing at us. We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty.
- Our nation is totally divided!
- The loser one! [Trump’s spelling]
- He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!
And even if he’s forced to leave office, he will undercut the ability of his successor to govern.
During World War II, scores of high-ranking German army officers risked their lives to plot the overthrow—and even assassination—of Adolf Hitler. Their efforts culminated in the ill-fated July 20, 1944 bomb plot that left Hitler badly injured but still in total command of Germany.
It would take only Vice President Mike Pence and eight Cabinet officers to courageously invoke the 25th Amendment and find Donald Trump “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,”
Yet even that small a number of honorable men cannot be found within the Trump administration.
ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, ANTI-SCIENCE, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BLOOMBERG, BRIGHAM AND WOMEN’S HOUSPITAL, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, CNN, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, CORONAVIRUS, COSTCO, COVID-19, CRAIG SPENCER, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID ABRAMS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, EDUCATION, FACEBOOK, FASCISM, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HYPOCRISY, JENNY FAUST, JOE BIDEN, KRISTI NOEM, MASKS, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOUNT RUSHMORE, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, NYU SCHOOL OF GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETER GLICK, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, RELIGIOUS FANATICISM, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUSH LIMBAUGH, SALON, SCIENCE, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL DISTANCING, STUDENTS FOR TRUMP RALLY, SUPREME COURT, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TARGET, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TULSA RALLY, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, TYPHOID MARY MALLON, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WONKETTE, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 24, 2020 at 12:11 am
There are five reasons why millions of Americans refuse to wear masks during a deadly pandemic:
- A feeling of solidarity against authority.
- “If liberals do it, it’s fascistic.”
- Rejection of the death-toll caused by COVID-19.
- Disdain for education in general—and science in particular.
- Religious fanaticism.
To these must be added:
Sixth: Hypocrisy. Since the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, the Right has demanded that even women who are pregnant due to rape or incest carry the fetus to term.
Yet now that Right-wingers are being asked to wear masks in public—to protect themselves and others from a deadly plague—they’ve suddenly discovered the mantra: “It’s my body!”
Seventh: Identifying with Donald Trump. The President has made it clear that his followers don’t wear masks. And they have fallen into line, refusing to mask up even in crowded, indoor arenas where infection is most likely.
The following states require their citizens to wear masks when in public: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia.
The following states still refuse to order their citizens to wear masks when in public: Arizona, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
Yet even in states where wearing a mask is mandatory when venturing out in public, many people refuse to do so. Fights have erupted before mask-less and mask-wearing customers—and sometimes store employees—who asked them to put on a mask before entering.
- Two men were arrested for felony battery after starting a fight with employees at a Los Angeles Target store over wearing masks inside the store.
- A woman entered Curbside Eatery in La Mesa, California, without a mask, pulling her T-shirt over her face. When the owner told her to mask up or leave, the woman yelled: “This is ridiculous! You’re discriminating against me!’ and threatened a lawsuit.
- In a Costco in Fort Myers, Florida, a masked man asked an unmasked customer to wear a mask. The unmasked man screamed that he was being harassed: “I feel threatened!”
So: How should those who refuse to wear a mask—and thus present a clear and present danger to others—be dealt with?
Ideally, President Donald Trump should issue a mandatory emergency order requiring everyone to wear a mask when out in public. But Trump cannot admit to error—let alone one that could cost him votes among his most fanatical followers. So that’s not going to happen.
Governors, mayors and business owners need to fill the leadership void. They should issue emergency orders mandating the wearing of masks in public. And these orders should be forcibly backed up by the following:
- Stop mollycoddling Right-wing thugs.
- Stop stressing that wearing a mask will protect others from “you.” Most people don’t care about strangers. Emphasize that wearing a mask will protect “you and your family” from others.
- Don’t hand out tickets to mask-evaders. They will simply ignore them—or write them off as a cheap price for going without a mask.
- Major retailers should hire professional guards to handle mask-evaders—who should be turned over to police.
- Police should arrest everyone not wearing a mask in public and jail them—without bond—until the plague is over or a vaccine is found.
- These inmates should be lodged together—and away from those who are not infected with COVID-19.
- Police should create tip hotlines for reporting mask-evaders.
- Police should offer rewards for tips that lead to arrests.
- The media should publicize these arrests and jailings—to warn other potential mask-evaders.
- Many Right-wingers openly threaten unarmed civilians with assault rifles. They must be forcibly taught the penalties for endangering the lives of others—via firearms or as potential carriers of a deadly virus.
It was the failure of German police and courts to abort Right-wing violence during the Weimar Republic that led to even greater violence through the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party.
This is how United States authorities dealt with “Typhoid Mary” Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938).
Mary Mallon
An Irish-born cook, she was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever and is believed to have infected 53 people, three of whom died. Because she persisted in working as a cook, she exposed others to the disease.
As a result, she was twice forcibly quarantined by authorities, and died after a total of nearly 30 years in isolation at Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island, in New York City.
Laws are useless if citizens believe they are unfairly or unpredictably enforced. As Niccolo Machiavelli warns in his classic work, The Discourses:
All those who have written upon civil institutions demonstrate…that whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, ANTI-SCIENCE, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BLOOMBERG, BRIGHAM AND WOMEN’S HOUSPITAL, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, CNN, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, CORONAVIRUS, COSTCO, COVID-19, CRAIG SPENCER, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID ABRAMS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, EDUCATION, FACEBOOK, FASCISM, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HYPOCRISY, JENNY FAUST, JOE BIDEN, KRISTI NOEM, MASKS, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOUNT RUSHMORE, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, NYU SCHOOL OF GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETER GLICK, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, RELIGIOUS FANATICISM, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUSH LIMBAUGH, SALON, SCIENCE, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL DISTANCING, STUDENTS FOR TRUMP RALLY, SUPREME COURT, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TARGET, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TULSA RALLY, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, TYPHOID MARY MALLON, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WONKETTE, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION More stats
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 23, 2020 at 12:22 am
Not only does President Donald Trump refuse to wear a mask, but he suspects the loyalty of his staffers and Republican allies who don’t follow his mask-less example.
On April 28, Vice President Mike Pence toured the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Pence, who leads the White House task force on the virus, refused to wear a mask, even though all the officials and medical personnel clustered around him did. Pence even visited with a patient who had survived the Coronavirus and was going to give blood.
Mike Pence at the May Clinic
Few White House aides wear masks, although they claim that Trump hasn’t told them not to wear them. Some Republican allies have asked Trump’s campaign how they would be seen by Trump if he saw them wearing a mask.
“It’s a vanity thing, I guess, with him,” Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, said. “You’d think, as the President of the United States, you would have the confidence to honor the guidance he’s giving the country.”
By refusing to wear a mask, Trump has convinced untold numbers of Americans—mostly males—that ignoring the dangers of Coronavirus is the manly thing to do.
(On July 20, he tweeted an image of himself wearing a mask and called it “patriotic” to wear one. Hours later, however, he appeared without a mask at a fundraiser at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.)
Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, has often appeared in public wearing a mask. During a June 26 television interview he said that, if he were elected President, he would require wearing face masks in public to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus.
“The one thing we do know—these masks make a gigantic difference,” Biden said. “I would insist that everybody out in public be wearing that mask.”
Yet even in states such as California and New York, where this is required, many people still refuse to do so.
From May 5 to May 12, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surveyed 4,042 adults throughout the country on wearing masks. The agency found that 60.3% of respondents said they always wore a mask when out in public. Another 13.8% said they often wore a mask in public.
But 17.1% said they either rarely or never wore a mask in public.
The CDC found that women were more likely than men to say they always wore a mask in public.
CDC headquarters in Atlanta
There are several reasons why people refuse to wear masks.
First: A feeling of solidarity. According to David Abrams, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at NYU School of Global Public Health: People who don’t wear masks may see it as a sign of solidarity, as if they are taking a stand against authority.
Second: If liberals do it, it’s fascistic. Many mask protesters accuse those who wear masks of being fascists. This is a hallmark of Right-wing politics—accusing their opponents of being what they are themselves.
Third: They have utterly rejected the rising death-toll caused by the virus. They claim stories of such deaths are mere “fake news”—the term Trump uses to dismiss any news stories that highlight his mistakes and criminality.
Fourth: Republicans disdain education in general—and science in particular. In March, an NBC News poll found that only 30% of Republicans said that they would actually listen to the advice of doctors to stay away from large, crowded areas to avoid Coronavirus.
These are the same people who get their version of reality from Right-wing sources like Fox News Network and radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh
On his March 27 show, Limbaugh dismissed Coronavirus as “the common cold,” then added: “We didn’t elect a president to defer to a bunch of health experts that we don’t know.
“And how do we know they’re even health experts? Well, they wear white lab coats, and they’ve been in the job for a while, and they’re at the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and they’re at the NIH [National Institutes of Health] and they’re up, well—yeah, they’ve been there, and they are there.
“But has there been any job assessment for them? They’re just assumed to be the best because they’re in government. But, these are all kinds of things that I’ve been questioning.”
In 2015, Limbaugh said: “Firsthand smoke takes 50 years to kill people, if it does. Not everybody that smokes gets cancer. Now, it’s true that everybody who smokes dies, but so does everyone who eats carrots.”
Five years later, Limbaugh—a longtime and heavy cigar smoker—announced that he had Stage Four lung cancer.
Fifth: Religious Fanaticism: Many fundamentalist Christians believe that their faith in Jesus will protect them against COVID-19. They continue to attend services indoors in defiance of CDC warnings by meeting in large numbers indoors.
A female member of the Solid Red Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio, told CNN: “I wouldn’t be anywhere else. I’m covered in Jesus’ blood. I’m covered in Jesus’ blood.”
ABC NEWS, ABORTION, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTHONY FAUCI, ANTI-SCIENCE, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BLOOMBERG, BRIGHAM AND WOMEN’S HOUSPITAL, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, CNN, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, CORONAVIRUS, COSTCO, COVID-19, CRAIG SPENCER, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID ABRAMS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, EDUCATION, FACEBOOK, FASCISM, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HYPOCRISY, JENNY FAUST, JOE BIDEN, KRISTI NOEM, MASKS, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOUNT RUSHMORE, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, NYU SCHOOL OF GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETER GLICK, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, RELIGIOUS FANATICISM, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUSH LIMBAUGH, SALON, SCIENCE, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL DISTANCING, STUDENTS FOR TRUMP RALLY, SUPREME COURT, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TARGET, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TULSA RALLY, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, TYPHOID MARY MALLON, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WONKETTE, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 22, 2020 at 12:24 am
The United States is now into the seventh month of a deadly plague. More than 3.9 million Americans have become infected with COVID-19 and at least 142,028 have died.
Wearing a mask and “social distancing”—keeping at least six feet between yourself and others while in public—have been the Golden Rules urged by public health officials for months.
And yet vast numbers of Americans still refuse to do either.
Surgical mask
In the early weeks and months of the pandemic, cloth face masks weren’t universally endorsed, even by public health experts.
“One, we didn’t know whether they were actually helpful, and two, there was a lot of concern that if people were using medical masks then people like myself, were not going to have access to them,” said Dr. Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center.
No less an authority than Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, said in March that “people should not be walking around with masks.”
Only in early June did the World Health Organization (WHO) urge non-healthcare workers to mask up. The WHO advised people to don masks when social distancing was not possible, such as when visiting stores and using public transportation.
According to Dr. Jeremy Faust, the change in attitudes toward masks should be seen as the nature of science, and not as a flaw.
“That is what experts, in fact, do. They don’t just have an opinion and stick to it,” said Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts. “They actually let their opinions develop and evolve as better information becomes available.”
Scientists have learned, for example, that COVID-19 can be spread by those who show no symptom of the disease. And mounting evidence has proven that masks are essential for protecting people from the virus.
Coronavirus is spread by respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks—especially if large numbers of people are packed indoors. The danger goes up if the talker is shouting or singing loudly.
If not blocked by a face covering, the droplets can travel six to 13 feet.
Researchers at Florida Atlantic University found that some masks were more effective than others. One study showed that well-fitted homemade masks with multiple layers of fabric, as well as off-the-shelf cone style masks, were the most effective in reducing droplet dispersal.
Bandannas turned out to be the least effective in reducing transmission.
Coronavirus
In cases involving SARS, MERS and COVID, the chance of transmission of an infection was significantly reduced when a mask was worn.
So why do so many Americans refuse to wear a mask?
Start at the top: With Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States.
From the outset, Trump refused to wear a mask in public.
A colossal egotist, Trump is orange-skinned, morbidly obese and lacking a neck. (His head seems to pop right out of his shoulders.) Yet he still thinks of himself as dangerously handsome. And he fears that covering his face would diminish his power and appeal.
“Appearing to play it safe contradicts a core principle of masculinity: show no weakness,” wrote social sciences professor Peter Glick at Scientific American magazine. “Defying experts’ warnings about personal danger signals ‘I’m a tough guy, bring it on.’”
On May 21, Trump refused to wear a face mask as he toured a Ford facility in Michigan that’s manufacturing ventilators and personal protective equipment. This violated the policies of the facility, the governor’s executive order and warnings from the state’s attorney general.
Once states across the country began “reopening,” Trump scheduled his first 2020 re-election rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
It was held on June 20 at the BOK Center. Scientists had learned that Coronavirus is more likely to be transmitted indoors than outdoors, when masses of people are packed together, and when people are loudly talking—or, worse, shouting.
Masks were available for those who wanted them, but Trump made it clear that his supporters shouldn’t wear masks, as a sign of support for him. Photos of the rally show men and women densely packed together, with none of them wearing masks.
A Trump rally
The Tulsa event was followed by another indoor rally in Phoenix on June 23. “Students for Trump” featured a packed crowd, with almost no one wearing masks.
After staging COVID-spreading rallies at Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Phoenix, Arizona, Trump scheduled another one for July 3 at Mount Rushmore, in Keystone, South Dakota.
Such rallies had been put on hold since March, due to the issuing of stay-at-home orders across the country by states’ mayors and governors.
Although health experts expressed fears about a large gathering during the Coronavirus pandemic, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said people would “not be social distancing” during the celebration:
“In South Dakota, we’ve told people to focus on personal responsibility….Those who want to come and join us, we’ll be giving out free face masks, if they choose to wear one. But we won’t be social distancing.”
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, “EL CID” (MOVIE, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CAMILLUS, CBS NEWS, CHARLTON HESTON, CHRISTOPHER SWANSON, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEREK CHAUVIN, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLINT TOWNSHIP, GEORGE FLOYD, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, LOS ANGELES, MARCUS FURIUS, MEDIA MATTERS, MOORS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW YORK CITY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RODRIGO DIAZ DE VIVAR, SALON, SAN FRANCISCO, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SPAIN, ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VALENCIA, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 4, 2020 at 12:20 am
Two stories—one fictitious, the other historical.
Story #1: In the 1961 historical epic, “El Cid,” Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, known as “The Lord,” besieges the Spanish city of Valencia, which has been captured by the Moors.
Months have passed. The city’s population is starving and without hope.
Then, one day, El Cid (Charlton Heston) calls out over the city’s walls: “Soldiers and citizens of Valencia We are not your enemy! Ben Yusof [the powerful emir who plans to conquer Spain with an invading army] is your enemy!
“Join us! We bring you peace! We bring you freedom! We bring you bread!”
Suddenly El Cid’s Spanish catapults spring into action—loaded not with stones but loaves of bread. The loaves land in the city’s streets, where starving citizens and soldiers greedily devour them.
Then those citizens attack the bodyguards of the emir ruling Valencia—and throw the emir himself from a high wall.
The army of El Cid marches peacefully into the city.
Story #2: In Book Three, Chapter 22 of his classic masterwork, The Discourses, Niccolo Machiavelli offers the following: “An Act of Humanity Prevailed More With the Falacians Than All the Power of Rome.”
Marcus Furius Camillus, a Roman general, was besieging the city of the Faliscians, and had surrounded it. A teacher charged with the education of the children of some of the noblest families of that city decided to ingratiate himself with Camillus by leading those children into the Roman camp.
Presenting them to Camillus the teacher said to him, “By means of these children as hostages, you will be able to compel the city to surrender.”
Camillus not only declined the offer but went one step further. He ordered the teacher stripped and his hands tied behind his back. Then Camillus had a rod put into the hands of each of the children and directed them to whip the teacher all the way back to the city.
Upon learning this, the citizens of Faliscia were so much touched by the humanity and integrity of Camillus, that they surrendered the place to him without any further defense.
Summing up the meaning of this, Machiavelli writes: “This example shows that an act of humanity and benevolence will at all times have more influence over the minds of men than violence and ferocity. It also proves that provinces and cities which no armies…could conquer, have yielded to an act of humanity, benevolence, chastity or generosity.
“…History also shows us how much the people desire to find such virtues in great men, and how much they are extolled by historians and biographers of princes….Amongst these, Xenophon takes great pains to show how many victories, how much honor and fame, Cyrus gained by his humanity and affability, and by his not having exhibited a single instance of pride, cruelty or luxuriousness, nor of any of the other vices that are apt to stain the lives of men.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
These stories—the first the product of a movie screenwriter’s imagination, the second recorded by a master political scientist and historian—remain highly relevant today.
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a black unemployed restaurant security guard, was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Chauvin kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.
Cities across the United States erupted in mass protests over Floyd’s death—and police killings of black victims generally. Most of these demonstrations proved peaceful.
But cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City saw stores looted, vandalized and/or burned. In response, President Donald Trump called for harsh policing, telling governors in a nationwide conference call that they must “dominate” protesters or be seen as “weak.”
To drive home his point, Trump ordered police and National Guard troops to violently remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, which borders St. John’s Church near the White House.
The purpose of the removal: To allow Trump to have a photo opportunity outside the church.
“I imposed a curfew at 7pm,” tweeted Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. “A full 25 minutes before the curfew & w/o provocation, federal police used munitions on peaceful protestors in front of the White House, an act that will make the job of @DCPoliceDept officers more difficult. Shameful!”
Contrast that with the example of Sheriff Christopher Swanson of Genesee County, Michigan.
Sheriff Christopher Swanson
Confronting a mass of aroused demonstrators in Flint Township on May 30, Swanson responded: “We want to be with you all for real.”
So Swanson took his helmet off. His deputies laid their batons down.
“I want to make this a parade, not a protest. So, you tell us what you need to do.”
“Walk with us!” the protesters shouted.
“Let’s walk, let’s walk,” said Swanson.
Cheering and applause resounded.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Swanson said as he and the cheering crowd proceeded. “Where do you want to walk? We’ll walk all night.”
And Swanson and his fellow officers walked in sympathy with the protesters.
No rioting followed.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ABC NEWS, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AYANNA PRESSLEY, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BOB WOODWARD, BRIBERY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BERLANGA, DRUDGE RETORT, ELLIOT NESS, ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCISCO "PANCHO" VILLA, GREG ABBOTT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, ILHAN OMAR, INTIMIDATION, JAMES CARLOS BLAKE, JEFF SESSIONS, JOHN OWENS, KEN PAXTON, MEDIA MATTERS, MEXICAN REVOLUTION, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS, NPR, PAM BONDI, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RASHIDA TLAIB, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN CONVENTION, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RODOLFO FIERRO, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE FRIENDS OF PANCHO VILLA (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUMP UNIVERSITY, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, USA TODAY DONALD TRUMP, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 22, 2020 at 12:39 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
The conduct of weak men is very different. Made vain and intoxicated by good fortune, they attribute their success to merits which they do not possess. And this makes them odious and insupportable to all around them. And when they have afterwards to meet a reverse of fortune, they quickly fall into the other extreme, and become abject and vile.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Niccolo Machiavelli
When Donald Trump—as a businessman and President—has been confronted by men and women who can’t be bribed or intimidated, he has reacted with rage and frustration.
- Trump boasted that he “never” settled cases out of court. But New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman pressed fraud claims against the real estate mogul’s counterfeit Trump University—and Trump settled the case out of court rather than take the stand.
- “Today’s $25 million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump,” said Schneiderman on November 18, 2016, “and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”
- On May 17, 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller to investigate links between Russian Intelligence agents and the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign.
- Upon learning of his appointment, Trump wailed: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”
- “How could you let this happen, Jeff?” Trump demanded of Jeff Sessions, his Attorney General. “You were supposed to protect me. Everyone tells me if you get one of these independent counsels, it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years and I won’t be able to do anything. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
- Throughout Mueller’s probe, Trump hurled repeated insults at him via Twitter and press conferences. He also called on his shills within Fox News and the Republican party to attack Mueller’s integrity and investigative methods.
- But aides convinced him that firing Mueller would be rightly seen as obstruction of justice—and thus grounds for impeachment. So he never dared go that far.
Robert Mueller
Perhaps the key to Trump’s innermost fear can be found in a work of fiction—in this case, the 1996 historical novel, The Friends of Pancho Villa, by James Carlos Blake.
The book depicts the Mexican Revolution (1910 – 1920) and its most famous revolutionary, Francisco “Pancho” Villa. it’s told from the viewpoint of Rodolfo Fierro, Villa’s most feared executioner. In one day, for example, Fierro—using two revolvers—executed 300 captured Federale soldiers.
As in history, Blake’s Fierro presides over the execution of David Berlanga, a journalist who had dared criticize the often loutish behavior of Villa’s men.
On Villa’s command, Fierro approaches Berlanga in a Mexico City restaurant and orders: “Come with me.”
Standing against a barracks wall, Berlanga lights a cigar and requests permission to finish it. He then proceeds to smoke it with such a steady hand that its unbroken ash extends almost four inches.
The cigar finished, the ash still unbroken, Berlanga drops the butt to the ground and says calmly: “I’m ready.”
Then the assembled firing squad does its work.
Later, Fierro is so shaken by Berlanga’s sheer fearlessness that he seeks an explanation for it. Sitting in a cantina, he lights a cigar and tries to duplicate Berlanga’s four-inch length.
But the best he can do is less than three inches. He concludes that Berlanga used a trick—but he can’t figure it out.
Rodolfo Fierro
It had to be a trick, Fierro insists, because, if it wasn’t, there were only two other explanations for such a calm demeanor in the face of impending death.
The first was insanity. But Fierro rules this out: He had studied Berlanga’s eyes and found no madness there.
That leaves only one other explanation (other than a trick): Sheer courage.
And Fierro can’t accept this, either—because it’s disturbing.
“The power of men like me does not come solely from our ability to kill….No, the true source of our power is so obvious it sometimes goes unnoticed for what it is: our power comes from other men’s lack of courage.
“There is even less courage in this world than there is talent for killing. Men like me rule because most men are faint of heart in the shadow of death.
“But a man brave enough to control his fear of being killed, control it so well that no tremor reaches his fingers and no sign shows in his eyes…well. Such a man cannot be ruled, he can only be killed.”
Throughout his life, Trump has relied on bribery and intimidation. He well understands the power of greed and fear over most people.
What he doesn’t understand—and truly fears—is that some people cannot be bought or frightened.
People like Elliot Ness. Like Robert Mueller. And like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ABC NEWS, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AYANNA PRESSLEY, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BOB WOODWARD, BRIBERY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BERLANGA, DRUDGE RETORT, ELLIOT NESS, ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCISCO "PANCHO" VILLA, GREG ABBOTT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, ILHAN OMAR, INTIMIDATION, JAMES CARLOS BLAKE, JEFF SESSIONS, JOHN OWENS, KEN PAXTON, MEDIA MATTERS, MEXICAN REVOLUTION, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS, NPR, PAM BONDI, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RASHIDA TLAIB, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN CONVENTION, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RODOLFO FIERRO, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE FRIENDS OF PANCHO VILLA (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUMP UNIVERSITY, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, USA TODAY DONALD TRUMP, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 21, 2020 at 12:54 am
On July 14, 2019, President Donald Trump unleashed a brutal Twitter attack on four Democratic members of the House of Representatives who had harshly criticized his anti-immigration policies:
“So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……
“….and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how….
“….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
Donald Trump
The Democrats—all female, and all non-white—were:
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York;
- Rashida Tlaib of Michigan;
- Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and
- Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
Of the Congresswomen that Trump singled out:
- Cortez was born in New York City.
- Tlaib was born in Detroit, Michigan.
- Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Only Omar was born outside the United States—in Somalia. And she became an American citizen in 2000 when she was 17 years old.
Critics have assailed Trump as racist for implying that these women were not United States citizens.
Moreover, as members of Congress, they had a legal right to declare “how our government is to be run.” Republicans in the House and Senate vigorously—and often viciously—asserted that right during the Presidency of Barack Obama.
Ocasio-Cortez quickly struck back on Twitter on the same day: “You are angry because you don’t believe in an America where I represent New York 14, where the good people of Minnesota elected , where fights for Michigan families, where champions little girls in Boston.
“You are angry because you can’t conceive of an America that includes us. You rely on a frightened America for your plunder.
“You won’t accept a nation that sees healthcare as a right or education as a #1 priority, especially where we’re the ones fighting for it. Yet here we are.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
But then followed the most significant part of Cortez’ reply:
“But you know what’s the rub of it all, Mr. President? On top of not accepting an America that elected us, you cannot accept that we don’t fear you, either.
“You can’t accept that we will call your bluff & offer a positive vision for this country. And that’s what makes you seethe.”
“You cannot accept that we don’t fear you, either.”
For all his adult life, Donald Trump—as a businessman, Presidential candidate and now President—has trafficked in bribery and coercion.
First bribery:
- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.
- After Bondi dropped the Trump University case, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
- Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moved to muzzle a former state regulator who says he was ordered in 2010 to drop a fraud investigation into Trump University for political reasons.
- Paxton’s office issued a cease and desist letter to former Deputy Chief of Consumer Protection John Owens after he made public copies of a 14-page internal summary of the state’s case against Donald Trump for scamming millions from students of his now-defunct real estate seminar.
- After the Texas case was dropped, Trump cut a $35,000 check to the gubernatorial campaign of then-attorney general and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Now coercion:
- Throughout his career as a businessman, Trump forced his employees to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements, threatening them with lawsuits if they revealed secrets of his greed and/or criminality.
- In 2016. USA Today found that Trump was involved in over 3,500 lawsuits during the previous 30 years: “At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings” were from contractors claiming they got stiffed.
- On March 16, 2016, as a Republican Presidential candidate, Trump warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen, I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
- An NBC reporter summed it up as: “The message to Republicans was clear: ‘Nice convention you got there. Shame if something happened to it.'”
- Speaking with Bob Woodward, the legendary Washington Post investigative reporter, Trump confessed: “Real power is—I don’t even want to use the word—fear.”
- During his Presidential campaign he encouraged Right-wing thugs to attack dissenters at his rallies, even claiming he would pay their legal expenses.
But when he has confronted men and women who can’t be bribed or intimidated, Trump has reacted with rage and desperation.
ABC NEWS, ADVICE, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID BROOKS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, ECONOMY, EHRBERT HOOVER, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GREAT DEPRESSION, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY S. TRUMAN, MASKS, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, NUEMBERG RALLIES, PBS NEWSHOUR, PENNSYLVANIA, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL DISTANCING, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PBS NEWSHOUR, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WISCONSIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 20, 2020 at 12:05 am
For all his ruthlessness and duplicity, it’s almost a certainty that Donald Trump has never read the works of Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) is widely thought of as the personification of Satan.
In fact, Machiavelli was a passionate Republican, who spent most of his adult life in the service of his beloved city-state, Florence.
Florence, for all its wealth, lacked a strong army, and thus lay at the mercy of powerful enemies, such as Cesare Borgia. Machiavelli often had to use his wits to keep them at bay.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Contrary to popular belief, Machiavelli did not advocate evil for its own sake.
Rather, he recognized that sometimes there is no perfect solution to a problem. He realized that men—and nations—are not always masters of their fates. And he warned that there is no course of action that is guaranteed safe or successful.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a man of simplistic “solutions” for simplistic audiences.
By early April, he opposed the issuing of a national “stay-at-home” order to contain the spread of the Coronavirus. But, one by one, states began issuing shutdown orders of their own. Since then, he has railed against those orders and demanded that “we need to reopen the country.”
Donald Trump
What lies behind this demand are two hidden agendas:
First, throughout his Presidency, Trump has claimed sole credit for a booming economy—even though this was largely the result of the administration of President Barack Obama.
Second, Trump wants to return to his Nuremberg-style rallies, where he can slander anyone he wants while basking in the worship of thousands of his fanatical followers.
His White House “Coronavirus briefings” have been his pale substitute for dispensing propaganda under the guise of sharing reliable medical information.
Which is why he has clearly missed this warning, offered in Machiavelli’s masterwork, The Discourses:
“…I shall speak here only of those dangers to which those expose themselves who counsel a republic or a prince to undertake some grave and important enterprise in such a manner as to take upon themselves all the responsibility of the same.
“For as men only judge of matters by the result, all the blame of failure is charged upon him who first advised it, while in case of success he receives commendations. But the reward never equals the punishment….
“Certainly those who counsel princes and republics are placed between two dangers. If they do not advise what seems to them for the good of the republic or the prince, regardless of the consequences to themselves, then they fail of their duty….
“I see no other course than to take things moderately, and not to undertake to advocate any enterprise with too much zeal, but to give one’s advice calmly and modestly.
“If either then the republic or the prince decides to follow it, they may do so, as it were, of their own will, and not as though they were drawn into it by your importunity.
“In adopting this course it is not reasonable to suppose that either the prince or republic will manifest any ill will towards you on account of a resolution not taken contrary to the wishes of the many.”
Right now, more Americans are wary of “reopening the country” than they are rushing to do so.
On the May 15 edition of The PBS Newshour, New York Times columnist David Brooks noted:
“If you look at actual behavior, people locked themselves down before any politician took a move. And even in those states where the politicians are opening up, people are still locking down….
“You look at the movement based on cell phone tracking. Red and blue states have the same amount of movement. The same number of people basically in state after state are staying home. And red and blue states, there’s no correlation between whether it’s a red and blue state and whether people are doing better or worse.
“And so I think the key decisions right now are not being made in statehouses and certainly not the White House. They’re being made in living rooms, as people decide, is it safe? Can I go out?”
Coronavirus
By pushing his mantra—“America needs to reopen NOW!”—Trump is risking the lives of millions of Americans. But he is also risking the future of his Presidency.
Several states—such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—that have re-opened have seen swarms of people flooding into bars and restaurants. They weren’t wearing masks or practicing “social distancing.” Packed together like sardines, they offered themselves like a sacrifice to Coronavirus.
If a new wave of COVID-19 breaks out after America “reopens,” Trump will be seen—as Machiavelli warns—as the primary instigator of that “reopening.” He will also be seen as the primary cause of that re-infection.
Herbert Hoover did not create the Great Depression. But he presided over the first three years of it. And that was enough to elect Franklin D. Roosevelt for 12 years and give Harry S. Truman another eight.
Trump—unintentionally—is offering Democrats another chance to own the Presidency for a generation.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADAM SCHIFF, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARMENIA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLES PIERCE, CNN, CONVERSATION WITH AN AMERICAN WRITER (POEM), CORY GARDNER, CORY GRADINER, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH, DONALD TRUMP, ESQUIRE MAGAZINE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOREIGN SERVICE, GREAT TERROR, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, HUNTER BIDEN, JAMES COMEY, JEFF SESSIONS, JOE BIDEN, JONI ERNST, JOSEPH STALIN, KEITH SCHILLER, KYRGYZSTAN, MARIA YOVANOVITCH, MARIE YOVANOVICH, MARTHA MCSALLY, MICHAEL ATKINSON, MIKE FLYNN, MIKHAIL TUKHACHEVESKY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NIKOLAI ZHILAYEV, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT MUELLER III, ROD ROSENSTEIN, RUDOLPH GIULIANI, RUDY GIULIANI, RUSSIAN ESPIONAGEky, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVOV, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STATE DEPARTMENT, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOM TILLIS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, WEHRMACHT, WORLD WAR 11, YEVGENEY YEVTUSHENKO
In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 10, 2020 at 12:04 am
On March 30, Captain Brett Crozier, commanding the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, sent a four-page internal letter to multiple Naval officials, pleading to have the majority of the crew evacuated and quarantined on shore in Guam.
The reason: Dozens of his crew members had been stricken with the deadly Coronavirus. And the ship’s cramped compartments and narrow passageways made “social distancing” impossible.
On March 31, someone leaked the letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, which published it.
On April 1, the Navy ordered the aircraft carrier evacuated.
On April 2, Crozier was relieved of command by acting United States Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly.
Not content to fire Crozier, Modly visited the ship and stated over its public address system: “If he didn’t think, in my opinion, that this information wasn’t going to get out to the public, in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either (a) too naïve or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this. The alternative is that he did this on purpose.
“It was a betrayal of trust with me, with his chain of command, with you.”
Thus, for Modly, Crozier’s “crime” was making public what everyone on the ship and countless Navy officials knew.
President Donald Trump echoed Modly’s attitude: “The letter was a five-page letter from a captain, and the letter was all over the place. That’s not appropriate.
“I thought it was terrible, what he did, to write a letter. I mean, this isn’t a class on literature. This is a captain of a massive ship that’s nuclear powered. And he shouldn’t be talking that way in a letter.”
But Crozier wasn’t the only victim of Trump’s “integrity-is-treason” mindset that week.
On April 3, Trump informed Congress that he was removing Michael Atkinson, the inspector general who alerted Congress to his extortion attempt against Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, on July 25, 2019.
Trump told Zelensky: Find embarrassing “dirt” on former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter.
Hunter had had business dealings in Ukraine. And Joe Biden might be Trump’s Democratic opponent for the White House in 2020.
To underline the seriousness of his “request,” Trump had withheld $400 million in promised military aid to Ukraine, which is facing an increasingly aggressive Russia.
Reporters asked Congressional Republicans: “Is it appropriate for President Donald Trump to ask a foreign government to investigate his political opponent?”
Donald Trump
And those Republicans refusing to answer or condemn such behavior:
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst: “We don’t have all the facts, we don’t know what is accurate. We have a picture painted by the media and we don’t know if that picture is accurate.”
Arizona Senator Martha McSally: “I think what we’ve seen out of [Speaker of the House Nancy] Pelosi and [House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam] Schiff and others in the House is quite partisan and I think people want us to take a serious look at this and not have it be just partisan bickering going on.”
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis: “I’m going to leave it to the President to make that decision” on whether his actions were appropriate.
The reason for Republicans’ deafening silence: They didn’t want to anger Trump or his fanatical supporters. And they feared losing their Congressional seats and the perks that go with them.
Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, showed no such fear.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Atkinson left private law practice and worked for the United States Department of Justice for 15 years.
In 2017, President Trump nominated him as Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. The Senate confirmed him in 2018.
Michael Atkinson
Atkinson, informed by an Intelligence whistleblower of Trump’s extortion attempt, was appalled. He believed that he was obligated by law to report it to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
Trump was ultimately impeached by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives for abusing his office for personal political gain and obstruction of Congress.
But a Republican-controlled Senate—which refused to hear witnesses or act on the overwhelming evidence—quickly exonerated him.
In his April 3 letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Trump wrote: “This is to advise that I am exercising my power as President to remove from office the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.
“it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as Inspectors General. That is no longer the case with regard to this Inspector General.”
Clearly, there is a reason why Trump no longer has “the fullest confidence” in Atkinson: He can’t depend on “this Inspector General” to conceal and support any future crimes he might commit.
In his 1960 poem, “Conversation With an American Writer,” the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko spoke for those Russians who had maintained their integrity in the face of Stalinist terror:
“You have courage,” they tell me.
It’s not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Republicans in the United States Senate and House of Representatives in the face of Trump terror.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, ABC NEWS, ADAM SCHIFF, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BRETT CROZIER, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLES PIERCE, CNN, CONVERSATION WITH AN AMERICAN WRITER (POEM), COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH, DONALD TRUMP, ESQUIRE MAGAZINE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOREIGN SERVICE, GREAT TERROR, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, HUNTER BIDEN, JOE BIDEN, JONI ERNST, JOSEPH STALIN, MARTHA MCSALLY, MICHAEL ATKINSON, MIKHAIL TUKHACHEVESKY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NIKOLAI ZHILAYEV, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOM TILLIS, THOMAS MODLY, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES NAVY, UPI, USA TODAY, USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT, VOLODMYR ZELENSKY, WEHRMACHT, WORLD WAR 11, YEVGENEY YEVTUSHENKO
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 8, 2020 at 12:08 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
The conduct of weak men is very different. Made vain and intoxicated by good fortune, they attribute their success to merits which they do not possess. And this makes them odious and insupportable to all around them. And when they have afterwards to meet a reverse of fortune, they quickly fall into the other extreme, and become abject and vile.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Four heroes, three villains.
Two of the heroes are Russians; two are Americans.
The villains: One Russian (actually, Georgian); two American.
First up—in order of disappearance: Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (pronounced too-ka-chev-sky)
Tukhachevsky (February 4, 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a leading Soviet military leader and theoretician from 1918 to 1937.
He commanded the Soviet Western Front during the Russian-Polish War (1920-21) and served as Chief of Staff of the Red Army (1925-1928).
He fought to modernize Soviet armament, as well as develop airborne, aviation and mechanized forces. Almost singlehandedly, he created the theory of deep operations for Soviet forces.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
All of these innovations would reap huge dividends when the Soviet Union faced the lethal fury of Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
In 1936, Tukhachevsky warned Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that Nazi Germany might attack without warning—and ignite a long and murderous war.
Stalin—the son of a Georgian cobbler—resented Tukhachevsky’s coming from a noble family. A monumental egomaniac, he also hated that Tukhachevesky’s fame rivaled his own.
Warned of the approaching German danger, Stalin shouted: “What are you trying to do—frighten Soviet authority?”
Joseph Stalin
The attack that Tukhachevsky warned against came five years later—on June 22, 1941, leaving at least 26 million Russians dead.
But Tukhachevsky wasn’t alive to command a defense.
The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion.
An example of Stalin’s paranoia occurred one day while the dictator walked through the Kremlin corridors with Admiral Ivan Isakov. Officers of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) stood guard at every corner.
“Every time I walk down the corridors,” said Stalin, “I think: Which one of them is it? If it’s this one, he will shoot me in the back. But if I turn the corner, the next one can shoot me in the face.”
In 1937-38, the Red Army fell prey to Stalin’s paranoia.
Its victims included:
- Three of five marshals (five-star generals);
- Thirteen of 15 army commanders (three- and four-star generals);
- Fifty of 57 army corps commanders; and
- One hundred fifty-four out of 186 division commanders.
And heading the list of those marked for death was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Arrested on May 22, 1937, he was interrogated and tortured. As a result, he “confessed” to being a German agent plotting to overthrow Stalin and seize power.
On his confession, which survives in the archives, his bloodstains can clearly be seen.
On June 11, 1937, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason.
It was a sham: The accused were denied defense attorneys, and could not appeal the verdict—-which was foregone: Death.
In a Russian version of poetic justice, five of the eight generals who served as Tukhachevsky’s judges were themselves later condemned and executed as traitors.
Within hours of the verdict, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell and shot once in the back of the head.
From 1937 until 1956, Tukhachevsky was officially declared a traitor and fifth-columnist.
Then, on February 25, 1957, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered his bombshell “Secret Speech” to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In this, he denounced Stalin (who had died in 1953) as a ruthless tyrant responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent men, women and children. He condemned Stalin for creating a “personality cult” around himself, and for so weakening the Red Army that Nazi Germany was able to easily overrun half of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1943.
On January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his co-defendants were declared innocent of all charges and were “rehabilitated.”
Today, he is once again—rightly—considered a Russian hero and military genius. And Stalin is universally—and rightly—seen as a blood-stained tyrant.
Next hero: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev)
Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers. Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Zhilayev, a member of the Russian Academy of Art-Sciences, taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
In 1938, he, too, became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD secret police sent to arrest him.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 25TH AMENDMENT, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE REPORT, ELECTORAL COLLEGE, ENGLAND, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION (FAA), FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMPEACHMENT, INISPECTORS GENERAL, JAMES COMEY, JOE BIDEN, JULY 20 1944 BOMB PLOT, MEDIA MATTERS, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUNICH CONFERENCE, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, POPULAR VOTE, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRANSPORTATION SAFETY ADMINISTRATION (TSA), TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-FIFTH AMENDMENT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
A NATION WATCHES–AND CRUMBLES–AS A TYRANT REIGNS
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 4, 2020 at 12:10 amIn September, 1938, as Adolf Hitler threatened to go to war against France and England over Czechoslovakia, most Germans feared he would. They knew that Germany was not ready for war, despite all of their Fuhrer’s boasts about how invincible the Third Reich was.
A group of high-ranking German army officers was prepared to overthrow Hitler—provided that England and France held firm and handed him a major diplomatic reverse.
But then England and France—though more powerful than Germany—surrendered to Hitler’s demands for the “Sudetenland”—the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia, inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans.
Hitler’s popularity among Germans soared.
The plotters in the German high command, realizing that public opinion stood overwhelmingly against them, abandoned their plans for a coup. They decided to wait for a more favorable time.
It never came.
Adolf Hitler and his generals
Less than one year after the infamous “Munich conference,” World War II erupted.
Most Germans blindly followed their Fuhrer right to the end—believing his lies (or at least wanting to believe them), serving in his legions, defending his rampant criminality.
Germans paid the price for their loyalty to a murderous dictator—not just on the battlefield, but through countless rapes, murders and the wholesale destruction of their cities. And from 1945 to 1989, Germans living in the eastern part of their country paid the price as slaves to the Soviet Union.
Americans have learned nothing from this warning from history about subservience to a madman.
In 2016, almost 63 million Americans elected Donald Trump—a racist, serial adulterer and longtime fraudster—as President.
Upon taking office in January, 2017, Trump began undermining one public or private institution after another. Among his outrages:
Donald Trump
Through all those outrages, House and Senate Republican majorities remained silent or vigorously supported him.
Democrats seemed unable to cope with Trump’s legislative agenda and his personal attacks on Twitter and in press conferences.
Even when the press unearthed his latest corruptions, the public didn’t care.
And now, with the 2020 Presidential election fast approaching, Trump has unleashed his latest outrage—while Americans who could stand against it do nothing: Trump now is laying the groundwork to discredit the outcome if he loses.
And it’s increasingly looking as if he will.
His tactics: Make it difficult to vote, guarantee voting is slow and complicated and raise questions about the outcome.
He wants to claim that if former Vice President Joe Biden wins, he was elected through a fraudulent mail-in vote.
Republicans have not protested any of this. Nor would they likely protest if Trump illegally occupied the White House in the face of massive vote fraud—on his part.
(His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote in 2016—but lost in the Electoral College. But that didn’t prevent Trump from claiming that he would have won the popular vote except for massive fraud—which never happened.)
Whatever happens, Trump will claim he won.
In 2012, after President Barack Obama defeated his endorsed candidate, Mitt Romney, Trump tweeted:
And even if he’s forced to leave office, he will undercut the ability of his successor to govern.
During World War II, scores of high-ranking German army officers risked their lives to plot the overthrow—and even assassination—of Adolf Hitler. Their efforts culminated in the ill-fated July 20, 1944 bomb plot that left Hitler badly injured but still in total command of Germany.
It would take only Vice President Mike Pence and eight Cabinet officers to courageously invoke the 25th Amendment and find Donald Trump “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,”
Yet even that small a number of honorable men cannot be found within the Trump administration.
Share this: