The meaning of the 2000 Coup d'Etat

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I am trying to create a summary of what I think I know about the constitutional crisis we are experiencing in America and, to a lesser degree, what we do about it.  Its a tough subject and I tend to repeat myself.  There were several events that in my opinion foreshadowed the disaster we are now in, and this post describes one of them.

I realize that this could sound like I am being a know - it - all here, but bear with me.  You may not have grown up in the South and that there were certain elements in this affair that were very obvious to any Southerner (whatever position or side they may have taken) but may not be obvious to anyone else.

In November 2000, I protested the right wing, supreme court coup d'etat in Washington.  This is one of the four times in my life (so far) that I bothered to get out on the street and protest something.  It feels pretty silly when you are doing it, unlikely to have an impact, but still worth doing, I guess. It feels good to be doing something and its nice to get out of the house.

I realized just recently that the issues then were not as clear to my peers as they were to me and that there was some misunderstanding which I hope this post will clear up.  The thesis will be that the real issues at stake were only nominally about W. Bush vs. Gore, but issues much more important and tragic. It affects the legitimacy of the American government itself.  This is going to take a while, we are going to have to start from first principles.

For the system of justice to work in this country, we have to believe that,  generally speaking, the judiciary is not deliberately partisan to one party or another.  If that is not the case, it becomes more and more difficult to accept an adverse decision.  Since of course the judiciary is a mixed bag, some partisan, some not, one way of implementing a more fair system is to (a) use a jury of peers, (b) restrict a judge to implementing a decision based on the letter of the law and prior decisions.  That is useful up to a point.

But as we go higher up the chain into the appeals system, the justices must be permitted the ability to look at the law from a higher level and here the spirit of the law and the implications of a decision become more and more relevant.  Finally, when we get to the Supreme Court, they are the final decision about what is constitutional and what is not. They can not pretend, for example, that they are unaware of the history of voting rights in this country in the post Civil War period. They can and do override Congress and the POTUS. With great power comes great responsibility. Decisions of a Supreme Court become the law of the land, one must believe that they are always acting in the nation's interest, especially with controversial issues and controversial decisions. Failure to do so reduces the legitimacy of the whole judicial system, but worse, cripples one of the three arms of the American system of representative government.

But when the Supreme Court awarded the Presidency to W. Bush in 2000, it was clear that they were acting in a partisan fashion, to put the right wing candidate in power.  Whether you believe that or not, the fact is that many Americans at the time believed it, and presumably many Americans believe it today.  Was there an alternative?  Yes, the Supreme Court could have let the process continue, and all the votes could have been counted.  But it gets worse.

The problem was that while Al Gore clearly won the popular vote, the electoral vote was going to be decided by Florida, and Florida had election irregularities.  Those had to be worked out, and they were being worked out.  But it gets worse.

The irregularities came from the use of different voting machines in different parts of the State of Florida, with those in poorer districts getting machines that were more prone to counting error, the so called "hanging chad" problem.  But what you might not realize is that poverty in the South (and many parts of this country) is correlated to race.  Poorer districts may have inferior schools, poorer districts usually have a higher percentage of black citizens.

Therefore, when the Supreme Court terminated the counting it was really saying, we do not want to count the votes of Black Americans because you see, in case this was not obvious, the "hanging chads" were in Black districts and therefore represented Black votes, at least to a large degree.

And that is what they said.  They said, we are going to for partisan reasons, install a right wing President against the will of the people, and deliberately and in a racist fashion, not count the votes of Black Americans.

At that moment, the court could no longer be counted on to act in the nation's interest.  To many of us, it had clearly shown that it was a tool of partisan, right wing, and racist forces in this country.

Trust me when I tell you, no one who grew up in the southern states would have missed this message.  They might have needed to be reminded why some districts had their chads hanging and some did not, but once they realized this, well, the conclusion was obvious.

What astonished and disturbed me, is that the leaders I trusted to represent me were not willing to challenge this decision, and were not willing to say what was obvious.  That the judiciary could no longer be trusted to do their job.  That the constitution had failed.

In my opinion, when history looks at the current constitutional crisis, however it works out, this Supreme Court decision will be recognized as an important event, signaling what was to follow two decades later.

Steve Speer Channels Baphomet

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Baphomet was the demon the inquisition accused the Knights Templar of worshipping.

In this image, we see my friend Steve Speer, NY based artist, prepare for his performance channelling Baphomet.

Another image, and the Wikipedia page, below

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet

The Disconnect Part 1

I am often told that we must talk to Trump supporters or we will never blah blah blah.  If they have not figured out by now what a disaster he is then nothing you or anyone says will change their mind. I have read literally hundreds of articles and editorials by Trump supporters and perhaps thousands of their comments back when I read the comments to articles in the WaPo among others and I can tell you that I know what I am talking about.

These people fall into several different categories (no, they are not all the same).  Some are racists, some are stupid, etc.  But some, more than a few, have something else going on.  I am going to call it "the disconnect" as in the disconnection from reality.

Here are two examples I stumbled on in one day, probably through Real Clear Politics, the right wing news aggregator.  I submit them to you here as evidence.

The first disconnect from reality was an essay pointing out with total certainty that those who are worried about Global Warming have been wrong about everything, and those who are skeptics have been totally vindicated.  What I find fascinating about this statement and this article is that the person who wrote it is clearly and unambiguously out of their mind.  There are many things we do not know about global warming, and there are many questions and issues going forward about what we can do and what we should do.  But there is one thing that is not in doubt: global warming is happening and mankind (people, humanity, whatever) is the primary cause.  You simply can not be an adult and doubt this any more unless there is something wrong with you.  Sorry if you disagree.  I don’t think it could possibly be debated any longer.

The second disconnect is an article whose title asks “Is Trump the Most Fun President Ever?”  Whoever wrote this right wing crap thinks betraying their country, violating the law, destroying the judiciary, and racism is fun. 

My point here is not that Trump supporters are all racists, or assholes or whatever.  My point is, there is something wrong with them.  I dont mean this in a nice way.

Is it Time for Liberals and Progressives to Arm Themselves?

Now that the right has filled the supreme court with right wing thugs, the time has come for liberals to accept that democracy, the rule of law, and so forth no longer exists in America. There are those who argue that it never existed, but I think their arguments are, frankly, irrelevant. Many Americans *believed* that they lived in a flawed democracy, but now no one could possibly believe that. Its just a dictatorship set up for and by the rich.

People have secured their rights in this country in the past by fighting for them, and I don’t mean that in a symbolic or “representational democracy” sort of way. No I mean standing in a picket line and getting their heads beat up by thugs who are supported by our government. I mean the bonus marchers murdered for protesting their treatment at the hands of the government. I mean riots in the cities when the FBI murdered Martin Luther King (not their first murder). I mean protesting with violence when an innocent man or woman is raped in prison, beaten around the head and shoulders and then “hung himself” in his cell.

Nothing is more American than violence. Nothing is more American than the rich using the government to destroy the rights of the poor in order to get more money.

So is it time for liberals and progressives to arm themselves?  This is a very controversial topic and I do not have the answer to that.  I can argue either point of view all day long and get nowhere.  So lets just say it *may* be time to buy firearms, a great American tradition, and ask a few questions.  That will be reserved for the next post on the topic.

Yes, I know this is an upsetting and controversial topic.  Hey, not my fault.  Stay tuned! Things are just getting interesting.

You Dont Talk to Nazis

A reminder of why it is useless to talk to Nazis.

Infrastructure and Other Annoying Topics

There are several issues here and they are pretty annoying, they all come from poverty. A short version says that I have several different needs and not all fit any one computer. At the end of the day it seems to be something like this: a laptop capable of driving 4K graphics in real time (think going on location to a planetarium dome), a server capable of serious rendering and some machine learning, a display for reviewing images with some color integrity (not much, but some, see Eizo CS2730), a display for previewing 4K real time and doing development, a half dozen or more (or maybe just one) radio/computer controlled drones for testing, with associated infrastructure, a projector for a variety of purposes in public display and projection mapping, decent camera and lens, and the ability to attend perhaps 3-4 (?) conferences or shows, some of them international.

It is going to be tough. I am way out of date on some topics, less so on others. I have tentatively determined to try and work my way through maybe a half dozen subjects, all based around a text or two per subject, probably drawn from the texts used in entry level CS PhD programs at (for example) a place like Stanford CS. The Pharr book on physically based rendering is one such book. At the very least, a book/course on machine learning, presumably fundamental algorithms, and some others. Simulation of cities, society, and late-stage predatory capitalism? Computational biology? Original sin and the Fall from Grace? Modern sensors and explosives in public places? Kayaking? Burning Man?

"A man alone is easy prey", said Clint Eastwood in one of his movies. He went on to say that "a good man always knows his limitations", but in context it is meant as an insult.

Sadistic (Ex-) Friends

As many of you know, I recently experienced a very disturbing example of "kiss up, kick down" in which an old friend unleashed a flurry of emails at me listing all the ways I fell short, in his humble opinion.

Most of these shortcomings were false, but some were the necessary result of poverty.  In other words, it is true that the poor can not compete in most ways with the rich, so what?

But what was his motivation for this?  What was it all about?  My conclusion is that my friend of 30 years, a successful entertainment industry executive, is simply a sadist.  At some point, my number was up, and he decided to fuck me because he thought it was fun.

I mean, why not?  There is no downside to messing with me.  Like pulling wings off flies.

The Role of Violence in Achieving Social Justice

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A friend wants an example where violence ever resulted in anything positive.  How about the civil rights movement, the labor movement, the voting rights movement, the post WW 1 veterans movement, the American Revolution and World War II?

The best explanation I have heard for why the rich allowed the poor and middle classes to advance between 1917 - 1970 was because of genuine fear of violent revolution.  Once that fear went away, they returned to their previous policy of "we get everything, you get nothing".

This is certainly not an original idea.

Mike Amron To the Rescue

Mike drove my car to Santa Barbara where, as you all know, I am studying to be a priest.  Thank you Michael!

This is not his best picture, but he did not want his picture in my blog so I had to take what I could. I wonder if I have any other pictures on my phone?

My guess is that Mike is afraid to be associated with me, and that he only helped out for the money.

Why The Hulk Refuses to Appear in Avengers: Infinity Wars

For those reading this blog in the future, we are in the interim between the third Avengers movie and the fourth.  There are many unanswered questions about what happened and what will happen.  This post is of course a spoiler.

There are many theories about why Hulk does not want to appear and fight in Avengers: Infinity Wars, but I believe I have a special insight.  People want him around to fight their battles, but then they want him to go away and turn into Bruce Banner.  In other words, they dont really love him, they love the other guy.  They just use him now and then.

Well, this pisses him off.  Wouldnt it piss you off?  I am guessing the Hulk is saying No, love me and have me, or dont love me and not have me.  Your choice.

Thats my theory.