Simple Tasks for my Representative

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One advantage of the right wing attacks on democracy in America over the last 20+ years is the fabulous opportunity it presents to learn how the US Government and its Constitution is intended to work.  Forget what you learned in civics class, that is just the beginning of the story.  While we theoretically have some sort of representative democracy, by no means is it intended that an individual should have much influence on the government and its policies.  In fact, it is exactly the opposite: the individual is intended to NOT have much influence except in very specific and limited ways.  The process is intended to give a superficial legitimacy to whatever the elite, in their magnificence, decide to do for us, the little people.  Although one may vote for two US Senators directly and the POTUS indirectly, at least you can, depending on your skin color and whether you can afford to take time off from work, have a tiny, itsy bitsy impact.  But you dont elect judges, certainly not at the federal level.  That the POTUS and the Senate do and to the extent the process of voting is perceived as legitimate, then perhaps the judges are legitimate.

 

The only election you have even a prayer of influencing (unless you have a lot of money or are for some reason famous or inherited your elite status) is your congressman.  Therefore, if you dont like how things are going and want some changes then feel free to write anyone or contact anyone you like, but probably the only one who *might* listen to you is your congressman and even that is marginal.  The more one understands how and why the Constitution was written, the more it becomes clear that it is intended that you contact your congressman.  It might not work, in fact it probably wont, and they have very limited power, but that is how things are designed and you may as well give it a try.  Besides its entertaining to annoy them and talk to their pleasant interns who answer the phone.  Its fun! you should try it.

But for this whole shaggy mess to hold together it requires that people not get really pissed off about how things are going.  If, say, your elected representatives fail to deal with a baker's dozen of critical life and death decisions, and choose to kick the can down the road to avoid doing anything hard, then bad times may be on the horizon.  Then "the people" may get ornery and decide to hold their elected representatives responsible for solving some problems.  And if our elected swine, I mean representatives, have waited to solve those problems until they are much more difficult, well isnt that too bad?  "The people" may not take no for an answer and then things may get nasty.  Isnt that one part of the story about the so-called Tea Party.  Sure, it was funded by the right wing nuts the Koch brothers, but they would not have been able to do it unless there were a lot of pissed off people.

 

And that, I propose, is one part of where we are today.  In order to help move things along I have graciously donated my time here, on this blog, to suggest some things that need to get fixed sometime in the future.  Ha ha just kidding.  No they need to be fixed right forking now.  God bless those sweeties in the House, or the Senate or the DOJ or the Supreme Court, but they may have to take some direction now.  Right now.  Obviously they wont and in some cases they are too late.  They fucked it up and we fucked it up by not screaming louder, earlier.

 

America used to be about process and compromise.  Not any more.

 

So here are some issues that need to be addressed. 

1. Trump and his co-conspirators in the attempt to overthrow the government need to be barred from government office and go to jail.  The DOJ is only now looking into this and it is likely that Trump will declare for the presidency right after the midterms which in normal times would mean he is untouchable.  Too bad, he gets indicted and goes to jail anyway.  

2. Trump stole US government property and endangered national security.  The Trump judge moron decided without good reason to impose a delay in an attempt to get Trump off the hook.  Too bad.  Proceed with the investigation, bring the indictments, and put Trump in jail.  Right now.

3. Having the electoral college select the president is like having a spinning gun in the middle of a room of people.  It is going to get off and people are going to get hurt.  Al Gore and Hilary Clinton won their respective elections.

4. The Republicans in various states are restricting the vote.  Fix it now, you have less than 60 days.

5. Get the Trump morons off the judiciary.  

Its too bad they let the situation get out of hand, but that is what happens when you have cowardly representatives like we do.  They knew what was happening.

How to Understand Republican Arguments

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I have an approach to help understand and interpret something a Republican says in favor or against some proposition.  For example, a Republican might say that abortion should be decided by the states.  Or a Republican might in a few months say that abortion should be decided by the federal government and not by the states.  And these are the same Republicans so it can be confusing.  I have a technique that helps me understand such things and I want to share it with you.

 

Remember in the following that "all models are wrong but some are useful".  In other words, I am not suggesting that Republicans are lying pieces of garbage.  I am saying that they appear to be lying pieces of garbage for the purposes of predicting future behavior.

 

The technique is as follows.  When a Republican makes an argument such as "abortion should be decide by the states", what they are really saying is "We want to outlaw abortion and we will say any damn thing we want to attain that goal. Then when it is convenient to say something else to attain that goal, that is what we will, without hesitation, do.  We are shameless and powermad and there is no point in arguing with us because you are just wasting your time.  We dont believe our arguments either".

The Democrats, being endlessly naive and weak, fall for this trick over and over again.  Dear Democrats: please grow up.  Stop falling for this trick, it makes you look stupid and it does us (remember us? the little people?) no good.

The Heavyweight Fight of the Century!

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Ladies and Gentlemen!  Your attention please!  The fight you have all been waiting for!  In this corner we have the world champion bully, traitor and narcissist, Donald Trump!  And in this corner we have the plucky idealist, Merrick Garland!  Who will win?  

 

At last, yes you thought that this day would never come.  The Donald is such a nutty boy and his followers so incredibly loyal and stupid that they seemed to be able to overrun any of that vaunted "constitutional protection" we have all heard about all our lives.  But maybe not so much, especially with the completely opportunistic and shameless Republican party running interface for this piece of garbage.

What will happen?

Image "borrowed" from MSNBC

 

 

Legitmacy and the Supreme Court

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We started our discussion on the legitimacy of the US government here.

The basic argument is that a country or system can survive all sorts of attacks, mistakes, compromises and failures and still exist and move on.  But the elites of this or any country should not assume that they can just fail endlessly and cynically ignore the values on which that country was based. They should not think they are above the "judgment of heaven".  History is filled with examples where such a decadent system hollows out and experiences just one more shock and, to everyone's surprise, collapses into a puddle.  See the Ancien Regime of France in 1799 and Imperial Russia in 1917 for example but there are many others.

It is pride that comes before the fall.

 

The Republicans have accused the Democrats of legislating through the judiciary but of course what that really means is that it is the Republicans that plan to legislate through the judiciary.  Once their partisan justice drones were put on the bench then the Republicans knew that they didnt have to care about majority rule or democracy anymore.  They could count on their "originalists" to wildly violate jurisprudence and legislate away.

But if you are going to do this kind of stuff, then you had better be sure that your court is above reproach, and has been put in place with impeccable process. Its not just who is on the court, it is how they got there that matters, not to mention their arguments. The American People, had better believe in your integrity, boys and girls, because if they dont you are asking for trouble.  What is a justice system whose Supreme Court is seen as corrupt and partisan?  

So lets see what we have here and in no particular order.  First we have the court overthrowing the rightful winner of the 2000 election to put their right wing stooge in power even though we all know that had we kept counting the votes in Florida that Al Gore would have won the electoral vote as well as the popular vote.  Now, with George W in power, we get none other than Roberts and Alito on the court.  Then we get McConnell to refuse to evaluate and confirm Merrick Garland.  Then we have Trump, a known criminal, nominate not one, not two, but three right wing nuts to the Supreme Court.

Sorry guys, but you screwed it up.  The court is far from legitimate and now you have a failed justice system.  Well good luck with that, but it doesnt work for me.

Only Nuclear Weapons Will Save Taiwan

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Its pretty clear that the only thing that will save Taiwan is having nuclear weapons and a way to deliver them when the mainland attacks which is inevitable.  

 

What have we learned from Ukraine?  They gave up their nuclear weapons and now Russia feels they can walk all over them. Would Libya have rolled over so quickly if they had nuclear weapons.  When Iran gets nuclear weapons, wont they be all the more aggressive about expressing their regional hegemony?  Would they attempt to destroy Israel with those weapons?

Good bye nuclear disarmament.  Countries need nuclear weapons to defend their sovereignty.

Prepare to launch! 

 

Storage Area Done

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When we cleaned out the old house, there were 130+ boxes of my life that needed to be stored.  They got moved to a local storage area and I started working through the boxes.  It took 8 weeks of obsessive work to get this down to 45 or so boxes I am going to keep. The jewish books go to the local Chabad Lubavitch, the astronomy and astrophysics books go to the Joshua Tree astronomy league and the books I am not keeping go to the Little Library in Van Nuys, curated by Jill Fraser.  Some photographic gear will go to Tom Barron.  The rest, those 45 boxes, stay with me in my little apartment.  God only knows what will happen if I have to move.

 

Voter Fraud, Florida, Gross Hypocrisy

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The US is entering another round of legitimacy challenges and crisis.  As a Southerner I can tell you flat out that issues of who can vote, both legally and practically, are huge.  The history here is as ugly as you care to look.  Therefore when deSantis and Florida selectively choose felons to accuse of vast voter fraud (excuse me, 20 people?) but dont look at all the ways black people have been disenfranchised over the years, both historically and currently, then excuse me but I feel the need to say this is self-serving, right wing crap.  The next set of elections will be illegitimate because of acts like this one.  

 

This may have been acceptable in the 1930s but it is not acceptable today.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/18/ron-desantis-voter-fraud-arrests-florida-00052753

Notable Items Rescued From the Storage Area

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After decades of procrastination, I dedicated myself to cleaning out the 150 boxes of books, papers, esoteric computer equipment and reducing them to a lean and mean 40-50 boxes.  This task, similar to the cleaning out of the stables of King Augeas by Hercules, reclaimed some notable mementos of my former and wasted life.  

 

 

1. An uncashed check from Robert Abel & Associates.

 

 

2. Ticket stubs from my train trip to Washington DC to protest the right wing coup d'etat by the Supreme Court to install their stooge Bush over the rightful winner, Al Gore.

 

 

 

3. Apple Mac Powerbook Duo

 

4. Carter/Mondale 1976 

 

5. deGraf/Wahrman card from my cabin on Lookout Mountain

 

6. Ken Kahn's PhD thesis from the MIT AI Lab.

 

"White Innocence" is a New Term of Art

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I learned a new term the other day: white innocence.  It refers to those white people who are so dumb as to be constantly surprised in the right wing dictatorship their naivete has helped to bring about.  Roe v Wade gone, oh!  No more voting rights?  Oh!  Citizens United?  Oh!  Maybe Kavanaugh wont vote to destroy abortion rights!  

 

White people, dumb as a rock.

 

 Mitch laughs at you, you know.

Legitimacy Sequence Start

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Start of a series of blog  posts on legitimacy of government and government authority.  

The issues of what makes a government "legitimate" are controversial or at least strongly contested.  Governments can sometime sustain huge controversies, disasters and failures but still keep going for years, decades or centuries.  Citizens generally understand that there are problems, maybe even huge problems, but for many reasons decide to shrug them off.  Some people will protest, some people will work for change, some people may plot or try revolution but generally the ship of state moves forward.  This being so, some parties and factions believe that they can commit any crime and abuse any principle of government and get away with it.  In spite of these abuses, the legitimacy of the government, though lessened perhaps, is still sufficient and everyone moves on.

But this is a dangerous game, this flouting of principles and the law, because sometimes a formerly stable yet imperfect government, after years of abuse, does one more thing or has one more disaster that is self-inflicted and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, the whole thing unravels.   In at least three well-documented cases (the monarchy of France before the 1789 revolution, Imperial Russia under the Romanovs and the February Revolution, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1988-1991), none of the participants particularly expected the fall of the existing regime.  It was a surprise and in each case for many people a catastrophe.

Therefore, do not be so proud, America.  Things have been stewing beneath the surface for decades, and the trainwreck of the recent 5 years was not an accident and what happens next should not be a surprise.   Lets review some recent case studies.