Dissident Veteran For Peace

Political power in America is media power. It’s the power to shape consciousness ... The protest Wednesday [January 6, 2021] was an example of "hyperreality." There was no attempted coup by President Trump, nor by people wandering around the Capitol. The media created a story about an "armed insurrection," a putsch, and they seem to believe it.

Ashli Babbitt was also caught in a fantasy. The "QAnon" story told her President Trump was fighting a cosmic struggle against evil. She joined in that struggle. Unfortunately, as in The Matrix, if you die in the simulation, you die in real life. In his concession speech last night, President Trump didn't mention her. He wouldn't say her name.

If anything, QAnon is an opiate because it tells Americans the system still somehow works. It tells well-meaning, naïve people that their country still exists, the old values endure, the Founders' vision lives on, and everything will turn out fine. That illusion died with Ashli Babbitt.

Our rulers apparently believe what they are saying. They think they're fighting a dictator, that Ashli Babbitt and people like her deserve to die, and that there must be a cleansing before the egalitarian paradise arrives. We know what happens when fanatics stop at nothing in the name of equality.

People can try to live in a dream, but reality finally breaks in. For decades, President Donald Trump crafted his media image as a businessman, patriot, and strategist. He may believe himself to be a Great Man. Tens of millions of Americans who saw their country being stolen from them put their trust in him. He let them down — not because he is an aspiring dictator, but because he is erratic, self-absorbed, and doesn't truly understand what is happening to the country.

Ashli's surname is the same as Sinclair Lewis's title character in Babbitt, about a middle-class guy who seeks meaning in a conformist world. Babbitt rebels against middle-class values. Today, those values seem idyllic. Today, it is rebellion to uphold natural values of morality, family, and patriotism.

Perhaps Ashli Babbitt died for a false idol, a leader who didn't deserve her loyalty. Perhaps I'm too hard on President Trump, who has been continuously betrayed and sabotaged. Either way, Ashli Babbitt's sacrifice was not pointless. Whatever her mistakes, she was right to believe her country is ruled by a hostile elite. The form her rebellion took was wrong, but she died for her beliefs. Especially in a time when our rulers make saints out of thugs, we should remember Ashli Babbitt, who served a country that killed her.

Source: "Her Name Was Ashli Babbitt" by Gregory Hood on American Renaissance, January 8, 2020. 

Labels: media, politics, quotations, resistance, Trump, voting

On December 8, 2020, I wrote about the State of Texas' motion in the Supreme Court to allow it to file a complaint over alleged problems in the 2020 election in several states. Back then I made two observations relevant to the present post.

First, I said: "I think the State of Texas should have standing but that is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition and it's motion comes awfully late." Second, I said: "If, as seems likely, the Supreme Court refuses to hear this complaint then it's probably game over for all the election challenges."

The Supreme Court did indeed reject Texas' motion. Here's the full text of the Court's unsigned order:

The State of Texas's motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.

Now, it's clear Texas does not have an interest in how other states elect their own state officials. But the notion that they have no "judicially cognizable interest" in how other states elect the one President and VP of all of the United States defies logic and facially undermines constitutional republicanism. I'm not suggesting there were no reasonable grounds to deny Texas' motion but, rather, that the one the Court came up with was unreasonable. 

Supporters of Biden like to mention that many of the federal judges denying 2020 presidential election challenges have been Trump appointees. The implication is that the legal challenges have been so hollow that even Trump loyalists had to reject them.

There may truth to this but it doesn't follow that because Trump nominated these judges that they would necessarily do him any favors. That is the whole point of lifetime appointments for federal judges—to try to insulate them from political influence.

Also, Trump "relied on outside conservative legal organizations and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell" to select and manage the confirmation of his judicial nominees. Moreover, these are people who were on the judiciary career path long before anyone took a Trump presidency seriously and who always knew they would likely be on the bench long after Trump was gone. They might even despise Trump but were willing to accept a nomination (or, possibly, reject an election lawsuit) to advance their own careers and political commitments.

Thus, there are scant grounds to think Trump necessarily got special or even fair consideration of his post-election legal complaints. I'm not saying he was treated unfairly but that you cannot infer much from the fact that some Trump judicial appointees rejected his election claims.

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The January 6, 2021, Capitol rioters are criminals who should be prosecuted. They are also fools and idiots who played right into the hands of the "progressive" authoritarians and their program of racism and repression.

Trump has now been impeached a second time on purely political grounds—they're afraid he'll beat them in another election. Barring a miraculous transformation I hope Trump quietly retires to another, far away country.

In any event, I read the new article of impeachment and it presents no sound legal basis to claim that Trump criminally incited the rioters. If prosecutors believe there is probable cause that Trump committed a crime then they should seek an indictment.

Instead, the Democrats and their media allies are simply hyping and milking the riot for every political advantage they can extract no matter how dishonest the effort. Referring to the upcoming impeachment trial, Jonathan Turley writes: "A private citizen is being called to the Senate to be tried for removal from an office that he does not hold." 

The Democrats had some conceivable legitimate grounds to impeach Trump while he was president though not on events connected to Russia or Ukraine. For instance, the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was, arguably, illegal under US and international law. It was also dangerous and counter to American strategic interests. Yet, because that attack was perceived to be in Israel's interests impeachment was never on the agenda for it.

Trump might also have been impeached for his attempt to suborn Mike Pence to violate the Constitution and federal law by unlawfully interfering with the certification of Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021. But, no, to impeach Trump for that would draw more unwanted attention to Pence who refused Trump's entreaties and followed the law while also undermining the Dems specious and profoundly hypocritical claims that for members of Congress to lawfully object to certification "borders on sedition or treason" and such.

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The election of Donald Trump was always a symptom of the larger problems of, in no special order, economic inequality, toxic consumerism, empire, corporate globalization, Democratic race grifting for power, and the corruption of the media and political elites. Trump ran on a campaign that showed awareness of some of these problems but he was seemingly always a con man exploiting the justified grievances of millions of Americans. He betrayed them and never rose to the call of his office or of history.

Unfortunately, Trump's disastrous term has only worsened matters and emboldened "progressive" authoritarians to step up the repression of their political enemies, including the White working class, in general (which is not to say the GOP were ever their allies). This is Trump's fault, the fault of his many enemies, and, to no small extent, the fault of voters duped by him.

Biden claims he wants to unify the country but—and I hope I'm wrong when I say this—that's a lie to judge from so many of his other utterances and policy plans. When I saw recent photos of the unprecedentedly large military presence in the Capitol for the inauguration I was reminded of all the unpopular, repressive governments the US has propped in foreign countries over the years. Are chickens coming home to roost?

Virginia National Guard members in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 13, 2021 (U.S. Air National Guard photo by SSgt Bryan Myhr).

New Jersey National Guard members in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 12, 2021 (U.S. Air National Guard photo by MSgt Matt Hecht).

See also: Anointing Biden & Election Irregularity Allegations IV

 

Labels: Biden, class, Democrats, Empire, Iran, Israel, law, media, military, politics, race, repression, Supreme Court, Trump, voting

 

Labels: critical thinking, politics

It wasn't until my 30s that I began to understand free speech, that the real antagonist of speech is power. The only important question about a speech restriction is not who is being restricted but who gets to decide who is being restricted ...

Source: Former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser as quoted in an interview, "Would the ACLU Still Defend Nazis' Right To March in Skokie?", by Nick Gillespie, January, 2021.

Labels: civil liberties, freedom, politics, quotations

We can always easily spot the propaganda that we don't agree with. You ask any liberal, what's propaganda? They'll say, "Oh, Fox. Fox News." You ask any conservative what's propaganda? They'll say, "MSNBC." They're both right. Both are propagandistic, but what they can't see is the propaganda that they agree with because they think it's just information. They think it's just the truth.

Source: Mark Crispin Miller, as quoted in the partial transcript of an interview by Katie Halper and Matt Taibbi in "Meet the Censored: Mark Crispin Miller", Jan. 4, 2021.

Labels: critical thinking, media, politics, quotations