Author Archives: oinsketta

The Scheme to capture the federal courts, part 14

The fourteenth installment of Sheldon Whitehouse’s excellent The Scheme series, outlining very clearly how far right extremists have captured the federal judiciary for preordained political ends, funded with unlimited dark money from undisclosed extremely wealthy reactionaries intent on preserving their privileges at all costs. 

The only shame is that this chillingly true presentation was not made, and widely disseminated, ten years ago, in time for voters and legislators to stop the infernal machinations of dark money funded reactionary zealots, before these fiendishly determined motherfuckers won their long war to turn back the clock and protect their own rights at the expense of everyone else’s.  

Joe Manchin casts vote to sink legislating Roe, along with all 50 MAGA senators

John Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782 – March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who held many important positions including being the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832, while adamantly defending slavery and protecting the interests of the white South. He began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. In the late 1820s, his views changed radically, and he became a leading proponent of states’ rights, limited government, nullification, and opposition to high tariffs. He saw Northern acceptance of those policies as a condition of the South remaining in the Union. His beliefs and warnings heavily influenced the South’s secession from the Union in 1860–1861

Remind you of anyone?

In the late 1820s, his views changed radically, and he became a leading proponent of states’ rights, limited government, nullification, and opposition to high tariffs.

The inviolable law of every cult

Homo sapiens, as Yuval Noah Harari points out in Sapiens, appears to be the only species capable of uniting behind an abstract myth, an animating principle that can unleash gigantic armies launched into ant-like coordinated action.  This ability enables humans to build inconceivably giant structures and to solve massive global problems.  We are, also, the only species capable of mass murder in the service of an abstract idea. 

The thought of an idea powerful enough to change the world is both thrilling and terrifying, depending on the idea.  The notion of Enlightenment, a world illuminated by Reason, where hereditary oppression would be replaced by agreement on reasonable principles, was a more noble one than making sure the faithful remain steadfast in their beliefs, no matter what.

Every cult, every nation, every family, has a story that explains the chaos and darkness of the world in simple terms everyone can understand.  Membership in every kind of tribe depends on members remaining loyal to a core idea.  In theory, Christians, for example, emulate the man of peace and teacher of love for whom their religion is named.  He was kind, patient, dedicated to feeding and clothing the poor Andy protecting the weak, he preached about love and not being slavishly devoted to earthly rulers.  Christians have, for millennia, taught each other that it is their Christian duty to practice in their lives what Jesus preached, to imitate Christ.   With certain exceptions, of course.  All bets are off when warring with Muslims and other infidels, punishing Jews for allegedly killing the Messiah, slaughtering other Christians who belong to churches hostile to your own in their worship of God, hating any of God’s creatures that offend your version of sanctity and righteousness.  Homo sapiens are not always consistent in how we behave, though we do believe!

One consistent thing among us all is a belief in the importance of loyalty.  This is the inviolable law of every cult, every nation, every family.  We share core beliefs, and if you betray those central principles you are disloyal and subject to the agreed on penalties. Taking an article of faith, examining it and deciding it is false is the ultimate threat to the community.  Excommunication is a time honored way of dealing with dissenters and heretics, you cast them out of the hive to die in the wilderness.

Members of a cult accept things as true that nonmembers see as clearly false.  The GOP, with their strict adherence to a defeated candidate’s insistence that he had victory stolen from him by massive, bipartisan fraud, is a glaring example that leaps to mind.  One of their lifetime appointees on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, told Americans the other day that they have to accept outcomes they don’t like — like the widespread banning of abortion for half the population.  This is often true, there are many things we cannot immediately do anything about in life and we must find some kind of acceptance of intolerable outcomes or go mad.   It is also the case that Thomas’s best friend, lover and life partner could not accept an outcome she didn’t like.  From her well-connected right-wing insider seat she frantically tried to overturn the results of an election whose outcome deeply offended her deepest beliefs.   The winner of that election, Joe Biden, and his wife, she wrote, were being taken by barge to the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay to be imprisoned with other terrorism suspects for their treasonous betrayal of America!  

But I am thinking more about families at the moment, my own and others.  To be a member of my family I am expected never to reveal anything embarrassing about a compulsive liar, serial embezzler, shoplifter, road raging bully who has done great damage to other family members.  Just the threat that I might say something that raises shame, like mention a secret bankruptcy sprung on everyone on the eve of buying their dream house, means I must be kept at arms length, anything I have to say viewed with suspicion, my character, and even my sanity, called into question.   To be a member of some families, you need to recognize that dad is never wrong, or mom is always right, or whatever the deepest binding principle of that group is.

I understand the attraction of cults, they give a powerful sense of certainty in a dizzyingly uncertain world.  You belong to a community and are loved unconditionally in a cult, as long as you are loyal to its beliefs.  If belief in a demonstrable lie, or a story that distorts reality beyond recognition, is the condition of membership in a cult, or a family, you are pretty much going to have to count people like me out.  We are just goddamned iconoclasts, I suppose, like the father of monotheism, Abraham, who as a boy smashed the idols in his father’s shop and was not punished by false gods who didn’t exist.  He went on to form his own cult, with very strict laws, but that’s a story for another day.

If membership in your club requires taking an oath that I am a blameworthy, evil sinner, one who can never be fully forgiven, someone who must be eternally penitent… well, with respect, not for me, kids.

  

The John Birch Society is the current GOP

The John Birch Society was, at the time of its creation in 1958, the lunatic fringe of the far right. Formed by several wealthy right wing businessmen in a rage against the “activist” Supreme Court that unanimously declared segregation of public schools unconstitutional, Birchers believed this communist judicial activism was leading us down a slippery slope toward “forced integration”, integrated labor unions, full rights for women and other abominations of majoritarian tyranny. Movement conservatives steered clear of these rich extremists who saw commies everywhere, pulling the strings, making intolerable outcomes happen — like forcing whites who honestly hated Blacks to send their children to school with… you know. The lunatics who started this paranoiac right-wing interest group (which is still alive today, google these insane funsters) included wealthy fossil fuel baron Fred Koch, admirer of Mr. Hitler and father of American far-right titan and architect of the modern Republican party, Charles Koch. They’ve come a long way since 1958, taking over the Republican party with the vitality of their big ideas, as Heather Cox Richardson explains:

In Michigan, Republican Ryan Kelley, who is running for governor, has openly attacked the idea of democracy. “Socialism—it starts with democracy,” he said. “That’s the ticket for the left. They want to push this idea of democracy, which turns into socialism, which turns into communism in every instance.” Kelley’s distinction between “democracy” and a “constitutional republic” is drawn from the John Birch Society in the 1960s, which used that distinction to oppose the idea of one person, one vote, that supported Black voting.

In turn, the Birchers drew from the arguments of white supremacists during Reconstruction after the Civil War, who warned that Black voters would elect leaders who promised them roads, and schools, and hospitals. These benefits would cost tax dollars that in the postwar South would have to be paid largely by white landowners. Thus, white voters insisted, Black voting would lead to a redistribution of wealth; by 1871, they insisted it was essentially “socialism.”

source

Democracy, a dirty, slippery slope down to providing equal rights and equal protection of the law to everyone. Where does this decadent slide toward socialism end? Socialized medicine, a so-called right to affordable health care in the richest nation in human history? Making billionaires, who made two trillion in pocket change during the pandemic, pay more than 8% tax on that money? Jesus, socialism is un-American, as anti-American as anti-fascism and the millions of unhinged “woke” maniacs protesting when one black guy, with a criminal record, no less, gets accidentally killed by four cops. God save our flawed vessel king! Who are you gullible dummies going to believe, the fake news or Jesus Christ Himself?

How many friends do we really need?

Thoughtful piece about friendship in the NY Times (link below). It discusses the increased isolation of millions of Americans, particularly older ones, a trend of social loneliness exacerbated by the pandemic (and presumably the ugly, dark money funded hatred between citizens) and the importance of nurturing close friendship. Close friends are rare and extremely valuable, they provide life-affirming support that enables us to live healthier and longer lives. Sadly, friendships sometimes die, for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes old friends may become adamant that only their feelings matter, seemingly unaware that this inability to empathize or honestly listen means they are not actually your friends any longer, since they extend the benefit of every doubt only to themselves. If people you love and have always trusted tell you that pretending they didn’t break your heart is the new price of friendship, the unfairness of it can stop you in your tracks. The author points out that the healthiest thing in these situations is to understand the sad fact of a no longer mutual friendship and adjust accordingly. Live and learn, my friends.

How many friends do we really need?

Nice presentation on how the right took over the Supreme Court

Spend unlimited amounts of money on non-profit right wing think tanks, create dozens, if not hundreds. The opinions emerging from these think tanks will then be disseminated through the mass media and often dominate public discussion of the issue at hand. Employ the brightest partisan lawyers you can find, to craft court cases to change the law to what you want it to be. Spend millions on learned amicus briefs that give the Supreme Court all the learned arguments and citations they need to overturn any inconvenient precedent. Vet your nominees to the federal bench to ensure loyalty to the judicial principles you inculcate in your judicial fraternity.

When a nominee has an openly partisan history like Kavanaugh’s, hide thousands of pages of compromising legal writings that could be used to question his judicial integrity. When credible accusations about his past behavior and candor are made against him, have the FBI open a five day investigation and make sure all tips that come in, 4,500 we’re told, are routed directly to the lawyer for the White House who is determined to get him appointed – none reach the FBI. Don Fucking McGahn had one job as White House counsel, to get as many Federalist Society judges as he could on the Supreme Court. He pushed Gorsuch and then Kavanaugh. Two for two. Don McGahn, American patriot and hero of authoritarians. This piece is an excellent short course in how the right-wing ecosystem works, how it attains and consolidates power.

Heather on right-wing voter suppression since 2000

The steps to totalitarian control by a small, determined minority are always the same. First, end “majoritarian tyranny” and the “coercive state” by limiting the right to vote to your supporters. It is helpful to control advertising and media prior to elections by spending billions to make sure your supporters vote the right way. The US Supreme Court, by a one vote majority, has approved both of these techniques, ruling that enforcement of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional and that anonymous donors can spend unlimited amounts to influence electoral outcomes. In each state, we have legislatures, so-called independent state legislatures, that march to the same drumbeat of social control. Here’s the Florida version, going back to 2000.

Good old fashioned invidious disenfranchisement in de land of cotton. Supreme Court Federalist Society majority holds that politics is not de business of de Supreme Court, no suh!