Freedom free liberty

818 aha god-term, myth of free mkt

11/18 added liberty

see devil term opposite tyranny (agenda 21) regime commie

see freeDUMB = 2

6/10 just saw some parody. call bs

2x today mma poso says jones defend freedom and liberty

mma 6 24

Swiss America is a gold and silver trading company, for which Trump promotes “The Secret War on Cash,” a report warning consumers about Democrat lawmakers supposedly pushing for a “digital dollar that could allow the government to tell us what we can and cannot buy,” and teaching them how to protect themselves from such “threats facing our freedom and your hard-earned money.” Trump advertised for Swiss America 27 times in this period.

Still of Lara Trump above Swiss America logo

CitationScreenshot of the March 26, 2024, edition of The Right View

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Exclusive: Circuit Court Ruling on Biden DOE's Appliance Regulation 'a Win' for Americans

PJ Media

Climate Depot's Marc Morano called the DOE's revoked regulations “a complete bypassing of democracy through the unelected regulatory state” and ...

Exclusive: Circuit Court Ruling on Biden DOE’s Appliance Regulation ‘a Win’ for Americans

CATHERINE SALGADO | 6:52 PM ON JANUARY 09, 2024

The Biden Department of Energy (DOE) just lost a case on its heavy and damaging regulation of laundry and dishwashing machines, and a consumer advocate is celebrating the move as “a win” for Americans’ “consumer choice.”

Fifth Circuit Court judges Clement, Wilson, and Oldham ruled on Jan. 8: “In 2022, the Department of Energy tightened the regulatory regime surrounding America’s dishwashers and laundry machines. Petitioners sued. The Department’s actions were arbitrary and capricious. So we grant the petition and remand to the Department.”

The Biden administration has been attempting to wage a war on appliances on multiple occasions and fronts, partly due to its radical and unscientific climate alarmist agenda.

Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild is one expert who sees the court ruling as a victory. Consumers’ Research is a consumer advocacy organization that says it is “focused on educating consumers on the policies, products, and services of concern to them and to promote the freedom to act on that knowledge and understanding.”

This new ruling against the DOE appears to be pro-freedom and pro-consumer. “This is a fantastic ruling for American consumers,” Hild said in exclusive comments to PJ Media.

Hild explained that the DOE appliance regulations came out of the Biden administration’s Environmental, Social, and Governance goals (ESG, or woke standards poisoning our government and businesses). “These regulations were part of Biden’s ESG agenda, that was more about pushing a radical environmentalist agenda than protecting and serving consumers, and today is a win for consumer choice and our standard of living,” Hild said.

*For Our VIPs:I’m So Glad I Have a Gas Stove Right Now

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AN 1 24

During a December 19 campaign event in Iowa, 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump promised far-right white evangelicals that if he returns to the White House in January 2025, he will set up a Christian nationalist task force within in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Trump told the crowd, "As soon as I get back in the Oval Office, I'll also immediately end the war on Christians. I don't know if you feel it. You have a war. There's a war…. Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice that's fair and equitable. Its mission will be to investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment and persecution against Christians in America."

MSNBC's Sarah Posner, in an opinion column published this week, slams Trump's proposal as yet another example of Trump's "authoritarian" mindset and his emphasis on "the theme of Christian persecution."

Posner, author of the 2021 book "Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind," explains, "In recent campaign stops and on social media, Donald Trump has reprised lies aimed at inciting his Christian Right base against Joe Biden. These tirades, centered on the false charge that the Biden Administration is persecuting Christians, aren't just Trump's typically dubious claims. Much like Trump's lies about a stolen election, they are designed to immerse his loyalists in a grievance-laden alternative reality in which Trump alone can rescue them from an evil government threatening their freedom."

Trump, Posner warns, will continue to "feed the Christian Right’s persecution complex."

"One needs to look no further than Trump's efforts during his first term, combined with his 2024 pledges to govern like a dictator, to see the authoritarian steps he is taking when it comes to 'protecting' his base's religious freedom," Posner writes. "He is leaving little doubt that he will do whatever it takes to retain the loyalty of the base that has stood by him through an insurrection, two impeachments, and now, multiple criminal indictments. He is saying loudly and clearly that as part of his broader disparagement of the rule of law, he would shred everyone else's rights in the name of his loyalists' 'freedom.'"

*Read Sarah Posner's full MSNBC column at this link.

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an ah 1 23

In Washington, D.C. smoking is banned from office buildings. But that rule doesn’t apply to the U.S. Capitol Building, where House Republicans have lifted a ban on smoking in that branch of Congress.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and other far-right pundits have been quick to applaud the move. Sounding a lot like the late radio host Rush Limbaugh, Carlson told viewers, “Nicotine frees your mind, and THC makes you compliant and passive.”

In a scathing article published by The Nationon January 23, journalist Joan Walsh slams House Republicans and their supporters for promoting something as unhealthy as smoking and argues that they are “killing” their “own voters.”

“I honestly thought it was fake news,” Walsh writes. “Just after Kevin McCarthy became House speaker, giving away his power to right-wing antagonists the first week in January, I read about Congress members smoking on the GOP side of the aisle. Just a projection from my liberal allies of Republicans’ intent to erode public health, I assumed. Funny GIF to come. But it was true. Rep. Tom Cole was smoking cigars in his office. Others were reportedly smoking cigarettes in other places.”

Walsh notes that “House lawmakers’ private offices aren’t governed by” either the District of Columbia’s anti-smoking ordinance” or “a Bill Clinton executive order” that “prohibits smoking in federal buildings that are under the authority of the executive branch.”

“Under McCarthy, smoking is allowed not just in members’ offices, but in public areas too,” Walsh explains. “Now comes more carcinogenic propaganda from right-wing losers. Last week, Fox’s Tucker Carlson began preaching a return to smoking as a return to American values. Tobacco is so much more American than increasingly legal and available weed, he told his stoned-on-lies audience.”

On Fox News, Carlson made cigarette smoking a culture war issue, telling viewers that liberals “hate nicotine” but “love THC.”

Walsh comments, “I shouldn’t be surprised at Carlson’s tribute to tobacco…. Republicans have long opposed anti-smoking measures, at least partly out of fealty to Big Tobacco. Former GOP Speaker John Boehner became infamous for handing out checks from tobacco lobbyists on the House floor in 1995. As Indiana governor, Mike Pence railed against tobacco restrictions and insisted ‘smoking doesn’t kill.’ But the recent pro-smoking crusade seems to be inspired more by culture war imperatives than by defending the tobacco industry.”

The journalist points out that Limbaugh spent decades vigorously defending cigarette smoking on his radio show — before dying of lung cancer in 2021.

“Killing your own voters seems like a bad electoral strategy,” Walsh writes. “Salon’s Amanda Marcotte calls it ‘getting lung cancer to own the libs.’ Sadly, Republicans are mostly giving their base voters what they think they want.”

random wingnuttery rww

Oklahoma state Senate candidate Jarrin Jackson warns that “godless commies want to take over the world … by manipulating the weather.”
Curt Landry the spiritual significance of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.
Shane Vaughn declares that “Satan hates AMERICA because HE LOVES CONTROL (COMMUNISM) and America stands for INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM.”
Misogynistic racist incel Nick Fuentes insists that it is okay for him to be attracted to Black women because he’s an eccentric genius: “There’s something about it because it’s naughty, because it’s transgressive. … If you don’t understand this, you’re an idiot.”
Finally, Tim Barton asserts that the United States has more mass shootings than other nations “because we still havefreedomhere. We haven’t had communism, we haven’t socialism, we haven’t had Marxism.”

wbur

People have been having debates — sometimes arguments — with friends, family, coworkers and strangers about the personal responsibility of wearing a mask and getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

Heated conversations are also unfolding around guns following two back-to-back mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado. Opinions emerging from these debates often touch upon personal freedoms, liberty and responsibility as Americans living in a democracy.

These themes continue to surface as Americans grapple with what individuals’ responsibilities are to each other while also enjoying personal liberty, linguist George Lakoffsays.

“Liberty comes through legitimate authority, usually through political authority. The question then is, if you have liberty in that way, do you have responsibilities to other people who have liberty? That is, you're not free to limit other people's freedom, and that's a very important idea,” he says.

While Americans have First Amendment speech, an individual can’t yell “fire” into a crowded theater, for example. And with the Second Amendment, Americans have the right to bear arms but aren’t allowed to shoot people.

But personal freedoms and liberty through the context of Amendment rights is a nuanced concept.

“We're equipped to understand it simply, intuitively, because democracy requires empathy,” Lakoff says. “... Without empathy, without the very idea of caring about other people, there can be no notion of democracy.”

That means the definition of liberty is not the same as freedom, he says. Liberty, a political notion, “has to do with a legitimate authority imposing a freedom within a range of the laws given by that legitimate authority,” he explains, while freedom is “sort of neutral.” Politicians often use the language of freedom and liberty to suit their goals, whether it be masks, guns or many other divisive topics. Republicans in general tend to talk more about freedom than liberty, Lakoff says.

Last month, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke to conservatives about taking a hands-off approach to the pandemic.

“We are in an oasis of freedom in a nation that’s suffering from the yoke of oppressive lockdowns,’' DeSantis said. “We look around in other parts of our country, and in far too many places, we see schools closed, businesses shuttered and lives destroyed.”

DeSantis’ use of “oppressive lockdowns” means the governor is pushing a narrative that public health measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus are oppressive to people and companies who don’t care about whether or not they are contributing to the dangers of COVID-19, Lakoff says.

“The effect is to say that a government that cares about its people is not legitimate. That's the effect,” he says. “It says that people are free, independent of what its government says about taking care of the health and well-being of the people at large.”

Liberals approach the language of freedom and liberty very differently, he says.

For example, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer commented last week on legislation that's been proposed to restrict access to guns following the recent shootings.

“We cannot seem to finish grieving one tragedy before another takes place. It's a reminder that we must confront a devastating truth in the United States — an unrelenting epidemic of gun violence steals innocent lives with alarming regularity,” Schumer said.

Schumer is clearly saying no, no one should be able to go out and buy an AR 15-type weapon, Lakoff says. At one time, assault weapons were banned thanks to the work of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 1994, but the legislation expired and wasn’t renewed due to congressional Republicans who were supported by gun manufacturers, he says.

When American virtues such as liberty and freedom were being debated by the country’s founders, semi-automatic weapons weren’t even conceptualized. At the time, rifles had to be hand stuffed with a round, gunpowder-filled bullet that could only fire one shot, Lakoff says.

It seems like no matter the debate, productive conversations on liberty and freedom are difficult to have when contention is sewn into the politics of the U.S. Lakoff says there’s no real way around it when one national party takes such a strong stance in one direction.

Lynn Menegon produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Serena McMahon adapted it for the web.

This segment aired on March 30, 2021.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/mercedes-schlapp/

methinks the lady doth protest too much raw astory

Mercedes Schlapp, host of the Conservative Political Action Conference, became angry on Tuesday after a Fox News guest called her a "grifter."

During a discussion on Fox News, Schlapp objected to the idea of "vaccine passports" even though the Biden administration has said that it has no plans to implement the policy.

Schlapp accused Democrats of having an "illogical mentality" because they oppose voter ID requirements.

But liberal podcast host Chris Hahn pointed out that the idea of vaccine credentials is being driven by the private sector.

"But Republicans, like everything else they've done during this horrible crisis we've been through are pushing these conspiracy theories that the government is trying to control you, which is causing some of their followers not to get vaccinated,"Hahn explained. "People like Tucker Carlson, like Jim Jordan, like Mercedes right here, right now casting doubt on the fact that -- or trying to convince people that the government is somehow watching you, that is very irresponsible."

"It is time for conservatives in this country to acknowledge that we have a crisis and start joining the fight to end it and stop spreading lies about what's going on in this country," he added. "It is devastating this country and blood is on the hand of the former guy and others who support him."

Schlapp went ballistic.

"You're not going to call Tucker Carlson a conspiracy theorist!" she shouted. "That is wrong. That is what democrats do."

"He is and you are," Hahn shot back.

"I'm not going to put up with this!" Schlapp exclaimed. "I stand for freedom. I stand for the freedom of the American people."

"No you don't," Hahn insisted. "You're a grifter. This is ridiculous."

At that point, Fox News host Gillian Turner instructed her guests to stop "the name calling."

"But I'm not going to allow Chris -- he does this all the time -- to call me, to call Tucker Carlson a liar," Schlapp objected.

"We don't do name calling," Turner agreed.

"We have every right to make this decision!" Schlapp ranted. "We are a country that has a constitution."

Watch the video below from Fox News.

compensatory cpac rant ie pound the table? FREEEE_DUMB! wow combines star wars and nazi ref, also mel gibson

https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/ted-cruz-speech/

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), fresh from near-universal condemnation over his Cancun vacation during the Lone Star State's ice and snow storms, power outages, and water shortage, spoke at CPAC Friday morning in an apparent effort to win back some of his lost approval rating.

He screamed for nearly a minute.

"These are dark days and the media tells us this is the new Galactic Empire forever and 1000 years, but already Joe Biden and the radicals in his administration they are already overshooting, they are already going too far, their policies don't work, they are disasters, they are bad, they are destroying jobs, they are stripping our freedom," Cruz said, screaming out unsubstantiated falsehoods.

"There is a natural pendulum to politics and the country will come back to sanity and mark my words, 2022 is going to be a fantastic election year, and so is 2024, as we stand together and defend liberty, defend the Constitution, defend the Bill of Rights of every American. In the immortal words of William Wallace, 'Freedom!'" he screamed.

Watch:

insurrection was done in the name of saving america, the constituton, freedumb (chanted):

aha rhet morph from civil war (proslavery) to 1776, no one says so, but builds on Tea Party tobacco koch BS

https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/infowars-alex-jones-funded-and-fomented-mob

no vid

great banner pix saved jnzmegaphone

Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones says he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and coordinated with the White House in the organizing of a January 6 event that culminated in a failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. In comments made on Infowars broadcasts and during speeches delivered in Washington, D.C., in the days before January 6, Jones and his fellow Infowars host Owen Shroyer frequently used violent and revolutionary rhetoric in calling for the overturning of legitimate election results.

Five people lost their lives during the violent incursion in the Capitol that immediately followed an inciting speech given by the president on January 6. Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot by a U.S. Capitol Police officer as she attempted to breach the Speaker’s Lobby, which is close to the U.S. House of Representatives floor. U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher by Trump supporters. Three other Trump supporters died after experiencing medical emergencies, including one who was trampled to death by the mob.

Some Trump supporters made it clear their purpose in the Capitol was to hunt down and kill lawmakers. The quick thinking of [AA] Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who faced down the mob alone, diverted rioters away from the Senate floor, as captured in a stunning video taken by HuffPo reporter Igor Bobic.

Jones’ Infowars outlet was promoting a January 6 event as early as December 31. In a video posted to Infowars’ streaming platform Banned.video, a man ranted about the false claim that Trump won the 2020 election, saying, “These liberals think they can just do whatever the fuck they want. You know why that is? It’s because we sit there and we say we want to talk it out.” The video transitioned to promotional material for Infowars’ January 6 event and included a voiceover of Jones saying “It’s 1776 time,” a reference to the Revolutionary War. vid]

on January 2, Jones said during a broadcast that “it takes money to put my crew and security in D.C., and it takes money to organize this, and we put a lot of money -- myself -- into paying for the event Trump is going to be at and the other event.” He then encouraged viewers tobuy nutritional supplements from the Infowars Store and told them they “are funding the second American Revolution.” AHA ITS TEA PARTY DERIVATIVE]

The next day, Jones again discussed his involvement in planning and paying for the event. During his broadcast, he excoriated Trump supporters who were hesitant to travel to Washington, D.C., claiming, “I’ve seen people making a lot of excuses. ‘Oh, antifa is dangerous.’ It’s a lot more dangerous walking across the street.There’s hardly no antifa. They are a bunch of cowards.” (After mayhem unfolded at the Capitol, Jones and his outlet falsely blamed antifa supporters for the violence that took place.) He added, “It’s not about Infowars getting the credit for this, it’s about the fact that no one would step up and put the money in. ... I stepped up and put the money in for the 5th and for the 6th and then a donor came along, a great patriot, and paid $400,000-plus for the rest of it. I’m in over $130,000, and I'm not complaining about that. I had to do it when no one else was two weeks ago.”

Jones, Infowars host Owen Shroyer, and other Infowars employees then traveled to Washington, D.C. During a January 5 speech in downtown Washington, Shroyer said, “Americans are ready to fight. We’re not exactly sure what that is going to look like, perhaps, in a couple of weeks if we can’t stop this certification of the fraudulent election of Joe Biden.” He went on to “salute” Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) for their efforts to overturn the election and said of the people gathered there, “We are the new revolution.”

Meanwhile, Jones was at an event outside the Supreme Court, where he told a crowd, “We are facing Satan, and the answer to Satan’s 1984 is George Washington’s 1776.”

That evening, Jones and Shroyer regrouped to give more speeches in downtown Washington. Shroyer told a crowd, “Thomas Jefferson once said when the government fears the people, there is freedom. But for too long now the people have feared the government. … I can tell you that thecrooked politicians that occupy our Capitol are in fear right now. Do you know how I know this? Because they are scurrying around in secret tunnels to avoid ‘we the people.’ Right now as we speak they’re scurrying around like the little rats that they are to try to avoid you.”

When Jones took over the lectern, he told a cheering crowd that“we have only begun to resist the globalists” and that “they have tried to steal this election in front of everyone.” Jones also said,“I don’t know how all this is going to end, but if they want a fight, they better believe they’ve got one.”

He went on to say, “This will be their Waterloo. This will be their destruction.” (Waterloo refers to the pivotal battlefield defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte that ended the Seventh Coalition.) Jones also said that Winston Churchill “gave a famous speech where he said all I can promise you is blood, and pain, and war, and suffering. But the alternative is even worse:total slavery.” He then led the crowd in a “1776” chant.

The violent rhetoric continued the next day at Infowars’ event, which immediately preceded the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. During a January 6 speech in downtown Washington, Jones again told a crowd, “We declare 1776 against the New World Order.” Shroyer spoke from his own bullhorn while standing beside Jones, saying, “They said you lost this election in a landslide to [Joe] Biden. We said, ‘No, we don’t buy your bullshit.’ But, guess what? You want to feed us bullshit? We’re going to bring it right to your front door and you can eat it yourselves.” (Some Trump insurrectionists at the Capitol did in fact smear their own feces throughout the building’s hallways during the attack.)

At one point, Jones told the crowd to head to the Capitol “peacefully,” in contradiction to much of what he had said about what should happen on January 6. He also attempted to rile up the crowd by falsely telling them that Biden’s win in Arizona had been reversed and that “we have only begun to fight. This is 1776.” As people began to make their way to the Capitol, Shroyer yelled from a bullhorn that Democrats are “tyrants” and led the crowd in a “death to tyrants” chant. Jones then can be then heard attempting to privately confer with his crew, saying, “Let’s take it to the Capitol.”

While Jones and Shroyer did not enter the Capitol building and instead retreated to a “secure location” during the insurrection, an Infowars cameraperson, who identified himself only as “your boy Sam with Infowars.com,” did go inside as both a mob participant and a recorder of the events. Shortly before entering the building, he said, “We have had enough,” and “I got to be honest, this is not a peaceful protest.” Once he crossed the threshold, he yelled, “Guess what? We are in the Capitol, baby!” From a video uploaded to Banned.video with the title “Patriots Storm Congress Raw Footage Includes Execution of Ashli Babbitt,” it is apparent that “Sam” was just feet away from Babbitt when she was fatally shot near the Speaker’s Lobby. Although recent Infowars videos identify him only as “Sam,” older videos posted to Banned.video reveal that he appears to go by the name Sam Montoya.

As the attempted insurrection unfolded, Infowars’ Harrison Smith, who was guest-hosting The Alex Jones Show because Jones and Shroyer were in Washington, praised the “patriots” who were storming the Capitol, at least one of whom participated in beating officer Sicknick to death. The following day, Jones again claimed to have spent “close to a half a million dollars” organizing the gathering in Washington and also said that he organized the event in coordination with the White House.

Following the 2020 presidential election, Jones called on his supporters to “surround” the Georgia governor’s mansion and “rise up” because officials in that state refused to overturn Biden’s legitimate victory. In December, Shroyer praised the efforts of Trump supporters to violently disrupt the Oregon state legislature’s consideration of a COVID-19 relief bill.

Throughout the Trump presidency, Jones has often hyped the prospect of a second American Civil War that would pit conservatives against liberals, including saying that he would personally participate in violence and help execute supposed traitors. In recent months, Jones has hosted Oath Keepers militia founder Stewart Rhodes, who said during his Infowars appearances that his followers were on alert for a command from Trump to start carrying out mass violence against Democrats in Washington, D.C., and at other locations.

For his part, Shroyer said during a November 18 broadcast that prominent Democrats and members of the mainstream media “deserve” to be the victims of mass violence if Trump is not allowed to continue to be president, despite his defeat. He added, “I know I won’t have to be the one to get my hands dirty. I can sit right here in studio and just broadcast the whole thing.”

see freedumb

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trump-and-the-right-share-a-darwinist-herd-mentality-and-preference-for-sacrificing-the-weak-to-capitalism/

carl pope salon

Donald Trump's promise in an ABC News town hall last month that the United States would soon achieve herd immunity for the coronavirus, and conflating that with herd mentality, may be explained because Trump is counting on the latter to rescue his second term. It's otherwise impossible to imagine a campaign whose endgame is to recover the lost loyalty of voters over 65 selecting as its closing argument, "Not enough of you have died yet."

It's a safe bet that none of his 2016 Republican primary challengers would have embraced the idea that the solution to the pandemic was more American casualties than the Civil War and World War II combined. But many of Trump's Republican comrades-in-arms have embraced, often eagerly, a default preference for herd immunity — harkening back to the harsh social Darwinism that underlies much of modern conservatism. _{Early on in the pandemic there were}_ Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Rep. Trey Hollingsworth of Indiana and radio host Glenn Beck, all of whom argued that the loss of more American lives was preferable to scaling back the economy. Then, _{when the issue became wearing masks}_, some opponents argued "if I'm going to get COVID and die from it, so be it …" Of course they really meant, "If you are going to get COVID ..." Wearing masks was a deprivation of freedom — although this argument seems never to have been extended by Republicans to the prohibition on public nudity.

As the pandemic surged again, by October Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was referring to "unjustified hysteria" about covid, _{and asked,}_ after he became infected, ""Why do we think we actually can stop the progression of a contagious disease?" (The obvious answer is that we have been doing so, with increasing success, since the 1854 cholera pump moment. That is rejected by many on the right, because stopping a pandemic may require the government to prevent citizens from endangering others.)

Herd immunity can sometimes reduce mortality from a disease, but over the centuries has failed to end the curse of influenza, tuberculosis, smallpox, polio, rabies or dengue fever. It fits neatly, however, into a social Darwinist framework. Those who die are the "weak" — the poorest, the youngest and the oldest young —or can at any rate be classified as weak and deserving to die, because they died.Survival of the fittest requires discarding the weak.Remember the "let them die" hecklers who populated some of the 2011 Republican debates on health care.

This underlying value distortion — my personal freedom extends to my right to endanger you — spreads out across a range of other issues.Today's Republican reluctance to curb pollution even when it is demonstrably is killing a power plant's neighbors, to keep pesticides that kill farm workers out of the fields or to do anything at all about the climate crisis, which conservatives have privately conceded for years was real and caused by carbon pollution, are all illustrations of how the toxin of social Darwinism still contaminates much of the right's thinking about freedom.

So Trump's response to the COVID crisis — and the willingness of the Republican congressional establishment to enable it — illustrates a deep-rooted flaw in the American right. In a world in which we are, like it or not, all bound together, a tolerable conservatism is one that is willing to protect me from irresponsible neighbors, whether those are COVID-risking teenagers, irresponsible gun owners or multinational chemical companies.

convention commie apocalypse

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/kimberly-guilfoyles-rnc-speech-was-6-minutes-of-sheer-hell-ill-never-get-back-gop-strategist/

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/kimberly-guilfoyle-2020-rnc-speech-transcript

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (00:05)

Good evening, America. I’m Kimberly Guilfoyle. I speak to you tonight as amother, a former prosecutor, a Latina, and a proud American, and yes, a proud supporter of President Donald J. Trump. Why? He is the President who delivers for America. He built the greatest economy the world has ever known, for the strivers, the working class, and middle class. As Commander in Chief, he always puts America first. President Trump is the law and order President.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (00:41)

Now, Presidential leadership is not guaranteed. It is a choice. Biden, Harris, and the rest of the Socialistswill fundamentally change this nation. They wantopen borders, closed schools, dangerous amnesty, and will selfishly send your jobs back to China while they get rich. They will defund, dismantle, and destroy America’s law enforcement. When you are in trouble and need police, don’t count on the Democrats.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (01:14)

As a first-generation American, I know how dangerous their Socialist agenda is. My mother, Mercedes, was a special education teacher from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. My father, also an immigrant, came to this nation in pursuit of the American Dream. Now, I consider it my duty to fight to protect that dream. Rioters must not be allowed to destroy our cities. Human sex drug traffickers should not be allowed to cross our border. The same Socialist policies which destroyedplaces likeCuba and Venezuela must not take root in our cities and our schools.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (01:58)

If you want to see the Socialist Biden/Harris future for our country, just take a look at California. It is a place of immense wealth, immeasurable innovation, and immaculate environment, and the Democrats turned it into a land of discarded heroin needles in parks, riots in streets, and blackouts in homes. In President Trump’s America, we light things up. We don’t dim them down. We build things up, we don’t burn them down. We kneel in prayer and we stand for our flag.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (02:42)

This election is a battle for the soul of America. Your choice is clear. Do you support the cancel culture? Thecosmopolitan elites of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden, who blame America first? Do you think America is to blame? Or, do you believe in American greatness? Believe in yourself? In President Trump? In individual and personal responsibility? They want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought for and hold dear. They want to steal your liberty, your freedom. They want to control what you see and think and believe so that they can control how you live. They want toenslave youto the weak, dependent, liberal victim ideology to the point that you will not recognize this country or yourself.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (03:44)

From the beginning, when President Trump spoke about making American Great Again, he was speaking about thatshining city on a hill and restoring thebeacon of light that once shined so bright. His promise was to put America first and he has. When President Trump cut middle class taxes, putting tens of thousands of dollars back in the pockets of working class Americans, that beacon began to flicker once again. When President Trump commanded the defeat of ISIS,took out al-Baghdadi and Soleimani and paved the way for peace in the Middle East, that beacon started to glow. When he negotiated historic trade deals with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and China, bringing back thousands of manufacturing jobs to America, that beacon shined bright once again for the world to see.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (04:45)

America, it’s all on the line. President Trump believes in you. He emancipates and lifts you up to live your American Dream. You are capable. You are qualified. You are powerful and you have the ability to choose your life and determine your destiny. Don’t let the Democrats take you for granted. Don’t let them step on you.Don’t let them destroy your families, your lives, and your future. Don’t let them kill future generations because they told you and brainwashed you and fed you lies that you weren’t good enough.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (05:25)

Like my parents, you can achieve your American Dream. You can be that shining example to the world. Manifest and be the change in this country that you dream, that you hope, that you believe in. Stand foran American President who is fearless, who believes in you, and who loves this country and will fight for her.President Trump is the leader who will rebuild the promise of America and ensure that every citizen can realize their American Dream. Ladies and gentlemen,leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the American Dream, thebest is yet to come!

Building the bomb

....

fake name to rent truck? Kling for buddy but also Klingon warrior mega-male

McVeigh's original plan had been to detonate the bomb at 11:00 am, but at dawn on April 19, 1995, he decided instead to destroy the building at 9:00 am.^[62] As he drove toward the Murrah Federal Building in the Ryder truck, McVeigh carried with him an envelope containing pages from The Turner Diaries – a fictional account of white supremacists who ignite a revolution by blowing up the FBI headquarters at 9:15 one morning using a truck bomb.^[24] McVeigh wore a printed T-shirt with the motto of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Sic semper tyrannis ("Thus always to tyrants", according to legend what Brutus said as he assassinated Julius Caesar, also claimed to have been shouted by John Wilkes Booth immediately after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln) and "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" (from Thomas Jefferson).^[36] He also carried an envelope full of revolutionary materials that included a bumper sticker with the slogan, falsely attributed^[63] to Thomas Jefferson, "When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." Underneath, McVeigh had written, "Maybe now, there will be liberty!" with a hand-copied quote by John Locke asserting that a man has a right to kill someone who takes away his liberty.^[24][64]

McVeigh entered Oklahoma City at 8:50 am.^[65] At 8:57 am, the Regency Towers Apartments' lobby security camera that had recorded Nichols's pickup truck three days earlier recorded the Ryder truck heading towards the Murrah Federal Building.^[66] At the same moment, McVeigh lit the five-minute fuse. Three minutes later, still a block away, he lit the two-minute fuse. He parked the Ryder truck in a drop-off zone situated under the building's day-care center, exited and locked the truck. As he headed to his getaway vehicle, he dropped the keys to the truck a few blocks away.^[67]

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/loving-your-country-is-not-the-same-as-loving-trump-how-the-right-makes-a-mockery-of-us-patriotism

on September 17, in a speech delivered at the National Archives Museum, President Trump announced he was signing an executive order establishing the 1776 Commission, aimed at promoting what he called a “patriotic” and “pro-America” education. The announcement was a direct attack on the 1619 Project, a New York Times initiative that explores the legacy of slavery in the United States. For Trump, teaching critical race studies is akin to committing child abuse “in the truest sense of those words.”

“Our youth will be taught to love America with all of their heart and souls,” Trump announced. He accused the left of destroying children’s love of their country by teaching the facts of its history — facts, he claimed, wrongly “rewrite” American history as founded on oppression rather than freedom. He’s demanded that schools “teach American exceptionalism” and said that schools are teaching students to “hate their own country.”

This was just the latest show of Trump’s blatant conflation of racism with patriotism and it served as yet another example of how Trump has turned patriotism into a self-serving performance free of any connection to facts. From the start, Trump has attempted to define patriotism not as loving the country, but rather as loving Trump. All we need to do is remember that the same man who dodged military service spent over $2.5 million on a Fourth of July military parade designed to be primarily a celebration of himself.

Before analyzing the damage Trump has done to U.S. patriotism, let me be blunt: “loving” your country is stupid. Patriotism, when it is nothing more than blind adoration of a country, is idiotic at best and fascist at worst. Countries don’t need to be loved; they need to be built, critiqued, developed and improved. They need to be held to the highest ideals and they need to face their shortcomings so that they can strive to be better. The relationship citizens have to their nations may always include some affect, but real support for a nation thrives when citizens emote less and reflect and engage more. So, when patriotism is synonymous with loving your country, it is always, already a bad idea. but setting aside the question of whether it even makes sense to debate who does or doesn’t love their country, there seems little doubt that the time has come to push back on the way that the right has conflated loving the United States with loving Trump.

It may have been the case that in the early days of Trump his supporters could rationalize backing a man with an absent moral compass, a profound disrespect for our public institutions, and a deeply and openly narcissistic personality. But the moment when a Trump supporter could hold him up as a welcome alternative to the traditional political establishment has long gone. Any hope that Trump signaled anything positive for this country has now been eclipsed by the avalanche of proof that he holds all of the core values we associate with our nation — whether from the left or the right — in profound disdain.

Take, for example, the information that has poured in just over the last month.

We learned that Trump was aware of reports of financial incentives given to Taliban fighters by officials linked to the Russian government to target and kill American troops in Afghanistan, and he did nothing about it.

We have had multiple confirmations of Trump’s inability to appreciate the value of military service, to respect veterans, and to understand the sacrifices those in the military make for their country. And that wasn’t all. Trump went after military leadership, claiming that they wage wars in order to boost the profits of defense manufacturing companies, somehow forgetting that, as President, he is Commander-in-Chief of the military.

Trump didn’t just attack the military; he attacked our electoral system as well. We have read reports of his concerted efforts to derail the electoral process and suppress voter turnout by criticizing mail-in voting and encouraging voters to vote twice. He has also repeated an expectation that election results could be delayed by months, stoking fears over a peaceful transition.

Then we also learned via Bob Woodward’s new book “Rage” that Trump only cares about himself and that he is willing to lie and deceive the American public when it suits him. Woodward reports that Trump knew well that COVID-19 posed a serious health threat, yet he deliberately downplayed it, saying he did so to avoid stoking public “panic.”

Yet, he is more than happy to foster public panic if it can help him win re-election. He has specifically suggested that if he isn’t elected in November, citizens will be in grave danger.

These more recent developments simply build on years of examples of his profoundly selfish desire to put himself before his office and above the national interest. Only last week we had further confirmation of his self-aggrandizing, unpatriotic behavior when we learned that he manipulated the Department of Homeland Security to downplay the threat of Russian election interference and minimize the threat of white supremacists.

This is a man who hasn’t protected our citizens, our health care workers, our military, our national security, or our elections. This is a man who has openly sown social division and purposefully put the future of the nation at risk.Without question, Donald Trump is the least patriotic man to have ever held the office of President. And, what’s more, he is entirely transparent about it.

How, then, to explain the fact that he still enjoys such an astonishing level of support by Republicans? Sure, there are dissenters, but the**latest Gallup poll numbers**still show Trump earning support of 90 percent of Republicans.

So, supporting Trump when he is obviously doesn’t care a wit about the United States means you can no longer claim to “love” your country.

By every metric that matters, Republicans’ ongoing support for Donald Trump officially ends any claim they have to anything resembling patriotism. Supporting Trump in the wake of these revelations suggests that your patriotism has turned into nothing more than blind fanaticism for a demagogue. There isn’t any other way to explain it.

For many, the idea that Trump and his supporters have ruined U.S. patriotism may not matter much given the fact that for many of us patriotism is too closely aligned with an uncritical American exceptionalism. The notion, though, that the rise of Trump signals the demise of Republican patriotism is a big deal for the simple fact that the Republican party has equated itself with U.S. patriotism for decades. In fact, the mere suggestion that they might not be the patriots they claim to be is likely to seem shocking even to those who are not in the party.

But that’s the thing. The left has generally allowed the Republicans to be the party of those who “love” their country because, for the left, the idea of loving your country uncritically rather than trying to make it better is ignorant and narrow-minded. If being patriotic means you can’t ask questions about the flaws in the system, interrogate injustices past and present, account for the facts of history, and point out deep hypocrisies in the national narrative, then who wants to be patriotic? So, if patriotism means loving your country, then it’s no wonder that the left gave free rein to Republicans to have at it.

And that’s exactly what they did. The story of how Republicans came to dominate the notion of U.S. patriotism is long and complex, but, as Geoffrey Nunberg points out in “Talking Right,” the key to understanding conservative control of U.S. patriotism lies in the deliberate ways that their party worked to merge conservative values with national ones.

According to Nunberg, conservatives exercised a methodical plan to co-opt terms like values, freedom, and patriotismso that these words were uniquely associated with the right — a plan that allowed them to increasingly paint the left as being unpatriotic, against freedom, and morally bankrupt.

This story is key to understanding the twisted patriotism of Trump supporters today, because it wasn’t just that the left let the right merge conservative values with patriotism; it was also that the left let the right suggest that anyone sharing a progressive platform hated their country. This was how it came to be that protesting the Iraq War or demanding accountability for systemic racism or claiming that health care in Canada was better than it is here meant you hated your country.

The love-hate patriotic drama that the right was allowed to develop meant that all thoughtful conversations about what it means to support the United States were absent, replaced, instead, by the right’s increasingly hysterical claims that they were the only ones who even knew what our nation’s values were. For decades the left avoided claims about their country being great, offering, instead, visions for hope and change and a better future.

The distinction makes sense: the right loves their country in a narrow minded and fanatical way while the left strives to take the best of America’s ideals and make them reality.The problem, though, as Nunberg explains in his book, was that the left forgot that they also needed to fight for their critical approach to nationalism to be understood as offering a set of patriotic values too. Absent that, the right was free to own the idea and mold it to their desires.

It is thanks to these developments that Trump was able to claim Ronald Reagan’s slogan and suggest that he was going to make America great again. Everyone was already used to seeing these sorts of claims from the right.

The problem, though, is that Trump has not ever wanted to make America great in any way at all. He has wanted to make it his to do with as he wishes. He has openly idolized despots and dictators. He has bemoaned that he is limited by our democratic process and commented glibly that he should be able to stay in office beyond eight years. And none of that unpatriotic, un-American behavior has caused his supporters to waver.

Because Trump’s base has spent decades forgetting what it actually means to uphold national values, they’ve been easily swayed into associating a selfish, self-aggrandizing, unethical and morally repugnant human with a patriot.Content to equate flag waving, eating hot dogs, going to football games and buying guns while wearing a red hat with being patriotic, Trump’s base has lost sight of what it means to uphold national values. For them, to love their country means loving Trump.

It’s time to push back on this love affair and call out Trump supporters for their anti-American values. No one should be able to claim that they love their country and still support him. We might disagree on whether schools should focus on teaching students the symbolism of 1619 and we might disagree on whether or not we should idolize the association of 1776 with freedom, but it’s time to agree that our nation deserves better than Trump.

https://bluevirginia.us/2013/03/kochfunded-mercatus-center-embarrasses-gmu-yet-again-with-laughable-report-on-freedom

in many ways, George Mason University (GMU) is a fine school, an institution of higher learning that Virginians should be proud of. But in at least one way, it is a cringe-inducing embarrassment. That, of course, is the tremendous amount of money from the Koch brothers that goes to fund climate science denialism, to rail against environmental regulation more broadly, at GMU’s far-right-wingnut Mercatus Center, described in The New Yorker as essentially a scam to “take corporate money and give it to a neutral-sounding think tank.” Mercatus is very useful to the Koch brothers, of course, because they can count on the corporate/clueless media to cite it as some sort of unbiased, neutral “think tank,” when in reality it is wildly biased, and certainly not a “think tank” the way most people would ever “think” of that concept.

Given all this, it’s not surprising that Koch-funded fellows at Mercatus have now produced a laughable, far-right-wingnut report that purports to measure “Freedom in the 50 States.” Of course, it does no such thing, unless by “freedom” you mean “freedom for corporations, polluters, and the super rich to completely run amok, while the state tells you what you can and can’t do with your body, who you can or can’t marry, whether or not you can organize with other workers to demand better pay and benefits, etc.” In short, this report is a Koch-brothers-meet-John-Galt wet dream of what America should look like. And that, my friends, is not a pleasant thought, in any way, shape or form.

Let’s look at a few of the metrics they use. Most importantly is having a low “tax burden” (note the loaded words they use?) — that metric makes up 29% of the entire score in and of itself, and of course the lower the better, even if your state’s schools, roads, bridges, health care systems, etc. are falling apart. The super-rich Koch brothers certainly don’t care – let the little people suffer, they’re doing fine, bwahahahahaha!

The next highest weighting in this “study” (using the word as loosely as is humanly possible) goes to that pressing issue, one that I know all of us sit up nights worrying about, namely “Freedom from Tort Abuse.” What on earth is THAT, you ask? According to Mercatus, “This is what the US Chamber of Commerce calls a state’s ‘lawsuit climate.’ It captures risks and costs that businesses must pass on to consumers as higher prices.”Yep, the virulently anti-government, pro-corporate-welfare US Chamber of Commerce came up with with the metric that makes up another 12% of the Mercatus Center’s scoring. ‘Nuff said.

So, combine those two items – low taxes and “freedom from tort abuse” – and you’re up to over 40% of the score right there. Throw in a few more on the “libertarian” wish list – “gun control freedom” (6.6%), “health insurance freedom” (5.4%), tobacco and alcohol “freedom” (6.9% combined), “labor market freedom” (3.8%) – and you’ve got the bulk of it. Note, by the way, that “marriage freedom” is weighted at just 2.1%, lower than “alcohol freedom” (2.8%), “tobacco freedom” (4.1%), and many others.

So yes, the whole thing would be completely laughable if it weren’t so insidious. Alex Pareene of Salon skewers it here, noting that the Koch-funded Mercatus Institute’s “definition of ‘freedom’ largely adheres to the standard American libertarian conception of ‘liberty,’ which is to say it is oriented almost entirely around private property ownership and low taxation.” Thus, North Dakota comes out in the rankings as the most “free” state, even though it just “passed the most restrictive antiabortion laws in the country…[i]ncluding a law specifically aimed at shutting down the state’s lone abortion provider.” In other words, you’re free in North Dakota to have very low taxes and very low services, but if you’re a woman you are NOT free to make important medical decisions, with your doctor, about your body. Is this the combo “Atlas Shrugged”/“The Handmaid’s Tale” version of “freedom” or what?

By the way, just in case you’re at all interested, Virginia is considered by the Koch brothers, aka Mercatus, as “one of the freest states in the country, ranking eighth overall,” in part due to ” Virginia’s status as a right-to-work state.” Lovely, huh? Meanwhile, just to our north, our unfortunate brethren in Communist Maryland suffer at #44, despite the fact that you can marry who you want there, while Virginia enshrines discrimination into its state constitution. Got that? I’d also note that, as a general rule, the “blue” states – the ones that are huge net donors to the “red” states – are considered less “free,” while the “red” states – huge net recipients of federal largesse, with the lowest education and health rankings in the country – are considered the most “free.” To put it another way, if you were dreaming up a dystopian vision of America, and ranking the most dystopian states the highest and the least dystopian the lowest, you’d basically have…the Mercatus Center study. What an embarrassment.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/rnc-review-speakers-described-an-alternate-reality-in-which-chaos-and-violence-of-the-trump-era-is-joe-bidens-fault/

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RNC review: Speakers described an alternate reality in which chaos and violence of the Trump era is Joe Biden’s fault

Written by Igor Derysh / Salon August 25, 2020 Commentary

The first night of the Republican National Convention featured a diverse lineup that defended President Donald Trump from charges of racism, even as other speakers sought to stoke racial fears and push conspiracy theories.

The convention, largely consisting of a mix of live and pre-taped speeches before an empty auditorium, appeared to take place in an alternate reality where Trump had successfully beaten back the coronavirus pandemic, and where the protests, violence and racial division seen during Trump’s presidency would only get worse Democratic nominee Joe Biden is elected. It was a wildly dishonest night, with the New York Times fact-checking team counting at least 30 false and misleading claims.

“This one half-night of Republican programming so far has been exponentially more dishonest than the entire four nights of the Democratic convention,” wrote CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale.

While Republicans insisted that their convention would be optimistic, and headliners like former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina delivered speeches on the promise of America that could have taken place under any other Republican president, the tone of the night was dark and the theme was racial fear-mongering.

The night kicked off with a speech by Charlie Kirk, founder of the right-wing student group Turning Point USA, who described Trump as a “bodyguard of Western civilization” — a common white nationalist dog whistle — who is defending America against a “vengeful mob that seeks to destroy our way of life, our neighborhoods, schools, churches and values.”

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio gave a speech riddled with falsehoods accusing Democrats of stoking “crime, violence, and mob rule.” Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, one of Trump’s most loyal followers in Congress, bizarrely warned that Democrats will “disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home, and invite MS-13 to live next door.”

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who threatened Black Lives Matter supporters with guns, delivered a gloomy, downbeat chat accusing “radical Democrats” of trying to destroy the suburbs.

“They are not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities. They want to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single-family home zoning,” Patricia McCloskey said. “This forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness and low-quality apartments into thriving suburban neighborhoods.

“These are the policies that are coming to a neighborhood near you,” she added. “So make no mistake: No matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats’ America.”

These divisive speeches were interspersed between people of color who insisted that neither Trump, the Republican Party nor the nation had a problem with racism.

Former NFL player Herschel Walker — who once played for the New Jersey Generals, a long-gone USFL team owned by Trump — said it “hurt my soul” to hear people call Trump “racist,” noting their long friendship. Haley, speaking of her own experience as the daughter of Indian immigrants, said that “America is not a racist country” but a “work in progress.”

Scott, the night’s keynote speaker, [heh appt by nikki] delivered a powerful speech on the promise of America and his own experiences with racism. Scott urged viewers to “not look simply at what the candidates say” before listing a number of remarks made by Biden to suggest that he, and not Trump, would ignore minority communities. Scott repeatedly insisted that Biden wants to turn the U.S. into a “socialist utopia,” which would be news to Biden and the progressive primary challenges who repeatedly criticized him for being too conservative.

But while the headliners tried to ignore the division stoked by Trump since long before he launched his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend, former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, stole the show with stunningly dark and loud diatribes that prompted viewers to question whether cocaine was involved.

Guilfoyle, who earns $180,000 per year from the Trump campaign, shouted an amped-up speech into the empty auditorium comparing Democrats to socialistsin Cuba and Venezuela. Guilfoyle, who was formerly married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, claimed that Democrats (including her ex-husband, apparently) had turned California into a “land of discarded heroin needles in parks, riots in streets and blackouts in homes.”

“They want to control what you see and think and believe so that they can control how you live,” she warned. “They want to enslave you to the weak, dependent liberal victim ideology to the point that you will not recognize this country or yourself.”

“Biden, Harris and the rest of the socialists will fundamentally change this nation,” she continued. “They want open borders, closed schools, dangerous amnesty, and will selfishly send your jobs back to China while they get rich. They will defund, dismantle and destroy America’s law enforcement. When you are in trouble and need police, don’t count on the Democrats.”

Donald Trump Jr. gave a speech touting his father’s response to the pandemic, albeit one that was entirely detached from reality.

He claimed that the president had “acted quickly,” even though Trump spent the crucial early weeks downplaying the threat, and that the administration had delivered supplies to “hospitals that needed them most,” even though the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general found rampant shortages of vital supplies. Six months into the pandemic, such equipment remains in short supply.

The night also featured segments in which Trump hyped hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has repeatedly been found ineffective in treating the coronavirus, and a video that touted Trump’s “rapid policy changes” in the face of the pandemic.

MSNBC broke away from the broadcast to fact-check the claims.

“To say that 170,000 souls lost in our country up to now is a success by any measure is fantasy,” Dr. Vin Gupta, a disease expert at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said during the segment. “It’s disrespectful to the families who lost loved ones, to frontline clinicians who put their lives at risk. It’s just fantasy. It’s propaganda.”

During another segment, Trump spoke with a group of Americans who had been freed from overseas prisons, including pastor Andrew Brunson, who was arrested by Turkey during President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s purge following an unsuccessful coup attempt.

“To me, President Erdogan was very good,” Trump told the pastor, who was detained for two years.

Though all of the major news networks break away during portions of the convention for analysis and ads, Fox News host Sean Hannity warned his viewers that “the media won’t cover large parts of the RNC that we’ll be showing.”

Twitter users couldn’t help but notice that Fox News actually aired fewer segments from the convention than CNN and MSNBC. Trump’s former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, tweeted his complaints at Fox News.

“Can’t believe I have to watch the convention on @CNN,” he wrote. “Unbelievable.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/rush-limbaugh-covid-19-lockdowns-are-attempt-establish-global-world-government

LIMBAUGH (HOST): I just ran across something, and it breaks my -- it breaks heart. It really does, even though it doesn’t surprise me. USA Today is running an op-ed piece today by somebody I’ve never heard of. It’s some guy named David Rothkopf, R-o-t-h-k-o-p-f. Never heard of him, doesn’t matter. It’s an op-ed piece. It’s not a news story, but it will probably be a news story before long.

And here is the headline: “America’s National Greatness Myths Are Shattering. Can They Survive? Should They Survive?” National greatness myths. So, you see, here’s another column, another op-ed piece from the left which has no respect whatsoever for this country, no understanding of the greatness, of theexceptionalism, of the uniqueness, of the blessed nature of this country. And it’s not hard to understand those things if they’re ever explained to you.

If people who understand how this country came to be can explain it to people, they will be in awe of it. It is a magical, wonderful story about how this country became something no other country ever has, about how this country was the first in human history to embody, acknowledge, and promote the concept of human liberty as that which comes first in any society. It comes before a government. It comes before government power. This country embodied the idea that a Constitution should limit what government can do to people, not limit the people.

The fact that this country established and acknowledged that by virtue of our holy creation that we have certain unalienable rights, which means they can’t be taken away by anybody. That’s what inalienable means. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, those three things were acknowledged to be the natural state of the human being in the United States and everywhere. Never before in history had that been done.

Most people in this world from the beginning of time have lived under tyranny, have lived under bondage, have lived under dictatorship, have lived in poverty, have never known the standard of living this country made possible. The greatness of this country’s not a myth. The greatness of this country is very specific. There's [[are]] specific reasons, specific explanations for it. It’s just heartbreaking that they haven’t been taught in almost 50 years.

We’ve lost two generations to the public education system, which then enables some dummkopf like this guy to write a piece saying America’s national greatness myths are shattering.Should they survive, can they survive? Here’s the subhead. “Rather than restore some idealized, jingoistic version of who we are, let’s use this painful moment of self-doubt to remake the reality of America.”

Speak for yourself, buddy. We who love this country have zero self-doubt about it. None. “Let’s use this painful moment of self-doubt to remake the reality -” how about we use this painful moment of self-doubt to vanquish the American left, tovanquish communism and socialism, which has never worked anywhere? How about we use this painful moment to teach more and more Americans the truth about their great and wonderful and God-blessed country?

“Live long enough and you can see the rise and fall of myths in real time. It does not take statues being pulled from their pedestals to reveal the fragility of the conjured history upon which so much of society depends. … The world is not, we are reminded, as we believed it was. Not only is that unsettling, it forces us to ask, what else about our bedrock beliefs about life may someday turn to quicksand? National myths can crash in an instant.”

[[National myths can crash in an instant.]] National myths are not crashing. National myths are not collapsing of their own weight of immorality and falsehood. National myths don’t exist. What’s happening is that America’s greatness is being disassembled right in front of our eyes. America’s history is being erased right in front of our eyes. Everything about America is being substantially destroyed, from oureconomy to our liberty and freedom, to our Constitution. And it is done at the urging, at the bequest of, with the support of the Democrat Party of the United States of America.

This -- none of this could be happening of its own. It couldn't -- this is not happening because a majority of the American people want this. That’s what makes this so outrageous. We are being ruled and governed here by a really small minority who are using the power of fear and intimidation and economic destruction — that is key.

Once you take people’s money away from them, you own them. Once you take people’s ability to earn a living and you become the provider, you own them. That’s the first thing they did, was shut down this nation’s economy. Now they’re trying to get it shut down again under bogus COVID-19 numbers.

“America’s National Greatness Myths Are Shattering. Can They Survive?” They damn well better survive or the world is not gonna be the place — you know in Italy right now, do you know how much money Italy is losing a day? Italy is losing $115 million a day in the hotel business alone. Do you know why? Because nobody from the United States is traveling or anywhere else. COVID-19 has [[it]] shut down[[.]] -- now, in the past it’s been, shall we say, fashionable to rip America as the biggest and the baddest, theUnited Nations rips America, other people rip America.

But at the end of the day, everybody needed America. Every nation on Earth’s economy needs America. But our economy has been shut down. We got 44 million people out of work. We’ve got in Chicago alone 4,400 businesses which have been shut down and are said never to reopen again. And that’s one city. In Rome and throughout Italy, they’re losing $115 million a day via tourism. There isn’t any. They miss the United States.

The world depends on it. This is another thing that is by design in all of this. You take out the United States of America and you take out the United States economy, and you have set up your precious globalism and world governmentbecause you are creating worldwide poverty and thus worldwide need. And when you, the global government or whoever you are, become the provider to those in need, guess who you own?

But none of this could be happening if it weren’t for the fact that the United States is under assault and being taken down on the basis of a pack of lies. That our great history is nothing but a bunch of lies, that our history is nothing but a bunch of myths. How in the world can anyone with any kind of intellect at all look at the United States, see its role that it played in the establishment of human liberty and freedom, and want no part of it?

Well, obviously people to whom human liberty and freedom are a problem. To communists and socialists, human liberty and freedom, free choice, that’s a problem. The state becomes the repository of all freedom. The state determines who can do what, when, where, why. The state determines who has what. The state determines who gets what.

But how in the world can this -- I ask myself how in the world can otherwise intellectually qualified people not value the concept of individual liberty and freedom? And yet people who are leading this anti-American movement are of exactly that frame of mind, that somehow individual liberty and freedom pose the threat,pose the problem to the ongoing future.

see "freedumb" jim jeffrees comic show

Freedumb

A watered down version of freedom spouted by psudeo patriots in American who claim to love freedom, justice and constitutional rights for all but are in fact only in favor for a select few having them. Freedom supporters hide their agenda by wrapping it up in a false sense of patriotism to cover up their lack of willingness to share it with everyone in the country. Usually cutting off others right to freedom when it prevents a privileged group from having their way with a particular politcal/social/Religious issue they want to have dictated in their personal favor.

Freedom is for the everyone, while Freedumb is for the few...

by Libertatis April 24, 2014

also libtard :

That the dumb should remain free. A corrupted view of freedom based in mass ignorance of what real freedom requires.

The distorted view of the majority population in the United States, who believe that it is not necessary to be intelligent and informed in order to remain free. The concept that unchecked politicians and Multi-National Corporations and NGO's will protect individual civil liberties and not impose various forms of slavery on their subjects. Not knowing the difference between freedom, and fascism is a common trait of lovers of freedumb.

by Jeremy Glasser January 30, 2007

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/economist-paul-krugman-gops-cult-of-selfishness-informed-its-destructive-response-to-coronavirus-pandemic/

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has reported a COVID-19 death count of more than 148,000 for the United States, which has become the world’s coronavirus hotspot. Liberal economist Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column, argues that the United States’ high number of coronavirus-related deaths and infections underscores the failures of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.But Krugman also stresses that the problem goes way beyond Trump’s ineptness and exemplifies “America’s cult of selfishness.”

“Premature reopening led to a surge in infections: adjusted for population, Americans are currently dying from COVID-19 at around 15 times the rate in the European Union or Canada,” Krugman laments. “Yet the ‘rocket ship’ recovery Donald Trump promised has crashed and burned: job growth appears to have stalled or reversed, especially in states that were most aggressive about lifting social distancing mandates, and early indications are that the U.S. economy is lagging behind the economies of major European nations.”

Krugman notes that “Trump and allies were so eager to see big jobs numbers that they ignored both infection risks and the way a resurgent pandemic would undermine the economy.” But he goes on to say that “there’s a deeper explanation of the profoundly self-destructive behavior of Trump and his allies: they were all members of America’s cult of selfishness.”

The economist explains, “You see, the modern U.S. right is committed to the proposition that greed is good, that we’re all better off when individuals engage in the untrammeled pursuit of self-interest. In their vision, unrestricted profit maximization by businesses and unregulated consumer choice is the recipe for a good society."

Republicans who are consumed with selfishness, according to Krugman, have a hard time looking at the big picture.

“I’ve long been struck by the intensity of right-wing anger against relatively trivial regulations, like bans on phosphates in detergent and efficiency standards for lightbulbs,” Krugman writes. “It’s the principle of the thing: many on the right are enraged at any suggestion that their actions should take other people’s welfare into account.”

According to Krugman, far-right Republicans equate irresponsibility with “freedom.”

“This rage is sometimes portrayed as love of freedom,” Krugman observes. “But people who insist on the right to pollute are notably unbothered by, say, federal agents teargassing peaceful protesters. What they call ‘freedom’ is actually absence of responsibility.”

Krugman concludes his column by warning that during the coronavirus pandemic, Republicans have “sacralized selfishness” with deadly results.

“What the coronavirus has revealed is the power of America’s cult of selfishness,” Krugman argues. “And this cult is killing us.

eb stoher

Not long ago, heavily armed white men (and a handful of white women) stood on the steps of Michigan’s Capitol. They were protesting the governor’s lock down amid the spread of the new coronavirus. Gretchen Whitmer, they said, was infringing on their constitutional rights and liberties. They were showing they would not stand for it.

It was a nice bit of political theater that has since grown nationally into a battle over wearing masks. Refuse to wear one, and you support the president. Wear one, and you don’t. But beneath the protests was something members of the press corps believed they should take seriously: a conservative ideology ever watchful of corrupt power.

It should be clear to the press corps, and to a citizenry informed by the press corps, that those protests had nothing to do with the tyranny of government. It should be clear that when they said, “Don’t tread on me,” that didn’t include you. It should be clear, to everyone, that such protests weren’t principled. I’m not going to argue what they were really about. Maybe small men with small minds need to act up. What I do know: if there’s anything worthy of armed resistance, it’s the emergence of Donald Trump’s secret police force. Yet here we are. As far as I can tell, nothing but crickets.

The secret police are real. Groups of heavily armed and unidentified federal agents in military dress have been gassing peaceful protesters in Portland, Oregon, under the guise of protecting “federal facilities,” meaning monuments. We now know they are with Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, among other agencies under the US Department of Homeland Security. These are the same agencies that gassed peaceful protesters out of Washington’s Lafayette Square so the president could do a photo shoot with a Bible in front of a church. Videos online have shown officers in Portland taking protesters into custody without reading their rights, loading them into unmarked vans, and threatening to shoot anyone attempting to follow them.

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Its activity goes beyond disappearing citizens amid social upheaval. The Oregonian, the state’s paper of record, reported Monday that “protecting” monuments from protesters seeking justice for the murder of George Floyd, in addition to greater racial equality over all, now includes spying on them as well as infiltrating their ranks. It reported: “The court records provide a window into the tactics of federal agencies based at the courthouse in downtown Portland at a time when local, state and congressional officials from Oregon have roundly criticized the national law enforcement presence.”

Its authority is broadly drawn. According to a classified document obtained by Lawfare’s Steve Vladeck and Benjamin Wittes, DHS is not only “protecting” federal monuments but those not under its purview, and it has authorized domestic spying as a means of pursuing that end. “The memo makes clear that the authorized intelligence activity covers significantly morethan just planned attacks on federal personnel or facilities. It appears to also include planned vandalism of Confederate (and other historical) monuments and statues, whether federally owned or not” (my italics). Such an expansive view of federal police power is ripe for corruption, leading some of us (me!) to worry that a president in desperate need of winning a second term might use a secret police force to harass and intimidate Americans of color as they wait in line to vote, or even detain them under suspicion of attempting to commit voter fraud.

The question should’t be whether to protect federal monuments (that’s for another time), but instead who’s doing the protecting? A conservative of a mind to protest a governor’s lock down should also be of a mind to tell the federal government to butt out of state and local affairs, whether the monuments are federally owned or not. The sovereignty of the states of the United States is the load-bearing wall of American conservatism. It is to be protected even if outcomes are harmful, as was the case when GOP attorneys general sued to overturn the Affordable Care Act. We don’t need the federal government to care for us, the thinking went. We can take care of ourselves.

At the time, that seemed principled, but the same people, as far as I can tell, now have little or nothing to say about expansive and potentially corrupt police power that blurs the line between state and national governments, undermining a principle that they used to say was central to the American idea of freedom. When people walk all over values they once said were nonnegotiable, it’s time to stop taking them seriously.

Without principle, white man with long guns cannot protest legitimately, because without principle, they’re nothing but dangerous white men with long guns.

mma 720

National talk radio hosts reject calls for masks, echoed by local hosts in at least one coronavirus hot spot

07/02/20 3:04 PM EDT

Conservative talk radio hosts across the country are mocking the use of masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, even in states like Arizona where cases are surging.

Masks are an essential tool in the effort to limit the spread of COVID-19. Infected people are less likely to transmit the virus to others when wearing a mask, and while no mask can completely prevent inhalation of virus particles, even cloth masks provide some protection for healthy individuals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend that Americans wear cloth face masks when interacting with people outside of their households.

Despite clear evidence demonstrating significant public health benefits, some in right-wing media have sought to undermine public support for mask wearing. On Fox, host Laura Ingraham has questioned the science behind masks, and fellow prime-time host Tucker Carlson has attacked public health officials and elected representatives over their mask guidance. Meanwhile, anti-mask posts on Facebook — many posted by right-wing media figures like Tomi Lahren — are racking up millions of interactions from users.

Conservative talk radio is no different. While some hosts have spoken positively about the potential benefits of masks, others have questioned their value and decried the supposed message wearing masks conveys. For instance, host Rush Limbaugh has previously referred to masks as “a required symbol on the left to promote fear.”

Now as cases are surging in a number of states, some local officials in places like Arizona have implemented mandatory-mask orders to help slow the spread. Yet these orders are being met with resistance from local radio hosts who have declared they will not be complying and have provided a platform for disgruntled callers and medical misinformation. The local focus of these hosts, combined with messaging from some nationally syndicated programs, threatens to undermine public support for mask wearing when it’s needed most.

Nationally syndicated hosts have mocked masks as a sign of “submission” and questioned their effectiveness

On June 29, host Michael Savage claimed, “Masks are useless. They’re a mark of submission.” As evidence, he cited a piece by a doctor named Simone Gold in which she argues against mask mandates because cloth masks cannot completely block COVID-19, and because mandates infringe on individual liberties. Gold previously organized and sent a letter to President Donald Trump calling on him to end coronavirus lockdowns. Savage continued on to say parents are “abusing their children” when they require them to wear masks, calling the parents “stupid, compliant, societal goons."
[audio]
former Trump adviserSebastian Gorka, host of America First with Sebastian Gorka, also claimed mask wearing is an “act of submission” during his June 23 show. Gorka mockingly referred to masks as “COVID burqas” and bragged about not wearing one in public.

Texas-based host Michael Berry on June 29 declared that “the masks don’t work” and claimed mask guidelines are part of “irrational behaviors” resulting from fear of the virus. On June 22, Berry complained about a mask order instituted in Harris County, Texas, and argued, “If people actually believe that the mask keeps them safe, why do you think you have to issue an order to require it? Maybe people don’t believe that the mask is necessary.”

In Arizona, local hosts rejected mask orders designed to slow surging case numbers

Arizona has seen one of the worst surges in coronavirus case numbers in the country in the past month. On June 17, Gov. Doug Ducey finally allowed local officials to implement mandatory-mask orders after weeks of resistance. Cities like Phoenix passed these orders almost immediately, much to the dismay of some local radio hosts.

On June 22, James T. Harris, host of The Conservative Circus with James T. Harris on Phoenix's KFYI-AM, complained about Ducey allowing local officials to implement mask orders and Mayor Kate Gallego announcing it for Phoenix. Harris argued, “President Trump could come out and say ‘James T. Harris, I want you to wear a mask,’ and I will say, ‘I appreciate you President Trump but I’m not going to wear a mask.’ … Won’t do it. Can’t do it because I don’t believe in it, Kate Gallego.”
Harris has also promoted medical misinformation about masks on both his show and social media. On June 24, Harris interviewed Dr. Jane Hendricks who claimed masks lead to dangerous drops in oxygen. In reality, there’s no evidence that cloth and surgical masks can cause breathing problems for most people. Harris also tweeted on June 20 that masks will cause respiratory issues due to “breathing all the toxins our lungs filtered out and into our masks.” In fact, wearing masks does not increase inhalation of toxins.
On KKNT, another station serving the Phoenix area, host Seth Leibsohn responded to the Phoenix mask order on June 19 by declaring, “I am just telling you right now, audience. I’m not doing it. Not doing it. I am not sick. … Seven tenths of 1% of our population has the virus. It radically can affect 15% of the population if they get it. I’m not wearing a mask and covering my face for that.”
On June 24, Leibsohn spoke to a caller who attended what he described as an “unmask me rally” in Scottsdale. During the call, Leibsohn claimed that mask wearing is “pitting us against one another. It is creating its own form of civil war. … There’s a lot of problems that come from the orders that we’ve been forced to live under. A lot. And we are just beginning to scratch the surface of them. I believe they are a great deal more dangerous than the coronavirus.”
On June 16, Mike Russell and Rob Hunter, hosts of Russell & Hunter on KFYI-AM, discussed a push for mandatory mask orders ahead of Ducey’s announcement that he would allow local officials to implement these orders. Hunter said mandatory-mask orders are useless because “those that are not going to follow the requirement know that it’s unconstitutional, know that you can’t do it, know that the masks aren’t effective. So what’s the point?”
Two days later, Russell listed cities in Arizona that had implemented mandatory-mask orders and declared, “I am not wearing a mask. There. I’m a rebel.” Russell complained about cities quickly implementing mask orders following Ducey’s announcement, saying, “That’s lazy and that’s stupid. It’s reckless.” Hunter later claimed, “If you have a compromised immune system, … if you are breathing in your own air all the time, your carbon dioxide, it might actually make it worse. There’s actually studies that show that.” (In fact, wearing a cloth or surgical mask will not substantially increase carbon dioxide levels.)

Robt R

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/the-deadly-formula-behind-the-fox-news-trump-syndicate

as the coronavirus crisis rages on, Fox News is contributing almost as much to the deaths and disease as is Trump’s White House.

Trump spouts a shocking amount of misinformation during his daily press briefings, but it’s Fox News’ equally misleading coverage of the crisis that closes the lethal circuit of lies.

It’s easy to feel outraged and defeated by Fox News. (“I can’t believe they’re saying that! How are they getting away with this?”) But it’s important to understand its formula for misleading Americans, particularly in the crisis we’re in.

The formula goes like this:

First, deny there’s a problem. Lay the groundwork for later conspiracy theories by calling it “a hoax.” Blame political opponents for “using” the issue to make Trump look bad. Mock anyone taking it seriously, and downplay the consequences.

Then, when deaths mount and the coronavirus can no longer be denied, promote the same dangerous miracle cures Trump promotes.

Third, attack the experts. Question what public-health experts recommend, such as social distancing. Question whether the death toll from Covid-19 is even true, and broadcast misleading graphics. Attack the experts themselves, and parade around alternative “experts” to promote an array of conspiracy theories.

Fourth, deflect attention from Trump’s botched response by blaming others. Blame China! As the virus hits black and brown communities especially hard, trot out the white supremacists.

If nothing else works, revise history.

Finally, make reopening the economy about “freedom,” and attack Democratic governors who are trying to keep people safe.

That’s Fox News’s tried-and-true formula, folks: Deny, promote quack remedies, attack the experts, blame others, and change the subject to “freedom.”

It works for Fox. It keeps Fox viewers. It helps protect Trump.

But it is making a deadly calamity even more deadly.

Polls show that a majority of Republicans think it’s perfectly safe to go to establishments like nail salons and dine-in restaurants, and a new study found that Sean Hannity’s viewers were less likely to adhere to social distancing guidelines.

Meanwhile, a conspiracy theory peddled by Tucker Carlson made it all the way to the White House, where it fell on Trump’s receptive ears and led him to yank a multimillion-dollar grant to an organization on the frontlines of coronavirus research.

In theory, the FCC prohibits broadcasting false information about a catastrophe if the broadcaster knows the information is false and will cause substantial “public harm” if aired. But Trump’s FCC won’t do a thing, and Fox News has no broadcast ethics. It has no journalistic integrity.

If this formula of deceit shows us anything, it’s that they know what they’re doing, and they don’t care who they hurt.

So, what can you do?

First, make a ruckus. Speak out. Write letters to your local paper, and local Fox News outlets.That’s precisely what forced Fox to cut ties with Trish Regan, and with 5G Conspiracy peddlers Diamond and Silk.

Second, boycott Fox’s major advertisers.That helped get Bill O’Reilly off the air.

Third: leverage your power. Correct Fox’s lies when you see them. Share this video with Fox News viewers you care about.

You might just save a life.

Watch:

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/conservatives-think-they-control-the-concept-of-freedom-but-progressives-have-a-deeper-richer-tradition

aha: abortion turned xian anti-gubmint; in 80's RR televangelists had TV programs/stations; Rove courted (organized) for Bush 43; now drollinger cabinet and GOTV network (AI/digital tracking?); scary overlap with militias?! patriot prayer

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/why-religious-freedom-stokes-coronavirus-protests-in-the-u-s/

Pamela E. Klassen, University of Toronto

Religiousfreedom,cherished as an American ideal, has been frequently invoked in the United States during protests against COVID-19 public health measures.

In Canada, forms of protests — including by churches — are more likely to focus on the systemic underfunding of long-term care and homeless shelters or the lack of sufficient medical and water infrastructure in Indigenous communities.

Why the difference?

Across the U.S., conservative Christians flouted state and municipal social distancing orders as late as March 31, sometimes by overtly breaking the law, claiming thatGod, not the state, will protect the people.

During the Christian Holy Week, evangelical and Pentecostal church leaders, often backed by Republican politicians, brought lawsuits against state and municipal governments, arguing that curtailing religious gatherings for the sake of limiting the spread of COVID-19 was a breach of religious freedom.

With lightning speed, federal and state lawyers weighed in on the balance between public health measures and religious liberty.

By contrast, the story in Canada is largely one of religious organizations of all varieties co-operating with public health measures. To date, there is no equivalent in Canada of these high-profile COVID-19 legal battles in which churches reject both public health directives and state legislation.

Suspicion of science, government

Religiously based suspicion of scientific and government authority is not unique to conservative Christians; Hasidic Jewish communities share these suspicions and constitute a significant number of those infected with COVID-19 in New York state.

Even in the case of Hasidic Jews, however, the border might make a difference: Hasidic communities in Québec have been praised for their diligence in adhering to social distancing, in contrast to those in New York, where some rabbis have mocked public health recommendations.

The contrasting responses to COVID-19 in Canada and the United States are rooted in very different national attitudes about individual and collective responsibility for public health.

In the United States, Democratic front-runner Joe Biden may come to embrace Bernie Sander’s plan for “Medicare for All,” but even the devastating reality of being the country hardest hit so far by COVID-19 has not seemed to turn the tide of public opinion on the need for universal medicare.

In Canada, by contrast, leaders across the political spectrum are throwing their support behind public health care, with even some conservative politicians calling for more funding, especially for long-term care. While Donald Trump tweeted a call to anti-public health protesters to “liberate” their states, in Ontario, Conservative Premier Doug Ford dismissed a scattering of such protesters in Toronto as selfish “yahoos.”

Invoking religious freedom in an attempt to opt out of health-care legislation is much more common in the U.S. than Canada. Both countries protect religious freedom, dating back to 1791 in the United States with the First Amendment of the constitution guaranteeing the “free exercise” of religion, while in Canada, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has protected the “freedom of conscience and religion” since 1982.

Religious freedom as a rallying cry

These parallel guarantees, however, stem from very different histories of using religious freedom as a rallying cry, including to resist public health care. I’ve discussed this in my research, especially in relation to women’s reproductive health.

In the wake of former U.S. president Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, for example, Catholics and evangelical groups used a religious freedom argument to contest the new mandate that their health insurance plans provide access to contraception for women employees.

In Canada, the less frequent citing of religious freedom rights in the courts to curtail health-care access may be related to a wider acceptance of health care as a public good and a basic human right.

In both Canada and the U.S., the struggle for publicly funded health care in the mid-20th century depended on coalitions of politicians, medical professionals and religious leaders. In Canada, a Baptist minister-turned-politician, Tommy Douglas, galvanized the country with a vision that public health care for all was a human right and, for some, also a religious obligation.

Similarly, in the U.S., when Dr. Montague Cobb, leader of the National Medical Association, successfully argued for Medicare before Congress in 1965, he concluded his testimony with a Christian hymn.

The Canadian version of public health care, however, now serves a much wider range of the population than Medicare does in the U.S., and has become a cornerstone of Canada’s national identity, with minimal overt connections to religion.

But in the United States, public health care remains a source of profound national and religious division.The current Republican administration regularly uses religious freedom legislation, including conscientious objection rules for health-care providers, to chip away at Medicare, limiting access to health care for women, LGBTQ, poor and rural people.

A time of reckoning is coming when public health measures and public and private health-care delivery will be assessed for their effectiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic. The role of religious communities and the ideals of religious freedom in supporting or impeding public health must be included in this reckoning, especially in the United States.

Pamela E. Klassen, Professor of the Study of Religion, University of Toronto

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/do-republicans-have-a-god-given-right-to-infect-you/

leT

Writing at the Washington Times, Cheryl Chumley makes the argument we’re hearing a lot these days from those who are protesting against the measures being used to slow the spread of the coronavirus. She is particularly upset about any requirement for people to wear protective masks.

Major U.S. airlines have announced that as a condition of riding their friendly skies, passengers must all put on a face mask.

Let the muzzling of America commence.

After noting that some state governments are requiring people to wear masks under certain conditions—like working in a restaurant—Chumley writes this.

This seems a blatant violation of an individual’s right to choose — of an individual’s right to self-govern. America, after all, isn’t a nation founded on collectivism, but rather individualism — on the right of individuals to exercise their God-given authorities, absent government tinkering and intrusion. What gives government the authority to order citizens to cover their faces?

My immediate reaction was that she could make the same argument against things like speed limits, carrying explosives on airplanes, or even smoking in public places. After all, those laws restrict an individual’s right to self-govern. What gives the government the authority to order citizens to limit how fast they drive?

The answer, of course, is that we have always had laws that put restrictions on individuals to limit the damage their behavior could pose to others. Honestly, the kind of “individualism” Chumley describes is more akin to anarchy than anything our founders envisioned. They actually wrote a kind of collectivism into the Preamble to the Constitution.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

In our modern-day two-party system, the traditional argument has never been that “freedom” gives the individual the right to do anything they please. Instead, it has been to disagree about how far the government should go in intervening for the common good.

At the Democratic Convention in 2012, President Barack Obama laid out that tension as he focused on what citizenship means in a democratic republic.

We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk- takers, the entrepreneurs who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system, the greatest engine of growth and prosperity that the world’s ever known.

But we also believe in something called citizenship — citizenship, a word at the very heart of our founding, a word at the very essence of our democracy, the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations…

We, the people — recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which asks only, what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.

As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. That’s what we believe.

There is a reason why Obama focused his speech that year on the importance of citizenship. During a campaign appearance in Roanoke, Virginia, he had talked about the fact that economic growth is driven by a dynamic of both individual and collective effort.

If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own…somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

Republicans, and their presidential nominee Mitt Romney, zeroed in on two sentences: “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” claiming that Obama attacked the very foundation of our free enterprise system. They even went so far as todedicate a whole day of their convention to a rebuke of those two sentences taken out of context.

This battle between the individual and the collective has been the defining difference between Democrats and Republicans for years. It is important to recognize that when conservatives talk about “freedom” these days, it is most often in the context of freedom from any form of government action or intervention. The claim, as Chumley notes, is that self-government no longer refers to our collective responsibilities as citizens of a democratic republic, but “an individual’s right to self-govern” themselves. That is one of the more dangerous arguments that Attorney General William Barr made during his speech at Notre Dame.

In the words of Madison, “We have staked our future on the ability of each of us to govern ourselves…”

This is really what was meant by “self-government.” It did not mean primarily the mechanics by which we select a representative legislative body. It referred to the capacity of each individual to restrain and govern themselves.

What makes that argument so dangerous is that it wasn’t being made to promote anarchy or even libertarianism. Instead, it is a way to advocate for the idea of “religious liberty,” or the right of conservative Christians to impose their beliefs onto others via government intervention. In other words, it is all about freedom for me, but not thee.

That is precisely why we see the irony of people protesting the coronavirus restrictions carrying signs that read: “My body, my choice.” These people seem to believe in their freedom to threaten the lives of others during a pandemic, but the government should decide what a woman does with her body.

Even more dangerous is the kind of attitude on display with the protester who carried a sign that replicated the one on the gate of Auschwitz, translated “work will set you free.”

What I would observe is that the Republican Party has completely lost touch with concepts like “freedom” and “liberty” in an attempt to deny the collective responsibility of citizenship.

...theconv 520

5. ‘Tyranny’ depends on who governs, not how

In many of the events across different states, protesters objected to what they called “tyranny,” and held up the Revolution-era “Don’t Tread On Me” Gadsden flag to symbolize their resistance to government rules. They were not objecting to President Donald Trump’s April 13 declaration that, as president, his “authority is total” over the nation.

Instead they were objecting to governors’ lockdown rules, which they highlighted as overreaching their power. Many protesters likened the government’s behavior to Nazis, with protesters adding “Heil” before Democratic governors’ names.

No male governor was targeted as viciously and overtly as female Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. A widely circulated poster depicted her dressed as Adolf Hitler, giving a Nazi salute beside a swastika. Other demonstrators talked about Whitmer as though she were mothering them instead of governing them, like one who insisted, “We’re not her children!”

ainsly earh F&F [something sensible ] =a plot to take away our freedom

presumably big in TP ~ stay at home covid protest eg gadsen flags

me v we, my freedom; i have no responsibilty to we to not spread covid

420

trump twt support TP covid protests, // ingraham

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/governor-warns-trump-against-encouraging-supporters-to-disobey-the-law-on-lockdowns-words-can-be-fatal/

no lnx

Governor warns Trump against encouraging supporters to ‘disobey the law’ on lockdowns: ‘Words can be fatal’

Written by Matthew Chapman / Raw Story April 18, 2020

On Friday’s edition of CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) tore into President Donald Trump for his comments that Democratic states should be “liberated” from lockdown orders.

“Governor, you called the president’s tweets saying liberate Minnesota, Michigan, Virginia, ‘dangerous’, ‘unhinged,'” said Cooper. “You just heard him … I’m wondering what your reaction is.”

“Extreme disappointment, and frankly anger, because we’ve lost over 500 people in my state, and we know — there’s saying in automobile safety, that speed kills. Well, words can be fatal too.”

“When you have a president of the United States openly, willfully, maliciously trying to encourage people not to abide by the law in these states — these orders are the law of these states — president of the United States willfully trying to inspire people to disobey and violate the law with potentially fatal consequences, is irresponsible, no other way to look at it,” continued Inslee. “And what is doubly enraging to us, both Republicans and Democrats, the day before this president put out very clear guidelines based on substantial epidemiological evidence of his experts Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx that had a lot of reason to it, saying we have to wrestle this virus down significantly before we let off pressure of social distancing.”

“His own physicians saying this, his own guidelines that we’re pretty consistent with in state approaches, Republicans and Democrats,” added Inslee. “The next day, to say you should ignore that, is an outrage.”

Watch below:

bolsonaro elected as "defender of freedom"

https://theconversation.com**/how-socialism-became-un-american**-through-the-ad-councils-propaganda-campaigns-132335

no lnx pix many

Sanders has emerged as the Democratic front-runner in the race for the presidential nomination.

Yet even some left-leaning pundits and publications are concerned about what they see as Sanders’ potential lack of electability.

Sanders is a Democratic Socialist. And the label “socialist” is a political liability in American culture. According to a Gallup poll released on Feb. 11, 2020, only 45% of Americans would vote for a socialist.

I am a scholar of American culture with an interest in the relationship between political ideologies and popular culture. In my research, I have found that this antipathy toward socialism may not be an accident: American identity today is strongly tied to an image of capitalism crafted and advertised by the Ad Council and American corporate interests over decades, often with the support of the U.S. government.

A screenshot from one of the corporate Cold War-era cartoons linking the Bill of Rights to free-enterprise ideology. Internet Archive, Prelinger Collection]

Business and government solidarity

In 1942, a group of advertising and industry executives created the War Advertising Council, to promote the war effort. The government compensated the companies that created or donated ads by allowing them to deduct some of their costs from their taxable incomes.

Renamed the Ad Council in 1943, the organization applied the same wartime persuasive techniques of advertising and psychological manipulation during the Cold War years, the post-war period when the geopolitical rivalry between the U.S., the USSR and their respective allies raged. One of their goals: promoting the virtues of capitalism and free enterprise in America while simultaneously demonizing the alternative – socialism – which was often conflated with communism.

Government propaganda at home portrayed the communist USSR as godless, tyrannical and antithetical to individual freedoms. As a counterpoint, America became everything the Soviet Union was not.

This link between capitalism and American national identity was advertised through a sophisticated, corporate effort as efficient and ubiquitous as state-driven propaganda behind the Iron Curtain.

The campaigns used the ideological divisions of the Cold War to emphasize the relevance of their message. In a 1948 report, the Ad Council explained its goal to the public: “The world today is engaged in a colossal struggle to determine whether freedom or statism will dominate.”

Extolling capitalism’s virtues

The campaigns started as a public-private partnership. At the end of World War II, the government worried about the spread of communism at home. Business interests worried about government regulations and about the rising popularity of unions. The Cold War provided both parties with a shared enemy.

In 1947, President Truman asked the Ad Council to organize the Freedom Train Campaign, focusing on the history of America’s political freedoms. Paramount Pictures, U.S. Steel, DuPont, General Electric and Standard Oil provided financial support. For two years the train crisscrossed the nation, carrying original documents that included the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

One of the Ad Council’s messages about capitalism in America. Outdoor Advertising Association of America Archives, Duke University Libraries]

The following year, the Ad Council launched a business-led campaign, called “The Miracle of America,” intended to foster support for the American model of capitalism, as distinct from its Western European version, which was more friendly to government intervention. It urged increased productivity by U.S. workers, linked economic and political freedom and, paradoxically, asserted capitalism’s collaborative nature.

“Sure, America is going ahead if we all pull together,” read a brochure. Another flyer, “Comes the Revolution!,” cast its support of American capitalism in the language of global struggle: “If we continue to make that system work…then other nations will follow us. If we don’t, then they’ll probably go communist or fascist.”

In its first two years, the Miracle of America message reached American audiences via 250 radio and television stations and 7,000 outdoor billboards. Newspapers printed 13 million lines of free advertising. The Ad Council boasted that the campaign made over 1 billion “radio listener impressions.”

American factory workers received about half of the 1.84 million copies of the free pamphlet “The Miracle of America.” One-quarter were distributed free of charge to schools, and 76 universities ordered the booklet.

This pro-business propaganda, expressed in the language of Cold War patriotism, had reached roughly 70% of the American population by the end of the campaign.

How Ad Council campaigns after WWII helped make socialism un-American.

Cartoon capitalism

The efforts produced more than just print and billboard messages.

In 1946, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded by the former head of General Motors, paid the evangelical Harding College to produce “Fun and Facts about American Business,” a series of educational cartoon videos about capitalism, produced by a former Disney employee.

Between 1949 and 1952, Metro Goldwyn Mayer distributed them in theaters, schools, colleges, churches and workplaces.

The films promoted the same messages as the Ad Council campaigns, although they were not part of the project. They continued a decade-long effort by the Sloan Foundation to start, in the words of its executive director, “a bombardment of the American mind with elementary economic principles through partnering with educational institutions.”

To both Sloan and the movement’s backers, business interests were synonymous with the national interest. The free-enterprise system was a shorthand for freedom, democracy and patriotism. Unlike in Europe, the videos suggested, class struggle – of the kind that required unions – did not exist in the U.S.

In the cartoon “Meet the King,” Joe, the archetypal American worker, realizes he is not an exploited proletarian. Instead, he’s a king, “because he can buy more with his wages than any other worker on the globe.”

Conversely, government regulations of, or interventions in, the economy were described in the cartoons as socialist tendencies, bound to lead to communism and tyranny.

“Make Mine Freedom,” and “It’s Everybody’s Business” presented the state as a perpetual threat. A money-sucking tax monster, the government reduces everyone’s profits, crushes private enterprise and takes away individual freedoms: “No more private property, no more you.”

According to an estimate from Fortune magazine, by 1952, American businesses spent US$100 million each year, independent from any Ad Council campaigns, promoting free enterprise.

‘Peanuts’ pushes freedom

In the early 1970s, business responded to rising negativity about corporate power with a new campaign coordinated by the Ad Council.

“The American Economic System … and Your Part in It” was launched alongside the bicentennial national celebrations. It was the largest centralized pro-business public relations project thus far, but only one of many independently run by corporations.

Part of a page from the 1970s booklet that used Charles Schultz’s ‘Peanuts’ comic strips to explain the benefits of America’s economic system. Amazon]

The media industry donated $40 million in free space and air time in the first year of the campaign. The Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor contributed about half a million dollars toward the production costs for a 20-page booklet.

That booklet used data provided by the departments of Commerce and Labor and Charles Schulz’s ‘Peanuts’ comic strips to explain the benefits of America’s economic system. The system was again presented as a foundational freedom protected by a Constitution whose goal was to “maintain a climate in which people could work, invest, and prosper.”

By 1979, 13 million copies had been distributed to schools, universities, libraries, civic organizations and workplaces.

Echoes now?

For four decades, the Cold War provided a simple good-vs.-evil axis that consolidated the association between freedom, American-ness and free-enterprise capitalism.

The business community, independently and through the Ad Council, funded massive top-down economic education programs which shaped American perceptions of business and government and of capitalism and socialism.

The Cold War ended 30 years ago, but its cultural structures and divisions endure – perhaps, even, in the responses of some Americans to Bernie Sanders’ socialism.

Editor’s note: The Conversation has received grant funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

tags

Capitalism

Socialism

World War II

Bill of rights

Super Tuesday

Cold War

Peanuts

USSR

Bernie Sanders

Democratic socialism

2020 US presidential election

U.S. economy

https://350bayarea.org/the-department-of-energy-and-the-ultimate-greenwashing

A press release issued by the U.S. Department of Energy on May 28, 2019 has garnered widespread criticism for its use of the phrases “freedom gas” and “molecules of freedom” to describe natural gas. The release, which announced the approval of additional natural gas exports from the Freeport LNG Terminal in Texas, drew attention for two controversial quotes:

From U.S. Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes: “Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy.”

From Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Steven Winberg: “I am pleased that the Department of Energy is doing what it can to promote an efficient regulatory system that allows for molecules of U.S. freedom to be exported to the world.”

The connection between natural gas and freedom seems to have originated with U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, who, on May 2, described a move to export more liquified natural gas to Europe as “the United States …again delivering a form of freedom to the European continent.”In response to a EURACTIV reporter’s question of whether he would describe the exports as “freedom gas,” Perry said, “So yes, I think you may be correct in your observation.”

The effort to rebrand fossil fuels had brought both criticism and mockery from the media and climate scientists. Grist noted its place in a historical trend of “giv[ing] fossil fuels a makeover” with phrases like “clean coal” and “ethical oil.” Climate scientist Michael E. Mann tweeted “and I hereby brand solar energy “photons of freedom”.molecules move at the rate of molecular diffusion.photons move at the speed of light.” Slate noted that “spreading freedom gassounds like what happens when you’re newly single and suddenly have the apartment to yourself.”

Even the phrase “clean natural gas” has been a long-time effort to greenwash what is in fact a substance that causes climate change in addition to increased rated of cardio-respiratory disease in surrounding communities. We must continue to call out these marketing schemes and push for true climate action

NB RHET:

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/texas-border-militiaman-is-now-a-federal-fugitive-vowing-to-make-himself-a-martyr/

no lnx vid

Texas border militiaman is now a federal fugitive vowing to make himself a martyr

Written by David Neiwert / Daily Kos July 30, 2019

A Texas militiaman who led a border-watch operation and was later convicted in 2015 on federal weapons charges has announced that he is becoming a fugitive after a warrant was issued for his arrest—and is vowing that he won’t be captured again.

Kevin Lyndel “KC” Massey, a 53-year-old from Quinlan, is the subject of a Federal Marshals Service warrant issued last week naming him “Most Wanted,” and warning that he is “armed and dangerous,” and moreover “has reportedly made threats to kill law enforcement that attempt to arrest him.”

It appears he intends to make himself a martyr to the “Patriot” cause in the mold of LaVoy Finicum, the Utah man shot in January 2016 by Oregon State Patrol officers after he refused arrest related to the armed standoff at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge.

On his Facebook page, Massey posted a warning:

KC is done playing the game of unconstitutional courts that already cost him 3+ years in federal prison for not even violating the law as written. The judge said in his statement, that the conviction was based on court precedent not on the written letter of the law. The feds continued to subject KC to theirtyranny after release from prison, while serving a double jeopardy sentence of 3 years probation. KC is NOT going to allow himself to be kidnapped again. Death before dishonor!

Massey was arrested in 2015 by federal agents at the Mexico border, where he had been involved in an ongoing effort by a group of “Patriot” militiamen to prevent crossings by would-be immigrants at the Rio Grande. The group—who called their operation “Camp Lonestar”—was among the first such militias to actually detain border crossers with wrist ties and hold them for detention by Border Patrol.

The first arrest at the camp occurred when a participant named John Frederick Forrester, also a convicted felon, had an encounter in the brush with a Border Patrol officer that drew the agent’s gunfire. When more federal agents arrived to pursue a tip that Forrester was not the only armed felon in the camp, they found Massey—who had a 2003 conviction on his record—also in possession of a gun.

Massey had become the chief media spokesman for Camp Lonestar, which had begun operating initially under a veil of secrecy. As is inevitably the case with such operations, rather than actually clamping down on illegal crossings, the group’s presence actually just complicated an already difficult situation. It also fairly dripped with conspiracist paranoia.

Camp Lonestar was particularly notable for its harassment and detention of would-be border-crossers. In one video, the militiamen could be seen rounding up a group of immigrants and holding them for Border Patrol. Massey posted an explanation on Facebook afterwards: “Sorry we had to ‘Detain’ them,” he wrote in a comment. “[B]ut they were wore out and just fell down and gave up while the other 7-8 ran like gazelles!”

As the post explained, the militiamen detained the people—described as Honduran, Guatemalan, and Mexican—after they encountered a group of about 11 border crossers, most of whom took off through the brush. The three men they kept were “ziptied, debriefed,and given water,” and U.S. Border Patrol officers eventually arrived and took them away.

“WE DO NOT AIM TO DETAIN, we would much rather send them back into the river into Mexico and dissuade them and the cartel from crossing on the property we patrol,” the post explained. “All encounters were conducted in a humanitarian, professional fashion. Stay vigilant. Thank you for your support.”

But behind the guise of humanitarian treatment was a not-so-subtle smirking contempt. “One of the guys pissed himself!” remarked Massey. Another chimed in, “Dude pissed himself bad.”

Massey, the camp’s “commanding officer,” had appeared in numerous videos posted on Facebook and elsewhere that showed the activities involved in Camp Lonestar.They also featured their rationalizations for harassing people at the border: “I’m not anti-immigration,” he told reporters. “I have no problem with immigrants. I have a problem withterrorists. I have a problem with people who are coming to this country to hurt my fellow Americans and to destroy my fellow Americans’ property and livelihood.”

After Massey’s arrest, Camp Lonestar largely crumbled apart and ceased operation. The landowner whose property they operated from, Cuban “Rusty” Monsees, later told reporters that the experience “wasn’t that great.” “They jeopardized my safety and some other people’s safety by what they were doing,” Monsees said.

Massey pleaded guilty in September 2015 to the federal weapons charges and served three years in prison. After his release, he remained on parole, but continued to claim that he had been unjustly prosecuted. The conditions of that parole appear to have led him eventually to revolt, which in turn brought the most recent warrant for his arrest.

One of Massey’s supporters penned a blog post suggesting that Massey was now following Finicum’s example of deliberate martyrdom:

One thing I do know, like LaVoy, he will live to his last day out in the open, not in a cage…I don’t know about anyone else reading this but I don’t want another good patriot killed because thegovernment didn’t want their dirty secrets revealed or the “virus” known as the Constitution spreading. I refuse to lose another good friend. I will do everything in my power to keep that from happening.

Commenters on Facebook not only supported this view, but suggested that Massey’s case might inspire a larger revolt. “10s of thousands doing the same thing only way this stops is if any and allmoron parasites and workers for them are removed every attempt they make to steal lifes time or propertythey should at no time ever be allowed past to do it to another,” one of them wrote.

Another suggested that a team armed militiamen should intervene on Massey’s behalf, saying that “a team of solid mother fuckers need to grow a pairand hear his story and decide if they will help if not he will be killed in cold bloodor put in prison its that simple a facebook set of balls will do nothing,” he wrote.

aha "agenda" means secret (long term) plan to do evil, get control tyranny that takes ourfreedom sovereignty liberty etc thus conspiracy theory

Freedom gas’: Here are 5 times right-wingers distorted the word ‘freedom’ to advance their own buffoonish policies

The U.S. Department of Energy, under the Trump Administration, has…

no lnx

‘Freedom gas’: Here are 5 times right-wingers distorted the word ‘freedom’ to advance their own buffoonish policies Image via screengrab

written by Alex Henderson May 31, 2019

The U.S. Department of Energy, under the Trump Administration, has invented a new term to describe natural gas: “freedom gas.” This sounds like something The Onion, who are masters of satire, would invent as a way of mocking and ridiculing Republicans, but it’s no joke: the Department of Energy really is using the term “freedom gas” — and Twitter, not surprisingly, has been exploding with anti-Republican posts. Global Zero’s Derek Johnson tweeted, “it’s official: we’re too stupid to live,” while David Clarke asserted, “how is @TheOnion supposed to compete with shit like this?”

“Corny,” the word that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City has used to describe Republican messaging, certainly applies to “freedom gas.” But this is hardly the only example of Republicans using the word “freedom” in a ridiculous way. Here are some of the silliest, most buffoonish uses of the word “freedom” by Republicans.

1. Freedom fries

In 2003, France and Germany were among the U.S allies who were adamantly opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq under the Bush Administration, arguing that overthrowing dictator Saddam Hussein would create chaos and instability in that part of the world. They were absolutely right, of course: the Bush Administration’s disastrous policy in Iraq was a key factor in the rise of ISIS, a.k.a. Islamic State, Iraq and Syria — an organization so vicious that even al-Qaeda and the Taliban have been critical of their methods. But back in 2003, overthrowing Hussein seemed like a good idea to the Bush Administration — and the far-right carnival barkers at Fox News and AM talk radio called for boycotts of France in response to President Jacques Chirac’s opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Part of the France boycott envisioned by the far right was renaming French fries “freedom fries.” Republican restaurant owners, especially in the southern states, began using “freedom fries” in place of “French fries” on their menus.

The response of many liberals and progressives was to declare, “Bon jour, comment ca va?” and plan a trip to Paris or Nice as a way of protesting Bush Administration policies. But as ridiculous as “freedom fries” and the Republican anti-French idiocy of 2003/2004 was, President George W. Bush was reelected in 2004 and won both the electoral vote and the popular vote that year.

How is @TheOnion supposed to compete with shit like this?#FreedomGas https://t.co/mlvrVfUWzs

— David Clarke (@davidclarke76) May 30, 2019

2. The Freedom Caucus

Founded in 2015 when President Barack Obama was serving his second term, the Freedom Caucus is a group of Republicans and Tea Party wingnuts in the House of Representatives who are so far to the right that they have often accused GOP congressmen like Paul Ryan and John Boehner (both former House speakers) of not being right-wing enough. In 2017, when President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were aggressively trying to abolish the Affordable Care Act of 2017, a.k.a. Obamacare, and deprive millions of Americans of health insurance, the House Freedom Caucus felt they weren’t being sufficiently draconian. To the so-called Freedom Caucus, medical bankruptcy and harsh wealth inequality are the essence of “freedom.”

It’s official: We’re too stupid to live. #FreedomGas https://t.co/fptQE6xPHg

— Derek Johnson (@derekjGZ) May 30, 2019

3. Freedom molecules

The Department of Energy under Trump is not only describing natural gas as “freedom gas” — it is also using the phrase “molecules of freedom” to describe the technology of fossil fuels. In contrast, Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats are using the term Green New Deal to promote green energy, which is much smarter messaging. While Republicans are using silly terms like “molecules of freedom,” AOC is equating green energy with the legacy of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal.

This has to be a joke. (Remember freedom fries?) https://t.co/ei9Idg613X

— Jay Inslee (@JayInslee) May 29, 2019

4. VP Pence touted ‘freedom and individual responsibility’ to sell Obamacare repeal

Ultimately, GOP efforts to repeal the ACA failed in 2017. And when Vice President Mike Pence was trying to sell Americans on ACA repeal, he insisted that Obamacare would be replaced with something “built on freedom and individual responsibility.” Pence, Ryan and other Republicans often used the word “freedom” in connection with proposals for ACA repeal, but medical bankruptcy and being denied health insurance because of a preexisting condition are hardly an intelligent person’s idea of “freedom.”

===

519

Department of Energy, US policy will support the export of American energy products such as liquefied natural gas as “molecules of US freedom” to the rest of the world.

519 AHA: THE SOLUTION IS REPAIR THE COMMONS (including rhet. langexpertise ~ agnotology

wicked smart henry g

https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/our-culture-of-ignorance-has-made-possible-the-rise-of-a-terrible-new-political-blend-neoliberal-fascism/

The ghosts of a fascist past are with us once again resurrecting the discourses of hatred, exclusion and ultra-nationalism in countries such as the United States, Hungary, Brazil, Poland, Turkey and the Philippines. In addition, right-wing extremist parties are on the move politically in Spain, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Germany. The designers of a new breed of fascism increasingly dominate major political formations and other commanding political and economic institutions across the globe.They have infused a fascist ideology with new energy through a right-wing populism that constructs the nation through a series of racist and nativist exclusions, all the while feeding off the chaos produced by neoliberalism.

Their nightmarish reign of misery, violence and disposability is legitimated, in part, in their control of a diverse number of cultural apparatuses that produce a vast machinery of manufactured consent. This reactionary educational formation includes the mainstream broadcast media, digital platforms, the Internet and print culture, all of which participate in an ongoing spectacle of violence, the aestheticization of politics, the legitimation of opinions over facts, and an embrace of a culture of ignorance. Under the reign of this normalized architecture of neoliberal ideology, literacy is now regarded with disdain, words are reduced to data, and science is confused with pseudo-science. Chris Hedges is right to argue that both the rule of law and the institutions that make democracy possible are being undermined.He is worth quoting at length:

The mechanisms that once made democracy possible have withered and died. We no longer have elections free of corporate control; real legislative debate; an independent press rooted in verifiable fact that lifts up the voices and concerns of the citizens rather than peddling conspiracy theories such as “Russiagate” or cheerleading for disastrous military interventions and occupations; academic institutions that vigorously examine and critique the nature of power; or diplomacy, negotiation, détente and compromise.Puffed up by self-importance, intoxicated by the ability to wield police and military power, despots and their grotesque courtiers are freed with the collapse of the rule of law to carry out endless vendettas against enemies real and imagined until their own paranoia and fear define the lives of those they subjugate. This is where we have come, not because of Trump, who is the grotesque product of our failed democracy, but because the institutions that were designed to prevent tyranny no longer function.

Ignorance has lost its innocence and is no longer synonymous with the absence of knowledge. It has become malicious in its refusal to know, to disdain criticism, and render invisible important social issues that lie on the side of social and economic justice. James Baldwin was certainly right in issuing the stern warning in “No Name in the Street” that “Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

...

Thinking is now viewed as an act of stupidity, and ignorance a virtue. All traces of critical thought appear only at the margins of the culture, as ignorance becomes the primary organizing principle of American society. For instance, two-thirds of the American public believe that creationism should be taught in schools and most of the Republican Party in Congress do not believe that climate change is caused by human activity, making the U.S. the laughingstock of the world. Politicians endlessly lie, knowing that the public is addicted to extreme violence and shock, which allow them to drown in overstimulation and live in an ever-accelerating overflow of information and images. News has become entertainment and echoes reality rather than interrogating it. Unsurprisingly, education in the larger culture has become a disimagination machine, a tool for legitimating ignorance that now plays a central role in the formation of an authoritarian politics that has gutted the ideologies, policies and institutions that are crucial to a substantive and thriving democracy.

I am not talking about the kind of anti-intellectualism that has a long history in the United States. I am pointing to a more lethal form of ignorance fueled by a manufactured type of illiteracy that is often ignored. What I am referring to is a mode of illiteracy that is both a scourge and a political tool power designed primarily to make war on language, meaning, thinking, and the capacity for critical thought. Chris Hedges is right to state that “the emptiness of language is a gift to demagogues and the corporations that saturate the landscape with manipulated images and the idiom of mass culture.” Words such as love, trust, freedom, responsibility and choice have been deformed by a market logic that narrows their meaning to either a relationship to a commodity or a reductive notion of self-interest.

Freedom now means removing one’s self from any sense of social responsibility so one can retreat into privatized orbits of self-indulgence. And so it goes. The new form of illiteracy does not simply constitute an absence of learning, ideas or knowledge. Nor can it be solely attributed to what has been called the “smartphone society.” On the contrary, it is a willful practice and goal used to actively depoliticize people and make them complicit with the forces that impose misery and suffering upon their lives.

The writer and social critic Gore Vidal once called America the United States of Amnesia. The title should be extended to the United States of Amnesia and Willful Illiteracy. Illiteracy no longer simply marks populations immersed in poverty with little access to quality education; nor does it only suggest the lack of proficient skills enabling people to read and write with a degree of understanding and fluency. More profoundly, illiteracy is about what it means not to be able to act from a position of thoughtfulness, informed judgment and critical agency.

In this instance, manufactured illiteracy has become a form of political repression that discourages a culture of questioning, renders agency inoperable as an act of intervention, and restages power as a mode of domination. Illiteracy serves to depoliticize people because it reproduces conditions that make it difficult for individuals to develop informed judgments, analyze complex relationships and draw upon a range of sources to understand how power works and how they might be able to shape the forces that bear down on their lives.

Think about the defunding of public education or the assault on truth and civic literacy by the Trump administration in the U.S. and the Jair Bolsonaro administration in Brazil. Illiteracy provides the foundation for being governed, not how to govern. It is precisely this mode of illiteracy that now constitutes the modus operandi of a society that both privatizes and kills the imagination by poisoning it with falsehoods, consumer fantasies, data loops, propaganda machines and the need for instant gratification. This mode of manufactured illiteracy and education has no language for relating the self to public life, social responsibility or the demands of citizenship.

It is important to recognize that the rise of this new mode of illiteracy is not simply about the failure of public and higher education to create critical and active citizens; it is about a society that eliminates those public spheres that make thinking possible while imposing a culture of fear in which there is the looming threat that anyone who holds power accountable will be punished. Literacy is dangerous to tyrants because they recognize that it is not only about learning critical competencies and an essential step towards agency, it is also the precondition for intervening in the world by being able to critique common-sense assumptions that legitimate apparatuses of persuasion and power. In the absence of a culture of literacy, the preconditions disappear for confronting not only the crisis of memory, ethics and agency but also the crisis of democracy itself.

At a time of growing fascist movements across the globe, power, culture, politics, finance and everyday life now merge in ways that are unprecedented and pose a threat to democracies all over the world. As cultural apparatuses are concentrated in the hands of the ultra-rich and major tech companies, the educative force of culture has taken on a powerful anti-democratic turn. This can be seen in the rise of new digitally driven systems of production and consumption that produce, shape and sustain ideas, desires and social relations that contribute to the disintegration of democratic social bonds and promote a form of social Darwinism in which misfortune is seen as a weakness and the Hobbesian rule of “war of all against all” replaces any vestige of shared responsibility and compassion for others. Think of the power of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire as an anti-democratic disimagination machine, especially in its ability to influence the Trump presidency.

The era of post-truth is in reality a period of crisis which, as Antonio Gramsci observed, “consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born [and that] in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Those morbid symptoms are evident in Trump’s mainstreaming of a fascist politics in which there is an attempt to normalize the language of racial purification, the politics of disposability and social sorting while exaggerating a culture of fear and a militarism reminiscent of past and current dictatorships.

I want to argue that any viable attempt at developing a radical politics must begin to address the role of education and civic literacy and what I have termed public pedagogy, or more precisely the educational force of the wider culture, as central not only to politics but also to the creation of subjects capable of becoming individual and social agents willing to struggle against injustices and fight to reclaim and develop those institutions crucial to the functioning and promises of a substantive democracy. One place to begin to think through such a project is by addressing the meaning and role of pedagogy as part of the broader struggle for economic justice and practice of freedom.

The reach of pedagogy extends from schools to diverse cultural apparatuses such as the mainstream media, the expanding digital screen culture, and alternative old and new media outlets. Accordingly, pedagogy is at the heart of any understanding of politics and the ideological scaffolding of those framing mechanisms that mediate our everyday lives. Across the globe, the forces of free-market fundamentalism are using media establishments and public and higher education to reproduce the corporate-driven culture of neoliberalism. In addition, they are waging an assault on the historically guaranteed social provisions and civil rights provided by the welfare state, public schools, unions, feminist organizations and social services, among others, all the while undercutting public faith in the defining institutions of democracy.

As market mentalities and moralities tighten their grip on all aspects of society, democratic institutions and public spheres are being downsized, if not altogether disappearing. As these institutions vanish — from public schools and alternative media to health care centers — there is also a serious erosion of the discourses of community, justice, equality, public values and the common good. This grim reality has been called by Alex Honneth a “failed sociality” — a failure in the power of the civic imagination, political will and open democracy. It is also part of a politics that strips the social of any democratic ideals and undermines any understanding of education as a public good and pedagogy as an empowering practice.

...

together at last:

Pentagon agreed to buy nearly $900,000 in jet fuel from the conservative university owned by Jerry Falwell Jr., just months after President Donald Trump took office.

The Department of Defense signed the contract withFreedom Aviation, which is wholly owned byLibertyUniversity, on May 9, 2017, and had since purchased more than $400,000 in turbine fuel from the same company, reported The Daily Beast.

Falwell endorsed Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination early in 2016, as his candidacy gained momentum during the primary process, and has been one of the president’s more outspoken supporters, sometimes placing him at odds with other evangelical leaders.

Freedom Aviation owns six planes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, and maintains them at the university’s flight school at the Lynchburg, Virginia, campus.

The company provides charter flights to the public, and Falwell travels on the aircraft for his private use.

The Trump campaign paid Freedom Aviation more than $19,000 in air travel expenses about a week after Falwell endorsed the former reality TV star.

Neither Freedom nor C&C Aviation, another university-owned company, had ever won a federal fuel contract before Trump was elected president.

Rand Paul says we shouldn’t be “giving up on liberty” by ensuring kids get vaccinated.

At a moment in our country when previously-eradicated deadly childhood illnesses like measles are resurging in the United States, Sen. Rand Paul wants to speak out against mandatory childhood vaccinations — not, he stressed, because he believes they don’t work or because he buys conspiracy theories about vaccines causing autism, but because gosh darn it, parents deserve freedom.

“As we contemplate forcing parents to choose this or that vaccine, I think it’s important to remember that force is not consistent with the American story, nor is force consistent with liberty our forefathers sought when they came to America,” said Paul in a Senate Health Committee hearing on Tuesday. “I believe that the benefits of vaccines greatly outweigh the risks, but I still don’t favor giving up on liberty for a false sense of security.”

Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a former physician, smacked him down, saying, “I’ve seen people who have not been vaccinated who required liver transplantation because they were not.”

Pence claims ‘freedom’ ended slavery in ‘historically dubious’ CPAC speech

written by Eoin Higgins / Common Dreams March 2, 2019

Vice President Mike Pence on Friday said that “freedom” ended slavery and defeated Hitler—a claim that was derided as historically inaccurate by critics. Speaking in front of a packed house…

Vice President Mike Pence on Friday said that “freedom” ended slavery and defeated Hitler—a claim that was derided as historically inaccurate by critics.

Speaking in front of a packed house at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC),Pence said that “freedom”—an apparent stand-in for capitalism—was the reason for the major global and American victories of the past two centuries.

“It was a freedom, not socialism, that ended slavery, won two world wars, and stands today as the beacon of hope for all the world,” Pence declared.

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

Replying to @atrupar

Pence gets tepid applause after he says: "Last night President Trump returned from a 2nd historic summit w/North Korea in Vietnam. As the president said it was a productive 2 days... [But] as President Trump said as he departed -- sometimes you have to walk."

Embedded video

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

PENCE makes this historically dubious claim: "It was a freedom, not socialism, that ended slavery, won 2 world wars and stands today as the beacon of hope for all the world. pic.twitter.com/362zzAwWqK

As people quickly pointed out on social media, that interpretation of the past was unique—and not quite accurate.

“An interesting perspective!” said HuffPost national reporter Christopher Mathias.

Christopher Mathias

@letsgomathias

Confusing quote from Pence earlier at #CPAC2019:

"It was freedom not socialism that ended slavery..."

Think he's arguing that capitalism ended slavery which is... an interesting perspective!

Newsweek

@Newsweek

Mike Pence says "freedom, not socialism, ended slavery," doesn't mention what started slavery https://trib.al/9PGZuSu

In an essay, Newsweek politics editor Jason Le Miere pointed out that Pence’s quote cut both ways, even though the vice president didn’t acknowledge the other side of the coin:

If it was freedom that ended slavery then presumably it was also freedom that allowed it, with a provision written into the Constitution that specifically referred to slaves and the “three-fifths compromise,” whereby they were counted as less than free people. Moreover, Southern states continued to argue for the freedom to keep slavery in place as the country descended into the Civil War.

It’s also worth noting that before and during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln exchanged letters with a strong supporter overseas—a German living in London named Karl Marx.

Pence wasn’t exactly telling the truth about the 20th century either, La Miere continued.

Pence’s claim about the ending of the World Wars is also historically questionable. The Soviet Union, under communist control, played a crucial—to some historians the most crucial—role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II. The country also paid the heaviest price during the war as it battled Germany on the Eastern Front, losing an estimated 26 million people, including about 11 million soldiers.

Irrespective of the truthfulness of Pence’s speech, it got a rousing response from the crowd at CPAC. The vice president also talked about President Donald Trump’s Space Force, anti-Semitism, and abortion.

“Pence played the hits,” wrote Rolling Stone‘s John Hendrickson. “Low unemployment, strong economy, tax cuts, and an extended riff about infanticide.”

Watch Pence’s speech:

sovereignty, tyranny, oppression , Tea Party meme

road to serfdom: RR thinks health care will enslave us, death panels

https://YYY.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/20/high-score-low-pay-gamification-lyft-uber-drivers-ride-hailing-gig-economy

...

language of choice, freedom, and autonomy saturate discussions of ride hailing. “On-demand companies are pointing the way to a more promising future, where people have more freedom to choose when and where they work,” Travis Kalanick, the founder and former CEO of Uber, wrote in October 2015. “Put simply,” he continued, “the future of work is about independenceand flexibility.”

In a certain sense, Kalanick is right. Unlike employees in a spatially fixed worksite (the factory, the office, the distribution centre), rideshare drivers are technically free to choose when they work, where they work and for how long. They are liberated from the constraining rhythms of conventional employment or shift work. But that apparent freedom poses a unique challenge to the platforms’ need to provide reliable, “on demand” service to their riders – and so a driver’s freedom has to be aggressively, if subtly, managed. One of the main ways these companies have sought to do this is through the use of gamification.

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In a new column for the New York Times,economist Paul Krugman took aim at one of the prevailing and most influential articles of faith for Republicans and conservatives: that less government means more freedom.

Limitations on freedom, however, don't just come from the government, Krugman argued.

"In fact, the daily experience of tens of millions of Americans – especially but not only those who don’t make a lot of money – is one of constant dependence on the good will of employers and other more powerful economic players," he wrote.

He continued:

It’s increasingly clear, for example, that monopsony power is depressing wages; but that’s not all it does. Concentration of hiring among a few firms, plus things like noncompete clauses and tacit collusion that reinforce their market power, don’t just reduce your wage if you’re hired. They also reduce or eliminate your options if you’re mistreated: quit because you have an abusive boss or have problems with company policy, and you may have real trouble getting a new job.

The solutions to these problems have often been derided by conservatives as government meddling, wasteful spending, or limitations on choice. But as Krugman argued, these policy levers are also incredibly powerful empowering workers, improving their lives, and giving them more options.

These policies include protecting unions, regulating hiring and firing, and social safety net programs. He notes that the safety net is not just protective, but "liberating" — you're a lot more likely to try a high wire act if you know there's something in place to catch you if you fall.

While a recent ranking by the conservative Cato Institute found New York to be the state with the least economic freedom and Florida to have the most, Krugman argued that this conclusion is just implausible on its face.

He wrote:

But seriously, do the real differences between New York and Florida make New Yorkers less free? New York is a highly unionized state – 25.3 percent of the work force – while only 6.6 percent of Florida workers are represented by unions. Does this make NY workers less free, or does it empower them in the face of corporate power?

It's not a particularly complicated argument, but conservative tropes about freedom are far too often repeated without criticism. It's a national embarrassment that one of the major political parties in the country subscribes to such easily refuted myths.