2 two story

===

i never wrote story 2? i did ggl doc?

see 1619 vs 1776

see CRT

see STORY 1 AM EXCEPTIONALISM:

see story narrative

see techno-optimism

see 1776 am exceptionalism story 1 = Am Myth

innovation is god term ~ EO Wilson finite planet vs booster/ huckster [Donald Worster maxims

progress is forward, up, scale up, positive growth

---

2 orig sins slavery and nat am genocide: eric schmitt columbus ~ sci world round, opened new world

col day white supr dunk wedge

// rachel campos-d

https://www.mediamatters.org/jesse-watters/fox-news-host-mocks-american-indigenous-populations-not-having-strong-borders-when

col day?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/fox-news-host-suggests-native-americans-have-a-history-of-alcoholism-and-government-dependency/

---

RWW

03/02/2026

Kyle Mantyla

Will Neal @ The Daily Beast: ‘Peace President’ Breaks Record for Attacking the Most Countries

Trump has reportedly authorized more assaults in just the first year of his second presidency than Biden did throughout four years at the White House.

Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic: Trump Warns “The Big One” Is Still Coming for Iran

Donald Trump is ready to make it a whole lot worse for Iran.

Mark Wingfield @ Baptist Press: The Iran bombing is a religion story for all but one person

When the United States and Israel bombed Iran Feb. 28, the motivations and repercussions were religious as well as political.

Lee Moran @ HuffPost: Lindsey Graham Names 'Next' Country On Trump's Hit List: 'Their Days Are Numbered'

First Venezuela, then Iran — and now Cuba. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox News’ Trey Gowdy on Sunday that the U.S. under President Donald Trump will next target the communist-led Caribbean island for regime change.

Liam Adams and Karissa Waddick @ USA Today: Trump's Freedom 250 hits the road with museum focused on faith, civics

Six mobile history museums, part of President Trump's Freedom 250 program, aim to counter 'woke agenda.' Historians say it leaves out key facts.

Karin Brulliard and Brady Dennis @ The Washington Post: Confidential database reveals which items NPS thinks may ‘disparage’ America

An internal government database reviewed by The Washington Post demonstrates the vast scope of the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to revise or remove information on African American history, climate change and other topics at hundreds of national park sites.

Chauncey DeVega @ Salon: Historians resist Trump’s effort to police the past

Attempts to reshape the Smithsonian reflect a broader campaign to control public memory and what Americans learn.

Alice Gibbs @ Newsweek: What New Department of Education Banner Labels Charlie Kirk Raises Eyebrows

A large banner featuring conservative commentator Charlie Kirk has been hung on the exterior of the Lyndon Baines Johnson U.S. Department of Education building in Washington, D.C., prompting debate online over who should be publicly honored on government property.

Michael Kruse @ Politico Magazine: ‘I Don’t Know That I’ll Ever Be OK With Myself’

Nancy Mace opens up about her trauma, why she does what she does and Donald Trump as a “father figure.”

---

AN 2 26

Trump has successfully pressured the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) into adopting new guidelines — and some officials feel that they amount to ideological loyalty tests.

The official letter emphasizes "uplifting and positive narratives of our shared American experience" but also instructs “improper ideology” be scrubbed from federal cultural institutions, according to a report by The Washington Post. Because the IMLS distributes grants to museums and libraries, they have the power to make both personnel and curatorial choices. As such, all references to "inclusive," "equity," and "diverse" or "diversity" have been removed from the IMLS’ recent 13 grant notices, even though they were previously commonplace in competitive applications. On some occasions, it has forced people out of the funding process.

"It feels like organizations like ours are boxed out from telling a complete and true and honest American story,” explained Ashley Rogers, executive director of the Whitney Plantation in New Orleans. Because of what Rogers does for a living, it is practically impossible for her to request grant money while remaining consistent with the administration’s standards.

"Our mission is to educate the public about the history and legacies of slavery,” Rogers told the Post. “We're a nonprofit. This is the only thing we do. I don't know how to make that align with the current funding opportunities at IMLS and more fundamentally than that, if I did, would I be betraying my mission?"

Lori Byrd, a former museum professional and IMLS grant reviewer, expressed a similar concern more broadly.

"If you even apply for this, are you going to get pushback from either your museum community or your fellow museum professionals because you're kind of caving to the administration?" Byrd asked. Museum consultant Andrea Jones made the same point when talking about her own professional responsibilities.

"Not only is the risk to my livelihood too great … but I care about doing credible, nuanced work — not being part of a propaganda machine,” Jones said.

Because of the uncertainty caused by the Trump administration’s approach, the IMLS grant cycle is already months behind schedule, The Post reported. Nor are Trump’s loyalty tests merely harming museums and libraries. A retired high-ranking military officer explained in a conservative publication that Trump’s policies are doing the same thing to America’s armed forces.

"The implications are immediate and corrosive," Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling wrote in The Bulwark earlier this week. "If promotions to general officer rank can be rescinded for perceived associations with others, officers may begin to prioritize 'safe' assignments or noncontroversial bosses. Candor — already fragile in large bureaucracies — may diminish if officers fear that honest service under controversial leaders will later be used against them. The apolitical ethic that underpins the profession of arms risks erosion."

Hertling added, "The Army's strength has always rested on trust: trust that performance matters more than patronage, that merit outweighs politics, and that the institution protects those who serve honorably in any job they are assigned. Undermining that trust does not merely harm an officer's career; it weakens the foundation of professional military service."

Loyalty oaths are not just in libraries, museums and the military. The US economy itself could be at risk because of Trump’s loyalty oaths, as evidenced by the controversy over National Economic Council directorKevin Hassett calling for Federal Reserve officers to be “disciplined” for issuing a report which showed Trump’s tariffs are hurting ordinary Americans.

“In the end, Mr. Trump’s decision evinced both the risk and reward for an economist whose previous views had morphed in service of the White House and its economic agenda," The New York Times recently reported. "The president did not want to lose one of his most forceful champions, whose full-throated advocacy had won deep praise from Mr. Trump but had fueled fears that Mr. Hassett could not guide monetary policy while resisting political influence.”

---

an 4 25

In politics, the word "ideologue" can have a very negative connotation, describing someone who has an extremely rigid set of beliefs. An ideologue could be anyone from a far-right Christian nationalist to a far-left Maoist or Marxist-Leninist.

Politico neuroscientist Leor Zmigrod addresses that type of rigidity in her new book, "The Ideological Brain: The Radical Science of Flexible Thinking," which she discussed with the New York Times' Matt Richtel in a Q&A interview published on April 8.

When Richtel asked Zmigrod what "ideology" is, she responded, "It’s a narrative about how the world works and how it should work. This potentially could be the social world or the natural world. But it’s not just a story: It has really rigid prescriptions for how we should think, how we should act, how we should interact with other people."

Zmigrod continued, "An ideology condemns any deviation from its prescribed rules…. Ideologies satisfy the need to try to understand the world, to explain it. And they satisfy our need for connection, for community, for just a sense that we belong to something."

During the interview, Zmigrod described research on children.

"Liberal children," according to Zmigrod, "tended to recall more accurately the ratio of desirable and undesirable traits in the characters of the story" — whereas the "most ideologically-minded children incorporated fictions that confirmed their pre-existing biases."

"The people most prone to ideological thinking tend to resist change or nuance of any kind," Zmigrod told Richtel. "We can test this with visual and linguistic puzzles. For instance, in one test, we ask them to sort playing cards by various rules, like suit or color. But suddenly, they apply the rule, and it doesn't work. That's because, unbeknownst to them, we changed the rule."

===

---

the ink gmail 2 24

Can Americans unlearn the stories that enable inequality — and write new ones?

Is it possible to escape from America’s tradition of violence?

Are American efforts to defend democracy abroad hobbled by our failure to live up to the idea at home?

Do we have the moral strength to break our dependence on merit and work for the common?

Is there a way for us to address how the legacy of slavery has shaped our landscape?

Can we remake our system of government to represent the most diverse generation?

What can we learn from drama about how American political leadership?

Is it possible for Americans to learn how to see our caste system — and to overcome it?

Can we reclaim the “public” in “public safety”?

Why do we leave it to the worst leaders to address our anxieties about progress?

---

an 3 23

although former President Barack Obama has often been critical of Fox News, he hasn't avoided the right-wing cable news channel altogether. Obama, over the years, has been interviewed by Fox News hosts ranging from Chris Wallace (now with CNN) to Bret Baier to Bill O’Reilly (who Fox News fired in 2017).

Those appearances underscore Obama's belief that it is important for Democrats to have a dialogue with conservatives, disagreements and all — a belief he shares with President Joe Biden, who has bragged about the productive relationships he had in the past with President Ronald Reagan, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and other conservative Republicans.

But when Obama, according to The Guardian, GUK made a late March appearance in Sydney, Australia, he called out Fox News' Rupert Murdoch as a divisive figure whose business model is designed to "make people angry and resentful."

Speaking at Sydney’s Aware Super Theater on Tuesday night, March 28, Obama told a crowd of around 9000 people, "Here's the good news about the U.S., though: We're not quite as polarized as we seem. Sixty to 65 percent of the country — let's call it 70 percent — does occupy a reality-based world. And that's true within the Republicans."

Obama continued, "There's one other factor that's led to this polarization — this is global, this is not unique to the United States — and that is the shifts in the media and the story that is told to people. And there's a guy you may be familiar with, first name Rupert, who was responsible for a lot of this."

Murdoch, according to Obama, "perfected" a "broader trend" with "the advent of cable (television), talk radio and then social media."

Obama told the Australian crowd, "It's now a wild west and a splintering of media. And if all you're doing is — in America, it's Fox News, here I guess it's Sky, whatever it is — if all you're doing is watching one source of news…. we're going to have our own news and our own perspective…. You no longer have a joint conversation and a shared story….And if you throw in some good old-fashioned racism and xenophobia and sexism and homophobia…. it's very difficult to compromise around identity politics."

---

[[ case study? red vs blue state [MTG wants divorce again 2 23]

aha trump cato libtard GOP say dereg will revive rural blue collar economy but // EJ, poor white ppl hurt; poor white and POC endangered in covid, corps given immunity, and public health officials not allowed to report rates

see working class heroes

palestine OH neglected

ingraham

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-host-blames-diversity-initiatives-ohio-train-derailment

palestine OH neglected

how much BS is deflection from trump incomp deregulation corruption free mkt libtard BS /grievance victim conspiracy

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOP DID OR WILL DO, CHECK THEIR ACCUSATIONS/ PROJECTION:

projection rubber glue retaliation

vs trump dereg vs chris christie bridge shutdown

https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-suggests-residents-east-palestine-are-being**-punished-voting-republican

https://www.mediamatters.org/cable-news/study-national-television-coverage-east-palestine-train-derailment-ignored-industry

https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/right-wing-media-weaponize-east-palestine-train-derailment-claim-white-0

---

an 2 23

Donald Trump Junior conjured up a new conspiracy theory over the weekend regarding train derailments. His hypothesis is that hackers working on behalf of the Russian government were responsible for the February 3rd East Palestine, Ohio Norfolk Southern disaster as well as, perhaps, other incidents involving railcars disconnecting from their tracks.

Shortly after the crash that spilled toxic substances like vinyl chloride and forced thousands of residents to evacuate, many began to recall that Junior's father, former President Donald Trump, loosened regulations on braking mechanisms and safety features during his term.

But that is not the narrative that Junior was presenting.

===]]

---

an 2 23

Far-right Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis set off yet another controversy when he banned, from public high schools, an advanced placement course on African-American studies. That controversy continued to rage on when DeSantis, in late January, visited the Union League of Philadelphia to receive its gold medal award and was greeted by a crowd of angry protesters that included local Democratic officials such as Pennsylvania State Sen. Vincent Hughes and Philadelphia City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson.

The protesters argued that in a city that is about 41 percent African-American, the Union League shouldn’t be giving a prestigious award to someone who had just attacked a perfectly legitimate Black studies course (the first recipient of that award was President Abraham Lincoln back in 1863). Liberal Philadelphia Inquirer opinion columnist Jenice Armstrong, in her January 24 column, angrily declared, “Don’t invite me to anything else at the Union League of Philadelphia ever again. I mean it.”

But despite all the blowback DeSantis has received, the College Board is now offering a different advanced placement curriculum on African-American studies — one that, according to New York Times reporters Anemona Hartocollis and Eliza Fawcett, has been “stripped of much of the subject matter that had angered the governor and other conservatives.”

In an article published by the NY Times on February 1, Hartocollis and Fawcett explain, “The College Board purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism. It ushered out some politically fraught topics, like Black Lives Matter, from the formal curriculum. And it added something new: ‘Black conservatism’ is now offered as an idea for a research project.”

DeSantis’ attack on the AP course, according to the Times reporters, “turned out to be the prelude to a much larger agenda” that also includes “a proposal to overhaul higher education that would eliminate what he called ‘ideological conformity’ by, among other things, mandating courses in western civilization.”

“In another red flag,” Hartocollis and Fawcett report, “the College Board faced the possibility of other opposition: more than two dozen states have adopted some sort of measure against critical race theory, according to a tracking project by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Law School.”

Read the New York Times’ full report at this link.

---

an 1` 23

no lnx

as he gears up for a possible presidential run,Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to be a highly polarizing figure. The far-right Republican, who was reelected by 19 percent in the 2022 midterms, is a rock star in the MAGA movement. But when he visited Philadelphia in late January to receive the Union League’s medal of honor, his visit inspired angry protests from a combination of Democratic officials, activists and Black church leaders.

Pennsylvania State Sen. State Vincent Hughes, Philadelphia City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson and the Rev. Robert Collier of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia, all of whom are African-American, were among the protestors. All of them viewed the award as an insult to Philly’s Black community in light of DeSantis’ recent decision to ban an advancement-placement Black studies course from Florida’s public high schools. DeSantis claimed that the course isn’t historically accurate — a claim that many historians have vehemently disagreed with.

DeSantis’ ban has drawn widespread criticism. Some of it is coming from journalist Mark Whitaker, author of the forthcoming book “Saying It Loud: 1966 — The Year Black Power Challenged the Civil Rights Movement.”

READ MORE:Scholars and lawmakers are outraged over DeSantis’ rejection of AP African-American curriculum

In an op-ed/think piece published by the Washington Post on January 31, Whitaker lays out some reasons why he believes DeSantis is dead wrong about the merits of that AP course.

“Although DeSantis and his allies have insisted that they are not against teaching ‘the history of African-Americans,’” Whitaker argues, “their rhetoric suggests that they are hostile to the idea of treating Black studies as a separate field of study, and that they believe it serves only to turn impressionable young people of different backgrounds against one another.”

Whitaker goes on to discuss the history of Black studies in the U.S., going back to the 1960s, the Black power movement and the Black Panther Party. During the 1960s, the author recalls, there was plenty of white pushback against teaching Black studies — the same type of pushback coming from DeSantis in 2023.

“In America,” Whitaker writes, “teaching history in high school has long been seen as having not just an educational, but a deeper civic purpose. DeSantis seems to be playing to his political base by harking back to a day when that meant offering students a one-size-fits-all, uplifting national story dominated by the noble deeds of great white men. But as far back as the 1960s, members of the Black power generation announced they were no longer accepting that sanitized narrative, and since then, they have been joined by millions of young women and members of other ethnic and LGBTQ communities.”

READ MORE: Ron DeSantis claims he banned teaching Black history because it includes 'indoctrination' on 'queer theory'

:{:{}:

Read Mark Whitaker’s full Washington Post op-ed at this link.}:

From Your Site Articles

'Not worthy': Some Union League members threaten to resign after group bestows gold medal on DeSantis ›

'Goes beyond ignorance' Historians slam DeSantis' claims about American slavery ›

'My heart is broken': Florida teachers ordered to remove, block class libraries or face felony prosecution ›

Prophets and profits

The establishment of Plymouth did not occur in a vacuum.

The Pilgrims' decision to go to North America – and their deep attachment to their faith – was an outcome of the intense religious conflict roiling Europe after the Protestant Reformation. Shortly before the travelers' arrival, the Wampanoag residents of Patuxet – the area in and around modern day Plymouth – had suffered a devastating, three-year epidemic, possibly caused by leptospirosis, a bacterial disease that can lead to meningitis, respiratory distress and liver failure.

It was during these two crises that the histories of western Europe and Indigenous North America collided on the shores of Massachusetts Bay.

Despite a number of advantages, including less competition for local resources because of the epidemic, Plymouth attracted far fewer English migrants than Virginia, which was settled in 1607, and Massachusetts, which was established in 1630.

The Pilgrims, as they told their story traveled so they could practice their religion free from persecution. But other English joined them, including some migrants seeking profits instead of heeding prophets. Unfortunately for those hoping to earn a quick buck, the colony never became an economic dynamo.

A shaky compact

Plymouth nonetheless went on to attain a prominent place in the history of America, primarily due to two phenomena: It was the alleged site of the first Thanksgiving, and its founders drafted the Mayflower Compact, a 200-word document written and signed by 41 men on the ship.

Generations of American students have learned that the Compact was a stepping stone towards self-government, the defining feature of American constitutional democracy.

But did Plymouth really inspire democracy? After all, self-governing communities existed across Indigenous New England long before European migrants arrived. And a year earlier, in 1619, English colonists in Virginia had created the House of Burgesses to advance self-rule in North America for subjects of King James I.

So American self-government, however one defines it, was not born in Plymouth.

The Mayflower Compact nonetheless contained lofty ideals. The plan signed by many of the Mayflower's male passengers demanded that colonists “Covenant & Combine ourselves into a Civil body politic, for our better ordering, & preservation." They promised to work together to write “laws, ordinances, Acts, constitutions." The signers pledged to work for the “advancement of the Christian faith."

Yet as the years after 1620 bore out, the migrants did not adhere to such principles when dealing with their Wampanoag and other Algonquian-speaking neighbors. Gov. William Bradford, who began writing his history of Plymouth in 1630, wrote about the Pilgrims arriving in “a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men" even though Patuxet looked more like a settled European farmland. The Pilgrims exiled an English lawyer named Thomas Morton, in part because he believed that Indigenous and colonists could peacefully coexist. And in 1637, Plymouth's authorities joined a bloody campaign against the Pequots, which led to the massacre of Indigenous people on the banks of the Mystic River, followed by the sale of prisoners into slavery.

The Compact was even used by loyalists to the British crown to argue against independence. Thomas Hutchinson, the last royal governor of Massachusetts, pointed to the Pilgrims as proof that colonists should not rebel, highlighting the passage that defined the signers as “loyal subjects" of the English king.

History told by the victors

After the American Revolution, politicians and historians, especially those descended from Pilgrims and Puritans, were keen to trace the origins of the United States back to Plymouth.

In the process, they glossed over the Pilgrims' complicated legacy.

In 1802, the future President John Quincy Adams spoke at Plymouth about the unique genius of the colony's founders and their governing contract. He announced that the Pilgrims would arrive at the biblical day of judgment “in the whiteness of innocence" for having shown “kindness and equity toward the savages."

In the mid-19th century, the historianGeorge Bancroftclaimed that it was in “the cabin of the Mayflower" where “humanity recovered its rights, and instituted government on the basis of 'equal laws' for 'the general good.'"

Nineteenth-century anniversary celebrations focused on the colonists, their written Compact, and their contribution to what became the United States. In 1870, on the 250th anniversary, celebrants struck a commemorative coin: one side featured an open Bible, the other a group of Pilgrims praying on the shoreline.

Missing, not surprisingly, were the Wampanoags.

A more nuanced view of the past

By 1970, the cultural tide had turned. Representatives of the Wampanoag nation walked out of Plymouth's public celebration of Thanksgiving that year to announce that the fourth Thursday in November should instead be known as the National Day of Mourning. To these protesters, 1620 represented violent conquest and dispossession, the twinned legacies of exclusion.

The organizers of an international group called “Plymouth 400" have stressed that they want to tell a “historically accurate and culturally inclusive history." They've promoted both the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and an exhibit featuring 400 years of Wampanoag History. Unlike earlier generations of celebrants, the organizers have acknowledged the continued presence of Native residents.

Prior celebrations of Plymouth's founding focused on the Pilgrims' role in the creation of the United States. By doing so, these commemorations sustained an exclusionary narrative for over two centuries.

Perhaps this year a different story will take hold, replacing ancestor worship with a more clear-eyed view of the past.

---

an 11 21

After the Rittenhouse: Will 'white freedom' spell the ruin of America?

Chauncey DeVega and Salon November 22, 2021

"White freedom" could bring the ultimate ruination of America. By that term, I do not simply mean "white privilege" or "racist" behavior that violates social norms and is considered unacceptable or aberrant.White freedom is much more powerful than that: it is a core organizing principle of American society.

In his recent book "White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea," Tyler Stovall explains this concept as "the belief (and practice) that freedom is central to white racial identity, and that only white people can or should be free."

Contrary to what many Americans would like to believe, the country's founding was not a project dedicated to universal human rights. Instead, America's "democratic" experiment was based on a racialized understanding of democracy and of who counts as fully human — and who does not.

In the 18th century, full citizenship rights and "democracy" were exclusive to white men who owned property. As Charles Mills, Edmund Morgan and other scholars have documented, Black and other nonwhite people were the boundary against which "democracy" and white freedom were to be demarcated and built upon.In his 1999 book "The Racial Contract," Charles Mills summarizes this as: "Whiteness is not really a color at all, but a set of power relations."

White freedom is everywhere in America. Black and brown people (and some white people as well) condemn it as a manifestation of the lies which undercut any claims that America is an "exceptional" nation and the world's greatest democracy.

Many or most white people, however, take white freedom for granted and are likely to deny its very existence, even as they remain extremely protective of its power. This is but one example of the lies that are central to race itself, and the transhistorical project of making and remaking whiteness.

The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, and his acquittal on all charges, offers one of the most recent high-profile examples of how white freedom functions in America.

Last August, Rittenhouse, who was then 17 years old, traveled across state lines, armed himself with an AR-15 assault style rifle, joined forces with a local militia group and put himself in the middle of the civil disturbances caused by the police shooting of a black man named Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse shot three men, killing two of them, allegedly in self-defense. When he attempted to surrender to police they ignored him, and then he was cleared of all legal responsibility in a criminal trial whose judge was blatantly biased in his favor, and based on gun laws and definitions of self-defense that advantage white defendants. He is already a right-wing media star, and will likely soon become a wealthy celebrity.

Consider the fact that Rittenhouse was not shot dead by the police as he walked down the street with an assault rifle, immediately after shooting three people in the street. That is an iconic illustration of white freedom's power over life and death in America. White vigilantism is perhaps the ultimate expression of white freedom.

I asked Tyler Stovall to share his thoughts about the role of white freedom in the Rittenhouse saga. He responded by email:

The recent acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse by an essentially white jury for murdering two unarmed men simply underscores the widespread belief in the fragility of white privilege and the overwhelming need to preserve it. Rittenhouse's argument that he acted in self-defense proved compelling, even though it was not backed up by any substantial proof, and the jury simply ignored the facts that he chose to enter an area armed with a high-powered rifle and became the only person to kill another human being that night. Rittenhouse's trial became a textbook case of the need to preserve white freedom, to prevent a tearful young white man from going to jail even though he permanently deprived others not only of their liberty but of their lives. ...

One only need imagine what would have happened if Kyle Rittenhouse were a young Black man who claimed to have shot others in self-defense. Consider the case of Tamir Rice, shot by Cleveland police in 2014 at the age of 12 for holding a toy rifle. The claim of the police, upheld by the judicial system, was that his murder was justified because he presented a possible threat. If Rittenhouse were Black his victims would doubtlessly be seen as justified in attacking him, in self-defense, because he held a rifle (a real one), and Rittenhouse would most likely have been convicted of murder. But Rittenhouse is white, and self-defense works in his case because it is ultimately a defense of white power, white privilege and white freedom.

Rittenhouse's actions were easily avoidable: If he had simply stayed home, no one would have died in Kenosha that night. That human tragedy also offers an example of the ways white freedom is central to a larger dynamic of escalating right-wing political violence and other threats to American democracy.

The ongoing Republican coup and Jim Crow 2.0 assault on multiracial democracy is an act of white freedom, in which Black and brown people's civil rights are being usurped as part of a larger plan to create a new American apartheid system. Moreover, white freedom is so powerful that these fascistic attacks on multiracial democracy are largely legal — or at least occur on the debatable margins of legality — and cannot simply be corrected by enforcing existing laws.

The coup attempt and attack on the Capitol last January by Donald Trump's followers was also an example of white freedom. The insurrectionists felt emboldened in their violence, overt racism and anti-democracy fervor because they believed, with good reason, that white freedom granted them the "right" to act with impunity.

Trump and the other plotters who planned and executed the events of Jan. 6 -- and many other aspects of the ongoing coup against American democracy -- have not been punished for their evident or likely crimes. For the most part, the foot soldiers arrested in the wake of Jan. 6 have received relatively light sentences for their crimes against democracy and the rule of law.

All of these events are part of a much larger campaign against democracy, which law enforcement and national security experts warn may lead to a violent insurgency against the Biden administration, the Democrats and other groups targeted by the far-right "patriot" movement. This too is another example of white freedom.

Black and brown people (or "leftists" of any race, for that matter) would never be allowed to operate with such impunity, or with reasonable assurance that they would face no serious punishment. They certainly would not be described in empathetic detail by voices in the mainstream news media as people who were "angry," "upset," "confused" and likely "misunderstood."

White freedom is also exemplified by America's criminogenic politics — which go back well before the Age of Trump — in which the wealthiest individuals (nearly all white) and largest corporations (nearly all controlled by white men) can act with impunity, concealing their wealth and income to avoid taxes, destroying the environment and evading virtually any responsibility for their individual and collective crimes against society.

White freedom also manifests through collective narcissism. The Republican death cult repeatedly emphasizes the language of "freedom" to encourage its followers not to wear masks and to refuse vaccination against COVID-19, not merely risking their own lives but endangering public health on a grand scale.

Across a range of public policies, today's Republican Party and the larger "conservative movement" have advocated and enacted laws that have increased human misery and loss of life among the American people, as well as around the world. White freedom permits, encourages, enables, protects and normalizes such antisocial and sadistic behavior.

Neofascism may represent the final form of white freedom in American democracy. Right-wing political violence and other forms of terrorism are becoming normalized. The Republican-fascist movement led by Trump is a political cult prefaced upon using white freedom to attack its "enemies" with impunity. Those who are deemed inferior, according to the ideology of white freedom, are to be denied any fundamental human rights or liberties.

Loyalty to white freedom, and the retrograde reactionary values and politics it represents, empowers a wide range of antisocial and anti-human behavior against marginalized individuals and groups, not always based on race, color or ethnicity. White freedom by definition is exclusionary, and this form of "freedom" is defined by white people's ability to define and limit the freedom of others

Leonce Gaiter, who has written extensively on questions of race, masculinity and violence, offered this additional context for understanding white freedom and American history, in an email to Salon:

When white supremacy is challenged, white reaction follows. Reconstruction brought reclamation. The '60s and '70s rights revolutions brought Reagan. Obama's election brought the tea party and Trump.

In this nation's 245 years, African Americans have enjoyed statutory equal rights for only 56 — since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Think about it. White supremacy and forms of apartheid have been the status quo in this nation for 77% of its history. The very ideas of black equal rights and full black citizenship are shockingly new. This is something we dare not forget. After Obama's election, the post-racial nonsense flew in all directions, flung by white pundits desperate to forget American history. Instead, we got Trumpism and a Republican Party cheering racist violence to maintain white supremacy.

To a large percentage of the white population, their "white identity" can be reduced to "white supremacy." There is no "white" American identity because there is no aspect of American "white" identity that Black and brown Americans have not overtly impacted (speech, art, letters, music, dance, morality, notions of freedom) — save white supremacy. "White" is a null identity — it was created in opposition to those it wished to exploit. It does not celebrate what you are. It insists on what you are not. Thus the identity is so fragile that any perceived threat requires the appearance of long guns.

Gaiter concluded:

The Rittenhouse trial and verdict — a judge coddling the white man on trial for murdering white men seen as black allies — an overwhelmingly white jury, white "self-defense" as an excuse for murdering men after overtly seeking violent confrontation… it's all America's normal. We are not better than this. It is a large part of who we have always been. Supposed "moderates" and liberals have never had the stomach to sever the diseased limb of white race hatred from the body politic. Until they do, there will always be a Kyle Rittenhouse. His story is the bulk of America's.

Historians have observed that America's founding rests upon two crimes against humanity: The genocide against First Nations peoples and white-on-Black chattel slavery. White freedom was a partner in those crimes against humanity, and was largely defined by them.

America in the 21st century faces an existential struggle for the future of its democracy and society. Matters are becoming so dire that if seems conceivable the country could face a second Civil War. In this struggle for America's future, the neofascists are carrying the banner of white freedom.

On the other side are those Americans who believe in a true "We the People" multiracial democracy. These two forces cannot logically be reconciled. Unfortunately, the Democrats and other Americans who hope to redeem and renew democracy are consistently on the defensive. To defeat white freedom, we can no longer downplay it or deny its existence. We must name it, recognize it and confront it directly, before it devours us all.

---

===

what are the values/princiles embedded in each story? overlap? contested? shared goals but diff methods to obtain?

10 21 an

A Republican lawmaker in the Iowa House of Representatives recently spoke out in support of former President Donald Trump's supporters interested in seceding the Union.

In response to an opinion piece written by columnist Reka Basu, Rep. Steven Holt (R-Ohio) penned a guest column that was published in the Des Moines Register. He expressed concern about Trump still complaining about the election he believes was stolen from him. Holt also sympathized with the 52% of Trump supporters wanting to break away from the United States.

According to Holt, those Americans have an understanding of what "America once was and what it is becoming" although he offered no specifics about that remark.

"I read with amused frustration Rehka Basu's Oct. 8 opinion piece in which she spoke of the parallel universe she felt she was living in, seemingly oblivious to the reasons that 52% of Donald Trump supporters favor seceding from the Union," Holt wrote before saying, "Rehka, those 52% understand what America once was and what it is becoming. They cherish their freedom and liberty, they understand the importance of our founding values, and they see the destruction of those values taking place before their eyes."

He added, "Almost everything about America that would previously have been thought to be unthinkable is now taking place."

The Republican lawmaker went on to share his list of complaints about the Biden administration emphasizing his grievances with the Afghanistan withdrawal to the debate over critical race theory.

Holt continued, "Rehka, the 52% see clearly what is happening to America, and while I still believe in our great nation and our ability to recognize and change the destructive path we are on, I understand why so many Americans believe that our only alternative is a reset. Put this reality together with the fact that41% of Biden supporters favor secession precisely so they can bring to fruition that which Trump supporters so adamantly oppose, and the challenges before us become crystal clear."

He concluded, "So, 52% of Trump supporters favor secession to preserve the principles of our republic,while 41% of Biden supporters favor secession in order to destroy them."

state rep secession

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/iowa-gop-lawmaker/

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aha: recall origins in Heartland reverse engineer: if AGW real, world gov't no capitalism

also fork 1 origin // sununu collectivist jackboots story 1 threatened

vax everywhere = neg?

gw denial eroded faith in sci for decades and made us vuln to vaxxer BS --> civil war?!

fox murdochs burn down the world for money and power (vax and AGW) ; koch gopanti-gubmint erode norms,

fox briefly forgot trump TV hacks and acted like a news org and reported FACT that trump lost AZ, immediate threat from oann newsmax reb mercer soc media play

no lnx

Black flag:Understanding the Trumpists' latest threatening symbol

Chauncey DeVega and Salon October 12, 2021

It's an old truism that the "real bad men" (and bad women) "move in silence and violence." That's certainly true for the most dangerous and most effective of Donald Trump's allies, henchmen, henchwomen, and other followers. But for Donald Trump himself, and most of his political cult, that rule does not apply....

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/trumpists/

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AHA FORK 1 SUNUNU VS MEADE/MACY LIMITS OF GROWTH

sununu // heartland founding reverse engineering: If AGW real, it will require global gov't action = evil therefore AGW not real (they are explicit on this?!)

---

--> CARTER VS RR (PROTO-TRUMP

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https://slate.com/technology/2019/09:(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}::{/jimmy-carter:(style="background-color:#ff9900ff"):}::{-climate-change-malaise-speech-1980-backlash.html

"Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns,”the president said. “But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.” No, this is not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2032 inaugural address. It’s President Jimmy Carter speaking in 1980.

Carter used the same speech to announce “an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I’m asking you, for your good and for your nation’s security, to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can … and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense, I tell you it is an act of patriotism.”

This address, which became known as the “Malaise” speech, was cited by 1980s champions of hyperconsumption as a key reason for Carter’s political demise. But it waswell-received at the time—Carter’s approval ratings went up by 12 percentage points, with 61 percent of the public saying the speech inspired confidence.

The speech reflected the president’s broader approach. Carter had been committed to alternative energy(at least, alternatives to oil and gas; he supported nuclear and coal) right from the start. At his inauguration in 1977, the reviewing stand was heated by approximately 1,000 square meters of solar thermal panels. Later, he became the first president to install solar panels on the White House (these first ones provided hot water for the cafeteria, the laundry, and the family quarters).

His administration vastly increased the budget for energy technology research and development to levels not equaled for another 30 years, until Barack Obama’s stimulus bill. He instituted the first tax credits for installing wind turbines and solar power, and set the goal of deriving 20 percent of U.S. energy needs from renewables by the millennium (so far we’ve made it to 9.4 percent).

Carter was not striking off in a bold new direction with any of these initiatives. He was reflecting the political mainstreaming of a movement that had been gathering momentum throughout the ’70s. The early part of the decade saw a raft of environmental legislation enacted during the Nixon administration: There was 1969’s National Environmental Policy Act, the Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970, and the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts all passed over the next few years. Several states introduced container deposit bills to encourage recycling. All of this was relatively uncontroversial: There was still such a thing as moderate Republicans, and conservatism encompassed conservation.

The idea that the clock was ticking on the chance to avert a climate emergency was already part of the scientific consensus. Carter’s speech was greatly influenced by a 1972 report from the Club of Rome, a transnational think tank (members have included Al Gore, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, and, er, Marianne Williamson) called “The Limits to Growth.” It warned of “exponential” population growth and the potential collapse of civilization as we know it around 2100 due to resource exhaustion.The CoR has gone on to publish more than 40 subsequent reports on environmental issues, many of them climate-focused.

Just as scorching heat waves and unprecedented wildfires have made global warming more urgent in the wider public’s mind today, so two events in the ’70s moved the needle by illustrating the effects of resource scarcity on people’s actual lives. Between 1970 and 1973, U.S. oil imports more than doubled thanks to decreasing domestic production and increasing consumer demand. Then, in 1973, the oil-producing Arab nations imposed an oil embargo on the United States in retaliation for U.S. support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Gas prices soared and new phenomena appeared: long lines at gas stations (and, needless to say, fights), gas tank cover locks to prevent siphoning, consumers deserting their giant American cars in favor of the recently introducedless thirsty Japanese imports. As a conservation measure, Congress instituted a 55 mph speed limit on federal highways, prompting widespread protests including a Sammy Hagar song that declared, “Take my license, all that jive/ I can’t drive 55!” Stories surfaced of drivers of Japanese models being run off the road in oil-producing states like Texas.

The other pivotal event was the California drought of 1976–77, the state’s most severe water shortage of the 20th century, which prompted the public service message to “save water, shower with a friend.” (Newly elected Gov. Jerry Brown was even more committed to renewables than Carter: His tightening up of refrigerator regulations increased energy efficiency by a factor of one nuclear power plant, and he also offered 55 percent tax credits on wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass.)

The response to these events was increased awareness of environmental limitation. Greenpeace’s long campaign of direct action had just started—the organization was founded in 1971. There was also a social movement. California was the epicenter of the “back to the land” wing of the zeitgeist, an aspect of the hippie counterculture that channeled suspicion of the System into adopting a self-sufficient lifestyle (like survivalists, without the guns and paranoia). Some adventurous souls moved to communes to pool resources and share consumer durables like washing machines and cars. Their numbers were never large, but making your own clothes, wearing vintage, or recycling Goodwill finds were in fashion. Frances Moore Lappé’s bestselling 1971 Diet for a Small Planet popularized a diet based on vegetables, grains, and legumes, so the world’s grain supply would go toward relieving food poverty over feeding cattle.

A backlash was inevitable. Americans don’t like limits, speed or otherwise.Ronald Reagan promised them they didn’t have to have any. His “morning in America” framing assured the public that nothing needed to change and was presented as an alternative to Carter’s gloomy warnings. And, sure enough, under Reagan it was back to living as though resources were infinite. The research and development budgets for renewable energy at the recently established Department of Energy was gutted by nearly 90 percent, and tax breaks for wind and solar technologies were eliminated. A study underway at Carter’s Solar Energy Research Institute, later the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, to provide a blueprint for a renewables-powered energy future was defunded, and the institute closed down.In a symbolic gesture, Reagan dismantled and junked the solar water heater Carter had installed on the roof of the White House.

Fossil fuels, steak dinners, and conspicuous consumption were once again unquestioned norms. Instead of “living lightly on the earth,” the decade’s guiding principle was, as a popular bumper sticker declared, “Whoever Dies with the Most Toys Wins.” Despite numerous attempts to veer back toward Carter’s vision, we’ve never really returned. One thing is certain: Whatever road we’re on, we’re running out of it.

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[[disambig : polarysis vs obstruction? one is structural vs mcconnell obstruction/kneejerk anti-BO djt?

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recall mcc said when BO elected they would obstruct everything, said // about Biden, BBB? 921 threat to vote ~ debt ceiling "hostage worth shooting"?!

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aha: story 1 vs 2 gop must prove that we do not need gov't b/c it does not work b/c they make sure it does not; then ramp up disaster cap'l/ pvtization to make $ on chaos, buy up common cheap

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/gop-mitch-mcconnell/

corp tax hike?!

salon

After being closely aligned for decades, it appears that Republicans and top business lobbying groups are having a very public falling-out over conservative lawmakers' lack of support for a bipartisan infrastructure deal currently languishing in Congress.

According to digital politics site The Hill, every major business group in Washington, D.C. — including Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers, among others — has expressed some measure of support for the bill, which was crafted by a group of lawmakers in both parties alongside the White House.

Business groups have long been a key constituency for Republicans, who worked closely with K Street lobbyists to craft a 2017 tax cut that offered hefty benefits to both corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Yet no more than a small handful of Republican members of Congress have agreed to vote for the legislation favored by these groups this time around.

In a conference call with reporters last month Michael Johnson, CEO of the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, a longtime conservative-leaning lobby that stands to gain heavily if the bill passes, seemed flabbergasted by Republicans' refusal to vote for such a popular piece of popular piece of legislation, which polls well across most demographics, including conservatives.

"That's why it boggles the mind that the progressives in the House have decided to take a very popular hostage and Republican leadership has decided to not rescue that very popular hostage when they easily could," Johnson said.

So what's behind this right-wing change-of-heart?

Neil Bradley, the executive VP and chief policy officer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, blamed "misinformation" surrounding the bill during an interview with CQ Roll Call last month — adding that some House GOP members have privately told him that they'd like to vote for the infrastructure deal but feared angering Trump and the new constellation of ultra-conservative groups that were empowered during his tenure.

"I think there are some unfortunate things going on, and I'm being generous with the term unfortunate," Bradley said.

"If this vote today was occurring on the merits of the bill, the outcome wouldn't be in doubt and we'd have a supermajority," he added. "It's not the substance that people are disagreeing with here."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in particular has become a flashpoint of conservative ire after endorsing a small number of Democratic candidates in Congressional races last year. The group, along with a number of other influential pro-business organizations, also stopped PAC donations to hundreds of Republican lawmakers who voted to overturn the 2020 election results on the evening of Jan. 6.

Following that news, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has taken to saying the U.S. Chamber "sold out" and that he no longer considers it an ally.

"I didn't even know the Chamber was around anymore," McCarthy told the political newsletter Punchbowl News.

The feud reached a head this week when Republican leaders kicked representatives for the U.S. Chamber off its conference calls.

Brett Horton, the chief of staff for House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., didn't hold back when asked about Republicans shunning the pro-business group.

"People care what their local Chambers of Commerce and business owners have to say, not the U.S. Chamber," Horton told The Hill. "If the U.S. Chamber sent me a meeting request right now, I wouldn't even staff that meeting out to an intern, and I don't see that changing."

In response to being iced out of the Republican inner circle, Axios reported this week, the group abruptly reversed its support for the bill. The Chamber disputed the report by arguing that it still supports the bill "as a stand-alone bill unlinked to the proposed tax and spend reconciliation bill" that it has been linked to from its inception — which makes its support for the infrastructure package merely theoretical.

In addition to the Republicans' beef with business groups over the pending infrastructure legislation, the two sides also clashed over their differing opinions on raising the U.S. debt ceiling this past week. Business groups saw the writing on the wall if Congress decided to default on the country's sizeable debts, and feared catastrophic consequences if the limit was not raised.

But most Republican lawmakers, especially Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, instead concluded that their responsibilities to their constitutents lay in obstructing the Democratic agenda — no matter what.

"Democrats have the full ability to raise the debt ceiling as a part of reconciliation," Cruz told POLITICO on Thursday. "They want political cover."

After a last-minute deal brokered by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the debt ceiling was ultimately raised Thursday night — though only for a few months. McConnell said Saturday that he does not intend to make another deal come December, when the deal will likely expire — regardless of what business groups say.

McConnell's justification for the obstruction appeared to be rooted in a statement Sen. Chuck Schumer made after the Thursday vote, blasting Republican efforts to stymie any change to the debt ceiling.

"I am writing to make it clear that in light of Senator Schumer's hysterics and my grave concerns about the ways that another vast, reckless, partisan spending bill would hurt Americans and help China, I will not be a party to any future effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement," McConnell said in a statement.

===]]

---

an 621

franklin Graham urges school boards to fight the '**godless socialist agenda' of CRT

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

Evangelical and anti-LGBTQ activist Franklin Graham is urging Americans to "pray for the Christians" who are fighting what he calls a "godless socialist agenda," an agenda he says now...

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/loudoun-protest/

Loudoun County is an affluent suburb outside of Washington. Its public school board held a meeting last night. It was cut short. According to the Loudoun Times-Mirror, the board unanimously voted to end a period of public comment "after a capacity crowd descended into shouting and after numerous requests that attendees remain silent were not heeded." Loudoun County Sheriff's deputies cleared the meeting room. Some protesters were frog-marched out. Videos of the evening went viral on social media.

That's why I'm bothering telling you about what would otherwise be a local event of no consequence to national politics. I think what happened last night is something we're probably going to see more of in the weeks ahead. It has the feeling of a "Tea Party"-style "movement" in which "righteous" Americans "revolt" against the "infringement" of their liberties. It's premised on a garbage pile of lies, but lots of white people in this country are willing to believe them, because lies tell them what they want to believe. They see themselves as victims. They will prove it, though the proof is delusional.

By the time the press corps picks up the story, the truth will be lost and the reported "controversy" will be about what liberalism's enemies say liberals say, boxing out of "debate" almost entirely what liberals themselves say they say.

It all began when Virginia State Senator Dick Black blasted the board for a decision regarding a teacher at Leesburg Elementary School. That teacher is Byron "Tanner" Cross. Cross was put on administrative leave after remarks he made last month during a public comment period. During that period, Cross promised to disobey a proposed rule that would require teachers to recognize "students' preferred gender pronouns or names if they choose to not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth."

"If his comments were not protected speech, then free speech does not exist at all," Senator Black said before adding, that, "It's absurd and immoral for teachers to call boys girls, and girls boys." According to the Times-Mirror, he also accused to Loudoun County Public Schools of "teaching children to hate others because of their skin color." The crowd reportedly roared. It did not stop. That's when the board ended the meeting. That's when the handcuffs came out. That's when the videos went viral.

If the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, had its druthers, that's where things would stand—with images of righteous (read: white) Americans standing up for what they believe in for the sake of their children and their liberty. And to be honest, that's where things will stay for a lot of people, because most people are casual consumers of news, which is to say they have better things to do than pay attention to politics. But it doesn't take much to see all this is staged to look worse than it is.

First, telling the school board you promise to break a proposed rule is kinda sorta begging for a reprimand, and no, the US Constitution does not protect you against being reprimanded for promising to break a proposed rule.1 Second, and important to a revamped "Tea Party," is that the board has repeatedly denied Loudoun schools are "teaching children to hate others because of their skin color." But that fact can't compete with a belief, manufactured by a right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, that a critical race theory is hiding behind every bush and tree in America.

As I mentioned recently, critical race theory is a useful mode of intellectual inquiry whose precepts you don't really need to understand because the people making all the noise about critical race theory don't care about understanding them.2 They "know" everything they need to "know" about it, and what they "know" is that it's anti-white. It's not anti-white, but that fact falls on deaf ears same as the Loudoun County school's denial of teaching critical race theory falls on deaf ears. These people believe the garbage pile of lies being fed to them by a right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, because the lies tell them what they want to believe. Democracy is producing results without their OK. Democracy leaving them behind is tyranny.

None of this will do too much damage to public opinion as long as stays on Fox et al., but that's probably not going to happen. With a Democrat is in the White House, the Washington press corps has the incentive to start paying attention, and once it does, the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, will be, in effect, the sitting judge of who gets to say what when, where, why and how. By the time the press corps picks up the story, the truth will be almost entirely lost and the "controversy" will be about what liberalism's enemies say liberals say, boxing out of the "debate" almost entirely what liberals themselves say they say.Even as these people demand their freedom of speech, what they're also doing is shutting down speech. Two hundred and forty-nine people were scheduled to speak during last night's period of public comment. Thanks to just one raging idiot, only a sixth of them got to have their say.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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"woke" military aha last fed/gubmint institution to fall, once sacrosanct b/c manly, trad conservative and defend us from evil commies; god bless our troops almost secular so common?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/fox-news-2653517083/

gen milley vs gaetz "take their budget" [grn beret?]; i'm a wht guy want to understand rage; biggest 2 wars bloody ~ racist = nazi and csa/kkk? read mao and marx, not commie; attack on west pt curric?

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/ron-desantis-2653505905/

Florida goes full fascist': Ron DeSantis sparks furious backlash with ‘authoritarian’ campus political surveys

Raw Story June 23, 2021

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation requiring Florida students, faculty, and staff to register their political views in surveys in an effort to promote "intellectual diversity" at colleges and universities, and the measure set off backlash across social media.

Critics decried the law, which DeSantis claims will promote freedom of speech, as a "thoroughly Orwellian" attempt to gain control over academic debate at institutions of higher learning.....

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aha see CRT // texas law to praise alamo heroes https://www.npr.org/2021/06/16/1007186936/challenging-the-myths-of-the-alamo

; urban legend anxiety; simple story to explain complex, make hearer center/hero of story, wht ppl here before nat am:

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/tucker-carlson-2653475417/

salon

The American people live in the same country. That does not mean they share a common reality. This inability to agree upon basic empirical facts and the nature of the truth is undermining the country's democracy.

Moreover, a type of collective malignant narcissism, in which entire communities of people believe that their opinions supersede empirical reality and scientific fact, is undermining America's present and future prosperity, stability and freedom, not to mention the basic health of our society.

To wit: A majority of Republicans apparently believe the Big Lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election and that it was somehow "stolen" from him and his followers by Joe Biden and the Democrats.

Roughly 30 percent of Republicans claim to believe that Trump will be reinstated as president this year, something that is not possible under current U.S. law. In addition, 50 percent of Republican voters have convinced themselves that Donald Trump is still the "real" president.

Approximately one in four Republican voters believes in significant portions of the interlocking antisemitic conspiracy theories of the QAnon fictional universe, with its claims about a "deep state" that controls American society and the world through Satanic rituals and human sacrifice. Of course, in the QAnon universe Donald Trump is imagined as a great hero and leader who will defeat this evil plot and restore American "greatness," not-so-subtly understood as a privileged state for white people.

In a season of death during which the coronavirus pandemic has killed at least 600,000 Americans, a new CBS/YouGov poll shows that 29 percent of Republicans will refuse the lifesaving vaccines. They have made this decision largely because of Trump and the right-wing media's disinformation and outright lies about the coronavirus pandemic.

This crisis is far greater than what historian and political scientist Richard Hofstadter warned about in his seminal 1964 Harper's essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." In a moment when a proto-fascist white supremacist Republican Party is waging a war on democracy and the truth, the white right's conspiracist thinking represents an existential threat to the safety and security of the United States.

In a recent conversation with Salon about Trump and his followers,psychiatrist Dr. Lance Dodes offered this warning:

It certainly is a public mental health emergency, and one that has occurred many times in human history. Followers adopt the belief system of a populist tyrant which becomes the new permitted reality, spreading to others who are swept up by their need to be included. That belief system, however fantastical or delusional, remains accepted truth until it is finally shown to be false. Those who have been conned into believing the tyrant's lies find comfort in their conviction that they know the truth, enabling them to feel superior to doubters.

On Jan. 6, right-wing conspiracy theories and other delusional ideas came together in a type of synergistic disaster in the form of the Trump regime's attempted coup and the attack on the U.S. Capitol, as a mass of white supremacists, Christian fascists, right-wing paramilitaries and QAnon believers attempted to nullify the results of the 2020 Election. These groups and ideas are not altogether distinct; there is considerable overlap of ideas and believers between them.

Those outside of the right-wing conspiracy community are likely unaware of the other fantastical beliefs and delusions that played a role in the events of Jan. 6.

Jason Colavito is a professional skeptic, researcher and author whose essays have been featured at The New Republic and Slate. He has also appeared on the History Channel and the American Heroes Channel. Colavito is the author of several books, including "The Mound Builder Myth," "Jason and the Argonauts Through the Ages" and the forthcoming "The Legends of the Pyramids:Myths and Misconceptions about Ancient Egypt."

In this conversation, Colavito places these "new" conspiracy theories about QAnon and the Big Lie about the 2020 election — as well as the decades-long popular obsession with UFOs — in a larger context of fear and anxiety about social change in America, arguing that a particular version of insecure white masculinity (and white supremacy more generally) is central to many of today's most widely believed conspiracy theories.

Colavito also details how right-wing extremists are using UFOs, "ancient aliens" and other supposedly "fun" conspiracy theories to radicalize and recruit new members, and discusses how figures like Rudy Giuliani and Tucker Carlson as well as the "Stop the Steal" plotters figure in that dynamic.

At the end of this conversation, Jason Colavito shares his thoughts about the soon-to-be-released Pentagon report on UFOs — which will almost certainly not report that the Earth is being visited by extraterrestrials.

QAnon, the "Deep State," Donald Trump's Big Lie and and now a report by the U.S. government on UFOs. How do you explain this confluence of events?

First, it's important to understand that all these conspiracy theories are interrelated. It's not like QAnon is completely separate from UFOs and that is completely separate from a conspiracy about Jewish bankers taking over the world — as Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested, by using "Jewish space lasers."These conspiracies are all connected by this idea of rejected knowledge — that there is a secret body of knowledge that can tell a person how the world really works, and is being hidden away from the public by elites.

People who believe in conspiracy theories are searching for a means to understand a complex and changing world in a simple way, one that flatters their own particular prejudices, particular beliefs and feelings that they should be the ones at the center of the historical narrative.

One of the foundational issues involved in all of these conspiracy theories is white supremacy. It doesn't always seem obvious. In many cases, some of the people who believe in one particular variety of conspiracy or another are not themselves motivated primarily by white supremacy, and may not even be aware of the connections to white supremacy. But at their core, many of these conspiracy theories revolve around ideas about the way things were in a semi-idealized past, whether that semi-idealized past was Donald Trump's presidency, the 1950s, the 19th century or some other period. These were times when white people were at the center of the historical narrative in America and the West. In this worldview, everything was great and good and wonderful.

What we see in the United States are demographic trends which are causing a deep disconnect and deep concern among many white people who believe that they are losing economic power, losing status and losing their privileged social position. Of course this is not necessarily true in reality, because white people still control the overwhelming amount of political and economic power in the United States. However, they do see themselves as losing that power because in large measure the actual elites — the people who are running the economy, running politics and so on — have created a situation where the middle-class lifestyle of my generation's parents and grandparents simply does not exist anymore unless you have multiple incomes and the kind of education that requires enormous amounts of debt.

There are all these different societal changes going on and conspiracy theories are a way to try to explain it that lets a person feel as though they are still in control of the narrative. When you look at conspiracy theories in the aggregate, that is the underlying motive behind all of the different expressions of weird and extreme ideas.

How do we explain these waves of conspiracy theories in a larger context?

This is something that we see in United States history over and over again. In the wake of social change people turn toward extreme ideas such as the supernatural and the paranormal and toward conspiracy theories.

Much of what we see today is very similar to what was going on in the 1950s and the 1960s. There was a confluence of paranormal and political conspiracies at the same time. The UFO panic emerged in the late 1940s through the 1960s and did not occur in isolation. It was happening at the same time that McCarthyism and the second Red Scare was burning through the country. People were seeing communists behind every bush and trying to use the power of government to destroy what they perceived to be communist infiltration of the country.

Joe McCarthy had stoked nativism, nationalism and many forms of bigotry in order to gin up a vast conspiracy theory that there was massive communist infiltration. McCarthy, incidentally, didn't limit his hatred just to communists. He assumed that communists, being deviants, were close allies of the homosexuals and therefore he and his allies created a massive purge of gay people from government, leading to decades of oppression and some of the strictest anti-gay laws that the country has ever had. But while he's doing this, the UFO panic is happening outside of Washington and eventually in D.C. itself.

That isn't entirely a coincidence, because in both cases, what you're seeing is that beneath the placid surface of what should have been the most prosperous, peaceful time in American history there is also a deep anxiety because World War II had shaken the foundations of the American Dream. While it was patched together with suburbia and sitcoms and all of those things that conservatives love to hold up as the idealized post-war world, in reality it was a Band-Aid over massive amounts of social change, particularly in terms of the role of women. Women had experienced great liberation during the war years because the men were off fighting abroad.

After the war, men tried to force women back into those pre-war gender roles. The postwar years also saw a growth in the African American civil rights movement.

This comes together with how these social tensions and changes manifest in almost a spiritual way when people look up into the sky and see saviors or demons flying in the heavens. UFOs, right from the beginning, were identified not just as space aliens. Some people thought they were angels harboring the end times of revelation.Others thought that UFOs were secret communist technology infiltrating our skies. This is an example of tensions and ideas that are percolating through politics and society being remixed in symbolic form and ascribed to a supernatural cause. What we're seeing today, I believe, is closely related to that same process, that social tensions are driving a symbolic expression of tension as various conspiracies and supernatural occurrences.

How do we apply those questions of identity and agency to these current conspiracy theories?

It is important to recognize that many of the conspiracy theories are driven by people who are looking for ways to express control over the historical narrative. Most of what later became QAnon was already in circulation on the internet and on cable television years before it came together as a pro-Trump conspiracy theory. QAnon reaches all the way from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" straight through to UFO conspiracy theories, and draws in the Satanic panic and related ideas

These are narratives that we already found circulating on programs like "Ancient Aliens" or "America Unearthed" and other History Channel shows and cable TV series years before. This happened because the cable TV networks understood that their audience is primarily older and white, and in the case of the History Channel largely male, and they program towards that demographic.

To qualify my point: I do not think that cable TV networks were purposely planning to have white nationalist programming or anything like that. We are talking about TV networks staffed by hundreds of people using production companies around the world to produce content. But you have media all over the world driving toward the same ends because they're chasing the same audience. And once you start trying to flatter your audience into thinking that they are empowered and that they are the dynamic drivers of history, you end up in the same place every time.

What did you see in the events of Jan 6. when Trump's followers attacked the U.S. Capitol? In particular, what did you make of the "QAnon shaman," who is a known figure in the right-wing conspiracy world.

The QAnon shaman— who goes by a couple of different names, by the way — represented not just the neo-pagan theme in the QAnon movement and the white nationalist-adjacent conspiracies, but he was appropriating, to himself, other themes and ideas as well. The QAnon shaman has a series of videos that he put up on YouTube and other video-sharing platforms prior to the Jan. 6 attack in which he talked about a vast number of bizarre conspiracy theories.

There he cites people who had appeared on the History Channel by name, discussing a conspiracy theory that was popular among the ancient aliens crowd about "the secret space program." This is the idea that there is a secret space program in which the United States is engaged in warfare with one group of space aliens with the help of another group of space aliens. There is a spiritual component as well, which involves psychic powers.

The secret space program conspiracy theory has been circulating for years. But the QAnon shaman, in his videos, claimed to believe that he had been recruited, apparently against his will, into the secret space program because of his great psychic powers. He also claims that he was using those powers to combat space aliens on behalf of the U.S. government by traveling to another dimension.

Yes, it is easy to make fun of such claims, but such conspiracies played a role among the people at the Capitol rioting on Jan. 6. Incidentally, at least one of the Capitol rioters was wearing an "Ancient Aliens" sweatshirt with Giorgio Tsoukalos' face on it. [Tsoukalos is a ufologist who has frequently appeared on "Ancient Aliens."] I do not believe that was entirely a coincidence, because it is the same set of conspiracy theories about the "deep state," space aliens, secret cults and how elites are hiding things from the public that animate both the ancient conspiracy theories and the QAnon conspiracy theories. There is significant overlap, where some QAnon beliefs are derived directly from beliefs that also appear on "Ancient Aliens."

One of the huge failures of the mainstream news media is that they are not paying attention to what people are actually consuming. Among the most extreme fringes of American political and social life there is see a very deep and abiding interest in these conspiracy theories, and we don't see the U.S. mainstream media engaging with that enough — especially not before the 2016 election, and not even fully until after the Jan. 6 riot.

It is easy to say we're not going to take this seriously, but something can be both ridiculous and dangerous at the same time.

For example, QAnon is an antisemitic conspiracy theory. It is also a white male power fantasy. More generally, how are these right-wing fantasies a space for a particular type of white masculinity?

The History Channel adventure mystery shows tend to have the same aesthetic. They feature very big blocky fonts, lots of dramatic music. These shows also feature middle-aged white men in either Indiana Jones cosplay or in tactical military gear marching around, having adventures and bonding in brotherhood over historical mysteries that flatter their own prejudices, mysteries that just happened to find that white men were here before Columbus and built this country from scratch even before Native Americans had come to the Americas.

The aesthetic is laughable, but it is also one that's desirable for a certain demographic in the United States. There is also an important overlap between these shows and their political consequences. A man named J. Hutton Pulitzer, who also goes by Jovan Pulitzer and a couple of other names, appeared on "The Curse of Oak Island" and some other ancient mystery-style shows, described as a treasure hunter, a historian and many other titles. On "Curse of Oak Island" they went looking for the Ark of the Covenant. Pulitzer's persona at the time was "the treasure force commander," who was supposedly leading a "crack team of historical investigators as they hunted history's greatest artifacts."

Where did he go next? Rudy Giuliani and the Donald Trump campaign used his ideas about ballot fraud to help create the recounts that we see in Arizona and the ongoing efforts to do the same in Georgia. In both instances, Pulitzer is being paid as a consultant to find evidence of ballot fraud through his amazing technology of looking for bamboo in the ballotsto prove they came from China. This also involves looking for creases in what Pulitzer calls the "origami ballots" to "prove" that they were folded up by Asian people.

This guy went right from the History Channel straight to a Trump conspiracy world. While he might be the most direct line between History Channel conspiracies and the extreme right-wing pro-Trump community, he's not the only one. Just the other day, Nick Pope, one of the ancient-astronauts theorists from the "Ancient Aliens" show, appeared on Rudy Giuliani's podcast. There you have the former lawyer for Donald Trump talking UFOs with a guy from "Ancient Aliens." Tucker Carlson was also on "Ancient Aliens" talking to Nick Pope. Carlson has UFO theorists from the History Channel on his show.

What is Tucker Carlson's relationship to the UFO and ancient aliens conspiracy world?

In a speech that Tucker Carlson gave a while ago, he said that after the 2016 election, he was so completely dumbfounded by the unlikely probability of Donald Trump winning that he started to think that other improbable things might be true. As a result he developed an interest in UFOs and flying saucers. But in a more practical sense, Carlson has been all in on pushing flying-saucer conspiracy theories, in large measure because flying-saucer conspiracy theories have long been associated with right-wing extremism.

Now, that is not to say that everyone who is interested in UFOs and flying saucers is a right-wing conspiracy theorist — but right-wing extremist groups have made a concerted effort to infiltrate flying saucer and UFO communities in order to use that belief in conspiracy theory as a wedge issue to draw more people into that type of conspiratorial thinking.

What happens is that UFO and flying saucer beliefs become a wedge issue that draws people into more extreme beliefs, because once you feel that one conspiracy theory may be true, it becomes easier to believe that the next conspiracy theory may be true. When you see Tucker Carlson going all in on UFOs and flying saucers, he is creating a situation where people can embrace one conspiracy theory and be led to another.

How have you been processing this new hysteria about UFOs (which are now described by the U.S. government as "UAPs") and the soon-to-be-released Pentagon report?

What we can do is emphasize what we know, what we don't know and what needs to be investigated. Many of these videos of UFOs can be explained in conventional terms. Now, that doesn't mean that they are necessarily conventional, but if you can explain it that way, that is a very strong indication that we shouldn't be looking at space aliens.

In the case of claims that we have wreckage of flying saucers and other alien artifacts, you need to listen to what the experts, the involved parties, are actually saying. [Former Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid has repeatedly said that he keeps getting misquoted. He does not in fact believe that there is any wreckage. Moreover, all of the supposed alien metal that has ever been seen in public and tested turned out not to have extraterrestrial composition. The only tests that were made publicly available indicated that the alleged alien metals were in fact industrial waste. This has happened several times over the decades, going all the way back to 1947.

What we need to do as science educators, journalists and historians is to educate the public — not necessarily on the specifics of each and every case but on the rules of evidence, the burden of proof and how experts come to an understanding of what something is or what it could be. That's a difficult task. It's a lot easier to say, "Could be aliens," or "Maybe not aliens," than to say, "There are a range of possibilities. Some are more likely than others. We base our conclusions on a preponderance of evidence and so on." That is complicated and hard, and it does not fit in a 30-second soundbite.

The Pentagon report on UFOs is probably going to be sufficiently vague. People are going to see what they want to see in it. What do you do with that moment when you read the same report and conclude that there is no proof of alien visitations, and true believers conclude the opposite? In essence, true believers will default to the script that lack of sufficient evidence is in fact proof of the conspiracy.

I wish there were a good answer for that. But unfortunately, what you suggest is likely going to be the outcome. People will see in the report what they want to see, and it will just move on to the next stage of the conspiracy. This is what happened with all previous government reports that found no evidence of space aliens and no UFO threat. The UFO community will take that as more fuel for their belief system. They'll look for ways to spin it into a focus for a new round of conspiracy theories, a new round of demands for disclosure and research, and a new round of accusations that the government is hiding the truth.

Perhaps the most devastating answer of all is that the government doesn't actually have the truth, because government is made up of people, and people have many different belief systems and ideas. You will find people in government who believe that flying saucers and UFOs are alien spacecraft. You will find people in government who think that they're Satan's minions and could provoke the forces of hell. You will find people who believe that flying saucers are nothing but optical illusions and misidentified drones and weather phenomena. Just because the government says something does not give it the weight of holy writ. The government and its reports are the work of people, and as such are fallible.

The New York Times preview of the report's content seems to suggest that the government will say that they don't know in some cases — but that's been the case for the last 70-some years. Each and every report has said that there are a number of UFO cases that cannot be explained. Being unexplained doesn't mean they're unexplainable, it means that we don't have the knowledge or the information to make a determination right now, and maybe not ever.

Sometimes you have to live in the ambiguity and to understand that the preponderance of evidence is sometimes the best that we can do. Science, after all, isn't a complete description of the entirety of existence. It is the best description we have at any one time, and sometimes you just have to live with the fact that there are going to be some things that don't quite fit in, some things that it may take years or lifetimes to fully investigate and understand.

So far, we haven't had any evidence that indicates space aliens. Until one of those space aliens decides to let us see a flying saucer and the aliens waving inside, we're going to have to go with the best evidence that we have and the preponderance of evidence and what it indicates.

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// antifa concept?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/republicans-fact-free/

The right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, has lately been making a fetish of something called "critical race theory" (CRT). This has prompted academics to defend it. It's not a radical political ideology, they say. It's merely a form of critical inquiry. It is not the boogeyman it's being made out to be. There's nothing to fear.

I understand the need to defend critical race theory. Colleges and universities are beset on one hand by Republican fascists accusing scholars of indoctrinating students, on the other by anti-left liberals accusing the same of hostility toward freedom of speech. Meanwhile, administrations act more like corporations that privilege efficiency over research and teaching. It's enough to think CRT is an appropriate hill to die on.

This, however, overlooks the larger dynamic at work. The more you defend CRT as an ideologically neutral mode of seeing and thinking about the world, the more the propagandists are going to do what they do best, which is terrifying the ignorant. More importantly, CRT defenders are not seeing the true nature of their opponents. From the authoritarian perspective, modes of seeing and thinking about the world are never ideologically neutral because once you learn to see and think about the world on your own, you don't need authoritarian leaders to tell you what to see and think.

I risk making them seem like cartoons. I risk making people who treasure "traditional" and "conservative" and "Judeo-Christian" values look like they yippy-skippied over the Enlightenment on their way from the Spanish Inquisition to the 21st-century America. But it's worth the risk given that most respectable white people, in my opinion, tend to overestimate the societal effects of liberal arts education. Critical thinking is so uncontroversial among respectable white people as to be barely worth mentioning. The authoritarians, however, see it quite clearly for what it is—an existential threat.

This is why the particulars of critical race theory don't matter.1 (You don't care about the particulars when you're fighting for survival!) This is also why explaining those particulars to people who seem to fear them won't change their minds if you don't also take into account that explaining the particulars of critical race theory can itself be seen as intolerable aggression. What most of them fear is loss of social control. What most fear is loss of authority. Where you see an individual merely muddling through life the best she can, coming to the best conclusions she can, most of them see an individual whose ideological aggression is so monstrous as to justify any response.

Respectable white people look at the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, and marvel at the fact that Americans consuming its propaganda inhabit a fact-free world. I think what they misunderstand is lying isn't a bug. It's a feature. Facts are available to individuals to see and think about on their own, free and independent of authorities licensed to say what individuals see and think. Facts, therefore, are aligned politically with perceived enemies. A rationalresponse to facts is nonstop lying. So "alternate facts" are not a result of authoritarian politics. They are a first principle.

Critical race theory is not a political ideology, but it may as well be to the world of the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale. It might as well be because anything that teaches individuals to see and think about facts independent and free of groupthink compromises the integrity of the authoritarian's grip on the group. Case in point is Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney. The Republican believes the former president tried bringing down the republic. She is factually correct. For the "crime" of seeing and thinking about the world on her own, she's now being punished. The House Republicans are poised to purge her from the House conference leadership. The Republicans are not individualists. They are collectivists enforcing groupthink.

Respectable white people marvel at the fact that Americans consuming right-wing propaganda inhabit a fact-free world. As a consequence, they do not take it seriously. People who insist on inhabiting a fact-free world are not just ignorant—not when democracy depends on the ability of individuals to associate and organize themselves for the purpose of self-rule. When huge numbers of people inhabit a fact-free world, and collectivist leaders police the integrity of that groupthink, they threaten not only democracy's ability to function minimally, but its survival. Liz Cheney is now being reassimilated into the collective. Democracy itself faces the very same fate. Do not marvel at these people and their fact-free world. Regard them as the danger they are.

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devil term replaces cultural marxism? cf 1491 2 stories:

earth day

Laura Ingraham mocks young climate activists

On the April 22 edition of The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham focused her monologue on “the big climate con.” Ingraham’s “con” list included misleading arguments against the benefits of climate action like job creation; attempts to discredit the role of -- and the need for -- global cooperation in dealing with the crisis; and false claims that the scientific warnings on climate are not sound or well understood. Her final point was targeted at young activists who are calling for urgent and bold action -- and she took specific aim at Greta Thunberg and a Mexican climate justice activist named Xiye Bastida.

Ingraham suggested that today’s youths are being “indoctrinated intocritical climate theory just like critical race theory.” Not to be outdone by Carlson, Ingraham introduced the clip of Bastida talking about the role of justice in developing climate solutions like this: “What happens when you mix open-borders madness, critical race theory, and climate paranoia all together in one big bowl? You get this." vid]

ingraham’s callous attacks on climate and youth activists are not new. She received significant blowback in 2019 for comments she made about Thunberg and in 2018 for mocking Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg.

The biggest problem with Fox’s “War on Earth Day'' is that it is not limited to once a year. Daily Fox assaults erode public acceptance of climate science and the need for urgent and bold action on climate change. Far from being a news outlet, the outlet is a key cog in the right-wing disinformation machine and climate obstruction is one of its main goals. mma 521

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421

aha: Am Exceptionalism means not only do rules not apply, but nor does history; nat am gemocide and slavery are two orig sins, so must be minimized, slaves were happy, lucky to be brought to land of progress; indians crude barbarians (both childish?? incapable of achievement or even self-gov?)

CNN's Rick Santorum: "We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans but candidly there isn't much Native American culture in American culture"

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/historians-on-donald-trump/

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former President Donald Trump's impeachment trial will likely be wrapping up over the next couple of days and, unfortunately, there is a strong possibility his acquittal could ironically fall on the most sardonic date: President's Day.

According to Axios, historians are focused on evaluating the bigger picture as it pertains to Trump's controversial legacy: "the election fraud lie, the efforts to overturn the results through violence, the impeachment of a president days before his exit, and the actions of his own party to block his conviction."

The publication notes how Trump's impeachment trials have drastically diminished the power of the impeachment process, altogether. In fact, Renee Romano, a professor for Oberlin College, weighed in with her concerns about what a possible Trump acquittal would signify.

According to Romano, the battle between lawmakers amid the impeachment trial signifies the "result of tension between two opposing historical narratives.

One political party identifies with Trump's perspective on the election being rigged. That group believes the violence that ensued at the Capitol is justified based on Trump's arguments. However, the opposing side believes President Joe Biden's victory is legitimate as it is no secret that the American public widely supports the Democratic Party because they have evolved into a representation of a "multiracial" society.

"I think a lot of this is about race, and entitlement," Romano said. "And now, we're at a stage where you basically have to use violence to overthrow the results of a democratic election to protect white minority power."

She added, "In any society where you have such a divide over how you see reality, that's an unstable country," Romano said. "I'm not hopeful for the future of the country."

Andrew Rudalevidg, an expert on the governance behind presidential power, also offered a broad perspective on the message Senate Republicans are sending by failing to hold Trump accountable for a second time. He also noted the extent of how damaging it is that Trump has been allowed to undermine Congress' authority and the rule of law.

"Congress not even pushing back against a physical assault suggests that there's a lot they will put up with," Rudalevige said.

It's a President's Day present: an affirmation of the autonomy of the executive branch."

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/pompeo/

In a shocking tweet barely 24 hours before he will no longer be the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo unleashed a disturbing tweet denouncing "multiculturalism" and claiming it is "not who America is." He also linked multiculturalism to authoritarianism. The outgoing diplomat, a former GOP congressman and former CIA director, is being lambasted on social media for his claim.

The United States is built on the histories and heritages of people from other countries who travel to America. By definition, the United States is a multicultural society: "the presence of, or support for the presence of, several distinct cultural or ethnic groups within a society."

He has spent the past few weeks pushing out a large number of tweets bragging about what he sees as his successes while attempting to position himself as the logical successor to President Donald Trump. On his last full day in office Secretary Pompeo is being called a "demagogue" and is being accused of white supremacy for his remarks.

"Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms — they're not who America is," Pompeo tweeted. "They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker."...

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an 121 salon

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On Monday afternoon the White House released an executive order detailing the figures that Trump wants represented in his National Garden of American Heroes.

Trump originally pitched the idea during aJuly 2020 speech at Mount Rushmore, amid nationwide protests that again brought questions of who should be memorialized through monuments into focus; across the country, statues of slave owners and Confederate officers were vandalized and removed.

In his speech, Trump said that these actions constituted a branch of "cancel culture."

"This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount Rushmore," he said."They defile the memory of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt."

He continued: "I am announcing the creation of a new monument to the giants of our past. I am signing an executive order to establish the National Garden of American Heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live."

In the seven months since, there has been no movement on creating the statue park. No Congressional funding was secured for the proposed project and, despite the executive order, it's unlikely to be picked up by the next administration. Regardless, two days before leaving office, Trump released the list of figures he'd like to see memorialized — and it is completely unhinged.

The list is abizarro grab bag of 244 individuals, defined simultaneously by its randomness and tone-deafness. Logistics aside (How large would the park be? How close will the insane amount of statuary be to each other? Will it be like a Madame Tussauds cast in stone?), Trump's definition of "hero" is muddled.

You'd have Grover Cleveland, Walt Disney, Whitney Houston and Dolley Madison all next to each other, flanked by Kobe Bryant, Louis Armstrong, Neil Armstrong and Theodor Geisel aka "Dr. Seuss." There are civil rights champions and abolitionists like Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman and Harriet Beecher Stowe, alongside slave-owning presidents such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. More members of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show are present on the list than Asian Americans.

In many ways, however, Trump's list of "American Heroes" —which can be viewed in its entirety here— is emblematic of his presidency. It's riddled with choices that will make readers pause due to their obvious lack of research, regard for the truth and sensitivity. Here are some of the most weirdest missteps on the list (there are many more), starting with the demographic breakdown:

Demographic Breakdown

While the list is overwhelmingly random, it's also overwhelmingly male. AsAxios' Danielle Alberti reported, Trump's "American Heroes" are 73% men. Additionally, 86 of the nominees, nearly a third, were born between 1900 and 1950.

When asked in that same article by Axios about his views on the list, historian Michael Beschloss, who specializes in the United States presidency, said, "Any American who loves democracy should make sure there is never some official, totalitarian-sounding 'National Garden of American Heroes,' with names forced upon us by the federal government."

"The glory of American democracy is that every one of our citizens decides who his or her personal heroes are," Beschloss said. "That is not the prerogative of any president, especially one rejected by American voters and who is on his way out the door. Many of the people on this list of 'heroes' would be embarrassed to be singled out by someone like Donald Trump."

Additionally, as theAssociated Press reported, when Trump first proposed the list in 2020, there were no Native American, Hispanic or Asian American individuals. The list has been diversified some, but it's obviously an afterthought.

Christopher Columbus

One of the most incendiary names on the list was Christopher Columbus — who was neither American, nor did he ever actually set foot in North America. He did, however, initiate the Atlantic slave trade and the genocide of thousands of indigenous people. His cruelties are difficult to fully quantify, ranging from allowing the settlers under him to sell 9- and 10-year-old girls into sexual slavery, to forcing indigenous people to collect gold for him.

In June 2020, three statues of Columbus were damaged or pulled down in as many days.

"In St. Paul, demonstrators toppled a ten-foot-tall statue that stood in front of the Minnesota state capitol," wrote Theresa Machemer for Smithsonian Magazine. "In Richmond, protesters pulled down an eight-foot-tall statue in Byrd Park, carrying it about 200 yards before setting it on fire and throwing it into the nearby Fountain Lake. And, around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, police in Boston received a report that a marble statue of the Italian explorer and colonizer had lost its head."

Andrew Jackson

This choice is very much in the same vein as Columbus. Jackson, who was the seventh president of the United States, was one of the primary supporters of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which authorized the government to extinguish any Indian title to land claims in the Southeast.

"The result was the Trail of Tears, in which Cherokee and other native peoples of the Southeast were forced at gunpoint to march 1,200 miles to 'Indian territory,'" Billy J. Stratton wrote for Salon in 2017. "Thousands of Cherokee died during the passage, while many who survived the trek lost their homes and most of their property. Ironically, much of the land on which the Cherokee and other removed tribes were settled was opened to homesteading and became the state of Oklahoma some 60 years later."

Because of this, it seems deeply tone-deaf to include Jackson next to Native American icons like Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull and Tecumseh.

Muhammad Ali

So, admittedly, this name stuck out to me because I live in Louisville, Kentucky, Ali's hometown, and have reported previously on why there are no full-body statues of the boxing legend. According to Jeannie Kahnke of the Muhammad Ali Center — whom I interviewed in 2018 — they receive a lot of requests to use Ali's likeness.

"Over the years, I cannot tell you how many times people have come to us, saying 'I want to do a Muhammad Ali statue,'" she said. "It has probably been at least 15."

However, Ali was a devout Muslim, and he felt his faith would prohibit full-body statues being erected of him — which, Kahnke said, would prevent Ali's family from giving their blessing for a life-size statue of him. Some sculptors have done so without his family's permission, but many have found other, more creative, ways to honor the boxer.

Including his name on the list demonstrates either an obvious lack of research or a willingness to dishonor Ali's wishes and religious beliefs.

Ingrid Bergman

In Trump's executive order, he stated that the park's goal is to honor those believed to be "historically significant," and "individual[s] who made substantive contributions to America's public life or otherwise had a substantive effect on America's history."

To that end, one of the defining characteristics of Trump's list is the mishmash of political and pop culture, but Swedish actress Ingrid Bergan stands out because she . . . wasn't American. And unlike Alfred Hitchcock and Alex Trebek (who were born in the U.K. and Canada, respectively), she never became an American citizen.

It really raises the question of what qualifies as a "substantive contribution to America's public life" in Trump's mind. Was he just a big "Casablanca" fan? Perhaps, because Humphrey Bogart is on the list, too.

Woody Guthrie and Hannah Arendt

As New York Daily News reporter Chris Sommerfield tweeted yesterday, there are several "incredible self-owns" found on Trump's list, like the inclusion of Woody Guthrie, "who wrotea blistering 1950s tune about the Trump family's racist housing practices in Brooklyn."

Additionally, Trump included the German-born American political theorist Hannah Arendt, who was perhaps best known for her book "The Origins of Totalitarianism." Her writings on "the banality of evil" have been repeatedly invoked to describe Trump's apparent and growing desire for autocratic rule.

"I think she would be appalled," Roger Berkowitz, who directs the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College — on whose campus Arendt is buried and where she taught for many years — told Jewish Insideron Monday evening. "I think Arendt would find it ridiculous that Trump nominated her. I think she would find Trump ridiculous, and I think she'd find him dangerous insofar as he undermines the basic idea of truthfulness and truth in the country. His attack on the election she would have found abhorrent and dangerous."

Edward R. Murrow

Finally, Trump's disdain for legitimate, objective reporting is no secret. He has called the media the "enemy of the people,"and as such, it was no surprise to see the phrase "Murder the media" scrawled on a door of the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

That's why it was kind of a shock to see Edward R. Murrow, the broadcaster and war correspondent who had a deep impact on journalistic ethics, included on Trump's list. If Murrow were still alive and writing, I have no doubt that he would have reported truthfully on Trump — just as he reported critically on Senator Joseph McCarthy — and been decried as another "enemy of the people."

For what it's worth, Trump's executive order directed the secretary of the interior to identify a site and provide funding and said a taskforce would "publish an annual public report describing progress on establishing the National Garden and on building statues."

Joe Biden hasnominated Deb Haaland for the position, and neither she nor Biden's transition team have issued a comment on the garden, making it unlikely that it will ever actually take root.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/historian-push-back-with-a-brutal-takedown-of-1776-commission-report/

After the Trump administration released its report on the "1776 Commission," historians wasted no time firing back with brutal criticism of the 45-page document, purported to be authored by "some of America's most distinguished scholars and historians." But one historian, Torsten Kathke is noting that the committee responsible for developing the report consisted of mostly conservatives and Trump loyalists.

"Many others are already parsing the report of the 1776 Commission," Kathke tweeted. "This much here: It's a propagandist hack job. What interested me were the people involved with it. (They're pretty much who you would expect them to be.)"

Many others are already parsing the report of the 1776 Commission. This much here: It's a propagandist hack job. W… https://t.co/lYcZIjnkQG

— Torsten Kathke (@Torsten Kathke)1611013264.0

Kathke noted that the top three individuals listed on the committee list are not even historians. He tweeted, "The three above-the-line people leading the commission. Not one who is primarily a historian. Considering the commission states "the facts of our founding are not partisan. They are a matter of history" it feels not out of bounds to ask: Why not let a historian chair it?"

The three above-the-line people leading the commission. Not one who is primarily a historian. Considering the co… https://t.co/QXurPAuKvh

— Torsten Kathke (@Torsten Kathke)1611013271.0

He went on to highlight the problem with former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) being part of the commission. Although Bryant supported replacing the state flag (which paid homage to the Confederate flag), he had previously insisted on honoring the legacy of the Confederacy.

A few more names: Phil Bryant. MA in Political Science. Former Mississippi Governor. Came out in favor of replac… https://t.co/YNZ3UA2gCh

— Torsten Kathke (@Torsten Kathke)1611013969.0

Kathke went on to highlight issues with other members of the committee:

Charles Kesler. Political scientist whom @politico called "the intellectual avatar of Trumpism."… https://t.co/s1JaNp76gm

— Torsten Kathke (@Torsten Kathke)1611018897.0

Victor Davis Hanson. Ph.D. in classics. That qualifies him, I suppose, as the first historian on the list. Though*n… https://t.co/Gisi450mr3*

— Torsten Kathke (@Torsten Kathke)1611018552.0

Mike Gonzalez. MBA. Journalist and speechwriter. https://t.co/eUflFV361f https://t.co/6YOTsqdH04

— Torsten Kathke (@Torsten Kathke)1611017459.0

John Gibbs. Master of Public Administration. Who "has a history of making inflammatory remarks and spreading false… https://t.co/idnFX4igKT

— Torsten Kathke (@Torsten Kathke)1611016820.0

Kathke's criticism came shortly after the Trump administration released the "1776 Commission Report" on Martin Luther King Day. According toThe New York Times, the report "denounces the charge that the American founders were hypocrites who preached equality even as they codified slavery in the Constitution and held slaves themselves."

The report, created by an 18-member commission chaired by Trump ally and conservative Larry Arnn, reads, "this charge is untrue, and has done enormous damage, especially in recent years, with a devastating effect on our civic unity and social fabric."

The "1776 Commission Report" also argues that the "'distorted histories' of the country "labor under the illusion that slavery was somehow a uniquely American evil.'" It also presented a defense of slavery insisting that it should "be seen in a much broader perspective" as it noted the "unfortunate fact" that slavery "has been more the rule than the exception throughout human history."

According to the Trump White House, the civil rights movement became a case of "identity politics" which "teaches that America itself is to blame for oppression."

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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.”

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aha: authoritarian/ coup needs either massice econ failure or mult failures/crises? (death spiral?); massive and growing inequality amplifed (accel) by covid; note below two stories: economic factors were probably a "wash" in terms of the 2020 election, with some American voters likely blaming Trump for the current bad economy (and correctly so) while others may have blamed the COVID-19 lockdowns and supported Trump's opposition to them.

"He's taken advantage of being president to further his white nationalism, but I don't think that's his main goal," Wilderquist told Salon. "I think Trump's main goal for his entire life is to convince as many people as possible that he's a winner that he wins and wins and wins, and that he's the world's biggest winner.And like a lot of us, he doesn't want to be a loser. The way to step down without feeling like a loser is to convince his echo chamber that he didn't lose. He won and that it was stolen from him. He doesn't need a coup to do that. He just needs to complain a lot."

aha K: story 1 capitaLISM is awesome and so is USAUSA, so if we are not winning it is b/c limp lefties betrayed us in trade talks so our natural inevitable winners hobbled. Story 2: we used to be the colinial imperal power sole superpower but [corp dems]either antiipinko BS kept us from having a nat'l econ strategy like Japan and now china, or corps so corrupted politics that rules favoered max profit = outsourcing, so now (rural?) am abandoned or colonized (no unions in So).

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/experts-explain-the-economic-situations-that-beget-successful-coups/

matt r

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camp of the saints addendum? left behind, turner diaries 2nd civil war apocalypse

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as a result of 5 crises, there's a big fundamental fight going on about the Story of America: stories are powerful because they are our way of seeing and making sense of the world.

1619 vs 1776: left tries to make a more perfect union, live up to democratic values, right pretends we already have.

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General story of America: that All Men Created Equal ideal (White landowners over ___age), expanding who literally counts, or at least who is counted, who gets to have vote and a voice; but less well understood is HOW that happens:

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{{ Once Upon a Time a poor but honest smart entrepreneur went to king Isabella and F for VC, dumb aristos so turned down but changed mind; he discovered the New World while being a good disruptor to find another way to rich asian spices; at the same time, spreading god (glory, exploration, gold).

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Pilgrims were being persecuted for being too godly (Luther vs the Bad Old Church sold indulgences) landed at Plymouth and had a potluck; Mean Old King Geo tax w/o rep so our forefathers picked up their god-ordained 2nd aMENDMENT remedies and shot at the Recoats dumb in rows; Rhett and Scarlett states rights, Lincoln freed the slaves; Yankee ingenuity --> robber barons, industrialization we invented everything: cars, telephone, cotton gin; prosperity; we avoided foreign entangling alliances, in fact Wilson ran on promise no war, but Gary Cooper-like he saw we needed to go clean up mess in Europe (since those effete Limey and surrender monkeys could not defeat the manly/brutish Hun; we love peace so we set up the League of nations, war to end all wars; fun flappers in roaring 20's ended by 1929 stock crash (act of god? bad luck?) Hoovervilles, Great Depression, FDR fear itself, WWII made us prosperous and we beat the nazis and japs w/ atomic bombs (technology/ innovation/science).

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Post-war properity, Cold War, JFK eyeball to eyeball with Kruschev, AA sad because drinking fountains, so MLK gave two speeches and marched somewhere, problem solved (dodged that angry back extremist MX] , no more racism, we fixed slavery; LBJ had some bleeding heart liberal Great Society that failed, including affirmative action, but scrapped b/c US meritocracy and if you're poor it's b/c you're lazy (and possibly dumb/sinful]. LBJ got us into Viet Nam, which we fought commies with one hand behind our back b/c bureaucrats, but Rambo went in and got our POW's back. Rooskies defeated by tough manly Cooper-esque Reagan. Also Grenada.

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GoGo 80's Gordon Gekko Morning in Am we're the last super-power standing, so we continue to bring Freedom / free mkt to the world. End of History (in HS?) Fukuyama. 9/11 war on terror; losers hate america; WMD? Obama proves no racism.(but secret kenyan muslim, you didn't build that, road to serfdom via medicare. Wimpy/dumb Dems sold us out with bad trade deals, but w/ tough Art of Deal our coal-fired factories will come back and we will rule/win forever.

}}:

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STORY 2

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me vs we (zinn says we must not invent victories for we the ppl)

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Am exceptionalism is a kind of denial agnotology that holds that some unique factor(s), the grace of god? says that we do not need to abide by rules/ lessons of history; it is the opposite of systemic thinking or historic/structural analysis, mabe more akin to Great man Theory: Geo Washington, Dale Carngue, Trump.

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it was/and it was not Vs Once Upon a Time

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Ottoman Turks/Islam controlled spice routes, so Eurpose needed alt for luxury goods spices for rich[China hoovers silver]; Columbus needed VC, promised gold but found little/none so pay with logs and slaves;

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Conquistador Cortez? proto-capitalist, charged his men for all including medical supplies, but gave them territory and ten? years to plunder/extract wealth to repay; Sugar and later (tea, coffee) rubber mission [God gives permission to take land and enslave, punish the body/disobedient to save to soul]/plantations killed off indigenopus, so African slaves imported; did the math and cheaper to work to death and replace?!

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Industrial (and agric) revolution, Enclosures pushed peasants off land into crowded dirty cities and factories; girls more obedient (less dangerous) sent money home and saved for their burial?! Steal bread or habndkerchief death penalty or transportation to US?oz ghost acres.

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Plantations beginning of capitalism, but EIC QE sanctioned for big artiso ROI and colonialism on the cheap; rival Dutch corp beat, so broke but big stash or tea so corp dictated law, like today; Boston Tea Party, revo war; [AA killed Boston Massacre]. French eternal imperial rival of the UK, so sent us essential money, ships, troops and military experts.

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Cronon: yankees pulled N Am into the world trade system; no londr light footprint b/c only local use and rotated food extraction by season. Hunt fur animals to extinction b/c never enough $.

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Triangle trade $ on all 3 legs, South richest part of country, thus 3/5th, 2 senators (aapt by legis) capitol in DC malarial swamp, Fugitive Slave act; only propertied whites can vote, not mob, electoral college ensures power; genocide against Indians (satan lives in dark forest, God made this garden for his Pure-itain elect/chosen ppl [booted fron UK and even Hollard b/c they tried to impose their religion on others?! Taliban?] and inspired FF to build xian nation, that eventually god wants to go from Sea to Shining Sea; post Revo treaty Brits make us promise to contain settlers from Indian land, but cheap/plentiful land [FF surveyors/speculators] plus free slave labor boost economy; sometimes inequality led to uprisings [Bacon?] Whiskey, and sometimes runaway slaves, renegade Indians and White set up autonomous and more democratic/egalitarian/free towns in remote places, but most eventually destroyed;[late Black Wall St Oklahoma].

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Slater the Traitor

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Lincoln did not care about slavery, or at least took back seat to preservation of union [feared corps/big banks?] Emanc proc freed no one, but slaves --> contraband, property that could support Confed. RR key in war win and sought power after war; Congress massive land and $ giveaway for infrastructure, boost Indus revo; big 4 leland stanford and senator (latter tried to renege on $ loan?) SPRR vs SCC corp personhood;

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Robber baron cut-throat competition --> monopolies, Gilded Age massive inequality;various financial Panics wreck economy (proto-Gt Depression?) JP Morgan bailed us out?

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1848 revolutions break out all over Europe; mostly brutally put down; but in 1883 Otto Von Bismarck had a socialist problem, despite banning them, so undermined them with health insurance (that expanded to handicap, accident, unemployment). Another difference from US is that unions got incorporated (like seat on board) vs very violent history in US (Haymarket, Battle of Blair Mountain etc).

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Robber Barons challenged by prairie Populists ( RR) and city progressives; TR Teddy trustbuster (muckraker Ida tarbell ~ Standard Oil Rockefeller, Ludlow Massacre) but PO'd at Uppie on FDA; alo San Juan Hill colonialist; Panama Canal? Progressives got elected senators, ecall and prop; ended by?

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WWI the War to End All wars, but endless religious and imperial wars in the Old World, warned to avoid entangling alliances, we lost 77K in Civil War, wide oceans to keep us safe, so little appetite to go fight; Socialist/anarchists pterry strong, so why go die for rich corp warmongers/industrialists Krupps?

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Creel Commision first/ massive US propaganda effort; Bernays and Poison Ivy (press release) both Bibles for Goebbels, differed on reaction; later techniques used for corporate propaganda (advertising to convince ppl to stop being a producer and --> a consumer), and then politics (Campianns Inc). JEHoover and proto-FBI Palmer Raids/ Red Scare deportations Emmag Goldman [Berkman shot Frick/Carnegie; Gen Otis LAT bomb].

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Ally w/ USSR Stalin Uncle Joe to best Nazi facsits. Fastest industrialization in history despite civil wars and sabotage by US/Eur? A-bomb 1948? Stalin paranoia --> totalitarian police state;

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1920's post-war prosperity; mail catalogues, buy radio in credit --> stocks on the margin. Inequality // 2007. Absentee RR land speculators --> Dust Bowl extraction. Worster maxims; dual system failures; Great Depression foster unions solidarity? FDR ok'd 1935? Labor Relations Act (not blk/brown agric and domestic workers). New Deal CCC/WPA WWII mass deficit spending (Keynes).

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Great Migration (2 waves? Jim Crow post-Reconstruction) out of South to Northern WWII factory jobs (military segregated, Port Chicago explosion, Inouye 442nd // camps, Code talkers)

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Post- WWII prosperity, woman put back in home --> suburbs; unions strong so shared prosperity IKe 90% tax bracket; Cold War red Scare Mccarthy witch hunt silenced any collectivist ideas; CRM, 60's --> Powell memo, COINTELPRO

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Watergate

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80's Reagan ctr-revolution, Kochs libtard hyper-individualism, gov't inept --> oppressor Tea party (Kochs can't win election, ideas eg pvtize SS unpopular, so co-opt GOP) ~ BO Birther trump (who takes over the GOP from Kochs, possible because decades of anti-gubmint pro-Free mkt BS)

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Great recession Gramms dereg, Clinton triangulated Glass-Stegall;

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Tea party wave 2010 climate zombies; Occupy

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Citizens United 2010 unlimited secret corp cash/dark money Money = Speech, corps = ppl.

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COVID lays bare bankrupt libtard BS (won't fund hosp beds, ventilators or even vaccine). But somehow 70 million in Trump death cult, got more votes than 2016, educated white woman;

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WHERE IS THE WE? contrast to ME in story 1?

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