Results For "current affairs"

Rarely do such stark opportunities emerge to rise to one’s professed principles or to sink to rank hypocrisy as this moment for Republicans. What will it be? Will they prove themselves to be a party of principle or a party interested only in gathering unto itself increasing political power? Will they, now that the shoe is on the other foot, treat Democrats as they demanded they be treated in 2016?

That’s the real irony of this looming crisis: Republicans wrap themselves in the pages of the Bible, proclaiming themselves to be the vanguard of all that’s decent — according to their definition of the term, which is always couched in religious ideals. But when it comes down to it, they are no more interested in principles or basic decency than your average thug.

In Armando Iannucci’s brilliant The Death of Stalin, there’s a telling scene in which Lavrentiy Beria, facing his own doom, demands to be treated in accordance with the law and then begs for mercy. In his brutal career, he faced such pleas countless times, I’m sure, and he always responded with barbarity and cruelty. When he lost power, he begged for just that which he would not give to others.

Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz are on record:

So when Mitch McConnell said “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,” he showed himself to be perhaps the best, clearest example of a hypocrite that one could imagine. It’s hard to envision a more clear-cut case of blatant, power-grabbing hypocrisy than what we’re witnessing now in the Republican party.

Any Congressional Republicans who go along with this show their constituency that they are not individuals of their words, that they are the basest liars, that they should not be entrusted with any power, and on the basis of principle alone, their Republican constituents should vote them out.

Will this happen? Of course not. Why won’t Republicans do this? Because the Republican party no longer exists. It is a party of only one principle, and that’s power. Republican states are no longer red states (Isn’t it ironic that the color for Republicans is the color associated with communism? Isn’t it ironic how cozy our current Republican president is with the Russian leader trying desperately to reconstitute Soviet power?); they are orange states, to match the hue of their lord and savior.

We go through our lives with basic assumptions that we often never question. Some of those assumptions are small, relatively insignificant; others involve reality on a global scale.

Take for instance the Cold War: growing up, I never thought it would end. And yet it did. I never would have conceived of the Soviet Union not existing; and it’s been gone close to thirty years now.

What about the threat of Germany? We mostly thought some kind of far-right resurgence could never happen — at least I always thought that. At least in my adulthood. In my childhood — that’s a different story. At any rate, an interesting article appeared in the New York Times the other day about just what I have thought all my adult life is impossible:

One central motivation of the extremists has seemed so far-fetched and fantastical that for a long time the authorities and investigators did not take it seriously, even as it gained broader currency in far-right circles.

Neo-Nazi groups and other extremists call it Day X — a mythical moment when Germany’s social order collapses, requiring committed far-right extremists, in their telling, to save themselves and rescue the nation.

Today Day X preppers are drawing serious people with serious skills and ambition. Increasingly, the German authorities consider the scenario a pretext for domestic terrorism by far-right plotters or even for a takeover of the government.

“I fear we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg,” said Dirk Friedriszik, a lawmaker in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where Nordkreuz was founded. “It isn’t just the KSK. The real worry is: These cells are everywhere. In the army, in the police, in reservist units.”

New York Times

I’m such an anti-conspiracy theorist that I forget that people actually do conspire sometimes…

I saw this the other day, and I can’t really stop thinking about it.

This could, of course, go both ways: a supporter or opponent of Trump could post this, but the old acquaintance who posted this is, I think, a fairly staunch Trump supporter.

I usually refrain from saying much of anything on social media these days except to share pictures of the family with other family members, but I couldn’t let this one alone for some reason. Or rather, I chose not to.

“So now we’re reveling in hyper-partisanship and its destructive effects on relationships?” I asked. A bit provocative? Unduly sarcastic? I tried to be neither.

The response: “You’re more than welcome to unfriend me if you can’t handle my opinions 😊.”

I thought about that response for a while. Was she perhaps hoping I would do so? I don’t know. But it made me realize that that’s what the whole enterprise is about: politicize your feed to the point that people who have different political views just no longer think it’s worth their time to wade your stuff. In this case, she would probably see it as “getting rid of the snowflakes;” a liberal might define it as “getting rid of the wingnuts.”

“Oh, there’s no problem handling them,” I replied. “Just leaves me shaking my head that politics defines (and then breaks) so much today.”

Party Allegiance

From Anne Applebaum’s latest article in The Atlantic:

The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory is in its simplicity. It explains away complex phenomena, accounts for chance and accidents, offers the believer the satisfying sense of having special, privileged access to the truth. But—once again—separating the appeal of conspiracy from the ways it affects the careers of those who promote it is very difficult. For those who become the one-party state’s gatekeepers, for those who repeat and promote the official conspiracy theories, acceptance of these simple explanations also brings another reward: power. (Source)

The conspiracy theories swirling around in Poland right now about who was responsible for the disaster at Smolensk includes thought Jews were somehow responsible, that the Russians did it, that the previous administration — kind of like the deep state conspiracy theory in the States — was responsible don’t at first appear similar to the conspiracy theories in the States like birtherism, Pizzagate, and the malicious omnipotence of George Soros. But Applebaum’s article points out some frightening similarities in the central commonality of all these conspiracy theories: the politicians who encourage and spread them do so as part of a mechanism to solidify power.

It’s been happening in Poland for some time now, and Applebaum’s article draws some parallels with how such thinking developed in Poland and led to an unquestioned leaning away from democracy. Both countries have experienced a demonization of the press, with our own president going so far as to call it the enemy of the people. A free press is only the enemy of someone with totalitarian aspirations, someone who looks at demagogues admiringly. Both countries are incredibly polarized with differing definitions even of the truth. Civil discussion has become all but impossible for many, and the article discusses how these political differences have divided and broken families. I’m sure it’s happened here in the States as well.

The article is worth a read.