I know it’s complicated but…

  

Was/Is The American Experiment destined to eventually fail?

"Is it possible for a Government to be permanently maintained without privileged classes, without a standing army, and without either hereditary or self-appointed rulers? Is the democratic principle of equal rights, general suffrage, and government by a majority, capable of being carried into practical operation, and that, too, over a large extent of country?"

If NO, why not?  What keeps or will keep The American Experiment together/keep it going?

• Your reasons here

If YES, what are the possible reasons for its eventual failure?  Examples:

• Too much diversity (races, creeds, colors, etc)
• Too much individuality over a collective mindset (versus, say, China)
• Too much liberty (DFS, R-wing/L-wing media influence, torts abuse, etc)
• Not enough liberty (Patriot Act, privacy issues, ACLU influence, etc)
• Not enough “Ask what you can do for your country” and
• Too much “Ask what your country can do for you”
• Too much heretofore “white privilege” being lost and/or undermined
• Too little higher education and critical thinking classes
• Too much influence on politics and decision-making by “fly-over” country
• Too much Hollywood (glitz and glamour over substance, car crashes, movie stars/sports stars worship/delusions of wannabe grandeur, “wrong kind” of hero worship, etc)
• Too little (i.e., flimsy) values (sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, “me me me” thinking, immediate gratification wants, etc)
• The good idea of Capitalism used and abused to the point of too much greed (deregulation in the name of profits, slave/poverty wages, tax loopholes, unfair tax laws, etc)
• Nothing or very little to unite (i.e., no common values)
• Other
  

How long (in years) do you give the American Experiment to survive?

Did Kamala Harris Encourage or Support People Who Rioted in Seattle and Portland?

Kamala Harris - insurrectionist and murdering rioter supporter, 

or peaceful protest supporter?

CONTEXT

Criticisms of President Biden, his administration and democrats generally are coming fast and vicious. The 2022 election season is well-underway. So far, most attacks seem to be significantly or completely grounded in lies, misleading statements, partisan motivated (flawed) reasoning, etc. One of the attacks is on statements that Harris made about protesters in the weeks before the 2020 election. The radical right characterizes her statements as open support for insurrection, violent riots and lawlessness. 

These days, when the radical right hurls accusations at political or social opposition, it seems to usually be the case that they are projecting and often the targets are not doing much or any of the accused bad behavior. Is that the case with Harris? Three different analyses by reliable sources say that Harris did not express support for riots or illegal protest. The three analyses are by AP, Reuters and the fact checking organization, Snopes.

Three separate analyses

AP Oct. 8, 2020 analysis: 

CLAIM: Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris encouraged the rioters that are destroying American cities to keep going, saying, “they’re not gonna stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after Election Day, and they should not.”


AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. Harris was talking about protesters, not rioters, during a June interview with CBS “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert. The conversation focused on marching and protests, with no mention of riots.

FALSE: A June quote from California Sen. Kamala Harris about protest movements has surfaced anew in a social media post that uses it to misleadingly paint the vice presidential candidate as a cheerleader of rioting and destruction.

Reuters Oct. 29, 2020 analysis: 

The video being shared by social media users ( youtu.be/5XxLR2r5oPg ) shows a clip of Harris on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert saying: “But they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop. They’re not. This is a movement. I’m telling you. They’re not going to stop, and everyone, beware. Because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before election day in November, and they are not going to stop after election day. And everyone should take note of that on both levels. That they’re not going to let up. And they should not, and we should not.”

Above the video clip there is the headline: “Harris on BLM riots: ‘Beware,’ they’re not gonna stop.”

Captions with the video include, “Democrats like rioters. They like terrorists. They support looters and arsonists. Democrats hate America. Crush the Democrats.” (here; “Kamala Harris continually advocates for riots and disruption as a valid response.” ( here ); “Kamala Harris promises that the BLM riots will not stop. They will continue until election day and beyond.” ( here )

Harris condemned violent protests on Aug. 27 after multiple nights of looting and two violent deaths.

She said, “It’s no wonder people are taking to the streets and I support them. We must always defend peaceful protest and peaceful protestors. We should not confuse them with those looting and committing acts of violence, including the shooter who was arrested for murder. And make no mistake, we will not let these vigilantes and extremists derail the path to justice.” ( here ) 

Harris joined anti-racism protests following the death of George Floyd. She wrote about her support for the protests and her experience at the protests in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Sentinel here .


VERDICT

Partly false. Harris’ comments on The Late Show expressing support for protests are authentic. However, there is no mention of riots or violent protests in this interview. Harris has previously condemned violent protests.

Snopes Oct. 7, 2020 analysis: 

They’re not gonna stop […] this is a movement I’m telling you, they’re not gonna stop. And everyone beware, because they’re not gonna stop, they’re not gonna stop before election day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after election day […] and everyone should take note of that on both levels, that they’re not gonna let up, and they should not, and we should not.

These were indeed her words from the interview on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in June. While Harris did make that statement, she was not speaking out in favor of the rioting, however. The statement in question appears towards the end of the clip below at around 5:25:

For context, Colbert had asked Harris about her participation in a protest in Washington D.C. over the summer. She spoke about her family history of activism, and in favor of protesters who were asking for justice and accountability. Riots were not mentioned in the clip. Excerpts of the transcript can be found below:

Harris: I learned that the greatest movements that we have seen in recent history in our country and probably since the beginning have been born out of protest, have been born out of understanding the power of the people to take to the streets and force their government to address what is wrong, the inequities, the inequalities, the unfairness, but also the conscience of a government is its people, to force the government to be true to the ideals that we say we hold dear and almost every one of those marches has been about one fundamental ideal in our country which is equal justice under law […] These protests are the catalyst to getting there.

[…]

Harris: The only way we are truly going to achieve change is when there are people in the system who are willing and pushing to do it, and when there are those folks who are outside of the system demanding it. I am very clear that some of the success that we are able to achieve around criminal justice reform would not have happened in recent years were it not for Black Lives Matter.

[…]

Colbert: I want to make clear that I know that there are protests still happening in major cities across the United States, I’m just not seeing the reporting on it that I had for the first few weeks […]

Harris: They’re not gonna stop […] this is a movement I’m telling you, they’re not gonna stop. And everyone beware, because they’re not gonna stop, they’re not gonna stop before election day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after election day […] and everyone should take note of that on both levels, that they’re not gonna let up, and they should not, and we should not.

Harris has previously condemned the riots that led to looting and violence during some of the protests, and said she supports peaceful protesters. In August, she reacted to the violence that occurred during demonstrations against the police-involved shooting of Jacob Blake, another Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Seventeen-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, the alleged perpetrator, was arrested on homicide charges after shootings in which two people were killed and a third injured.

Of the anti-police brutality protesters, Harris said: “We should not confuse them with those looting and committing acts of violence, including the shooter who was arrested for murder. And make no mistake, we will not let these vigilantes and extremists derail the path to justice.”

So, does Harris support riots, violence and/or illegal protests? Is she just as bad as the former president who tried to overthrow the government by force and is in the process of consolidating his iron grip on the now fascist, lies and blind hate-driven GOP?

The Monster Flexes Its Claws

A warning

“It is the thesis of this book that modern man, freed from the bonds of pre-individualistic society, which simultaneously gave him security and limited him, has not gained freedom in the positive sense of the realization of his individual self; that is, the expression of his intellectual, emotional and sensuous potentialities. Freedom though it has brought him independence and rationality, has made him isolated, and thereby, anxious and isolated. This isolation is unbearable and the alternatives he is confronted with are either to escape from the burden of his freedom, or to advance to the full realization of positive freedom which is based upon the uniqueness and individuality of man. .... the understanding of the reasons for the flight from freedom is a premise for any action which aims at the victory over the totalitarian forces.” -- Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, 1941

The New York Times writes:

In his first public appearance since leaving office, Donald Trump went through, by name, every Republican who supported his second impeachment and called for them to be ousted.

After days of insisting they could paper over their intraparty divisions, Republican lawmakers were met with a grim reminder of the challenge ahead on Sunday when former President Donald J. Trump stood before a conservative conference and ominously listed the names of Republicans he is targeting for defeat.

In an address on Sunday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, his first public appearance since he left the White House, Mr. Trump read a sort of hit list of every congressional Republican who voted to impeach him, all but vowing revenge.

“The RINOs that we’re surrounded with will destroy the Republican Party and the American worker and will destroy our country itself,” he said, a reference to the phrase “Republicans In Name Only,” adding that he would be “actively working to elect strong, tough and smart Republican leaders.”

Mr. Trump took special care to single out Representative Liz Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader. He called Ms. Cheney “a warmonger” and said her “poll numbers have dropped faster than any human being I’ve ever seen.” Then he falsely claimed he had helped revive Mr. McConnell’s campaign last year in Kentucky.  

Mr. Trump was the exception, repeatedly taking aim at the Biden administration. “In just one short month, we have gone from America first to America last,” he said, criticizing the new president on issues ranging from immigration to the Iran nuclear deal. “We all knew that the Biden administration was going to be bad, but none of us even imagined just how bad they would be and how far left they would go.” 

Mr. Trump made a specific pitch for people to donate to two committees associated with him, a notable move given that he has been the Republican National Committee’s biggest draw for the last four years. He gave an explicit description of “Trumpism” as a political ideology focused on geopolitical deal-making and immigration restrictions, and painted the Republicans who voted for impeachment as decided outliers in an otherwise united party. 

“The Supreme Court didn’t have the guts or the courage to do anything about it,” Mr. Trump said of a body that includes three of his appointees. He was met with chants of “You won, you won!” (emphasis added)

The monster is not repentant. It never was competent or honest. It continues to rely heavily on dark free speech, especially vicious lies and crackpot appeals to irrational fear and rage, to keep American society and politics torn apart. McConnell and Cheney are now RINOs to be hunted down and booted out of the fascist GOP cult. If they are a danger to the GOP, and they are to the monster's vision of it, and will destroy America, what do you think it will say about the threat to America from democrats and others who oppose the monster? 

Just think about all of that. If the beast succeeds, consider exactly what will be left of that empty shell of a formerly pro-democracy political party. One man, in just about five years will have dragged it down, killed it, fed on the carcass and turned the party into a fantasy and lies-based fascist cult that tolerates badness, e.g., corruption, bigotry and incompetence. One can consider the pre-monster GOP to have been morally and intellectually bankrupt. The monster accurately sensed that weakness and let itself simply be sucked into the vacuum that it quickly filled with its toxic dark free speech and bigoted anti-democratic fascism.

That is how fragile democracy and freedom are. That is how much danger democracy and freedom are in. That is what Erich Fromm was warning us about.

Or, does that overstate the threat? Did Fromm get the analysis wrong? The monster's supporters see no threat from their leader or their patriotic and honorable party. They do see dire threat from political opposition, the democratic party, President Biden, the LGBQT community, the free press, communism, socialism, secularism and other hated groups, people, ideas and anti-fascist institutions. Are they correct in their assessment?

Large bipartisan majority of Americans favor more COVID economic relief

 THE REPUBLICANS ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY ON THIS ISSUE

A very large and bipartisan majority of Americans would support congressional passage of a new stimulus bill to help those impacted by the pandemic, and many would prefer that it receive bipartisan support in Congress, too. Meanwhile, a majority give President Joe Biden good marks for his handling of the coronavirus outbreak, and for his job as president overall in the opening weeks of his administration. 

MORE DETAILS:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-economic-relief-support-opinion-poll/

ASLO NOTABLE:

Book Review: Escape From Freedom

Erich Fromm - 1974

Context

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) was a German Jew who fled the Nazis and settled in the US. He was a co-founder of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He wrote Escape From Freedom in 1941 in response to what he was as the sources of authoritarianism in the human condition and the grave threat to freedom this aspect of humans posed to democracy. 

This review is based on the original 1941 Foreword and a newer 1965 Foreword (9 pages). They lay out his vision of humanity and the source of threats to democracy that are inherent in modern civilization. I focus on the two Forewords because they describe Fromm's desire or goal for the human condition that is basically identical to what I came to believe about what might be possible and have tried to convey here as pragmatic rationalism. In essence, Fromm recognized and articulated the intellectual framework for pragmatic rationalism in 1941, about 70 years before I came to also see the same threat and to some extent, its human origins. 

What Fromm saw clearly that I did not fully understand, only sensed, was the social unease that leads some or many people to need to escape from freedom into the comforting arms of reassuring demagogues and authoritarians or dictators and their reassuring lies, deceit, emotional manipulation and motivated reasoning. This need for psychological comfort and tribe is apparently universal in all societies.

Review

Given the urgency of the situation in 1941, Fromm interrupted his much broader life long investigation of the human condition in modern civilization. In Escape From Freedom, Fromm focuses on the meaning of freedom for modern man. After Escape, he wrote The Sane Society which expanded on the themes he laid out in Escape. In The Heart of Man, Fromm focused on the origins of hate and destructiveness. 

In the 1941 Foreword, Fromm wrote: 

"Pointing out the significance of psychological considerations does not imply, in my opinion, an overestimation of psychology. .... It is the thesis of this book that modern man, freed from the bonds of pre-individualistic society, which simultaneously gave him security and limited him, has not gained freedom in the positive sense of the realization of his individual self; that is, the expression of his intellectual, emotional and sensuous potentialities. Freedom though it has brought him independence and rationality, has made him isolated, and thereby, anxious and isolated. This isolation is unbearable and the alternatives he is confronted with are either to escape from the burden of his freedom, or to advance to the full realization of positive freedom which is based upon the uniqueness and individuality of man. .... the understanding of the reasons for the flight from freedom is a premise for any action which aims at the victory over the totalitarian forces." 

In the 1965 Foreword, Fromm wrote: 

"Escape From Freedom is an analysis of the phenomenon of man's anxiety engendered by the breakdown of the Medieval World in which, in spite of many dangers, he felt himself secure and safe. .... modern man is still anxious and tempted to surrender his freedoms to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed and well clothed, yet not a free man but an automaton. .... There can be no doubt that in this last quarter of a century the reasons for man's fear of freedom, for his anxiety and willingness to become an automaton, have not only continued but have greatly increased."

Fromm goes on to point to nuclear weapons, the nascent rise of fast thinking computers and fast acting giant corporations, and overpopulation are all factors that tend to undermine a comfortable Medieval-type sense of self and social place that some (most?) people need. 

He goes on to firmly reject the criticism that despite psychological insight and knowledge, that science cannot be translated into social progress and benefit:

"It becomes ever increasingly clear to many students of man and of the contemporary scene that the crucial difficulty with which we are confronted lies in the fact that the development of man's intellectual capacities has far outstripped the development of his emotions. Man's brain lives in the twentieth century; the heart of most men still live in the Stone Age. The majority of men have not yet acquired the the maturity to be independent, to be rational, to be objective. They need myths and idols to endure the fact that man is all by himself, that there is no authority which give meaning to life except man himself. .... How can mankind save itself from destroying itself by this discrepancy between intellectual-technical over-maturity and emotional backwardness?

As far as I can see there is only one answer: the increasing awareness of the most essential facts of our social existence, an awareness sufficient to prevent us from committing irreparable follies, and to raise to some small extent our capacity for objectivity and reason. We cannot hope to overcome most follies of the heart and their detrimental influence on our imagination and thought in one generation .... At this crucial moment, however, a modicum of increased insight -- objectivity-- can make the difference between life and death for the human race. .... Progress in social psychology is necessary to counteract the dangers which arise from the progress in physics and medicine."

 Does any of that sound familiar to people who are familiar with Dissident Politics? Most of that sounds very familiar to me. The social goals Fromm articulates, just a small increase in objectivity and reason, are identical to one key goal of pragmatic rationalism. The hope is the same: try to coax humanity away from self-annihilation and toward long-term sell being and survival. The tactic is the same: teach people self-awareness so they can better understand themselves and better defend themselves against the reassuring dark free speech[1] that demagogues and tyrants know is the path to power and wealth.

Dang, I feel vindicated once again. What a great book.

Footnote: 

1. Dark free speech: Constitutionally or legally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse, polarize and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism, and (4) ideologically-driven motivated reasoning and other ideologically-driven biases that unreasonably distort reality and reason. (my label, my definition)

A Conservative Culture War Grounded in Arrogance, Ignorance, Disrespect and Lies

Rand Paul - arrogant, ignorant, disrespectful

A Washington Post article discusses the way senator Rand Paul (R-KY) treated Rachel Levine, the physician nominated to become the Biden administration’s assistant secretary of health in her confirmation hearing. 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), however, seemed more interested in talking about children’s genitals.

“Dr. Levine, you have supported [minors] being given hormone blockers, and surgical reconstruction of a child’s genitalia,” Paul said, in a tirade in which he also conflated genital mutilation (a horrifying practice that public health experts view as a human rights violation) with the transition-related surgeries chosen by some transgender individuals to help their bodies conform with their gender identity.

Levine, who most recently worked as Pennsylvania’s top health official, is transgender. If her nomination succeeds, she will become the first publicly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. She would have been within her rights to be enraged by Paul’s ignorance, but she responded on Thursday by repeating a steady message: “Transgender medicine is a complex and nuanced field,” she said twice. It was composed of “robust research,” and standards of care. She would be happy, she said, to come to Paul’s office and discuss the issue in-depth.

She repeatedly thanked him for the opportunity to answer his questions, even the demeaning ones.

She kept her hands folded on the table, while Paul jabbed his finger in the air and dismissively scoffed, “If you’ve ever been around children — 14-year-olds cannot make this decision.” (Levine is a pediatrician who created the Penn State Hershey Medical Center’s adolescent medicine division. Paul is an eye doctor.)

Paul did not seem at all curious about the medical matter at hand, in which he had no expertise. He was instead “alarmed” and “outraged.” He claimed to be worried about the children, but paid no heed to guidance of medical organizations — including the American Academy of Pediatrics — that recommend treating gender-diverse children by affirming their gender identities.

In Paul’s telling, children chose to be transgender because of peer pressure, or pressure from doctors. In his world, those children would be fine if only doctors like Levine would deny them treatment. That bill had inspired similar reactions from Republican lawmakers. 

Paul’s stand against medical treatment for transgender kids occurred on the same day that the House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on the Equality Act, a bill that would amend the Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. 

“Equality for who?” demanded Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) from the House floor Wednesday night. “Where is the equality in this legislation for the young girls across America who will have to look behind their backs as they change in their school locker rooms, just to make sure there isn’t a confused man trying to catch a peek?” 

Boebert then meandered on to “liberal indoctrination camps — also called colleges and universities — and “radical ideology,” and she warned that the left would “imprison” and “take [the] children” of anyone who disagreed with them. (emphasis added)

Yes, indeed. Children choose to be transgendered because of peer and doctor pressure, just like homosexuals do. It's those darned liberal indoctrination camps. You know, the ones called cities and urban areas. They're infested with enemies of the people and the state, such as democrats, liberals, the LGBQT community, people who oppose the ex-president and other evil miscreants. Those radical liberals want to take the children from good people and turn them into transgendered people.

One can only wonder at the fact that evil people in the liberal indoctrination camps outnumber the patriots in the rest of the country. Could this deranged crackpottery be mostly a matter of some combination of irrational fear, arrogance, ignorance, disrespect and lies? 

Lauren Boebert (R-CO) - arrogant, ignorant, liar