Old home, new home, striking similarities

 Now that I am firmly replanted back in Canada, I thought I would drop this little nugget on Germaine and friends.

Leaving "home", small-town Minnesota for the 2nd time, was not easy. Leaving behind the country I was born in. But I have been struck with how similar the two countries have become.

Let me explain:

I moved back to Minnesota in 2009, thrilled that my home country had finally grown up and elected a black President. Then 2016 happened.

As for my home town, not much had changed, and still hasn't changed, despite the change in mood in the country. We have been and continue to be a progressive town, but the demographics have changed slightly since my childhood.

Now most of the convenience stores, gas stations, and some restaurants are owned and run by East Asian and South Asian people. I have seen no animosity towards this group. The town had, in my original absence of living in Canada, become a bit more upscale. Fancier boutiques, coffee shops, gift shops. But all in all, the town has retained it's charm, and it's progressive views.

The shame is, the country around it has changed, and not for the better. I feel like a father abandoning a struggling child. Makes me sad.

Now contrast THAT to my new home. The town I am moving back to has always had it's problems but also it's charms. Not much has changed. Like my home town in Minny, there are now a few more fancier shops and upscale restaurants. BUT what the residents of this northern Ontario town love is the big city amenities but the small town "feel." People here are general kind, generous, willing to help a neighbor and lack the standoffishness you find in some big cities.

BUT...as with the U.S, the country has changed. Canada has now it's fair share of anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, anti-mandates. NOT as bad as the U.S, but still.....

We had the truckers protest, Conservative politicians are starting to sound more like American conservatives than Canadian ones.

Have far-right radicals infiltrated Canada’s conservative parties?

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/04/29/opinion/far-right-radicals-infiltrated-canada-conservative-parties-commission

Is this the shape of the world to come? Where a socialist paradise like Canada is starting to slide into some of the same political wonkiness that is infecting the U.S.?

In my case, I have been fortunate to leave both a progressive small town in Minny, and move into a larger town but with still a very calm and generous population here in Ontario. I know we can't all be that lucky.

Future elections in both countries will be ever the more important because of the changes we are seeing. At least - SO FAR - Canadian conservatives haven't embraced the stolen election mantra - SO FAR!

Here is hoping that this one bit of sanity will still prevail here in Canada, and will eventually return to American politics.

Republicans punish companies trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

A coal fired plant in staunchly 

pro-pollution West Virginia

The Republican Party is serious about maintaining high levels of pollution. It is only in that sense that Republican elites take climate change seriously. The GOP is dead serious about ignoring climate change and continuing to pollute as much as possible, as fast as possible, as long as possible. The New York Times writes:

How Republicans Are ‘Weaponizing’ Public Office Against Climate Action

A Times investigation revealed a coordinated effort by state treasurers to use government muscle and public funds to punish companies trying to reduce greenhouse gases.

Nearly two dozen Republican state treasurers around the country are working to thwart climate action on state and federal levels, fighting regulations that would make clear the economic risks posed by a warming world, lobbying against climate-minded nominees to key federal posts and using the tax dollars they control to punish companies that want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Over the past year, treasurers in nearly half the United States have been coordinating tactics and talking points, meeting in private and cheering each other in public as part of a well-funded campaign to protect the fossil fuel companies that bolster their local economies.

Last week, Riley Moore, the treasurer of West Virginia, announced that several major banks — including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo — would be barred from government contracts with his state because they are reducing their investments in coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.  

Mr. Moore and the treasurers of Louisiana and Arkansas have pulled more than $700 million out of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment manager, over objections that the firm is too focused on environmental issues. At the same time, the treasurers of Utah and Idaho are pressuring the private sector to drop climate action and other causes they label as “woke.”

And treasurers from Pennsylvania, Arizona and Oklahoma joined a larger campaign to thwart the nominations of federal regulators who wanted to require that banks, funds and companies disclose the financial risks posed by a warming planet.

At the nexus of these efforts is the State Financial Officers Foundation, a little-known nonprofit organization based in Shawnee, Kan., that once focused on cybersecurity, borrowing costs and managing debt loads, among other routine issues. 

Mr. Moore went on to offer a classic denial of the overwhelming scientific consensus that the continued burning of oil, gas and coal will lead to planetary catastrophe.

“The climate has been changing in the world since Earth was created,” Mr. Moore said. “Whether these greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to the warming of the globe, I’m not sure I necessarily agree with that.”

The Republican Party’s one and only statement of concern about climate change in Rick Scott’s 11 point plan to make America fascist and kleptocratic again, with rivers occasionally spontaneously erupting into flames:

“The weather is always changing. We take climate change seriously, but not hysterically. We will not adopt nutty policies that harm our economy or our jobs.”

So in addition to chronically rejecting and lying about inconvenient truth and constantly attacking and subverting democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties, the Republican Party is hell bent on turning the environment into hell on Earth. The reasons are the usual for the Republicans, power and wealth. According to Republican and polluter propaganda, concern for climate change and the environment is just socialist wokeness. The morally corrupt, fascist, pro-pollution Republican Party will have none of that nonsense.

The GOP, the go-to party for polluters like Exxon-Mobile and coal companies to exercise their free speech rights (campaign contributions). There will be no nutty policies while the Republicans are in charge. But there will be gigatons of pollution and trillions in environmental damage.

What nature should look like according

to the Republican Party

From the not surprising things files: The FBI non-investigation of Brett Kavanaugh

 Vanity Fair writes:

THE FBI CONFIRMS ITS BRETT KAVANAUGH 

INVESTIGATION WAS A TOTAL SHAM

Oh, well, it’s not like he received a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court or anything.

That sense of outrage only deepened last year, when we learned that the FBI had received 4,500—4,500!—tips about Kavanaugh, which were referred to the White House, i.e. the organization trying to get the guy confirmed to the Court. And now, the FBI has confirmed that, yeah, it didn’t really feel the need to look into any of those tips, and when it did follow up on some, the White House was making sure it didn’t dig too far.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse uncovered the Republican cover-up while questioning FBI director Christ Wray.

Whitehouse: And I’d like to try to get that matter wrapped up. First, is it true that after Kavanaugh-related tips were separated from regular tip-line traffic, they were forwarded to White House counsel without investigation?

Wray: I apologize in advance that it has been frustrating for you. We have tried to be clear about our process. So when it comes to the tip line, we wanted to make sure that the White House had all the information we have, so when the hundreds of calls started coming in, we gathered those up, reviewed them, and provided them to the White House—

Whitehouse: Without investigation?

Wray [long pause]: We reviewed them and then provided them to—

Whitehouse: You reviewed them for purposes of separating them from tip-line traffic, but did not further investigate the ones that related to Kavanaugh, correct?

Wray: Correct.

Whitehouse: Is it also true that, in that supplemental B.I. [background investigation], the FBI took direction from the White House as to whom the FBI would question, and even what questions the FBI could ask?

Wray: So, it is true that, consistent with the longstanding process that we have had going all the way back to at least the Bush administration, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, and continue to follow currently under the Biden administration, that in a limited supplemental B.I., we take direction from the requesting entity, which in this case was the White House, as to what follow-up they want.

.... the “requesting entity” is the Donald Trump White House, which had a vested interest in not probing allegations of sexual misconduct, given who was running the joint.

Anyway, now Justice Beer Bong has helped take away the rights of half the country—and who knows what’s coming next!

And sadly, that is just how easy it is for a corrupt White House to subvert the rule of law, while deceiving and insulting the American people. 

One can reasonably argue that the morally rotted, beer boofing liar, Justice Beer Bong is illegitimate and a sexual predator. Impeach that toad. And fire whoever is left in government who was complicit. And, get rid of that asinine the longstanding process going all the way back to at least the Bush administration that allows a White House to subvert the rule of law.

Yeah right. That will happen when pigs fly. 

“The lives of the richest [and most powerful] people in the world are so different from those of the rest of us, it's almost literally unimaginable. National borders are nothing to them. They might as well not exist. The laws are nothing to them. They might as well not exist.” -- Sociologist Brooke Harrington [and Germaine] 

 

China’s digital dictatorship update: When propaganda backfires -- it could kill us all

The New York Times writes on a Chinese public backlash against the dictators for not invading Taiwan in the wake of Pelosi’s recent trip to Taiwan. The Chinese people were really angry that the People’s Liberation Army (actually the People’s Oppression Army) did not invade to avenge the terrible insult and severe threat that they were told by Chinese propaganda Pelosi’s visit constituted. Many Chinese were fixin’ to go to war, and instead they got blithering rhetoric and a few missiles lobbed around in the ocean. 

The NYT writes:

It doesn’t often happen that ordinary Chinese say publicly that they’re disappointed with their government. That they’re ashamed of their government. That they want to renounce their Communist Party memberships. And that they think the People’s Liberation Army is a waste of taxpayers’ money.

No military action in the Taiwan Strait, as they felt they had been led to expect. No shoot-down, no missile attack, no fighter jet flying next to Ms. Pelosi’s plane. Just some denunciations and announcements of military exercises.

Many people complained that they felt let down and lied to by the government. “Don’t put on a show of power if you don’t have the power,” wrote a Weibo user with the handle @shanshanmeiyoulaichi2hao shortly after the flight’s landing. “What a loss of face!”

Some users compared the People’s Liberation Army to the Chinese men’s soccer team, a laughingstock in the country because it has qualified for the World Cup only once. They sneered at the announcement that the P.L.A. would conduct military exercises near Taiwan. “Save some gas,” said one WeChat user. “It’s very expensive now,” responded another.

On WeChat, the comments section for a short video about a military exercise became a board for dissatisfied people to whine. Among thousands of comments, a few Communist Party members said they would like to quit out of shame. A military veteran said he would probably never mention his army experience again. “Too angry to fall asleep,” commented a user with the handle @xiongai.

Many users seemed especially disappointed with the foreign ministry. “When China said ‘strongly condemn’ and ‘solemnly declare,’ it was only for the purpose of amusing ordinary folks like us,” wrote a Weibo user with the handle @shizhendemaolulu, referring to the language that foreign ministry spokespeople used about Ms. Pelosi’s visit.

“So tough when it comes to domestic governance and so cowardly in foreign affairs,” the user wrote. “Utterly disappointed!”  

“Nationalism is becoming a core pillar of both the party’s and Xi’s personal political legitimacy,” Kevin Rudd, the chief executive of the Asia Society and a former prime minister of Australia, wrote in his book “The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the U.S. and Xi Jinping’s China.”

The broader point: Propaganda can be lethal and catastrophic

So there you have it propaganda fans. Aggressive, jingoistic Chinese Government propaganda leads some, maybe tens of millions of Chinese citizens, to be enthusiastic about starting World War 3 over a visit by a US politician to a disputed territory. Those people probably have no idea of what the aftermath of a nuclear war with the US would look like. They are clueless in their propaganda fantasy.

Recall the American Committee on Public Information? It was a massive US government propaganda effort to whip up public support for entering into World War 1. It worked. Americans flipped from ambivalence and opposition to support. Americans who opposed US entry into WW1 were vilified as traitors. So, they went to war and got slaughtered, but in the end the world was not safe for democracy. And its still isn’t in 2022, even in America.

Wikipedia writes:

The Committee on Public Information (1917–1919), also known as the CPI or the Creel Committee, was an independent agency of the government of the United States under the Wilson administration created to influence public opinion to support the US in World War I, in particular, the US home front.

In just over 26 months (from April 14, 1917, to June 30, 1919) it used every medium available to create enthusiasm for the war effort and to enlist public support against the foreign and perceived domestic attempts to stop America's participation in the war. It is a notable example of propaganda in the United States.

Wilson established the first modern propaganda office, the Committee on Public Information (CPI), headed by George Creel. Creel set out to systematically reach every person in the United States multiple times with patriotic information about how the individual could contribute to the war effort. It also worked with the post office to censor seditious counter-propaganda. Creel set up divisions in his new agency to produce and distribute innumerable copies of pamphlets, newspaper releases, magazine advertisements, films, school campaigns, and the speeches of the Four Minute Men. CPI created colorful posters that appeared in every store window, catching the attention of the passersby for a few seconds. Movie theaters were widely attended, and the CPI trained thousands of volunteer speakers to make patriotic appeals during the four-minute breaks needed to change reels. They also spoke at churches, lodges, fraternal organizations, labor unions, and even logging camps. .... Creel boasted that in 18 months his 75,000 volunteers delivered over 7.5 million four minute orations to over 300 million listeners, in a nation of 103 million people. 

Propaganda’s intent:

Is a mushroom a vegetable?

How states would vote on abortion

The New York Times published a map that estimates how voters would vote on abortion if they had the chance to do so in a referendum like the one Kansas just had. Voters in seven states (in tan below) are estimated to be willing to vote against abortion rights in margins that range from 52% to 56%. The NYT estimated that at least 40 states would vote to retain abortion rights.

The upshot? Where Republicans control the legislature but public sentiment favors keeping abortion rights, voters will not be given a chance to vote on it. To pretend that the Republican Party is democratic and not authoritarian Christofascist, it might risk a vote in the three most anti-abortion states, LA, MS and AL. The Republicans would not dare to risk a vote in close states like UT, TX, SC, WV, ID or TN. 

That is how radical right Republicans play political and propaganda hardball. They play for keeps, no matter how many lives they destroy or kill. Republican Party cynical callousness and mendacity in politics and propaganda is no different than that used by the the carbon energy sector or the cigarette industry.

Why Republican elites embrace Viktor Orban

Hungarian President Viktor Orban is a key speaker opening the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas today. A 5 minute interview broadcast by NPR on Here & Now discussed why Trump Republicans openly embrace Orban. The interview was with Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University (her curriculum vitae is here). Schepple is an expert on Orban.

This is the best description I have encountered that explains why radical right Republican elites and fascist propaganda sources like Faux News (especially Tucker Carlson) are so powerfully drawn to and inspired by Orban. They find his messaging and tactics to be superb. 

What Schepple describes is terrifying in its clarity and simplicity.

In the 5 minute interview, Scheppele describes the rise of Orban and how he killed democracy in Hungary. Experts no longer consider Hungary to be a democracy. The actions he took to gain power and then kill democracy is what Republican Party leaders admire and are trying to emulate in America right now. The parallels are close and undeniable.

The key points:

• Orban gained power in 2010 based on nationalist and racist demagoguery and dog whistle culture war. People open to this kind of message flocked to him and put him in power. His demagoguery created a false narrative of White victimization and dire threat of Whites by non-White people and globalization.  
• Once in power Orban changed election rules to destroy free and fair elections. Elections after he came to power were heavily rigged. He has now been elected in three consecutive, heavily-rigged elections after gaining power in 2010. Those faux elections are the basis for his claim to legitimacy.
• At the same time he destroyed elections, Orban neutered other aspects of Hungarian democracy. He got rid of professional public servants loyal to the rule of law and the people of Hungary. He replaced them with people loyal to him. 
• Republicans see what Orban has done as a proof of concept in how to overthrow a democracy. The Orban overthrow model is shockingly simple: 

(1) start with culture wars to whip up a loyal base of public support, 

(2) once in power, manipulate the rules of democracy and government functions to cement minority rule, and 

(3) “win” rigged elections to stay in power.

Scheppele asserts that once a Republican is back in the White House, the Republican Party plan is to purge federal civil servants deemed not loyal enough. They are to be replaced with with people loyal to the president and Republican Party elites. She claims that Steven Bannon is now training Republicans to prepare for the purge when the day comes. 

Qs: 

1. Does any of the above sound familiar, or is Schepple full of hyperbole?

2. If one told these things to a rank and file T**** supporter, would they most likely believe it, mostly reject it, or mostly have some other reaction(s)?