Sunday, January 8, 2017

The 1987 TV Miniseries That Predicted a Russian Takeover of ...

Long since forgotten, ‘Amerika’ was a commercial and artistic flop. Watching it today makes for uncomfortable viewing.

By Bill Scher


Oscar Ameringer


Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder's 20-point guide to defending democracy under a Trump presidency

Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.
 

1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You've already done this, haven't you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.
2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.
4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of "terrorism" and "extremism." Be alive to the fatal notions of "exception" and "emergency." Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don't fall for it.
6. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don't use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps "The Power of the Powerless" by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.
7. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.
8. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.
10. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
11. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
12. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
13. Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.
14. Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.
15. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.
16. Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.
17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.
18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)
19. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.
20. Be a patriot. The incoming president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.
  --Timothy Snyder, Housum Professor of History, Yale University,
15 November 2016.
---
(PS: If this is useful to you, please print it out and pass it around!
1 December 2016)
(PPS: I removed a reference to a website, which as friends have pointed out is too context-specific for what has become a public and widely-read list. 2 December 2016)
 

The Three Big Reasons Republicans Can’t Replace Obamacare

Friday, January 6, 2017
Republicans are preparing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and have promised to replace it with something that doesn’t leave more than 20 million Americans stranded without health insurance.
But they still haven’t come up with a replacement. "We haven’t coalesced around a solution for six years,” Republican Senator Tom Cotton admitted last week.  “Kicking the can down the road for a year or two years isn’t going to make it any easier to solve.“
They won’t solve it. They can’t and won’t replace Obamacare, for three big reasons.
First, Republicans say they want their replacement to be “market-based.” But Obamacare is already market based – relying on private, for profit health insurers.
That’s already a problem. The biggest health insurers – Anthem, Aetna, Humana, Cigna, and United Health – are so big they can get the deals they want from the government by threatening to drop out of any insurance system Republicans come up with. Several have already dropped out of Obamacare.
Even now they’re trying to merge into far bigger behemoths that will be able to extort even better terms from the Republicans.               
Second, every part of Obamacare depends on every other part. Trump says he’d like to continue to bar insurers from denying coverage to individuals with preexisting conditions.
But this popular provision depends on healthy people being required to pay into the insurance pool, a mandate that Republicans vow to eliminate.
The GOP also wants to keep overall costs down, but they haven’t indicated how. More than 80 percent of Americans who buy health insurance through Obamacare receive federal subsidies. Yet Republicans have no plan for raising the necessary sums.
Which gets us to the third big reason Republicans can’t come up with a replacement. Revoking the tax increases in Obamacare – a key part of the repeal – would make it impossible to finance these subsidies.
The two biggest of these taxes  – a 3.8-percentage-point surtax on dividends, interest and other unearned income; and a 0.9-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax that helps fund Medicare – are also the most progressive. They apply only to people earning more than $200,000 per year.
Immediately repealing these taxes, as the GOP says it intends to do, will put an average of $33,000 in the hands of the richest 1 percent this year alone, and a whopping $197,000 into the hands of the top 0.1 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center.
It would also increase the taxes of families earning between $10,000 and $75,000 – including just about all of Trump’s working class voters.
Worse yet, eliminating the payroll tax increase immediately pushes Medicare’s hospital fund back toward the insolvency that was looming before Obamacare became law.
Ultimately, the only practical answer to these three dilemmas is Medicare for all – a single payer system. But Republicans would never go for it.
So without Obamacare, Republicans are left with nothing. Zilch. Nada.
Except the prospect of more than 20 million people losing their health insurance, and a huge redistribution from the working class to the very rich.
Robert Reich 


How Putin's Resentment of Hillary Clinton Led to Trump's Election | Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow reports on the findings in the U.S. intelligence report on Russia that Vladimir Putin sought to undermine Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election because he blames her for fomenting unrest in Russia after he rigged his own election.



Wow, Putin really does hate Clinton..wow

This Session Of Congress Is Going To Be Brutal. Are You Ready?

Great APP's to keep politically abreast.

January 7, 2017 Renee Webb 

It is that time again, when Congress is in session and bills are being passed. The 115th Congress began on January 3, 2017. If you are a political junkie, how will you keep up with it all? Who is in the House and Senate for each state? What committees are they on? What bills are going through?
I posed this question today and received some excellent feedback. I want to share it so everyone has the opportunity to go directly to the source for information, rather than always relying strictly on the media for all of the answers. It really is up to us to make sure we have accurate information, and this will help us to do just that.
Full Article w guide to apps

You're gonna need them...

 

The Emperors New Clothes



GOP Senators Totally Cool With Benghazi-Style Attacks Now, We Guess




Jeff Sessions, a Lifelong Outsider


The Business Of America

Russia’s election intervention is ‘new reality, new weapon


There's a new war on birth control coming


These 9 Young People Have Some WORDS for President Donald Trump

Nine young millennial activists tell the future president what politicians get wrong about young people.


The World Is Watching

Don’t Forget: Jill Stein Helped To Get Donald Trump Elected

January 7, 2017 Manny Schewitz

Even though Jill Stein got a little over a million of the popular vote, it’s important to point out that she had a part in getting Donald Trump elected. What I am about to say will almost certainly send her supporters into a rage, but pissing off the left isn’t something I am new to.
Let’s remember that Jill Stein ran to the far-left of Bernie Sanders in 2016. Once it was apparent that he wasn’t going to be the Democratic nominee, she asked him to join the Green Party ticket, which he wisely refused to do. Instead he endorsed Hillary Clinton at the convention and went on to campaign for her, even if Bernie didn’t believe in everything Secretary Clinton stood for.
Full Article Via Modern Liberals


The Inaugural #Trump420

Hillary For Mayor Of NYC?


Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)