91–100 of 536 posts
Reading it was difficult, and impossible not to see the parallels of what we were approaching.
This excerpt is phenomenal on its own, but the full book is worth your time.
President is unilaterally shutting down federal agencies. If this goes on there really isn't a constitution anymore, not in practice anyway.
Sure the spoils system was bad, but the current iteration where you have hundreds of independent agencies that cannot be fired breathing down your neck with statutory power is fucking insane.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are correct precisely because both US major parties are on the same side, the side of capital.
and the side of israel? which happen to be the solidest evidence to prove someone is a nazi no matter who you voted for, no matter if you voted or don't vote, you can not change this, you have no power to change it
"The Germans" is an absolutely jaw dropping read, a series of interviews with average German citizens and low-level nazi party members, conducted a decade or so after the war, by an American Jewish journalist. It shows, in first hand accounts, the banality of evil and how easily it can prevail if people do nothing. It is an account of modern tyranny and everyday collaboration. The parallels in the feeling of what's h…
sure, making the government smaller is basically the same as putting the government in control of everything.
Come on. A "hostile takeover and dismantling of our democracy" is completely orthogonal to the size of government, before or after the takeover.
I don’t feel like the comparisons to Hitler are useful, at least when talking about the current US administration. There are lots more recent examples — Russia in the early 2000s under Putin, Hungary under Orban, South Africa under Apartheid — where democratic norms were gradually eroded, and the international community just sort of sighed and said "oh well, the people have spoken".
Berlusconi is the architect of the modern oligarchy. Control the media, control the public opinion and narrative. I think that what is happening in America is something new though. The dismantling of the US government is weird on it's own, but the step down from US soft power is what really makes no sense. The previous 80ish years of US world dominance was build on a combination of military might and soft power. Euro…
President is unilaterally shutting down federal agencies. If this goes on there really isn't a constitution anymore, not in practice anyway.
The president is fascist because he's, checks notes... , relinquishing governmental power by shutting down agencies? I think the only thing people have been habituated to is the enormity of the government; go back to any other point in history, was the government this big in terms of independent agencies, employee/contractor count, budget/debt as percentage of gdp? Sure the spoils system was bad, but the current iter…
You do know the president is not supposed to have that power, right? His job is to execute the law, which as currently written requires those agencies to exist.
President is unilaterally shutting down federal agencies. If this goes on there really isn't a constitution anymore, not in practice anyway.
The president is fascist because he's, checks notes... , relinquishing governmental power by shutting down agencies? I think the only thing people have been habituated to is the enormity of the government; go back to any other point in history, was the government this big in terms of independent agencies, employee/contractor count, budget/debt as percentage of gdp? Sure the spoils system was bad, but the current iter…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, what would these protests do? Serious question. Let say you manage to achieve the unthinkable and bring a huge amount of people on the street, heck let say you are so successful that you also get a full on national strike going, what then? Do you think it would affect those in charge right now? He would not care. He is already ruining the US economy and alliances. Why would he care if some people he does no…
is your argument that protests do nothing, therefore people should stay home?
But protests alone almost certainly won't solve this.
There is a 'progression' of boxes in resisting tyranny, and protests are the soap box.