Glenn Kirschner – Donald Trump posts that he’s fighting “7” cases? Are more state indictments on the way?
Thom Hartmann – Trump’s Most Dangerous Crimes You Don’t Know About…!
Joe Biden – Fought Back
Farron Balanced – Trump Lawyer Yells At Fox Host For Not Loving Trump Enough
Tiny Dogs Who Were Chained Up Insist On Getting Adopted Together
Beau – Let’s talk about government shutdowns, continuing resolutions, and more….
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
I think we were all a bit shaken by the revelations of a planned violent coup in Germany, and the arrests which hve forestalled it for now (though more arrests are expected) – though probably by different details. And that’s partly why I wanted to share this article – because it gives us a chance to share insights on what stood out to us about the story. I note in passing that their movenent includes the German word for “citizen” (which like ours derives from the word for city), and the people inthis movement seem to share some unheallthy attitudes with our self-styled “sovereign citizens.”
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Claire Burchett, King’s College London
Police have arrested 25 people accused of planning to overthrow the German government in a series of raids across the country.
The group is accused of trying to instate Heinrich XIII – a descendant of German royalty – as their leader. Among those arrested were members of the Reichsbürger (which translates as citizens of the Reich), a disparate movement of groups and individuals, including some with extreme-right views.
Reichsbürger adherents have been stopped from attempting violent action before, but this latest incident and its alleged members have caused greater concern.
A former member of the German parliament, who was also a judge until shortly after her arrest, was among the group. Birgit Malsack-Winkemann was a parliamentary deputy for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), but left the party in 2021.
Several former soldiers were also arrested in connection with the coup plot. This is a cause for great concern for law enforcement, as such ties give possibly dangerous extremists access to weapons and trained individuals.
Earlier in 2022, Heinrich XIII was reported in the German press as being close to the Reichsbürger scene and a believer of conspiracy theories, prompting his family, the House of Reuss, to publicly distance themselves from him.
He does not, however, have a high profile, apart from a 2019 speech at the WorldWebForum conference in Switzerland, which contained an antisemitic and historical revisionist message. The involvement of an aristocrat speaks to the monarchist motivations of some Reichsbürger, who wish to reinstate a Kaiser as head of state.
The Reichsbürger do not have a centralised structure but are estimated to have at least 21,000 supporters. Their key belief is that the current German state (the Bundesrepublik or Federal Republic), its institutions and democratically elected representatives are not legitimate.
Supporters of the movement refuse to adhere to state authority, such as by paying taxes. They became notorious in the early years of the pandemic for refusing to comply with COVID-19 restrictions.
Some adherents to the movement consider that official German passports and ID cards are illegitimate. While some prefer to use an official certificate of citizenship (called a gelber Schein or yellow certificate), others manufacture their own illegal passports and driver’s licenses. These will often include former German states as places of birth, such as the kingdoms of Bavaria or Prussia. In 2021, a German civil servant was removed from office after he applied for a passport with the Kingdom of Bavaria listed as his birth state.
Members of the group generally believe that some previous version of the German state is in fact the legitimate form – though there is some inconsistency as to which.
Some supporters believe Germany’s true form existed between 1871 and 1918, when the German Reich was established following unification and before the first world war. Others cite the constitution of the interwar Weimar Republic as that of the true Germany. And others still focus on 1937 to demonstrate what they perceive as the legitimate boundaries of German territory, which then included the former Kingdom of Prussia, now Poland and Russia, but not Austria, which was annexed in 1938.
A uniting belief among the Reichsbürger is that the current German state lacks sovereignty. They think the western allies (France, the UK and US) supposedly retained control after their occupation of West Germany ended in 1955. Therefore, some believe that the current German state is a puppet regime which does not support the interests of the German people.
They sometimes refer to it as Deutschland GmbH (Limited), implying it has no power over itself and exists only to enrich its controllers. The name BRD GmbH is also used, referring to the abbreviated name for post-war West Germany.
The focus on historical revisionism and erasure of German sovereignty can encourage a conception of Germany as a blameless country with uncomplicated pride. By focusing on pre-war borders and overlooking post-war history, the Reichsbürger can ignore Germany’s defeat in the second world war, as well as its process of coming to terms with its Nazi and colonial past, notably the Holocaust and the 1904 Herero and Nama genocide in Namibia. The removal of these dark moments in German history enables the movement’s supporters to focus on their own perceived victimisation as subjects of a German state which they do not recognise.
A similar revisionism is common in the wider German far right, notably some members of the populist AfD party. Repudiation of the Holocaust’s importance and an emphasis on “positive” moments in German history encourages Holocaust relativisation and antisemitism.
However, unlike the AfD, which has adapted its rhetoric to fit into the political mainstream, some Reichsbürger followers entirely disregard current German laws banning Holocaust denial and the dissemination of Nazi propaganda. The group is linked to overt antisemitism and the spread of antisemitic conspiracy theories about the power of “high finance” as well as outright Holocaust denial. In March 2020, German police seized neo-Nazi propaganda during raids on the homes of some Reichsbürger members.
However, the historical revisionism can confuse the picture. Although many of its adherents are antisemitic and glorify the colonial past, the Reichsbürger is not specifically defined as a group of right-wing extremists. In truth, only a small portion of the movement can be defined as such.
At its core, right-wing extremism is largely defined as anti-democratic. While many Reichsbürger refuse to endorse the legitimacy of Germany’s current democratic state, the lack of unified vision within the movement makes it unclear which system would be preferable, the constitutional monarchy of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the democratic experiment of Weimar Germany or the dictatorship of Nazi Germany. However, in the case of the most recent plot, the key role of Heinrich XIII implies that the goal was the restitution of a constitutional monarchy in the style of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s regime.
Some Reichsbürger followers are evidently beginning to engage in political violence. The latest arrests follow multiple other incidents. In 2016, a police officer was killed during a raid on a member of the movement’s illegal collection of weapons. In August 2020, members of the Reichsbürger attempted to enter the German parliament as part of a protest against COVID-19 restrictions.
The presence of former military figures and a former parliamentarian among the most recently arrested group suggest the Reichsbürger are not without potential influence. The AfD has long denied any links to the movement, but has been shifting further and further to the right in recent years. In 2019, the German interior ministry reported that it had identified some isolated connections between the Reichsbürger and the AfD.
The Reichsbürger could be viewed as a fringe group but their ideas clearly appeal to some enough to convince them a coup is a worthwhile undertaking. And links to more influential organisations would make them more dangerous – which is why this matter has been taken so seriously by the authorities.
Claire Burchett, PhD candidate in European Politics, King’s College London
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, particularly in the light of MAGAt officials in way too many states who appear to think that everything in the way of relations will all be just lovely if we just don’t talk about them, many of us have looked to Germany as an example of a nation which responsibly required study of the Holocaust, and took responsibility, if not for the horror, at least for trying to prevent its occurrence. As someone who has looked to Germany in that way, my first reaction was not exactly disappointment – it was more like, “Good God, if doing the right things doesn’t succeed in diminishing, or even helping to contend with, the ugliness that thrives in people’s hearts, then what will?!” Is there even an answer at all? Help us to brainstorm – not that we can come up with a solution, but perhaps we can at least learn something.
The Furies and I will be back.
Yesterday, I slept in. When I did get up, the sun was nowhere in sight, which is reasonable, because, if there was going to be snow this week, last night would be the night. But it wasn’t the low light that kept me sleeping. It was the fact that I had accomplished a bunch of things Wednesday which I had apparently been stressing about more than I reasized, and therefor had not slept well Tuesday night, and I was unstressed and catching up. The snow, if it comes, will be mostly overnight, so by the time I know, this will have posted. I’ll try to catch y’all up. Also, yesterday at 4:00 a.m. local, Boebert was down to less than a 600 vote lead, with more ballots than that stlll not counted. CPR reported that some of those uncounted ballots had been in timely but deliberately held back to preserve anonymity for the late voters – which makes a lot os sense if one has ever worked Colorado elections – Colorado is an anonymity (privacy) hawk. The only election I ever worked whre I had the faintest clue how people voted was a small single-issue one where we hand-counted absentee ballots – and we took every precaution not to know – but the darned vote was unanimous, which defeated our precautions.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
Crooks & Liars – The Threat Of Right-Wing Extremism Is Far From Over
Quote – [Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on authoritarianism and a professor at NYU, said] we can never forget that no matter who Fox News, the Murdochs and the GOP elites get behind, that the goal is more authoritarianism, Ben-Ghiat continued. “The goal is to make it easier to have an autocratic system prevail and to convince Americans that we did have a lot of election deniers who won, that elections are too compromised and too corrupt to be a valid way of choosing leaders. And that opens the door to coup attempts and other kinds of authoritarian machinations.”
Click through for opinion and short video. People who hold authoritarian beliefs tend to be “true believer” types. They aren’t going tobe weaned away from those beliefs by one loss – or one anything. This battle is far from over.
Huff Post – ‘We Have The Votes’: The Senate Will Act This Week To Codify Same-Sex Marriage
Quote – Same-sex marriage has been legal nationwide since 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples are guaranteed the fundamental right to marry under the Constitution. But after the now-conservative court struck down Roe v. Wade in June ― tossing out nearly 50 years of precedent on reproductive rights ― Democrats and some Republicans are anxious about the court’s plans for weakening other civil rights.
Click through for details. They said they had the votes – and they did. They took the vote yesterday. It now goes to the House, which is still Democratic, and it will pass.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Trump asserts he used DOJ/FBI to stop vote count in 2018 to help DeSantis become Florida governor
MSNBC – Rep. Adam Kinzinger: We Need To Make An Uncomfortable Alliance For Democracy. (It looks clear to me he is talking about “up and down” – authoritarianism vs. small-d democracy – not “left and right. That’s exactly why the alliance will be “uncomfortable.” But it wasn’t clear to people commenting where I saw the clip first. So I decided to mention it.)
Farron Balanced – Judge Won’t Let Struggling Conservative Outlet OAN Escape Defamation Lawsuit
Mrs. Betty Bowers – LIVE from Kari Lake’s Campaign Headquarters
People Rescue 700-Pound Moose From Railroad Tracks (I heard you. And with so many of my sources taking a breather, this appears to be a good time to add more rescue stories.)
Beau – Let’s talk about elephant, zebras, and drought….
Yesterday, the radio opera was “L’Amant Anonyme,” the only surviving opera by Joseph Bologne {Chevalier de Saint-Georges) whom I assume no one here has ever heard of. He was a close contemporary of Mozart (10 years older and lived for 8 years after Mozart died.) History has forgotten a number of competent composers who were contemporaneous with Mozart, simply because he was such a towering fugure, but in the case of Saint-Georges there was more to it. But he was an interesting guy. He was born in Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, the son of a wealthy plantation owner and his wile’s maid, a Senegalese enslaved girl. When he was 7, his father was falsely accused of morder, and he was sent to Paris and enrolled in school there to prevent him from being sold into slavery should the accusation stick. Apparently it didn’t, because when he was 13 his father came to Paris with his mother, at which time he was enrolled in fencing school, in which he excelled perhaps even more than he did in music, and which probably kept him alive. It also got him appointed to the king’s personal guard and named a “Chevalier” (i.e. knighted) in his own right (as an illegitimate son, he could not inherit his father’s title.) In 1769 he joined a newly organized orchestra, of which he later became concertmaster and then conductor. in 1776 the Paris Opera needed new direction, and he was the obvious choise (and Marie Antoinette’s choice) to be the new Director. But three divas petitioned her not to appoint him on racial grounds, and he withdrew his name from consideration in order not to embarrass her. (Apparently, whatever her failings, she was not a racist, as so many philosphers of the French Enlightenment {I’m looking at you, Voltaire}, were.) He did, however, with backing from Count D’Ogny, commission Haydn to composed 6 symphonies (known as the Paris Symphonies), and he conducted their premiere. When the French Revolution began, he bcame the commanding officer of the first “citizens’ army” recognized in history (no one seems to want to count Wat Tyler’s fighters or William Wallace’s fighters as “citizens’ armies.”) I apologize for getting carried away by the composer, but I assure you, all this barely scratches the surface of his amazing life and accomplishments. The opera itself is reminiscent of Mozart, though perhaps not as complex musically – but a bit easier to follow on that account. It was recorded by Chicago’s Haymarket Opera Company, which specializes in baroque and early classical opera. It tells a sweet little story with a happy ending for all the characters. Next week – actually for the next four weeks – it’s back to China for one French and three Italian operas, and then, on December 10, the Met season begins.
Also – We can hope (I certainly hope) that this is the last time we will have to upend ourlives (and those of our animals – those who have them) but “falling back.” Just one more “spring forward” and then we get to set it and forget it. (as Arizona, for one, already does.” Although , since stats are allowed to deviate, who knows. Another reason to vote. As if we needed one.
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Short Takes –
The Daily Beast – Your Uber Data Is Being Mined to Prevent Bridge Collapses
Quote – Overall, even with relatively few trips, the researchers found that just 10 datasets were 90 percent accurate at predicting bridge vibrations, and about 80 datasets increased the accuracy to 97 percent. Matarazzo and his team had specifically designed the system to distinguish vibrations pertinent to a bridge’s health from statistical noise that might be caused by variables like potholes and traffic. The more than 100 trips considered in the study amounted to less than 0.1 percent of the trips made on the Golden Gate Bridge daily, indicating that smartphone data represent “an enormous sensing potential,” the authors wrote in the study. “When fueled with long-term monitoring data, artificial intelligence has the potential to provide bridge engineers and owners with unprecedented information for maintenance and operation at virtually little to no extra cost.”
Click through for article. There is no Uber data on me personally, since I’ve never used it. And, if there were, I would have zero hesitation about it being used to prevent bridge collapses, especially collapses like the one in India this week. But God help anyone whose data Republicans get their hands on.
Wired – When Your Neighbor Turns You In
Quote – “If the rule of law starts breaking—and especially if there’s a regime that is supportive of those actions—that’s really giving space for people to take actions that are illegal,” Amat says. “Knowing you will not be prosecuted is a big thing.” All of these sorts of things create a culture of fear in authoritarian countries. People are afraid of their neighbors, afraid to speak freely, and afraid of what might happen next. This fear is made worse by the fact that the citizens dealing with oppressive forces have no ability to hold those in power accountable when they go too far.
CLick through for details. I don’t suppose anyone here needs any more incentive to vote – in fact, you probably already have voted. But I wish there were a way to get this knowledge to every indecidid voter in the nation in the next two days.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Lindsey Loses: Supreme Court says Graham must testify in Georgia grand jury probe of Trump’s crimes
The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party – November 1, 2022
MSNBC – ‘Clear Sign’ Trump Will Be Indicted: Weissmann On DOJ’s Latest Move
Mothers Against Greg Abbott – Always and Forever
Puppet Regime – Putin It Out There: Dealing with Dissent
Beau – Let’s talk about an update on the Pelosi situation….
Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s taxes; fed charges for Paul Pelosi attacker; Officer Dunn testifies at Oath Keepers trial
The Lincoln Project – Hell No
Forbes Business News – ‘I Don’t Have A Clue What It Means’: Clarence Thomas Asks Lawyer To Define ‘Diversity’
Thom Hartmann – Obama’s Fiery Speech Against Oligarchy Proves Danger Of GOP (You may have heard it – but it’s worth a re-run)
MSNBC – GOP Rejection Of Democracy Leaves Force And Violence As Remaining Governing Option
Beau – Let’s talk about the Pelosi reaction….
Yesterday, I gather there were a few flakes of snaw, but I had a little difficulty getting to sleep the previous night, and you all know I am not a bit shy of sleeping in when that happens – so, I blinked and missed it. No more precipitation of any kind is predicted for the next nine days. And Weather Underground is pretty good at this. Those high winds we had last Sunday – WU predicted them nine days in advance. Also, I heard from James (who had his leg amputated) – he now has his prosthesis, and while it’s requiring some adjustment, he’s pain free and hoping to go back to work earlier than was anticipated before the surgery.
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Short Takes –
The Daily Beast – Russia Now Has a Second Frontline Set Up Just to Kill Its Deserters: Intel
Quote – Ukrainian intelligence on Thursday released an audio recording that appears to capture in disturbing detail the mayhem and internal rifts between Russian troops on the battlefield…. It was not clear where exactly the soldier was based. But there have been myriad reports of Russian commanders threatening to execute any of their own men who try to ditch the war.
Click through for article. I believe something like this was done by Confederates during our Civil War. But I don’t recall hearing or reading of it being done by Hitler, or Mussolini, or Stalin, even – at least, not systematically.
CREW – Secret Service received shooting threat against Chuck Schumer on January 6
Quote – Right-wing news channel Newsmax received a voicemail suggesting a shooting threat against Schumer shortly before 4 pm on January 6, roughly an hour after the Senate chamber had been breached and well before law enforcement was able to clear them out. A Newsmax editor emailed the voicemail to the Secret Service at 3:59 pm, indicating the timestamp at which the threat was made…. US Capitol Police did not receive the voicemail from PID until more than an hour after Newsmax had sent it. The records do not show how explicit the threat was made in the voicemail.
Click through for details. I’m sure it’s no news to anyone here that the Secret Service need to be purged – an ugly word but I cann’t think of a better way to describe what’s needed.
Food For Thought
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