American Bridge has been silent since the Georgia runoffs, but this was too much for them to ignore.
The Lincoln Project – “Brand”
The Lincoln Project – “Convict”
Now This News – Amanda Gorman presents at Super Bowl (forgive me – I know several have seen it)
I gather this is a legitimate commercial, but it works as a parody commercial for QAnon
CNN (CC) – A 10-minute video, with distinguished and knowledgeale guests, which looks at more than just Lou Dobbs – it looks at the implications.
Amber Ruffin, like so many comedians, has an excellent point. The transcript of the introduction – I’ll work on getting the rest.
Transcript of intro – “It’s Black History Month! Yay! Every morning this month, Amber wakes up and looks to see what’s waiting for her under the Tubman Tree. Will it be a white person telling her what Martin Luther King would have wanted? Or, better yet—someone saying, “Why do we need a Black History Month? How would you like it if we had a White History Month?” You might be thinking, “every month is White History Month.” But hear Amber out—maybe we *do* need a White History Month, because the American history that’s taught in schools is so whitewashed, we don’t learn the real story.”
Summary provided: “Every February, a bundle of snarky white people will inevitably counter the idea of Black History Month with a deadpan and unintentionally ironic call for whatever their idea of “White History Month” is. But according to Amber Ruffin, that might be the best way to address and correct the record on historical agents of “progress.”
On the latest episode of her namesake Peacock show, the comedian made a helluva case for an inconveniently honest White History Month, taking aim at the stories we’ve been told about the supposedly heroic legacies of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and the police force. “We learn lies like George Washington chopped down a cherry tree, but not that George had 18 slaves before he turned 18,” Ruffin sharply notes of the Founding Father. From there, Ruffin proves Lincoln was, in fact, a racist president and then goes on to provide a potent crash course on how The Second Amendment established state-sponsored slave-hunting militias, which gave rise to the KKK and invented policing as we know it.
The segment closes with a brief profile of the United Daughters of The Confederacy and how southern white women successfully washed honest portrayals of historic figures out of our education systems by appealing to textbook publishers and infiltrating school boards across the country. “It is impossible to understand politics, the black community’s relationship with police, or why even need to say ‘Black Lives Matter’ if we don’t learn the history of this country,” Ruffin concludes.”
The Alt-Right Playbook – You Go High, We Go Low
Beau on Black History Month. No, he doesn’t often judge. But when he does, it’s righteous
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.”
As I said lst week, I have a number of articles saved regarding how white supremacy thinks, when it increases, how it expresses itself, and so on. I hope to get to all of them eventually. This one is specifically about how violence is incite, which, in a word, is “indirectly.” A number of Republicans are “defending” Donald Trump** with the claim that he didn’t specifically tell his supporters to go kill people (they’re not using those words, but that’s the general idea.) Well, duh. Of course he didn’t. that’s not how it’s done. Here’s how it actually is done:
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Incitement to violence is rarely explicit – here are some techniques people use to breed hate
Dangerous speech is defined as communication encouraging an audience to condone or inflict harm. Usually this harm is directed by an “ingroup” (us) against an “outgroup” (them) – though it can also provoke self-harm in suicide cults.
U.S. law reflects the assumption that dangerous speech must contain explicit calls to criminal action. But scholars who study speeches and propaganda that precede acts of violence find direct commands to violence are rare.
Other elements are more common. Here are some of the red flags.
Firing up emotions
Adolf Hitler addresses the crowd, September 1930. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Psychologists have analyzed the speeches of rousing leaders like Hitler and Gandhi for their emotional content, assessing how much fear, joy, sadness and so on were present. They then tested whether the levels of emotion could predict whether a certain speech preceded violence or nonviolence.
They discovered the following emotions, particularly combined, could ignite violence:
Anger: The speaker gives the audience reasons to be angry, often pointing out who should be held responsible for that anger.
Contempt: The outgroup is deemed inferior to the ingroup, and thus unworthy of respect.
Disgust: The outgroup is described as so revolting they are undeserving of even basic humane treatment.
Constructing the threat
By studying political speeches and propaganda that have inspired violence, researchers have identified themes that can stir these powerful emotions.
Targets of dangerous speech are often dehumanized, depicted as fundamentally lacking qualities – empathy, intelligence, values, abilities, self-control – at the core of being human. Commonly, outgroups are depicted as evil, due to their alleged lack of morality. Alternatively, they may be portrayed as animalistic or worse. During the Rwandan genocide, Tutsis were referred to as cockroaches in Hutu propaganda.
To build a “story of hate,” a good guy is needed to counter the villain. So whatever dehumanizing quality is present in the outgroup, the opposite is present in the ingroup. If “they” are the Antichrist, “we” are the children of God.
Alleged past wrongdoings of the outgroup against the ingroup are used to position the outgroup as a threat. In cases of ongoing conflict between groups, such as between Israelis and Palestinians, there may well be examples of past wrongs on both sides. Effective dangerous speech omits, minimizes or justifies past wrongs by the ingroup members, while exacerbating past wrongs of the outgroup.
“Competitive victimhood” is used to portray the ingroup as the “real” victim – especially if ingroup “innocents” like women and children have been harmed by the outgroup. Sometimes past acts of the outgroups are fabricated and used as scapegoats for the ingroup’s past misfortunes. For instance, Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany losing World War I.
A particularly dangerous fabrication is when outgroups are accused of plotting against the ingroup the very deeds the ingroup is planning, if not actually committing, against the outgroup. Researchers coined the term “accusations in a mirror” after this strategy was explicitly described in a Hutu propaganda handbook following the Rwandan genocide.
This can be accomplished by making it seem like no other options remain to defend the ingroup from the threat presented by the outgroup. Less extreme options are dismissed as exhausted or ineffective. The outgroup can’t be “saved.”
Simultaneously, speakers deploy “euphemistic labeling” to provide more palatable terms for violence, like “cleansing” or “defense” instead of “murder.” Or they may use “virtue-talk” to play up honor in fighting – and dishonor in not. After directing his followers to kill their children and themselves, cult leader Jim Jones called it “an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.”
Sometimes, the ingroup suffers from an illusion of invulnerability and does not even consider the possibility of negative consequences from their actions, because they are so confident in the righteousness of their group and cause. If thought is given to life post-violence, it is portrayed as only good for the ingroup.
By contrast, if the outgroup is allowed to remain, obtain control or enact their alleged devious plans, the future looks grim; it will mean the destruction of everything the ingroup holds dear, if not the end of the ingroup itself.
These are just some of the hallmarks of dangerous speech identified through decades of research by historians and social scientists studying genocide, cults, intergroup conflict and propaganda. It is not an exhaustive list. Nor do all these elements need to be present for a speech to promote harm. There is also no guarantee the presence of these factors definitely leads to harm – just as there is no guarantee that smoking leads to cancer, though it certainly increases the risk.
However, the elements described above are warning signs a speech is intended to promote and justify inflicting harm. People can resist calls to violence by recognizing these themes. Prevention is possible.
================================================================ Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, those of us (like everyone here) who already know this through our reading, our knowledge of history, our observation in our own lives, can be at a disadvantage when it turns out we need to explain it to people who think that, if you want someone to kill someone else, you just tell him (or her, but usually a him) so. I’m not really thinking of you are me trying to explain this to a friend or colleague or neighbor, but of the fact that our impeachment managers may very well – probably will – have to explain how this works to Republican Senators who are not just dense but wilfully dense. Our managers are all highly intelligent – I just hope intelligence doesn’t get too much in the way of understanding how those think who aren’t – and communicating with them.
The Lincoln Project – “The Squalid” – GOP answer to “The Squad” They play quotes in their own words, but they are all the same really – it’s the titles they give them which are the hoot.
Also The Lincoln Project – “Ouch” (I am NOT going to put Marjorie Taylor Greene into tags.)
Meidas touch Parody with Bette Midler
Really American
Robert Reich – Greed Is Not Good
Another video of something one doesn’t see every day (all my cats have hated snow)
Thank God for Randy Rainbow:
John Pavlocitz – Perhaps no one here needs to see this. But I’m afraid I know some peolw who do.
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.”
The autocracy may have been flushed … but that doesn’t mean we can forget about ti. It happened so easily and gradually and, so to speak, seeped into our bones. That won’t be gone so fast. But, more importantly, it happened during normal. That means – we must recognize it – normal isn’t good enough. We must – we absolutely must – take some steps to strengthen and protect our safeguards against this sort of thing.
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Why Trump’s challenges to democracy will be a big problem for Biden
Just because he’s leaving office doesn’t mean Donald Trump will stop being a threat to democracy. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
When a mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and stopped Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the nation’s next president, it was scary – and fatal for at least five people.
But it did not pose a serious threat to the nation’s democracy.
An attempt at an illegal power grab somehow keeping Donald Trump in the Oval Office was never likely to happen, let alone succeed. Trump always lacked the authority, and the mass support, required to steal an election he overwhelmingly lost. He didn’t control state election officials or have enough influence over the rest of the process to achieve that goal.
Nevertheless, over his term as president, he repeatedly violated democratic norms, like brazenly promoting his own business interests, interfering in the Justice Department, rejecting congressional oversight, insulting judges, harassing the media and failing to concede his election loss.
Just because he’s leaving office doesn’t mean Donald Trump will stop being a danger to democracy. Joe Biden will have to deal with Donald Trump’s legacy. Brendan Smialowski, Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
It wasn’t a coup
Trump never really threatened a coup, which is a swift and irregular transfer of power from one executive to another, where force or the threat of force installs a new leader with the support of the military. Coups are the typical manner in which one dictator succeeds another.
A coup displacing a legitimately elected government is quite rare; prominent examples from the past 100 years across the world include Spain in 1923, Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Brazil in 1964, Greece in 1967, Chile in 1973, Pakistan in 1999 and Thailand in 2006.
Even if Trump’s most ardent supporters believe he won, there aren’t enough of them to credibly threaten a civil war. Despite their ability to breach a thinly defended Capitol, a sustained insurrection would be easily quashed by law enforcement.
Trump couldn’t even stage an “auto-coup,” which happens when an elected executive declares a state of emergency and suspends the legislature and judiciary, or restricts civil liberties, to seize more power. There have also been very few of those perpetrated against democratically elected governments over the last 100 years. The most prominent examples are Hitler’s Germany in 1933, Bordaberry in Uruguay (1972), Fujimori in Peru (1992), Erdoğan in Turkey (2015), Maduro in Venezuela (2017), Morales in Bolivia (2019) and Orbán in Hungary (2020).
A U.S. president can’t dismiss the legislative or judicial branches, and elections are not under his control: The Constitution declares that they are run by the states. And the declaration of election results is also well outside the power of the president (or vice president). It doesn’t matter whether the losing side formally concedes; the new president’s term begins at noon on Jan. 20.
The attack on the Capitol may have threatened the lives of federal legislators and Capitol police officers, but the most it achieved was to interrupt, briefly, a ministerial procedure. Within hours, both the House and Senate were back in session in the Capitol, carrying on their certification of the electoral votes cast in 2020.
By objecting to the outcome of the election, Trump highlighted aspects of the process that many Americans were previously unaware of, ironically ensuring the public is better informed about the mechanics and details of American elections. In that way, he may have, paradoxically, made American democracy stronger.
But beyond elections, Trump has threatened America’s other bedrock political institutions. While there are many seemingly disparate examples of his disregard for the Constitution, what unites them is impunity and contempt for the rule of law. He has committed numerous impeachable acts – including potentially the incitement-to-riot on Jan. 6. He is facing a criminal investigation in New York state, and may be looking at federal inquiries both about possible misdeeds he committed in office and from before he became president.
The framers of the Constitution feared many things they designed the U.S. government to defend against, but perhaps one anxiety eclipsed all others: a lawless president who never faces justice, and was never held accountable during or even after leaving office. As Alexander Hamilton wrote, “if the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution.”
There’s very little time left to hold Trump to account during his term. After the events of Jan. 6, he now faces public backlash from longtime congressional allies and resignations from his Cabinet. He has also been locked out of Facebook and Twitter.
But the question of real, lasting – and legal – accountability will fall to Biden, and his nominee for attorney general, Merrick Garland. They will decide whether to continue existing investigations and potentially start new ones. State attorneys general and local prosecutors will have similar powers for the laws they enforce.
The aftermath
Newly elected leaders can often face strong incentives – and encouragement – to prosecute their predecessors, as Biden does now. But that approach, often called restorative justice, can also destabilize democracy’s prospects if lame-duck executives anticipate this and decide to hunker down and fight instead of conceding defeat. Consider Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, toppled by Western military intervention and killed by his people in 2011. He refused to flee or seek asylum for fear that both foreign governments and his own successors would prosecute him for human rights violations.
Perhaps counterintuitively, it is when outgoing presidents in transitioning democracies enshrine protections against their prosecution directly before leaving office that the democratic system is more likely to endure. This was the case in Chile with dictator Augusto Pinochet, who left power in 1989 under the aegis of a constitution he foisted on the country on his way out.
By contrast, after-the-fact pardoning of crimes – as Gerald Ford did of Richard Nixon – runs the risk of creating a larger threat to democracy: the idea that rogue leaders and their henchmen are above the law. If Trump finds a way to pardon himself, he may reduce his legal vulnerability, but he can’t erase it entirely.
If prosecutors or Congress let Trump off the hook, they may be the ones breaking new and dangerous ground, truly shattering the rule of law that underpins American democracy.
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AMT, I would disagree with the statement that January 6 wasn’t a coup. I believe it was, albeit a failed one, and wiser people than I (for example, Robert Reich) say the same. But that is not really what’s important. What’s is important is preventing it from happening again.
There is a documentary by Rick Steves available on Passport – for those who are meb=mbers of their local PBS station (if you are but have not ever used it, you may need to contact the station and tell them you want it) – called “The Rise of fasciam in Europe.” Very illuminating. I think it may underplay the role of racism – or maybe we are just more racist as a nation than any other – that’s certainly possible.
Now This News – As a Bernie Sanders lover who is also a knitter, I could not resist this.
“Insurrection-y Street” – a child could understand it.
This may not be the timing I would have employed to play this, but it was a request video. It is 6 minutes 43 seconds – and don’t start it if you can’t finish it – because it needs to be seen in full.
