Today’s podcast is from Rachel Maddow's "Ultra", an excellent 8 part podcast, episode 2. Reasonably the most important podcast in America today, because it details fascism and insurrection in America. And how it turns out, back in the 1940s, that was the last time it was tried. The parallels with Trump's insurrection today, with his MAGA and the Republican Party today, and with Christianity, evoke a painful similarity.
BTW... How to watch Thursday's House Jan. 6 committee public hearing.
My second podcast is with John Heilemann‘s "Hell and High Water" podcast, part 2 with Maggie Haberman. In case you missed part 1, best to listen to it first. It's another good podcast that America needs to hear. Especially the mentioned, George Stephanopoulos interview with Trump from 2016 where he asks Trump about Russia and his comments about Putin over the years. Disturbing, abrasively irritating, more lies and such Trump bullshit. Denying what he had said for years, how he was good friends with Putin, trying to make it seem more than it was, then back peddling, intensively. Trump tried to complain to George after the interview that Russia was mentioned too many (3) times but George got his say in first, in saying that he know what Trump was going to say, that George's people were annoyed with him too, in not pushing it even more than he had. Pretty funny, really.
I’ll be detailing bits and pieces from today’s podcast with Rachel about the first time religion and government power through conservatives generated, initiated, and propped up America’s first insurrection after the Civil War in the 1940s.
Today’s Instagram post
Today’s weather is good, cool, perfect for a hike, or a walkabout.
Finally after a week of air quality so poor was triggering my long CoViD that I had to wear a mask day and night, finally realizing I just needed to move my HEPA air cleaner from just outside my bedroom, into my bedroom and close the door, which going forward will require a space heater. Air quality is good enough today finally, that I can do my 5 mile walk again. Hopefully I’ll be able to achieve that today. So far I’m, out here and walking. And that’s better than what I’ve been able to do this past week because of these damn forest fires (thanks again global warming and our inaction and denials for decades). This is slowing down my being able to finish my book on long CoViD and publishing it, ASAP. Frankly, this was a scary week past. And poor air quality is supposed to return Friday. I don't want to go through this again having my blood pressure and pulse affected, because I'm breathing.
So Putin and his Duma welcome any states in the United States to secede who want to secede to Russia. This is ridiculous. This whole concept of seceding from America has been ridiculous for a very long time. We fought a Civil War over it, they lost, so...STFU.
It’s good to note that the satellite we smashed into an asteroid actually hit the asteroid and moved it off its course. Finally, we have something. Now they want to build a space telescope just for finding those objects. We're long past the time for this.
So before the Trump insurrection, which led to the largest investigation in FBI history, if not for main justice, too, a 1940s insurrection was the FBI’s third largest file, bigger even than Martin Luther King‘s. This is the subject of Ultra, the podcast I'm listening to.
For a couple of decades or so, conservative/Republicans have thought that some of the worst words they could use against their opponents, those who believe in a free democratic America, who are not toxically conservative, thought using words like "cuck" (attacking sexuality), "snowflake" (attacking apparently, masculinity), "fag" (attacking both sexuality and masculinity of heterosexuals, those they deem "normal", but are just the majority), and the actual word that fits them best, while worse than all those words, in a manner of how you view it, is "fascist", or "insurrectionist", "seditionist", "anti-democracy", "anti-American". All the things MAGA are doing, while claiming otherwise.
What’s bad about religion? Why's it so dangerous in a society? Because it sets you up for things like fascism. A belief of faith in having a need for a solid foundation, regardless of facts, and simply ideology. When you get "power" (i.e., Congress people, governors, leaders), and political ideologies that align with fundamentals of religion, especially in American Christianity, as it also is in Iran with Islam in a theocracy, those ideologies begin to invoke and stage the tenets for fascism in that democracy. We sought in America’s 1940's insurrection, paralleled with the Nazi insurrection in Germany, as is now, this current fascist fascination with the Trump MAGA insurrection.
How do you know when to be worried about fascism in your country? First off, read Timothy Snyder‘s book "On Tyranny". Second, when a political group joins a religious group. or adds religion into their arguments, and then start demonizing some “other“, like immigrants, liberals, BLM, Democrats, etc., there’s your sign. As for the reverse argument that they claim they're being demonized, when you start doing illiberal, harmful, seditionist things, well, your labeling yourself, your demonizing yourself. All that other people are doing is simply reacting and making observations of your ill behaviors.
Maybe we should allow citizens to have military weapons. Bear with me a moment. At least weapons they’re allowed now. But they have to instead store them on military bases or something similar. They want a gun at home for self protection? Fine, but a shotgun, best home device there is. An AR-15 is a stupid home defense weapon. Then say they’re only allowed to shoot their military weapons, on those bases, at a range there, monitored and protected. That way we’re not “taking their guns“, but we ARE "well regulating" them. Have a national database of the guns, the owners, who uses them and when (Yes, this is scaring the hell out of a certain minority of mostly white people). THEN, if a militia decides to commit an insurrection, we'll know if suddenly a bunch of guns are being taken and tried to steal them off the base. Anyway, something on that order. Because we absolutely should not have military weapons, assault weapons, in the hands of civilians. That was always a stupid idea. As we’ve seen clearly in the facts. It's why we never did that before. Until we did. Realized our mistake, ended it, then ridiculously started it again. Why do any of that? There’s something to be said during an invasion by a foreign country, to be able to call up civilians who have knowledge of and accuracy in their training on weapons. But to allow them as we're seeing today, to keep them at home, sets us up for an insurrection of delusional nutcases lead by a delusional autocrat. ?Well regulated"! That’s the key term. Not to mention the 1886 SCOTUS decision, that militias that are not the national guard, and they are not constitutional. This whole private ownership indicator about the second amendment, is nonsense. We do have to consider that we’re already starting at an uneven keel, with even this kind of a program. Because seditionists do tend to be either active military, veterans of military, National Guard, or police. So how do you well regulate that, in regard to these concerns? How? Well, you DO something! NOT nothing.
Interesting, back in the 1940s when Father Coughlin's Christian Front organization saw his people being arrested, he acted like Peter with Jesus, in the bible, denying he knew them. They weren't HIS Christian Front, though he knew very well they were (Sounds a lot like Donald Trump, doesn't it...). Playing as traitor to his own people, so his own armed, bomb making people could continue his sedition toward their insurrection. Again, from Ultra podcast.
I've mentioned this many times. When I was a kid, I was walking with my grandmother somewhere and I said “I hate…(something).“ She stopped me and said, "We don’t hate." We were raised old Slovak, old country Catholics. But she had self-educated herself and did her best to do, what she told me to always do, “Always try to have people around you, smarter than you, and you’ll always learn from them.“ Anyway, I said to her, thinking I was smart in elementary school, “What if I hate Satan?“ Thinking clearly, that I had gotten her on that one. She said, "No, not even Satan. Look, hate uses energy. We need all the energy we can muster to make it through life. To be good people. To spread the good around the world. So there’s no place for hate." So, I hate no one and calling me "Just a Trump hater" literally has no meaning whatsoever. IF I don't like something, there's a good reason for it.
Conservatives who have been unknowingly following toxic conservatism for decades here in America, need to stop following and believing in the bubble generated by Putin and Trump type propaganda. I’m not saying they’re working together. But there is a similarity in autocracy that aligns up, making within that bubble, it appear as real and good. And it’s not. You don’t have to listen to CNN, or MSNBC. But you do have to get accurate information outside of that bubble. Good luck.
Trump gained traction in the beginning, going back to 2011, because Republican voters wanted someone who would fight. Just as Democrats have long wanted for. And Trump would fight. The problem with that is the same problem with single issue voting. So, you vote for someone who fights… but you completely ignore and will get on board with the content of what he’s fighting against? That’s like second grade level crowd manipulation. And the GOP fell right into it. Along with a lot of independents and some Democrats. And still are, remarkably so. Although there is trending now in moving away from him. But sadly, some of that is trending toward his new wannabes and mini-me types. Those wanting power like Trump, and willing to do anything for it. That in America can be fine, but you stop at the point of trying to break America and end democracy. Otherwise, you're not part of this country, and you make yourself an enemy of this country.
You know, I would very much prefer to be listening to podcasts on psychology, phenomenology, metaphysics, science… But those are all more long-term pursuits and considerations. When you’re in a room suffocating for lack of oxygen, that has to be your first concern. And we’re in a position where fascism and sedition are looked at longingly by conservatives and we need to eliminate that political "carbon monoxide" and replace it with clean, clear air...politically speaking.
How do you know you’re on the wrong track? When you look at things you’re saying and those you praise are saying, and you can label it as xenophobic, Protectionist, isolationist… Well, there’s your signs.
Conservatives who don’t believe in our elections, who don’t trust… Here’s how I’ve gone through life after someone once pointed this out to me. I was that way too, in my 20s. First of all, don’t worry about looking like a fool because someone tricked you. That’s on them, not you. Trust, but verify. I had trouble making and keeping close friends back then, because I couldn’t trust anyone. Because of my childhood. But once I changed my mind decided to trust everybody, but verify, and to trust myself, things got better. Life got better...and easier. So we trust our elections and if there’s questions we follow due diligence. Which in some of these 2020 elections, we’ve done. Multiple times, to the point of absurdity. But conservatives still refuse to believe it and not want our election system. Thinking that's the quick fix. Fix something NOT broken. Believe the fantasy because...that's more fun. Well? That’s immature. It’s a lack of trust in themselves, and a phobia of being held to look the fool. What that does is make you INTO a fool. Then who do you vote for? Only Fools. So Trump became president and now, they want him to be their dictator. Let's not do that!
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