THE FIRE THIS TIME

January 6, 2021 now joins December 7, 1941 and 9/11/2001 in the dark and ignoble gallery of days of infamy in American history.

Not this time because of a surprise attack by an external enemy raining death from above, but even more dangerously as a foreseeable and virtually predictable uprising from fractures deep within the body politic itself, manipulated by a disturbed leader and tolerated and even encouraged by the political enablers in his own Party.

US Capitol under attack 1/6/21

Credit: Deusche Welle

Donald Trump's insurrection against his own government failed, but what he succeeded in doing in his final days in office was to drag the nation with him down the rabbit-hole of his own troubled psyche, leaving a country shaken to the core and even more deeply confused and divided.

“Madness in great ones must not go unwatched,” Shakespeare warns in Hamlet, knowing well the corrupting influence of power and the frailties of human nature. And despite repeated warnings and unmistakable signs of Trump’s instability, narcissism, sociopathic tendencies and increasingly authoritarian behavior over the past four years, and particularly during the past months, governmental guardians willfully denied the reality of what they were seeing. A reality culminating in the President’s unbalanced and increasingly anti-democratic rhetoric and actions; most recently his absolute refusal to accept or admit an electoral reality verified by governments and courts across the land.

Even now, there are Senators like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, along with craven Congressmen such as Kevin McCarthy, Devin Nunes and more than 100 other Republicans who continue to parrot President Trump’s lies about election-rigging and fraud, defending the indefensible and feeding the miasma of untruth that carried thousands of true-believers, conspiracy theorists, neo-Nazis, Proud Boys, and misguided and blind followers to attack the National Capitol, bringing death and destruction, in an ultimately futile effort to stop the democratic process of ratifying the election.

Unlike “Coxey’s Army” of unemployed workers in 1894 protesting economic inequality or the “Bonus Marchers” of 1932 petitioning for cash payment for their World War I service during the depth of the Great Depression, “Trump’s Army” was no spontaneous movement of desperate citizens for equality or justice. Instead, it was the deliberate creation of a disturbed and amoral President obsessively focused on mobilizing his “base” to pressure Congress by any means necessary to force lawmakers to overturn a democratic election. In short, an undemocratic power-play sustained and enabled by multiple purveyors of his self-serving delusions and unremitting lies: essentially an attempted coup to keep Trump in power and assuage his deeply wounded ego.

“Reality is that which, when you don’t believe in it, doesn’t go away,” the Conservative thinker Peter Viereck once wrote, a statement of particular significance today when denial of the reality of a pandemic has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives, when denial of climate change threatens the future well-being of millions, and when the blindness, incompetence and furious denial of reality by a ‘mad’ king threatens to further undermine both the nation’s political and psychological stability.

Recovery from the trauma of this tragic descent into madness may be possible, but not before an effective truth serum has been developed capable of providing “herd immunity” against the highly-infectious virus of untruth and denial of reality that has characterized Trump and his Era.

Les Adler

January 9, 2021

SEX AND TAXES

Sex Sells!  The Ad man’s motto since modern advertising began has never been truer or more evident than in our latest “Cultural Moment” of coming to terms with sexual misconduct itself.    

Is it just coincidental that just as the most momentous tax shift in recent history is working its way through the halls of Congress, potentially affecting the entire economy and every American’s life for decades to come, the news is dominated with story after story of sexual misconduct by powerful men?

Sex sells because of both its attractive and repulsive qualities.  But its most notable quality at present is its tremendous power to distract.  Certainly the issues raised by overly aggressive or predatory behavior need to be vigorously aired and legal or social boundaries re-defined.  But with its magnetic public appeal, sex is dangerously drawing media and national attention away from other critical issues: in particular the egregious Republican effort to shift the tax burden from corporations and the already-wealthy to nearly everyone else.  

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"

The Wizard of Oz, 1939

Credit: Creative Commons

The role that mainstream media might be playing in explaining and analyzing the tax “sausage” as it’s being made in unseemly haste in private party caucuses, without open hearings, serious debate or attempts to assemble a bipartisan coalition has somehow been superseded by the demands of reporting on the latest sexual harassment scandals.  

From Roy Moore to Harvey Weinstein to Al Franken and now Charlie Rose (with the specter of Donald Trump’s behavior looming in the background) sex has dominated both the news and the debate over national ethics and morals.  One result, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg has pointedly noted is that because of their responsiveness to issues of sexism, it “feels as if liberal institutions are devouring themselves over sex while conservatives, unburdened by the pretense of caring about gender equality, blithely continue their misrule.”

This is the climate in which a massive, detailed and highly controversial tax bill which permanently cuts corporate taxes from 35% to 20% and ends the estate tax while greatly reducing, phasing out or eliminating middle class benefits such as deductions for medical costs, state and local taxes, school loans and mortgage interest is being rushed through Congress. Not to mention the recent approval of more than a trillion dollar addition to the national debt which seems miraculously to have left deficit hawks in the GOP unfazed!

All under the guise of tax reform—surely a topic worthy of everyone’s serious attention—but now being railroaded by the demands of major donors and a Senate rules deadline.

Donald Trump’s election and presidency, for complex reasons, has clearly allowed a number of previously repressed and unresolved national issues to rise to the surface, some largely symbolic such as the removal of Confederate statues, and others such as sexism and racism  painfully real.

Yet behind the scenes, and certainly taking advantage of the fortunate distractions provided by juicy sexual scandals, Trump’s tweets about black athletes disrespecting the flag, and border walls, powerful and very determined masters of the universe are moving to alter the basic economic ground on which we all stand.  Whether by design or coincidence, the explosive “cultural moment” provided by our current obsession with sexual wrongdoing may just create the necessary conditions to allow them to prevail.

Les Adler

COULD $82 MILLION HELP EXPLAIN WHY THE US CONGRESS IS FULL OF CLIMATE-CHANGE DENIERS?

American author Upton Sinclair once quipped, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Pump "salary" up to $82 million in contributions from the fossil fuel industry to climate-change deniers in the US Senate and House of Representatives, and you can start to understand why so many of the people we've elected to represent us spout so much nonsense about climate change.

$ 1 Million on display in Las Vegas

(multiply this by 82 and give to your favorite politicians)

Credit: mmarchin/CreativeCommons

According to Ryan Koronowsky at ThinkProgress, there are 180 climate deniers in the US Congress, not to mention the one in the oval office. Of those, 142 are in the House and 38 in the Senate. That represents a hefty 59 percent of the Republicans in the House, and a truly impressive 73 percent of the Republicans in the Senate. Remarkable figures given that the American public overwhelmingly recognizes that human-caused climate change is real and supports government action to mitigate it.

It appears that something is causing our senators and representatives to oppose not just the scientific consensus on climate change but the desires of their own constituents. It could be superior intelligence, greater knowledge or perhaps a more highly developed sense of responsibility and stewardship.

Or it could be money. Money that pays for the market research and ads that keep getting them elected.

What do you think?

Me, I'm betting on the money.

-----

Here's a list of who and how much.

You can read Koronowsky's detailed article, with maps and charts, here.

You can read an interesting piece about parallels between the Soviet embrace of Lysenkoism under Stalin and the Republican embrace of climate change denial here.

Note: To be fair, Democrats are probably just as likely to be "influenced" by contributions. This essay by Lauren McCauley at Common Dreams presents data showing that for a mere $100,000, the odds of a Democrat representative flipping on a key financial regulation issue rose by 14 percent. With millions or billions of dollars of profits at stake, political contributions are clearly a terrific investment.

If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for email alerts and let friends know about zerospinzone.blogspot.com.

ORIGINALIST SIN

Institute co-founder, Les Adler, has published an essay or OpEdNews explaining why the Republican refusal to consider any Obama nominee to the Supreme Court qualifies as "an originalist sin." You can read the article here.