Democracy Itself

[p0rtia]

So I keep wanting to post in this thread but can't find it. Today I looked hard but still couldn't find it. I figure the only way I can find it is to create another topic, and someone will point out that there already is one. (cf the old joke about how if you're lost in the woods, pull out a deck of cards and play solitaire, and someone will appear to kibitz.)

[Foggy]

!	Message from: Foggy
	I merged the thread with itself (which is a felony in Alabama, I heard).

[noblepa]

Brrrr. That is chilling!

[p0rtia]

Brrrr. That is chilling!

A reminder (again) that what is happening/what has happened is not new. Such have been the ways of the Caesars since time immemorial. I don't think I ever quite got it till recently that the whole point of democracy is to keep the damn power out of the hands of one damn person. Magna Carta notwithstanding.

[Ben-Prime]

Brrrr. That is chilling!

By some combination of propinquity and serendipity I made a trip into the Soho/Chinatown area of London last week and, with one of my favorite little RPG book stores in London closed on Sundays (which, alas, I did not know when I made the 30 minute train ride into the city center, because I was a dumbass and didn't bother looking it up), I walked across the street from it into a record/book/video store and found on the book rack Goldsworthy's biography of Julius Caesar. So I bought myself a copy and it's been my mealtime reading material this week when I am eating solo.

Right in the very first chapter, something more insidious -- at least to me -- gets mentioned, or at least hinted. Julius Caesar's own uncle actually started this slide. Most folks don't know this; I had known it as a bare factoid nugget without context (the benefits of a history degree and 6 total years of high school and college Latin, 30+ years ago). Now, I've got the book tucked away in my satchel because I prep my work clothes and my carry bag the night before, so I'm discussing this from memory of something I initially read a few days ago before a 4 day training course that drained the light from my soul. So bear with me, here.

In the Republic, one of the unwritten rules was that while one could hold lesser offices as necessary, the two great offices of Praetor and Consul (there were six or seven total of these, and I'm forgetting the exact numbers but I want to say 5 Praetors and 2 Consuls, but don't quote me) were only to be held once or at most once apiece for 1 year apiece. Then you stepped down, walked away, and relied on the auctoritas or gravitas -- the weight and political capital you made during this 1 or 2 total years in high office -- to become an elder statesman of the Senate and guide the Republic as one voice among a handful of most respected voices.

Caius Marius held the the Consulship 7 times, with 5 of these years *in a row*. He did this because at the start of the last century CE, the Republic was facing an unprecedented series of successive military threats in waves from different angles -- the Celtic & Teutonic tribes were allying on the Gallic front, vassal kingdoms were battlegrounds in Africa, and so on. Having just a couple of years earlier served once successfully as Consul (and a few years before that for a year in the lesser office as Tribune of the Plebs), he was a trusted face and voice and was elected twice in succession (so already unheard of), but then pushed for 3 more years to deal with the threat.

So I guess the moral of this is that it starts early, builds steam, replaces old normal with new normal. 100CE or so = C. Marius. Then mid-century, Julius. Then later, Augustus. Each building on the slow, gradual eroding of customs and traditions used to keep things in check when written law was not enough.

A writer in yesterdays' Times (the London Times) noted WRT to the BoJo situation, that gentlemen's agreements are guardrails only when the people observing them are gentlemen. He did note the dated genderism of the language, of course, but wanted the sentiment to be clear.

Combined with the video above, this really worries me. I no longer laugh off the notion that modern Western civilization is in fact going the way of the Romans.

[Edited name of author of Caesar biography]

[p0rtia]

[p0rtia]

GOP talks coup
DOJ is DOA
Waits till Atlas shrugs

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

[p0rtia]

File under: Who the hell is Thomas Zimmer and where has he been all my life?

It's a thread on how neo-Republicans approach governance and voting.

[AndyinPA]

I just now finished reading that. I would definitely recommend it, and it's The Guardian, so easy to access.

[Ben-Prime]

I just now finished reading that. I would definitely recommend it, and it's The Guardian, so easy to access.

Guardian, NYT, and WaPo are the three news apps on my phone -- and I occasionally buy the print edition while I'm living in London.

[raison de arizona]

I stole this from Twitter but I read the book a long time ago. My father had a copy of it in our house when we were kids and he was not a closet Liberal, but a self-educated man from Smuteye Alabama. From @MarkJacob16 "With all the arguments over whether MAGA Republicans are fascists, I reread William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” to see how much the rise of Hitler and the rise of MAGA smell similar...Conclusion: They do. I'm not saying that MAGA will end up as horrifically as Nazism. I am saying that America 2022 feels too much like Germany 1932, and I don't want to take the risk of watching MAGA cultism play out. We have to stop it now."This thread lists 10 ways. Please take a look.

1. A big lie about treachery is used to foment resentment.
Nazis: We didn’t really lose World War I. It was a “stab in the back” by Jews and other "November criminals."
MAGA: We didn’t really lose the 2020 election. It was a “steal” by politicians and Blacks in big cities.

2. There’s an obsession with the purity of the culture.
Nazis: “Racial mixture” was a threat to Aryan culture, Hitler wrote.
MAGA: “Great replacement theory,” says immigrants threaten white culture.

3. Chaos is something to be exploited, not addressed.
Nazis: Economic distress is a great political opportunity.
MAGA: Economic distress is a great political opportunity.

4. The super-rich bankrolls the right-wing seizure of power.
Nazis: Thanks to I.G. Farben, Deutsche Bank, Thyssen, Krupp, etc.
MAGA: Thanks to the Mercers, Uihlein's, DeVos, Thiel, etc...

5. Some people think the fascist threat is overblown.
Nazis: While Hitler posed a major threat, some said he "ceased to be a political danger.” (2 weeks later, he was chancellor.)
MAGA: While Trump poses a major threat, many people think it’s “just politics,” no worries...

6. There’s a cult of personality.
Nazis: The German army made a pledge of loyalty to Hitler personally.
MAGA: Trump’s supporters bill him as “the most moral president” in U.S. history.

7. Christianity is used to legitimize the movement.
Nazis: “The party stands for positive Christianity.”
MAGA: Trump is described as the “Chosen One” protecting American Christianity.

8. Books are the enemy.
Nazis: Any book that “acts subversively on our future” must be burned.
MAGA: “I think we should throw those books in a fire,” says a Virginia school board member.

9. An independent news media is the enemy.
Nazis: Any newspaper that “offends the honor and dignity of Germany” must be banned.
MAGA: The press is the “enemy of the people.”

10. Educators are pressured to be politically compliant.
Nazis: Teachers took an oath to “be loyal and obedient to Adolf Hitler.”
MAGA: Florida’s DeSantis, the Maga crown prince, accuses teachers of “indoctrination” and pressures them to avoid references to America’s racist history and LGBTQ people..."

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 0026350348

[Suranis]

Some of those are stretching a bit, lets be honest.

I keep saying comparing Trump with Mussolini is a better comparison anyway. But he isn't as sexy as saying "Nat Zees!"

Hitler, to give him his due, was a tough customer, having served in the army in ww1, and had been fighting other gangs fist to fist in the beer halls in the 20s. Trump is a silver spoon jackass desperate for peoples affirmation, nothing like Hitler.

Anyway, the point is that Italian Fascism was different to German fascism, and American Fascism is not really like German Fascism either. Making comparisons with German Fascism will just make people say "well the differences mean we are not Fascist, right? *cough*DontmentionItalianorSpanishFascism*Cough*"

[RTH10260]

Do not forget the huge book Don will write while incarcerated. "My fight", subtitled "How my attorneys cheated my contractors"

[Chilidog]

Do not forget the huge book Don will write while incarcerated. "My fight", subtitled "How my attorneys cheated my contractors"

i’m sure it will be a big hit when translated back to the original German.

[Gregg]

Do not forget the huge book Don will write while incarcerated. "My fight", subtitled "How my attorneys cheated my contractors"

i’m sure it will be a big hit when translated back to the original German.

True story, most of the sales of Mien Kampf were to either the Nazi Party or later to the actual German Government, to be given away or forced upon people. It was given free to every newlywed couple and every soldier fighting at the front during the war. Hitler, like someone else I know but can't quite place, was obsessed with his image and copywrite and trademarked every image of his person.
When his image was later required on all postage stamps, currency and other government documents he charged the German Government for its use. Trump, somehow, never thought of that.

[Phoenix520]

Hitler, Mussolini, tomato, tomahto. It’s the march toward authoritarianism that’s worrying.

[Suranis]

True story, most of the sales of Mien Kampf were to either the Nazi Party or later to the actual German Government, to be given away or forced upon people.

Ya, apparently "My Fight/Struggle" was one of the most boring books ever written. Everyone had to have it and probably memorize a few passages in case someone called them out on it, but very few people ever actually read it.

[bob]

Trump, somehow, never thought of that.

According to the USPS, to be on a stamp, you first have to be dead for three years. (NADT.)

[Chilidog]

back in the mid ‘70s when i was in High School, one time i had a free period, so I went to the library to do a little studying. we had a large library with several nice little nooks with chairs in it. the chair I was sitting in was next to a very unused section of translated books. i realized that one was “Mein Kamp.”

I pulled it out. it had not been checked out in so long it still had the old style hand written check out card in the sleeve. in fact, there was only one name on it. “A. Hitler,” with a check out date of 1944.

obviously some smart ass high school kid.

i opened it at random and all that was there was the author complaining about how certain people smelled funny to him.

[keith]

I read it a million years ago but can't remember much about it. It wasn't memorable in any way to be honest. I mostly skimmed on autopilot. Calling it boring crap is giving it too much credit.

[Suranis]

This just popped up on my facebook feed, and it's kind of apropos. Mussolini lied about making the Trains run on time, like the Mango Madman lied about The best employment evah, low fuel prices, etc.

Mussolini and On-Time Trains
Did Mussolini make the trains run on time?

David Mikkelson

Published 9 October 2007

Every political leader — whether he be a democratically elected representative or a usurping tyrant — seeks to gain broad public support, because the greater his support, the greater his power. That power may ultimately be used for good or for bad, but either way it must be obtained before it can be wielded.

One of the best ways to gain the support of the people you want to lead is to do something of benefit to them. Failing that, the next best thing is to convince them that you have done something of benefit to them, even though you really haven’t. So it was with Benito Mussolini and the Italian railway system.

After the “march on Rome” (which was itself a myth of fascist propaganda) on 28 October 1922 that resulted in King Vittorio Emanuele’s appointment of Benito Mussolini as prime minister and the accession to power of the fascists in Italy, Mussolini needed to convince the people of Italy that fascism was indeed a system that worked to their benefit. Thus was born the myth of fascist efficiency, with the train as its symbol. The word was spread that Mussolini had turned the dilapidated Italian railway system into one that was the envy of all Europe, featuring trains that were both dependable and punctual. In Mussolini’s Italy, all the trains ran on time.

Well, not quite. The Italian railway system had fallen into a rather sad state during World War I, and it did improve a good deal during the 1920s, but Mussolini was disingenuous in taking credit for the changes: much of the repair work had been performed before Mussolini and the fascists came to power in 1922. More importantly (to the claim at hand), those who actually lived in Italy during the Mussolini era have borne testimony that the Italian railway’s legendary adherence to timetables was far more myth than reality.

The myth of Mussolini’s punctual trains lives on, albeit with a different slant: rather than serving as a fictitious symbol of the benefits of fascism, it is now offered as a sardonic example that something good can result even from the worst of circumstances. As Montagu and Darling wrote:

Mussolini may have done many brutal and tyrannical things; he may have destroyed human freedom in Italy; he may have murdered and tortured citizens whose only crime was to oppose Mussolini; but ‘one had to admit’ one thing about the Dictator: he ‘made the trains run on time.’

No, thanks. I’d rather walk.

Sightings: In an episode of televisions L.A. Law (“Romancing the Drone,” originally aired 17 November 1988), Michael Kuzak answers Grace Van Owen’s criticism with “And Mussolini made the trains run on time.”

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loco-motive/

[Gregg]

Trump, somehow, never thought of that.

According to the USPS, to be on a stamp, you first have to be dead for three years. (NADT.)

I knew that, and it's just for that reason.

But you act like Trump would follow a law that prevents him putting money in his pocket and his image out there.

Also, there have been exceptions. An image of Buzz Aldrin on the moon was used in 1970 and after 9/11 there were people who were known persons used on a stamp showing the flag at ground zero. I'm pretty sure both examples required an Executive Order.


ETA: Wow, there are in fact 77 living people that are shown on US Postage StampLiving persons on US Stampss.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/09/1 ... -pub-87918
The article is very long. Here is a summary.

Five Strategies to Support U.S. Democracy

Table1_Kleinfeld__1__kindlephoto-10266026.png (446.56 KiB) Viewed 1819 times

[p0rtia]

Watching this happening is the definition of helplessness.

Gift link.

https://wapo.st/3RBU9SW

Misinformation research is buckling under GOP legal attacks
An escalating campaign, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other Republicans, has cast a pall over programs that study political disinformation and the quality of medical information online
By Naomi Nix, Cat Zakrzewski and Joseph Menn
Updated September 25, 2023 at 1:26 p.m. EDT|Published September 23, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Academics, universities and government agencies are overhauling or ending research programs designed to counter the spread of online misinformation amid a legal campaign from conservative politicians and activists who accuse them of colluding with tech companies to censor right-wing views.

The escalating campaign — led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other Republicans in Congress and state government — has cast a pall over programs that study not just political falsehoods but also the quality of medical information online.

Facing litigation, Stanford University officials are discussing how they can continue tracking election-related misinformation through the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a prominent consortium that flagged social media conspiracies about voting in 2020 and 2022, several participants told The Washington Post. The coalition of disinformation researchers may shrink and also may stop communicating with X and Facebook about their findings.

The National Institutes of Health froze a $150 million program intended to advance the communication of medical information, citing regulatory and legal threats. Physicians told The Post that they had planned to use the grants to fund projects on noncontroversial topics such as nutritional guidelines and not just politically charged issues such as vaccinations that have been the focus of the conservative allegations.

Lots more at the link.