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dailyanarchistposts · 9 months ago

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The Government Responds to the Yellow Vests

Those interested who wish to see two and half hours of political doublespeak can watch Macron’s press conference in full. Our goal here is simply to analyze some of the major decisions taken by the French government.

In the opening statement, Macron explained that he had learned a lot from the National Debate and emerged “transformed.” According to him, this three-month political experience highlighted that there is a deeply rooted feeling of fiscal, territorial, and social injustice among the population, alongside a perceived lack of consideration on the part of the elite. Therefore, the government has decided to present “a more human and fair” political project.

However, after these conventional words intended to create the illusion of empathy from the government towards yellow vesters and everyone else struggling on a daily basis as a consequence of the policies implemented by successive governments, Macron lifted the veil, adding:

“Does this mean that everything that has been done in the past two years should be stopped? I believe quite the opposite. We must continue the transformations. The orientations taken have been good and fair. The fundamentals of the first two years must be preserved, pursued, and intensified. The economic growth is greater than that of our neighboring countries.”

If some people still hesitated to believe that the National Debate was just a political farce, here is the ultimate proof. For months, people expressed their frustrations in the streets and traffic circles. Facing this unprecedented and uncontrollable situation, the authorities answered by saying that in a democracy, dialogue must not be established through “violence,” therefore offering the National Debate as an alternative in order to pacify the situation—while increasing police repression against demonstrators in the meantime.

After three months of National Debate—which fortunately failed to stop the movement—those who trusted the good intentions of the government saw their efforts and demands dismissed. In effect, Macron was telling everyone, “Thanks a lot for taking part of this debate, we heard you, but in the end, we decided to pursue our political agenda and continue the liberalization of the capitalist economy.”

So the long-awaited conclusion of the National Debate was simply a mix of old promises, a few adjustments to show the goodwill of the government, and new reforms to accelerate the transformation and liberalization of society.

First, Macron rejected some of the biggest demands of the yellow vest movement. The government will not officially recognize “blank votes” as a form of opposition during elections (so far, those votes are counted but they are not taken into account in the final results and in the total number of vote cast). Then, he refused to reverse the decision to reduce taxes on the income of the super-rich—one of the issues that had provoked the emergence of the yellow vest movement in the first place.

Furthermore, the government also opposed the idea of creating the Citizens’ Initiative Referendum (RIC). Instead, they want to develop an already existing alternative¬—the Referendum of Shared Initiative—by simplifying its rules. From now on, instead of requiring 4.7 million signatures to be discussed at the Assemblée Nationale, a petition will only need one million signatures and the approval of at least a fifth of the total number of deputies. If the National Assembly refuses to discuss the issue, a referendum can be held. Macron also mentioned his desire to reinforce the right to petition at a local scale.

Even with the proposal to simplify this participatory political platform, it is easy to see that the government is taking very few risks with this alternative. The idea is to give people the impression that they have more leverage within the democratic system, as they can address petitions to their representatives. But in the end, who will have the final word on these issues? Politicians motivated by self-interest, power, and careerism. There is very little probability that the deputies will validate any petition that could threaten the status quo. As in any other political system, this democratic game is obviously rigged: even if you play by the rules, you always lose!

Then, Macron repeated and clarified some reforms that were already present in his electoral program of 2017: limiting the number of terms for politicians (though he did not specify how many would be allowed); reducing the number of parliamentarians by 25% or 30%; increasing the degree of proportional representation in legislative elections (which will likely give more power to the National Front in French political institutions).[1]

After presenting what the government is planning to do to include more elements of participatory democracy in the French political system, Macron expressed his desire to undertake a “profound reform of the French administration” and of its public service. To do so, the government intends to put an end to the National School of Administration (ENA)—symbol of republican elitism and opportunism—in order to create a new institution that “works better.” Moreover, in May, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has been mandated to officially present a government plan to put more civil servants in the field so they can help the authorities find solutions to people’s problems at a local scale. Therefore, the government has abandoned its previous objective of abolishing 120,000 posts of civil servants—but this doesn’t mean that the government has abandoned the idea of cutting jobs.

To fight against the steady reduction of public services in the countryside and in some provinces—such as post offices and deliveries, health insurance, and unemployment agencies—the government aims to establish buildings that would concentrate all these rudimentary public services in one location. Such initiative already exists, in fact, but is suffering from critical underfunding.

Then, Macron stated that no further hospital or school will close until 2022—the end of his presidential term—without the agreement of the Mayor of the Commune they are located in. For years, successive governments have underfunded hospitals and schools, increasing the precarious aspect of working conditions. The main question is—what will happen after 2022? Regarding the education issue, Macron agreed to limit the number of students per class to 24 from kindergarten to second grade and to duplicate classes if necessary, as is already stipulated in some priority education areas—read poor districts. This is an interesting focus for Macron when in the meantime, government policies are worsening the educational system as a whole, especially via reforms targeting high schools and universities.

Concerning economic policies, Macron explained that he wants to “significantly reduce” the amount of income tax demanded from the middle class. However, to do so while balancing the loss of tax revenue, Macron is asking everyone to “work more.” The meaning behind this statement remains quite obscure, as Macron offered no further explanation. So far, we know that the government doesn’t want to change the legal age of retirement nor to cancel holidays. However, Macron is not opposed to the idea of increasing the number of working hours per week. The government also aims to reach its objective of “full employment” by 2025, without explaining how this might take place. In order to compensate for the tax cuts for the middle class, the government also aims to suppress some specific fiscal niches used by large companies, but Macron said nothing about the various strategies of tax evasion utilized by the super-rich.

Macron also explained his wish to increase the minimum amount of retirement pensions from today’s approximately €650 per month up to €1000. Moreover, Macron also reconsidered his previous policy regarding retirement and confirmed that pensions under €2000 would be re-indexed to account for inflation starting January 2020. Finally, the government wants to create some sort of mechanism to guarantee the payment of child support to families in need.

Starting in June, Macron wants to create a “citizen’s convention composed of one hundred and fifty people with the mission to work on significant measures for the planet.” In addition, he wants to establish a Council of Ecological Defense to address climate change. This council would involve the Prime Minister as well as the main Ministers in charge of this transition in order to take “strategic choices and to put this climate change at the very core of our policies.” This is not a measure to address the ecological crisis so much as yet another step in the development of the same French bureaucracy that sparked the yellow vest movement in the first place. Our governments and the systems that put them in power in the first place continue to lead us towards darker futures.

Finally, and most ominously, Macron presented his plan to “rebuild the immigration policy” of France. “Europe needs to rethink its cooperation with Africa in order to limit the endured immigration and has to reinforce its borders, even if this means having a Schengen area with less countries,” he proclaimed. “I deeply believe in asylum, but we must strengthen the fight against those who abuse it.” This will likely be the premise of a new step in the development of fortress Europe. And, of course, whatever authoritarian measures are developed to target migrants will also be used to target poor people and rebellious elements within France itself. In this regard, we can see that it has been self-destructive as well as racist and xenophobic that some yellow vesters have demanded more immigration controls.

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lawbyrhys · 5 months ago

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The ABA Task Force For American Democracy

The American Bar Association has put together a task force of skilled lawyers to take the "clarion call" and safeguard American democracy against the seriously looming threat of "rising authoritarianism." Inspired by the "noble" role lawyers played in preserving the vote during the 2020 election and put together by ABA President Mary Smith, the task force exists to enable attorneys to step up and defend American democracy. The task force is co-chaired by former Federal Judge J. Michael Luttig and former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Charles Johnson, and it aims to appoint the legal practice to defend the country in this election. Let's break it all down.

Smith originally founded the task force with the goal of, "grappling with deep political divisions and pervasive misinformation about our electoral processes. Through extensive research, community engagement via listening tours and numerous consultations, the Task Force has identified key issues undermining our democratic institutions. Notably, the rise of misinformation, the normalization of political violence and a growing disillusionment with democratic governance."

Among the goals of the task force are to prepare the country for this election, engage in voting and promotion thereof, protect and advocate for election officials and workers, use the legal process to protect the election process, and defend in the war on American democracy by those who'd wish to harm it. Lawyers take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and the task force aims to utilize that oath to preserve Amwrixan democracy as it is in place now, though it "teeters on a knife's edge."

It's a belief held by the American Bar Association and its members—including myself—that American citizens take for granted the rights held by the democratic process and within the United States. This election is rightfully seen as a test of citizens' support of democracy and the rule of law, and the ABA aims to highlight the importance of upholding this through the new task force.

“Our country and democracy face a wide variety of serious threats, including that of rising authoritarianism,” the Task Force opening report reads. “For the first time in our history, we did not have a peaceful transition of power in our last presidential election.”

The co-chairs note how good lawyers are when it comes to conflict resolution, and it's a goal of this task force to employ those skills this November. It is noted how many lawyers aided in the problem, or at least bore the burden, four years ago, and it's the aim that we can be the major solution this time. The group consists of 30 lawyers, although it pursues an effort to utilize the skills, talents, and ethical morality of 1.3M attorneys nationwide. The ABA hopes to preserve democracy with this task force.

The task force emphasizes the importance of attorneys' advice, stating that it, "must always be faithful to and consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and the constitutions and laws of the states in which the advice and counsel is given,” and those who fail to do so will be held appropriately accountable.

“Lawyers have the unique skills and obligation to defend democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law as each takes an oath to do just that. We encourage state licensing authorities to be quick to investigate and act on any such violations, especially when related to our elections.”

Needless to say, I accept the call to action.

The task force officially launches today, August 8th, and I am beyond supportive of the effort.

I really am thrilled about this task force, as I really do take my oath seriously and consider myself a patriotic man and attorney. I am honored to practice law, and I look forward to using my expertise in any way to help this cause. We must protect our democracy.

I'm at your service, ABA—I'll even waive my fees.

That was a joke, but the sentiment stands.

What do you think about this? Let me know.

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bllsbailey · 4 months ago

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The Background on the Alleged Suspect in New Trump Assassination Attempt Is Something Else

Fox News has reported that the alleged suspect in the second Trump assassination attempt is Ryan Wesley Routh, as we reported earlier.

He allegedly aimed a rifle through the fence on the golf course where Trump was. He was about 300-500 yards away. Law enforcement claimed he had an AK-47 with a scope and a Go-Pro camera at the fence. He also had a bag with ceramic plates. The Secret Service fired at him and he fled in a black SUV. A citizen saw him and took a picture of his license which the citizen gave to police. The suspect was later caught on the highway by the Martin County Sheriff's Office. Sheriff William Snyder said the suspect was "calm" and not armed when he was stopped. He is now in custody. This

READ MORE: NEW: Fox Has Identified Suspect in New Assassination Attempt on Trump, Per Law Enforcement Sources

UPDATED: Press Conference Reveals Key Details in Second Trump Assassination Attempt

HOT TAKES: Left and Liberal Media Shame Themselves Over Second Trump Assassination Attempt

Now there's more information about this man and it's concerning.

According to the Sacramento Bee,

[He had a] criminal history in North Carolina that includes convictions between 2002 and 2010 of possession of weapons of mass destruction, carrying a concealed gun, hit and run, possession of stolen goods and resisting law enforcement, among other charges. He’s registered in North Carolina as an unaffiliated voter. In North Carolina, unaffiliated voters can choose which primary they want to vote in. Routh chose Democrats.

The News and Record had a 2002 report about a Ryan Routh who barricaded himself inside United Roofing and then faced charges including having a "weapon of mass destruction" because they said he had a "fully automatic machine gun."

The News & Observer said Routh was interviewed in 2022 by Newsweek Romania and in 2023 by The New York Times for helping to recruit civilian volunteers to help Ukraine fight the war against Russia.

“If governments won’t send their official military, then we civilians have to pick up the torch and make this happen,” Routh told Newsweek.

You can also see a report on Semafor where they covered Routh in passing and his effort to raise volunteers for Ukraine.

According to the NY Times:

In the interview, Mr. Routh said he was in Washington to meet with the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, known as the Helsinki Commission “for two hours” to help push for more support for Ukraine. The commission is led by members of Congress and staffed by congressional aides. It is influential on matters of democracy and security and has been vocal in supporting Ukraine.

Routh allegedly has also made small donations to Democrats through ActBlue. He purportedly made 19 donations since 2019, including for individual 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidates including former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). He has not donated to Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.

According to what people have seen of what is believed to be his X account, he was a huge supporter of Ukraine and he's also made a lot of bizarre posts, like this one to Elon Musk.

“I would like to buy a rocket from you. I wish to load it with a warhead for Putin’s Black Sea mansion bunker to end him. Can you give me a price please. It can be old and used as not returning,” Routh wrote

You can see more of what appears to be his X account here. I was looking at it as it went down, so thanks to Billboard Chris for preserving it.

According to the NY Post:

He advised Biden, 81, in an April 22 X post when he was still running for reelection, to run a campaign around keeping “America democratic and free.” He claimed Trump wants to “make Americans slaves against master.” “We cannot afford to fail,” Routh continued. “The world is counting on us to show the way.”

While he had been in North Carolina, he relocated to Hawaii.

What isn't clear is how he knew Trump would be there at that time at the golf course, since that wasn't on Trump's public schedule. That raises even more questions.

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 22, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

There were three important takeaways from today’s Senate vote on whether to begin debate on S1, the For the People Act, the bill that would protect voting rights, end partisan gerrymandering, establish new ethics rules for federal officials, and curb big money in politics.

The first is that Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) voted with the rest of the Democrats to move the measure forward. This means that he is confident that his compromise ideas will be inserted into the final bill and that the Democrats are united. Tonight, the White House nodded to Manchin when it applauded “efforts in the Senate to incorporate feedback that refines and strengthens the bill, and would make its reformers easier for the states to implement.”

The same White House statement offered strong support for the For the People Act, saying, “Democracy is in peril, here, in America. The right to vote—a sacred right in this country— is under assault with an intensity and an aggressiveness we have not seen in a long time.” It pointed to the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection to remind us that “our democracy is fragile” and that we need legislation to “repair and strengthen American democracy.”

The second takeaway is that all 50 of the Republicans voted against the measure, which would have helped to combat the voter suppression laws being enacted by Republican-dominated legislatures across the country. According to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, 18 states have put in place more than 30 laws restricting access to the ballot. These laws will affect around 36 million people, or about 15% of all eligible voters.

Led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Republicans insist that federal protection of voting rights is federal overreach; that the states should be in charge of their own voting rules. As Susan Collins (R-ME) put it: “S. 1 would take away the rights of people in each of the 50 states to determine which election rules work best for their citizens.”

And the third takeaway is that the Republicans are defending the same principle that Senator Stephen A. Douglas advanced when he debated Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln in Illinois in 1858.

Four years before, Douglas had led Congress to throw out the 1820 Missouri Compromise, a federal law that kept the system of Black enslavement out of the land above the southern border of the new slave state of Missouri, in land the U.S. had acquired through the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Eager to enable a transcontinental railroad to run west of Chicago, Douglas introduced a bill to organize a territory in that land in 1854 but, knowing that southern senators would never permit a new free territory that would eventually become a free state without balancing it with a slave state, he wrote a bill for two new territories, not one.

Both were in territory covered by the Missouri Compromise and thus should have been free under federal law. But Douglas insisted that true democracy meant that the people in the territories should decide whether or not they would welcome slavery to their midst.

Working as a lawyer back in Illinois, Lincoln recognized that this “popular sovereignty” would guarantee the spread of Black enslavement across the West, since under the Constitution, even a single enslaved Black American in a territory would require laws to protect that “property.” Slave states would eventually outnumber free states in Congress, and their representatives would make human enslavement national.

In 1858, when Lincoln, now a member of the new Republican Party, challenged Democrat Douglas for his Senate seat, the key issue was whether Douglas’s “democracy” squared with American principles.

Lincoln said it didn’t. Local voters should not be able to carry enslavement into lands that a majority of Americans wanted free. He did not defend civil rights, but he insisted that the framers had deliberately tried to advance the principles of the Declaration of Independence by using the federal government to limit the expansion of enslavement.

Douglas insisted it did. In his view, democracy meant that voters in the states and territories could arrange their governments however they wished.

But central to that belief was who, exactly, would be doing the arranging. “I hold that this Government was made on the white basis, by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men and none others,” he said. Claiming that he, not Lincoln, was “in favor of preserving this Government as our fathers made it,” he told an audience in Jonesboro, Illinois, “we ought to extend to the negro every right, every privilege, every immunity which he is capable of enjoying, consistent with the good of society. When you ask me what these rights are, what their nature and extent is, I tell you that that is a question which each State of this Union must decide for itself.” His own state of Illinois, he pointed out, rejected Black enslavement, “but we have also decided that… that he shall not vote, hold office, or exercise any political rights. I maintain that Illinois, as a sovereign State, has a right thus to fix her policy….”

I found it chilling to hear Douglas’s argument from 1858 echo in the Senate today, for after seeing exactly how his argument enabled white southern legislators to cut their Black neighbors out of the vote in the 1870s and then pass Jim Crow laws that lasted for more than 70 years, our lawmakers should know better. How is it possible to square states’ rights and equality without also protecting the right of all adult citizens to vote? Unless everyone has equal access to the ballot, what is there to stop Douglas’s view of “the good of society” from coming to pass yet again?

Congress will recess after Thursday and won’t resume business until July 12. The big push to pass a voting rights measure will happen then.

—-

Notes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-voting-rights-bill/2021/06/22/d63f6a46-d35a-11eb-ae54-515e2f63d37d_story.html

Craig Caplan @CraigCaplanCollins (R-ME): "S. 1 would take away the rights of people in each of the 50 states to determine which election rules work best for their citizens." 34 Retweets91 Likes

June 22nd 2021

Aaron Fritschner @FritschnerNew White House SAP just issued on the For the People Act: "Democracy is in peril, here, in America. The right to vote - a sacred right in this country - is under assault with an intensity and aggressiveness we have not seen in a long time." 783 Retweets1,877 Likes

June 22nd 2021

https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate3.htm

https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate1.htm

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #history #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #voting rights #elections #quisling republicans #states rights #slavery #voter suppression #racism

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robert-c · 4 years ago

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Why It’s Important to Weed Out Extremists from the Military

Following the attempted insurrection at the Capitol on January 6 it has been discovered that a significant minority of active military personnel are sympathetic to, or active members of, various extreme right wing groups. This is not a “free speech” issue, or any other smoke screen that the right will try to offer.

It is critical to a free society to have its military and police (the enforcement arms of all levels of government) not only subordinate to a civilian authority but also pledged to defend the laws and rights of all citizens. It should be obvious that without these safeguards these armed representatives of the government are just the private army of whoever is in charge – and that is a short definition of a tyranny.

When someone takes an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States that DOES NOT make them a Constitutional scholar, let alone a Supreme Court Justice (who gets to participate in the interpretation and application of it). That needs saying because the insurrectionists of January 6 imagined that they were “preserving” democracy, defending the Constitution.

Before anyone says I’m picking on the right wing, let me add that any left wing extremist who imagines that they should take over the government “to protect our liberties” should be expelled from the military as well.

There is a line that has been obscured by the passion of people’s beliefs. The line is important and is not arbitrarily determined. Privately, and in our votes, we get to express whatever beliefs we wish in the form of the candidates and resolutions etc. we vote for or against. We are even allowed to peacefully assemble to call attention to issues we would like to see addressed. But we are not allowed to turn those ideas into a revolution against the government. The Constitution that so many of these extremists are intent on “preserving” by overthrowing the government founded on its principles, makes perfectly clear that taking up arms or aiding and abetting those who take up arms against that government are traitors. It is, in fact, the only crime the Constitution defines.

This is why there have to be so many unfounded conspiracy theories in these fringe groups – it is the only way they can imagine that they are not in a free society with a voice in what happens. And that is paramount to their justification of “radical” action. True, we have never perfectly achieved this union. There are still too many people whose voice and vote should be heard that are not for various (indefensible) reasons. But we are not living in a country where any dissent is a crime, at least not yet, thanks to the 2020 FAIR and HONEST election. (Let’s not forget that Trump once Tweeted, while in office, that he thought disagreeing with the President was against the law. It certainly reveals his tyrannical mindset.)

It really is a shame that our public education system seems to ignore a great deal of Latin American history. We seem to be attempting to replicate the worst examples of what has happened there. Typically governments there are run by large corporations and the rich and powerful, who are generally unashamedly exploiting the rest of the population. Should the sham of a democratic government in those places ever manage to elect someone who tries to break that stranglehold they are quickly branded a “socialist” or “communist”. Then, perhaps with the help of the US (overtly or covertly), the military stages a coup and creates a “junta” with the right wing and rich “owners” of the country. Instead of defending a constitutional government with elected officials, they became a politicized force whose support could be courted for power. BTW this is also how the Roman Republic disintegrated into a tyranny that was only about who controlled the army. But, hey, that was a long time ago, what could that possibly have to do with us today?

The Constitution and the government founded on its principles is not perfect, but it does allow for a society to grow and change and perfect itself. I am personally a lot more progressive (or liberal if you prefer) than I think most of the country is ready for. But I am confident that given adherence to our basic rights we will get there through gradual education of our fellow citizens. As a young man I thought the arbitrary exclusion of women and people of color from so many fields of endeavor was stupid and a waste of our natural human resources. While we are not yet completely past that idiocy, we have made enormous strides within my lifetime. I am confident that my other issues will fare well also, IF we can just keep anyone from thinking that taking over the government for the purpose of enforcing their world view is a “right and proper” thing to do.

If our police and military are not first and foremost dedicated to protecting the Constitution and the rights and liberties of all people that it guarantees, then this “experiment” will have failed and we will have tyranny. We’ve already been shown how fragile our democracy is.

#Insurrection #january 6 #tyrants

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butasformeblog · 4 years ago

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The U.S. Will Be The New Gilead If Trump Gets His Way

The Handmaiden's Tale was not only a very successful book and series, but a harbinger of the events that the U.S. now faces. Many will say it is predominantly an attack against women, but it is so much more than that. The new nation of Gilead (oddly the name of a current pharmaceutical corporation) is a government (predominately of white males) willing to sacrifice freedom and the lives of it's citizens to change the outcome of an ongoing public health crisis, infertility, that threatens the future of the governing elite to hold and retain power. A society that mixes religion, power, and elitism, into a political cult that suppresses the freedom of everyone.

With the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg we see life imitate art to the unbelievable extent that Trump's nominee of Amy Coney Barrett is the real life version of Gilead's Serena Joy Waterford. Serena, a lead figure in the birth and execution of this Orwellian dystopia of Gilead is at the top rung of power. So, too, will be Judge Barrett if she is appointed to the Supreme Court for the Supreme Court justices are the final and most enduring of the checks and balances on the power of the Presidency.

On the heels of RBG's passing and death bed wish, and with this rushed nomination of Barrett, Trump now has within his grasp the ability to co-opt the last check on his power. If he is allowed to fill this position, then no matter how the election turns out, Trump will remain in power. He will be able to tie it up in the courts and employ whatever means to thwart the people's will. It will be over unless we stand and fight now. No more trying to use the system to correct the ills Trump has wrought--the system has been shredded and is broken. Every agency has been either co-opted or criminalized by Trump and his gang.

It should have been a red flag that The Republican Platform is whatever Trump says it is. The Republicans are invested totally in the lawlessness, the fear, the chaos, and the hate of their leader. Their love and addiction to power surpasses all norms. While the Democrats continue to believe that the system can still respond to reason, Trump is making preparation to sound it's death knell.

America waited too long to stop Trump. It put up with his unending lies far too long and is on it's way to sacrificing its' second round of 200,000 + lives. America's insiders mistakenly thought they could ameliorate the nepotism, the greed of the First Family, their self-interest and promotion. Instead we became stuck in alliances with murdering despots and known enemies that determine our foreign policy and decision-making processes.

We now have two choices, either stand and fight or like The Handmaid's Tale seek refuge in Canada. Standing and fighting means more than Getting Out The Vote, it means making that vote count by action. We are now faced with answering the call to the same commitment our Founding Fathers made "... to sacrifice their prosperity for their posterity, pledging their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor," and no less than that. We can no longer reason, cajole, or maneuver in parliamentary twaddle this enemy of democracy. The time has come on Election Day to ask the generals of our armed services to stand with the American people and pledge to remove Trump and all members of his administration in order to save this democracy.

If we fail to act soon, you will see Trump taking further action to solidify his position as the United States first dictator. You will see his militia of white supremacists being summoned by Trump to defend their leader.

It is shocking that it has come to this, but each day without action provides another day for Trump to encroach further on our freedom. The rest of the world sees our growing weakness, and the forces of evil are salivating at our current state of vulnerability. Time has run out and we cannot afford any further accommodation to this tyrant and his co-conspirators.

To preserve our democracy, our republic, we must stand together united in our resolve to stop the destruction that Trump has done to our republic. Make no mistake, the time has past to meet this madman with writs, pleas, resolutions, or Roberts Rules of Order. Shoving the nomination of Barrett through the McConnell Senate seems to be a fait accompli and the last nail in our republic's coffin should it stand.

This Administration has no respect for our laws, our standards of morality, our principles, or our humanity. Trump only bows to power--and now is the time to show that we, as a people, have power. That by our sheer numbers and will can we bring even the greatest evil to it's knees. Our history validates that. We must not let this Administration take one more life from a policy of herd immunity, from unbridled racism, from insatiable greed, or from the love of power! This evil must be stopped, here & now. We must stand and fight for ourselves and our posterity.

#Call to Arms Trump #Ruth Nader Ginsburg #Amy Coney Barrett Gilead Supreme Court

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theculturedmarxist · 4 years ago

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Essay quam videri

hey, so this election is the first time I’ve been old enough to vote. im not a Democrat; I was doing work for bernies campaign and was pretty heartbroken when he suspended his campaign cause I know that biden is a rapist piece of shit and kamala is a fucking cop. but when the time came to vote in the election I voted for biden anyway cause I was told it would do more to protect people who were harmed by trumps campaign I don’t expect any sort of real change with biden and I worry that electing him will pacify civil unrest and provide people with a false sense of security,, but I felt like I wouldn’t have any right to be upset about trump being re-elected if I didn’t vote but do you think that voting for biden was fundamentally wrong? I’m trying to figure out how to navigate living in an evil system and sometimes I don’t know if it’s better to opt out or to participate and support an evil that is nominally better than another evil just wanted your opinion cause most ppl I know are on that “vote blue no matter who” shit

Hey,

I do understand how you feel. It can be really confusing, and it is a difficult question to come to grips with, trying to navigate an evil system and to minimize the damage your participation in it brings. This isn't an indictment of you personally, but an indictment of the world in which we live. One of the most horrid aspects of Capitalism is the barbarity that it makes us all ineluctably complicit in. Most people participate in the evils of this system through no real desire of their own, but because Capitalism has developed over the centuries a number of means to coerce participation. You can't have slavery without slaves, and there were always slaves because they created the profits that shackled them. That doesn't make picking master's cotton a fundamentally wrong act. You're a captive, and the captive's first duty is to survive, and secondly, to escape.

This ubiquitous coercion naturally makes any mechanism which we are invited to participate in suspicious. This recent election is a prime example: do you vote for this senile, racist, war-mongering, pedophile rapist, or that senile, racist, war-mongering, pedophile rapist? Do you vote for the man who put the people into camps, or vote for the man that built the camps? Do we bear the ills we have, or fly to others we know not of? You're right to be wary of participation. Part of its purpose is to instill a feeling of complicity in the crimes that result, either in yourself, or cast over some other party. The Democrats took advantage of this over the last four years to berate Trump for doing everything that Obama and Biden also did. They did and said the same things during Bush II's presidency. Now they exchange gifts with him and have brunch. It's theater, and they're all in the same troupe.

Do you know what constitutes bourgeois moralism? That it is pointless, epitomized in the phrase "thoughts and prayers!" It's wishing for good rather than doing good, hoping to be passed over by evil instead of working to destroy evil. Why do the bourgeoisie love philanthropy? Because it does nothing to lessen human misery. That is the essence of bourgeois moralism: seeming rather than being. The proletarian has no use for something so impractical, and you should not let yourself be fettered in this way. It will do you no good, nor anyone else. You will merely appear to be doing good, which is far worse than being nakedly evil.

Whether you decide to vote or not, and who you cast it for is entirely your prerogative. Haranguing the voter for participating or not, in a system they do not control, have no voice in, nor any real method of shaping, for people they had no hand in choosing, is nothing but vapid bourgeois moralism. It's a sleight of hand, transferring the guilt for Trump's crimes from the people that perpetrated them—Trump himself, the bourgeois that supports him, the thugs that carry out his orders, and so on, the willful perpetrators—onto you, the individual that had no part in any of it. This tactic is used to assuage the guilt of those who are willfully either complicit in a real sense or complicit in spirit. The same charlatans that try to shame you into voting want you to ignore that they've spent the last four years casually participating in the society that Trump runs, and dutifully supporting his regime with their taxes and commerce, and facilitating it with their compliance. They have nothing to offer you for your vote, because they are bankrupt themselves, bereft of the moral fortitude they fault others for not having. All they want is absolution, and the onus does not lie on you to give it.

That not casting a vote gives you no right to be upset about the outcome of that vote is another facet of this, a fallacious tactic on the part of the bourgeoisie. Not casting a vote is a vote in itself. Your assent and support is something that should be earned, not demanded, or expected, or brow-beaten out of you. If there is no candidate that you believe deserves your vote, then the only responsible choice is to not cast it. To say otherwise is to disembowel the very meaning of democracy. The compulsion of assent renders it meaningless.

With that said, is it fundamentally wrong to vote for Biden?

I think that isn't as useful a question as, what do you hope to accomplish by it? Biden as an alternative to Trump is a false choice—we have Trump _because_ of Biden. He didn't spring from nothingness, after all. Biden, and the rest of the political class at the behest of their corporate donors, have for decades shaped policy, enacted legislation, and brick by brick built the road that brought us to Trump. That is in addition to the Democrats' faux opposition to Trump, and their total collaboration in acting with him and the rest of the Republican party. The danger you want to mitigate is as much the legacy of the Democrats as it is the Republicans. They work in tandem in order to hold the people you wish to shield hostage against you. To put it simply, there is no Trump without Biden.

Yet neither is one exactly like the other. While they are both bourgeois politicians representing bourgeois cliques, they represent different factions of the plutocracy and their interests. Does the US go to war with Iran, or with Russia? Does the US continue to spread fascism in South America or in Southeast Asia? You can choose not to choose, and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that. You can choose the person that supports bombing country A or the one wanting to sanction country B, and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that, either. In the grand scheme, your personal, individual vote amounts to very little. You'd might as well fret over which brand of soap you buy at the store, which brand of cereal, or your search engine. If there is no ethical consumption under Capitalism, then it would seem to follow that the only ethical choice is to not consume—to commit suicide. Even if you make your own rope from your own home grown organic hemp, you are still injuring the working class by doing the work of the bourgeoisie for it. Capitalism robs us even of escape in death.

What is fundamentally wrong is casting a vote based on nothing but wishful thinking and delusion, of which "Blue No Matter Who" is a byword. The bourgeois voting for Biden at least has the virtue of voting for their own interest. "Blue No Matter Who" is an affirmation of nihilism, that not only can they do nothing, but they also expect nothing. It isn't a political strategy. It's naked resignation. The consumer society that Capitalism has shaped has induced people to believe that their desires can be bought. Buy this soap and 5% of the sale goes to preserving the rain forest. Donate 30 cents to end starvation in Africa. That is the mindset at work here. The removal of Trump is just another item to add to the cart. Vote, and all the discomfort and ugliness that Trump has made them aware of will go away. Things will go back "to normal." They are deluding themselves that think this is not normal.

Mao himself says that nothing is wholly good or wholly evil. Good may come from evil actions, and evil may result from good actions. Gavrilo Princip had no idea that when he killed two aristocrats that he was setting in motion events that would not only lead to the deaths of millions of people, but also the death of the empires he hated. Your vote is just another small piece of an ongoing, dialectical process of events and actions and decisions leading into and influencing one another, most of which is largely outside of your control. Years from now you might have reason to regret it, or to celebrate it, or maybe even both. Actively making that decision, however the outcome, at least means that you chose to be rather than to seem, and that’s the first step to doing good.

#biden #trump #obama #voting

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politicaltheatre · 4 years ago

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Dissent

We’ll know soon enough what kind of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett will be. Senate Democrats will stall the proceedings as much as they can and try to drag things out so a confirmation vote can’t be taken until after the election, but we must accept that the odds and senate protocols are against them.

Publicly, Democrats up and down the ticket are claiming that their fear is that a Barrett confirmation will kill the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the middle of a pandemic, and they very well may be right. That, however, isn’t their true fear.

The one they’ll voice when Barrett gets in front of them and the TV cameras is that she would support her benefactor Donald Trump in any lawsuit his people file in their attempts to decide the election through the courts, which they most certainly will do.

Trump’s already said as much. It’s part of his campaign pitch. He’s boasting about it at rallies. He’s counting on it.

As stupid as he often appears, and as stupid as he is about so many things, Trump understands corruption. He lives it and breathes it. He is a bona fide expert in it, so we should listen.

What he, Mitch McConnell, and others who embrace corruption understand is what far too many of us refuse to admit, which is that there is no such thing as an independent judiciary, that there is no such thing as an impartial judge.

This is not to suggest that Judge Barrett is corrupt. The awful truth of it is that she doesn’t have to be. She is reliably right wing, which is more than enough.

Barrett clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia. Like her mentor, she believes that the law does not exist to protect the weak from the strong. It does not exist, in their world, to reduce or correct imbalances of power. It is, instead, an instrument and only that, one by which the capable may exercise their will over others.

As brilliant as he was and as brilliant as she may be, theirs is the law of the school debate team. To them, winning isn’t about being right, it’s about domination. You can be wrong, morally and reprehensibly, but know the law and know how to wield it as a weapon and you will dominate your opponent time and again.

It is the triumph of short term thinking. To those embracing this view, there is nothing beyond that victory, no consequence beyond it, and no effect on the world beyond it.

If you think they’re wrong, prove it. Challenge them. Bend precedent to your will. Apply the logic of allowable facts. Prepare better. Go for the jugular. Destroy your enemy or meekly and silently accept your defeat.

Theirs is a faithless law, even more so because it divorces the law from the humans its verdicts, opinions, and decisions affect.

It is strange, then, but not surprising that Republicans and their surrogates have preemptively sought to place resistance to Barrett’s nomination on her religion. Their hope is to obscure the beliefs that truly make her dangerous, the irony being that Catholicism is not truly at the root of it.

Yes, there are strains and sects of Catholicism that preach the virtues of authority and hierarchy. These are the ones that sided with the fascists in their rise to power in Europe and protected sexually abusive clergy for so very, very long.

There are, however, also dissenting branches, including the one currently led by Pope Francis, that preach compassion and the virtues of equality. It was the former that led to those centuries of abuse and institutional corruption; it is the latter, we should all hope Catholics and non-Catholics alike, that will redeem the Church of both.

So, while Barrett’s affinity for a brand of Catholicism that embraces authority and power as chief virtues may inform her legal opinions, it is not what motivates them. That motivation, again, would be an honest, sincere belief that the right to demand accountability resides exclusively with those who have the power to demand it and the resources to dominate those in their way.

Trump may not have thought this through as thoroughly as that. McConnell may not have either, for that matter. All McConnell cares about is having judges in place who will protect him and corrupt people in power just like him. All Trump cares about is having judges who will protect him and him alone.

Oh, and that this pick is big “fuck you” to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and everyone who adores her still. Trump loves that, too.

What Ginsberg represented, more than simply being a woman with the gumption to tell men like Trump and McConnell that they were wrong, was the power of dissent.

Dissent is more than just an exercise in freedom of speech, it is an act of empowerment, both for those voicing their disagreement and for the institutions in which they voice them. The purpose of dissent is to improve the institution, to save it from the corruption that would bring it down.

Ginsberg believed that whatever was wrong in the United States, it could and should be saved. To suggest that something could and should be improved is not disloyal but courageous. To criticize an institution is not pessimistic but the opposite, because to criticize it you must believe than it has the ability to improve.

That wish for the institution to be saved and to succeed is essential to dissent. It cannot be dissent without it.

By that measure, a lot of kinds of protest are dissent, and a lot of others very much are not. Refusing to wear a mask in a store, for example, is not dissent. Driving your car through a protest is not dissent. Silencing a reporter is not dissent. Cheating on your taxes is not dissent (Actually, cheating on anything is not dissent. Breaking the rules just because you want to win is despicable).

All of these examples undermine the communities in which we live. They pit us against each other and as a result weaken the bonds we need as a society in order to survive.

So, dissent is essential, it is part of our immune system, and in a democracy it is everything.

The legal right to dissent is relatively new to the human experience. Just a few centuries ago, speaking out against an authority’s decision was almost (and literally) unheard of. The opinions and decisions of powerful men and women from monarchs and clerics down to local landowners were absolute. To challenge them was treason and heresy. The penalty for either was the same: a painful, public death.

Around the world today we see example after example of authoritarian regimes denying the right to dissent and punishing it. Whether they are nominally Capitalist, such as Russia or Turkey, or nominally Communist, such as China, suppression of dissent is what truly determines what kind of life those they rule must lead.

To be left wing - truly and properly left wing - is to hold oneself accountable to others because we want them to be accountable to us. The ability to voice and listen to dissent is what makes that work.

With every non-unanimous Supreme Court decision, there is a majority opinion and a minority, “dissenting” one. There may also be concurring opinions to either. They are published together. It is the majority opinion that rules, but the reason for the inclusion of the others is that they may persuade those reading them to change their minds. In this way, each voice on the Court matters, each mind, and each opportunity to influence the voices and minds of those the Court serves.

The Supreme Court is the last federal institution where majority rule still holds true. The Electoral College and Senate disproportionately favor rural, right wing voters and have increasingly done so for decades. That makes this appointment the natural result, and with it will come things the Left correctly fears.

Barrett may very well support overturning decisions on the ACA and Roe v Wade, but, perhaps more disturbingly, she may support overturning the decisions that equalized LGBT rights and banned forced prayer in schools.

Again, this will not be because she is Catholic but because she believes that those in power, be they school boards or business owners, have the right to decide who has rights within their schools and businesses and who does not. If you don’t like that, you’ll just have to gain power yourself, or find a new school, or a new job, or a new bakery.

It will likely be a long time before Justice Barrett has to write a dissenting opinion. It will take the retirement or death of at least one of the right wing justices, and that may not happen for a decade or more.

There has been talk of Democrats stacking the Court with left wing justices. This would be a tragic mistake. Even talking about it is a mistake. If the Democrats did it next year, the Republicans could do it when they took power, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Meanwhile, it would corrupt and erode any confidence in any legal opinion issued by the Supreme Court or any of the lower courts, and with that whatever last shred of trust Americans had in government would be gone.

The better solution, one long overdue, would be to fix the imbalance of power in the Electoral College and the Senate. This would be done by admitting the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states and by splitting California into two or three states.

Doing so would add eight or ten senators and at least two voting representatives. This would not only repair some of the imbalance between right wing and left wing voters in this country, it would make it easier to pass new amendments to the Constitution, such as preserving the right to abortion, mandating health care as a right, setting term limits for all federal judges, and eliminating the Electoral College once and for all.

There would be resistance to this, of course. There would be dissent. And those offering genuine dissent should always be listened to. We fail to do so at our own expense.

Dissent is one of the prices we pay for democracy. It is sloppy. It is chaotic. It takes work and it takes time. However, much like our own immune systems, it must be flexible and robust to withstand change and adapt to new conditions.

That is the world Ruth Bader Ginsberg fought for. That is the world we should fight for, too.

- Daniel Ward

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riaasam · 4 years ago

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Future

If you want to create something new you have to start from scratch and know what has happened so far. (Financial) Inequality has led to war, terror, death and environmental disasters for centuries. Equal opportunities and distributive justice is the best way for our protection and happiness. We are at a turning point in the history of mankind. In Austria, people have been living together in hierarchical systems since the beginning of human history as we know it. In families, husband and wife, parents and children, grandparents and children have different roles, each with varying degrees of freedom of choice and decision-making power. In education we are divided into students and teachers, in working life into leaders and leaded. As citizens in Voters and Elected.

Depending on the category, we have varying degrees of power in decisions that affect our own lives and the lives of others. The only thing that can balance this relationship are laws or nepotism. This inequality is not without consequences. Most of the people belong to the cited voters whose interests in politics and economy, ergo the legislation, are not represented very much, because decisions are made by the minority of the leaders and according to the nature of mankind also in their interest. The interests of the leaders are quite different from those of the cited. The leaders want higher profits, the leaders want higher wages. The leaders want to maintain the current condition, the led ones a better future. The leading ones want to protect their property, the led ones want to have property. To require a politician to represent the interests of the overwhelming majority of those led is contrary to their human nature. The concept of professional politicians fails because of their humanity, which makes them egoists. Egoism is equal to those who are led and those who are leading, and is not a crime, since of course, but in our hierarchical system it leads to people becoming criminals. They do not manage to do justice to the high requirement of their post, which demands of them to put the interests of the majority above their own interests, thus, in a sense, demands inhumanity.

But how do we manage to know the interests of all Austrians and make decisions in their interest? One possibility for democratic decision-making is the concept of the Citizens' Council. Randomly drawn citizens sit, if they wish, for two years in parliament, in the provincial parliament or in the local council and make decisions about laws that regulate coexistence, the distribution of assets, the administration of public funds, the archiving and transfer of knowledge, the relationship between female employees and entrepreneurs, medical care, the promotion of creativity and the founding spirit, and the protection of survival (nature conservation, human rights). These citizens are informed and advised by ministries composed of experts in a particular field who work together on an equal footing. So that they are not tempted into corruption, the ministry staff also changes every 2 years. It is not possible to sell state property. All receive the same salary for these 2 years.

On this basis, the affairs of all Austrians are decided by representatives of all realities of life of the Austrians and from this arises the possibility that fairer laws lead to more equal opportunities and distributive justice and thus to peace, protection, security and a better life. Change is exhausting but for many people the ACTUAL state is becoming increasingly unbearable and for most people it is at least exhausting. At some point, change has to begin and now it becomes urgent as the consequences of inequality take on increasingly catastrophic proportions. Wars are becoming more and more deadly for more and more people with increasing technological development. Suicide bombing is the atomic bomb of the powerless.

A growth- and profit-oriented economy leads through its merciless handling of nature and animals to a worldwide rise in temperature, as a result of which fields become deserts, drinkable water becomes scarce and air becomes poisonous. This already leads to poverty, famine, homelessness, lack of prospects, terror, war and death. Don't we want to change this before it gets worse? Isn't it pointless to hold on to a system that has failed to provide security and protection for decades? Do we not want to preserve a planet whose living conditions make our survival possible? A change in our political system is necessary for our survival, since politicians, regardless of their origins as leaders, represent only a small minority of the population and as such, due to their human nature and/or the rules of the game imposed, cannot act in the interest of the state, i.e. of all Austrians. A citizens' council, which is composed of randomly selected citizens, enables every person in their life, regardless of their life reality, to be involved once in decision-making processes that affect their lives and the lives of everyone in this state. Every person who lives or works in Austria has the same high probability of becoming part of a council. This increases the probability that the interests of as many people as possible, and thus of the majority, will be represented by a majority. People with average wealth will therefore be represented the most. In Austria this is 2200 Euro per month for workers and employees who work 40 hours. If you include all those who do not appear in these statistics, househusbands - and women, part-time and marginally employed, pupils, apprentices, students, unemployed, pensioners, self-employed and leasing workers, this figure is corrected to a more realistic figure of just under 1000 Euros. The majority of the members of this Council will therefore be people who are open to change because their situation needs to be improved. This form of democracy, in which power really comes from the people, will save the people a lot of money, which will be spent in election campaigns in the millions. It provides a basis for political debates in parliament and in the public sphere to be conducted independently of the media representation of the parties' interests. Different opinions need not be part of an ideology and can be reasonably weighed against each other. Paid advertising must have no place in politics. Any form of self-advertising is a form of manipulation. And those who are manipulated are in danger of voting against their own interests. A citizens' council could offer us long-term protection against corruption, influencing and privatization of general property. This form of organization would lead to more democracy because more people would be involved in decision-making processes. The average political career in Austria begins in teenage years with the youth organization of an established party and continues until retirement. Wolfgang Sobotka has held increasingly influential political offices since 1982 and now earns 18,718.10 euros per month as President of the National Council. For 38 years he has been costing us taxpayers horrendous sums of money and, with his partisanship and spirit of regression, has done nothing for Austria. In these 38 years, if the members of the Council had changed every two years, 19 people could have participated in democratic processes.

Every person who lives or works in Austria receives a monthly basic income of 1200 Euros. This is financed by an increase in inheritance tax, the introduction of a wealth tax and an automation tax. This way rich citizens do not become poor and poor citizens become less poor. This basic income support leads to greater freedom of choice of employment and offers employers an incentive to create more attractive working conditions and pay higher wages. It leads to better living conditions and thus to less crime and more security. Financial security creates freedom to have one's own ideas and frees them from the need to implement them for profit. It creates consumer power to promote the arts and commerce.

This is not a revolution but a step in social evolution. We do not want to become politicians. Democracy is only possible without politicians. We want to offer an idea that will lead to a change in our system. To a strengthening of our democracy and a chance for a better future. At some point the future must begin. Isn't it nicer to work for a future than to work for the preservation of a system that is going down?

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

#democracy #anarchism #nopolitics #anonymous #future

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arcticdementor · 5 years ago

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The big story around the world - from Brexit to the impeachment farce, from Hong Kong to Iraq - is political elites refusing to accept the outcome of elections that don't go their way, and electorates suddenly discovering they're not really allowed to vote on certain things.

If you vote the way the elite wants you to, that's it. The matter is settled forever. No further votes will ever be held. No disobedience will be permitted. "Resistance" is hateful and seditious. The next step in the direction the elite wishes to go will be taken immediately.

But if you vote against the elite, the battle is just beginning. Compliance will be slow-walked and sabotaged at every turn. Elite-friendly media will portray the vote as illegitimate. An endless series of re-votes and do-overs will be scheduled, under new rules if possible.

Deplorable voters might be bluntly informed by the elite that certain matters are actually beyond the purview of elected representatives, with policies set by a permanent bureaucracy that will override "wrong" choices made by the electorate.

The magic word "mandate" will never be used if the voters make decisions that displease the elite. No one who wins a vote against the elite is ever portrayed as having any sort of "mandate for change" at all. "Change" suddenly isn't praised as a wonderful act of courage.

At BEST, a vote against the interests of the elite is treated as the beginning of a negotiation. If the people don't back down right away, the elite might talk about tossing them a few little symbolic concessions, then savage them as extremists if they persist in their demands.

"Peaceful transfer of power after elections" only happens if the elite wins. They fight like maniacs to hold every scrap of their power if they lose. No sane person could describe the response of the U.S. political elite to Donald Trump's election as a peaceful transfer of power.

The elite tries to force its subjects to reject concepts like "nationalism" and "sovereignty" as vile curse words to preserve the option of nullifying elections the elite doesn't like. They would forfeit that option by accepting that they have a duty to sovereign voters.

The details are different in each country, but the crisis is the same: the people are told democracy has invisible limits unspecified in their constitutions. There are things you don't get to vote on after all. Your demands are rudely exposing a polite fiction of democracy.

You don't get to make demands of your rulers, and you most certainly do not get to "throw the bums out" if you lose confidence in their governance. You are permitted to make suggestions to your betters. THEY give the orders. Period. /end

I mostly agree with this, and the many similar comments like it, on most of the individual points (the bit about “peaceful transfer of power” is fairly hyperbolic). But there’s one huge difference in the overall goals.

Hayward, and most other folks, are about “rudely exposing a polite fiction of democracy” in order to make the fiction real; to bring actual “power to the people,” whereby the electorate can make demands of their rulers, and “throw the bums out” if they lose confidence in their governance, and where a permanent bureaucracy can’t override "wrong" choices made by the electorate.

My position is that, given that under historical non-democratic systems:

And in the present day, under the best democracy can do:

Then the reasonable conclusion is that this is simply the way things are, have always been, and always will be, and we should “rudely expose the polite fiction of democracy” so as to do away with the fiction, with the pretense of meaningful elections, and just accept the total inevitability of rule by unaccountable elites.

#john hayward #twitter thread #threadreader #democracy in action #iron law of oligarchy

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crimethinc · 6 years ago

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Yellow Vests for May Day Can Macron Pacify France Before May Day 2019? Probably Not.

Last week, concluding a national initiative aimed at drawing the general population into “dialogue” with the authorities, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a handful of minor reforms intended to placate participants in the yellow vest movement. It’s far from certain that this strategy will succeed.

The situation in France is the culmination of years of strife between protest movements and the state. At the height of the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015, the French government used the opportunity provided by the November 13 terror attacks to declare a state of emergency intended to suppress all protest activity. Instead, a massive student revolt against the Loi Travail erupted in 2016, defying the state of emergency, and simmering unrest continued through the 2017 elections and the 2018 eviction of the ZAD. The clashes of May Day 2018 showed that the movement had reached an impasse: thousands of people were prepared to fight the police and engage in property destruction, but the authorities were still able to keep the contagion of rebellion quarantined inside a particular space.

Starting in November 2018, the Yellow Vest movement upended this precarious balance, drawing a much wider swathe of the population into the streets. In response, Macron organized a “National Debate” in a classic attempt at appeasement and pacification. The outcome of the National Debate and the May Day demonstrations will tell us a lot about the prospects of social movements elsewhere around the world: what forms of pressure mass movements can bring to bear on the authorities, what kind of demands neoliberal governments are (and are not) able to grant today, and what sort of longterm gains movements for revolutionary liberation can hope to make in the course of such waves of unrest.

Accordingly, in the following update, we explore the concessions Macron offered and conclude with the prospects for May Day 2019 in France.

Paris, April 20, inside the kettle at Place de la République.

Macron’s Intervention

Having postponed his announcement due to the fire that destroyed part of Notre-Dame cathedral on the evening of April 15, President Emmanuel Macron finally presented the results of the National Debate on Thursday, April 25, in a press conference broadcast live on French television.

The government launched this “democratic” political tool three months earlier, on January 15, 2019, to answer the thirst for a more “direct democracy” verbalized by a large part of yellow vest movement—especially through calls for a Citizens’ Initiative Referendum (RIC). Macron’s goal, of course, was to reestablish political stability in France while making as few changes as possible.

President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe in front of Notre-Dame. This has not been a particularly easy time to head the French government.

In the days preceding the press conference, several elements of his plan were leaked to the press, which diminished the surprise effect that the government aimed to create with this event. But unlike members of the current government, Macron’s supporters, and some corporate journalists, none of us were waiting impatiently for the president’s intervention, nor expecting that anything positive or surprising would come out of this political spectacle.

For more than five months now, yellow vesters have learned the hard way that dialogue with the government is meaningless—the state is prepared to take ever more authoritarian measures in order to maintain its hegemony and preserve the status quo. In the outcome of the “National Debate,” we see again why democracy has not served as a bulwark against fascism, but rather as a means to legitimize state power. Those who control the state are always careful to make sure that while elections, referendums, and discussions can serve to create the impression that the government has a mandate to represent the general population, they never actually threaten the institutions of state power.

The Government Responds to the Yellow Vests

Those interested who wish to see two and half hours of political doublespeak can watch Macron’s press conference in full here. Our goal here is simply to analyze some of the major decisions taken by the French government.

President Macron at the official press conference to present the results of the National Debate.

Over five months later, yellow vest protesters are still in the streets.

A yellow vest protester holding a sign calling for the Citizens’ Initiative Referendum, one of the most popular demands among the movement. From our perspective, efforts to make the French government more “directly democratic” will be ineffectual at best and at worst will legitimize reactionary and repressive state policies as “representing the will of the people.”

Members of the Anti-Criminality Brigade in action during Act 22 in Toulouse.

Riot police charging demonstrators at Place de la République on Saturday, April 20.

As May Day Approaches

Following this press conference, the government hoped that its official announcements would finally take the life out of the yellow vest movement, defusing the social tension that has built up. However, in the hours following Macron’s speech, several well-known yellow vest figures expressed their dissatisfaction with his proposals, calling for further demonstrations. In the end, even if some yellow vesters were sidetracked by Macron’s announcement, it was difficult to predict whether people would massively take the streets for the 24th act of the yellow vest movement.

For Act 24 of the movement, yellow vest protesters made an international call to gather in the streets of Strasbourg. The banner reads “Coordination of the Yellow Vesters from the East.”

On Saturday, April 27, about 23,600 yellow vesters demonstrated in France. For this new day of action, the epicenter of the movement was the city of Strasbourg. As the European elections will occur in a month, an “international call” was made to gather and march towards the European Parliament. Some Belgians, Germans, Italians, Swiss, and Luxembourgers participated as well. About 3000 demonstrators walked through the streets of Strasbourg, confronting police and engaging in property destruction. In the end, 42 people were arrested and at least 7 injured—three police officers, three demonstrators, and one passerby.

At the same time, two demonstrations took place in Paris. The first, organized by trade unions, drew about 5500 demonstrators, among them 2000 in yellow vests, while the other, mostly composed of several hundreds of yellow vesters, did a tour of all the major corporate media headquarters to ask for “impartial media coverage.” Other gatherings also took place in Lyons, Toulouse, Cambrai, and elsewhere in France. (All of the figures provided here are from the French authorities.)

Street confrontations in Strasbourg on Saturday, April 27.

If we compare the total number of participants in this 24th act to the other national days of action, it is undeniable that it attracted fewer participants. Does that mean that the government has finally gained the upper hand over the movement? It’s unclear. It is possible that some yellow vesters stayed home from the 24th act in order to prepare for May Day.

Last year, the intensity of property destruction and confrontations with police during the May Day mobilization of anarchists and other autonomous rebels compelled the government to cancel the entire traditional trade union march. In view of the tense social and political situation in France today, who knows what May Day 2019 could bring?

If the government attempts to cancel or repress demonstrations in Paris this May Day, the situation could become explosive. Not only because the police have adopted aggressive new law enforcement strategies over the past few weeks, but also because several calls have been made for yellow vesters to join autonomous rebels at the front of the traditional Parisian afternoon procession for the “ultimate act.” The objective is set: Paris is to become the capital city of rioting.

The world on fire, Paris in the middle.

Here is an English adaptation of one of the calls, entitled Pour un 1er mai jaune et noir:

For a yellow and black May Day!

“When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people and for each portion of the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.”

-Article 35 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1793)

Macron’s government has decided to crush the current social protest by force, reaching a level of repression never seen before: prohibitions of demonstrations, deployment of soldiers, the use of armored vehicles, the use of chemical markers and weapons of war against protesters, jail sentences in spades, hands torn off, blinded protesters…

During the demonstration of May Day 2018, the Prefecture of Police counted 14,500 demonstrators “on the sidelines of the trade union procession” (almost as much as in the traditional procession) including 1200 “radical individuals.” On March 16, at the time of act 18, it was 1500 “ultra violent” ones who were present among the 7000 demonstrators, according to the figures of this same police.

Today, what frightens the state is not the rioters themselves, but the adhesion and understanding they arouse among the rest of the population. And this despite the calls, week after week, for everyone to dissociate themselves from the “breakers.”

If there is one group that currently strikes France with all its violence, it is not the “Black Bloc,” nor the yellow vests; it is rather the government itself.

We are calling on all revolutionaries in France and elsewhere, all those who want this to change, to come and form a determined and combative march. Because if repression falls on everyone, our response must be common and united. Against Macron and his world, let’s take the street together to revive the convergence of anger and hope. Let’s get ready, let’s equip ourselves, lets organize ourselves to overthrow him and drag him through a day in hell.

War has been declared!

Let’s see that flag burn too.

For those who attend to join the May Day festivities in Paris, here are some important links and information:

List of different May Day actions

Information and contacts courtesy of the Legal Team in French, English, and Italian.

Further Reading

We have been publishing updates and analysis on the Yellow Vest movement since it first got underway. You can view all our articles here.

“Proportional representation” would mean that if, for example, 30% of voters vote for the Green Party, then members of that party would receive 30% of the total number of seats. So far, legislative elections offer no proportional representation—even if a party receives a large percentage of votes, it might not gain many seats at the assembly. People have been complaining about this “unfair process,” so now the government is willing to increase proportional representation in elections. Unfortunately, for several years now, the National Front has usually received around 20-25% of votes but only currently holds 6 seats out of the 577 in the Assemblée Nationale. Increasing proportional representation will give them more power in the decision-making—although, of course, it’s not clear to what extent Macron will actually follow through on his promises.

Of course, there is no option for people who have grown disillusioned with government itself: that perspective will never be “proportionately represented.” This is why the government refused outright to recognized blank votes. ↩

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ruminativerabbi · 6 years ago

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Looking Back and Ahead

So the much-anticipated midterm election came and went, leaving all Americans, regardless of party affiliation or political orientation, finally united on at least one point: that the Congress, now a bicameral house formally divided against itself, will accomplish nothing at all for the foreseeable future...unless its members can find it in their hearts to compromise with their opponents and to craft legislation so little extreme and so overtly and appealingly reasonable that people on both sides of the aisle will fear angering their constituencies by not supporting it. How likely is that to happen? Not too! Still, that thought—that in the absence of flexibility, tractability, and generosity on the part of all, nothing at all will be accomplished and no one will have a record (other than of obstructionism) to run on in future elections—has a sort of silver lining in the thought that whatever legislation is passed by the new Congress will have to be of the rational variety that Americans of all political and philosophical sorts can support. So there’s at least that!

As my readers all surely know by now, my training—my academic training, I mean, as opposed to my spiritual training in rabbinical school—is in ancient history and the history of ancient religion. And I’ve been reading just lately some interesting analyses of the mother of all democracies, the one set in place to govern the city-state of Athens, and the specific way our American democratic system does and doesn’t preserve its ancient features and norms. Obviously, a long road stretches out between them and us! Even so, however, there are at least some features of Athenian democracy that are definitely worth revisiting.

Some of the specifics will be unexpected to most. Ancient Athens was governed by a council of 500 called the boulé whose members were chosen—not by an informed electorate casting ballots for the candidate of their choice—but by lots so that fifty men chosen at random to represent each of the ten tribes of ancient Athenians were put in place and handed the reins of government. Each served for one year, but no one could serve more than once a decade nor could any citizen serve more than twice ever. The boulé had its own hierarchy, however: its in-house leadership—called the prytany—consisted of fifty men, also chosen by the casting of lots, who served for one single month and were then replaced. The idea was simple—and not entirely unappealing: by choosing both the people’s leaders and those leaders’ leaders at random, it was certain that the power of governance would specifically not rest neither with power-hungry people eager to rule over or to dominate others nor with anyone motivated by the possibility of personal gain through service to the nation. The leaders of Athens were thus disinterested parties, people with no specific yearning to be in charge yet whom fate somehow arbitrarily put into positions of leadership nonetheless. Yes, it was surely true that the inevitable blockhead would occasionally end up chosen to serve, but such a person would be vastly outnumbered by more thoughtful, more reasonable individuals. (The boulé did have five hundred members, after all.) The system has an antique feel to it, the specific point of keeping power out of the hands of people who lust after it and firmly in the hands of people who would be happier doing something else entirely, not so much!

The situation that prevailed in ancient Athens appeals in other ways as well. The boulé, for example, lacked the power to make any final decisions on its own. To do that, all citizens were invited to participate in a forum called the ekklesia that met every ten days for the specific purpose of ratifying any of the boulé’s decisions before they became law. (This body met on the Acropolis as well, in an area called the Pnyx.) All citizens were automatically members of the ekklesia and were welcome to speak up and participate in pre-vote debate and discussion. So the power was thus fully vested in the people—the boulé could pass all the bills it wanted but none of them could become law until the people signed on.

Etymologically, the “demo” in “democracy,” from the Greek demos, references the full citizenry, the people of the nation who self-governed not by electing people to govern them, but by governing the governors and by requiring that the decisions of the boulé be ratified by the public. Is this sounding at all appealing to you? The more I think of it, the more remarkable it sounds to me…and, yes, in some ways intensely appealing. Would this work in a nation of 328 million citizens like our own? Not without some serious adjustment—but the notion that the very last people to whom power should ever be granted are those specific individuals who yearn the most intensely for it, that idea has some serious merit in my mind!

And then there was the concept of “ostracism,” which I think we should definitely consider bringing back. The English word means exclusion from a group, usually because of some perceived scurrilous misbehavior. But the word goes back to Athens, where it denoted something far more specific: the right of the citizenry, the demos, one single time in the course of a year to vote to expel from the city for a period of ten years anyone perceived as having become too powerful—and thus who merely by being present in the city weakened the democratic principle of power being vested fully in the hands of the people. It didn’t happen every year, but once the decision was taken—and if more than six thousand citizens voted to ostracize by writing the name of the individual they wished to see gone on a piece of broken pottery called an ostrakon—then the “ostracized” individual was forced to leave the city and not permitted to return for at least a decade. There was no possibility of appeal. Ostracized individuals were then given ten days to organize their affairs and then to leave and not to return for ten years. There was a certain risky arbitrariness to the whole process—there was no obligation for any citizen to state why he was voting to ostracize whomever it was he was voting to exile and there was no judge or jury—but also something exhilarating about a procedure designed to place the power in the hands of the people to exile anyone at all (including civic leaders, generals, the wealthy, and the city-state’s most influential citizens) for fear that that specific individual was exerting a malign influence on the right of the people to self-govern. And there was at least one profound safeguard against abuse in the fact that the ostracized individual had to be voted off the island by six thousand citizens. Even so, the procedure eventually died out. (The last known ostracism was towards the end of the fifth century BCE.) But it is also thrilling to imagine a democratic city-state in which anyone who yearns for power must temper such yearning with the knowledge that being perceived to be acting other than in the best interests of the people could conceivably lead to being sent away regardless of the immensity of one’s fortune or the breadth of one’s influence.

There were darker sides to Athenian democracy as well. Citizenship was limited to males over the age of eighteen; women were completed excluded both from membership in the boulé and from participation in the ekklesia. Nor did all citizens choose to participate fully in their fully participatory democracy. Indeed, most citizens failed to show up most of the time. To increase attendance, in fact, a decision was made around 400 BCE to pay citizens who showed up for their time, thus making it more reasonable for members of the working class to take the time off to attend. But the fact remains that, just as in our American republic, the power was in the hands of those who chose to exercise their civic right to participate and not in the hands of those who chose to express themselves merely by complaining about the status quo. Is that a flaw in the system? I suppose it would depend on whether you ask the voters or the complainers!

This isn’t ancient Greece. But what we can learn from considering the political heritage bequeathed to us by the Athenians is that democracy is not manna from heaven offered to some few worthy nations and not to others, but an ongoing political theory that needs constantly to be revised and reconsidered as it morphs forward through history. There is no end to the books I could recommend to readers interested in learning more, but I can suggest two titles that I myself have enjoyed and that would be very reasonable places to start reading: A.H.M. Jones’ book, Athenian Democracy, first published back in 1986 by Johns Hopkins University Press and read by myself years ago, and also a newer book, Democracy in Classical Athens by Christopher Carey, published in 2000 by Bristol Classical Press in the U.K.

#Democracy #Athens #ostracism #ostrakon #A.H.M. Jones #Christopher Carey

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tangent101 · 3 years ago

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Easy. They get voted out.

When a Democrat is caught sleeping with male prostitutes or molesting aides and the like, they often get voted out of office and will lose their cabinet positions and the like. Democrats are held accountable for their actions.

Republicans, nowadays, have their crimes ignored because “everyone does it” and “the Democrats are worse” (even when they are not).

Oh, and you accuse me of “voting religiously for Democrats” and ignore where I used to be Libertarian. In fact, it was 2020 where I first voted for a mostly-Democrat ticket. Before then, the first and only time I voted for a Democrat was Barack Obama in 2012. Why? Because I wanted to keep Sarah Palin out of the White House at all costs - and Obama proved to be a decent President. Hell, if he were a white Irishman named Barry O’Bama then I bet the Republicans would have gladly have worked with him on quite a few bills - bills that were designed to try and encourage bipartisanship by Obama but which failed because Republicans refused to give a black man any victories.

You also say “Democrats refuse to go to the left” because? Democrats believe in bipartisanship. Republicans believe bipartisanship is a dirty word, cooperation is communism, and that the only thing they would accept is Democrats on their backs under them, while Republican boots stomp on Democratic throats.

So. Let me now ask you something. You state that “Democrats are as bad as Republicans” with your comments above. What are you advocating then? Not voting? Because that is the exact same thing as voting Republican. Voting Third Party? You split the vote and allow the Republicans to win - as Republican voters don’t look at third parties as seen with how little the Libertarian Party gets votes out of them. Revolution? Trust me. If our government is overthrown with violence, strong men will rule and the only people with rights will be those with guns.

The only thing we can do is preserve our democracy so that when the Republican Party is cast down, and I can’t help but hope it will be, we can rebuild and once again have sanity in government. We can protest under the Democrats. Trump wanted to send the military against us. If he gets four more years, he’ll stack the military enough so he gets his wish.

What would you do?

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years ago

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* * * *

Democrats have the opportunity of a lifetime when they open hearings of the House Select Committee on the Capitol insurrection on Tuesday morning, but they can miss that opportunity by making three mistakes: If they fail to prominently show videos of the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, if they fail to announce that hearings of the committee will resume immediately following the August recess and continue until the committee has completed its work, and if they turn Republican Liz Cheney into a rock star. Let’s put the Cheney matter away first. Sure, she was one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Trump the second time around for his role in provoking the assault on the Capitol, and her statements about Trump’s culpability are helpful. But every time she starts running her mouth about the Constitution, I take a moment to consider her abject opposition to constitutional rights like abortion and marriage equality. This is a woman who picks and chooses the battles she wants to fight, and her late-blooming anti-Trumpism may have less to do with preserving our democracy and the Constitution than it does with her ambition. Democrats aren’t fooling anyone with Cheney and the recent appointment of Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger. They aren’t the loyal opposition. Among Republicans, their opposition to Trump is as convenient as it is rare, but that doesn’t deserve excessive “thank yous” from Democrats.

The Select Committee is about as nonpartisan as Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi committee. You remember that wonderfully principled inquiry, don’t you? Formed in May of 2014, the Benghazi committee managed to string out hearings over two years and did not shut down until December of 2016, after spending more than $4 million on its spurious “investigation” of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the Obama administration’s response. The Benghazi committee wasn’t intended to be nonpartisan. No less a figure than Kevin McCarthy went on Sean Hannity’s show halfway through the committee’s lifespan and said, "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable.”

Along with coining brand-new words like “untrustable,” McCarthy and the Benghazi committee accomplished every one of the Republicans’ goals. They kept it going right through the entire 2016 presidential election cycle, through the primaries, through both the Republican and Democratic national conventions, right through the November election itself. They held hearings. They leaked. They exaggerated. They lied. They put Hillary Clinton at the witness table for eight hours on October 22, 2015, almost exactly a week after the first Democratic primary debate in Nevada, and three weeks before the second and much more important debate in Iowa. They did everything they possibly could to drag her through the political mud. They didn’t try to hide it. They just did it.If

Democrats don’t do the same thing with their Jan. 6 select committee, they will be missing the chance to tar and feather not only Donald Trump but the entire Republican Party. Everybody knows what happened on Jan. 6. Everybody knows who assaulted the Capitol. It was a violent mob of Trump supporters. They didn’t try to conceal who they were. They waved Trump flags. They wore MAGA hats. They chanted Trump slogans. They filmed themselves with their cell phones and immediately posted the clips on social media. They tweeted. They Facebooked. They Instagrammed. They gave interviews to whoever from the mainstream media was present. And then they went home and bragged about it.Everybody knows that some 550 of the Trump supporters present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 have been arrested and charged with federal crimes. Several have already pled guilty and at least one has been sentenced to jail. Everybody knows that 165 of them have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers. And everyone knows that the man who incited the riot at the Capitol, Donald Trump, has been on a tour of rallies bent on lying his way out of culpability for the insurrection. Trump and his Republican acolytes have been going around characterizing the assault on the Capitol as just another day of “tourist visits” by a “loving crowd.” Everybody knows they’re attempting to pull off the old, “who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes” scam. Trump is the past master of that one. Nobody in American politics has told so many lies or repeated them as often as Donald Trump. He’s good at wielding the Big Lie, but he is the master blaster of the Blizzard of Lies. He knows he can’t insult the intelligence of his base. Hell, they’re out there believing every lie that gets thrown at them about how vaccines are responsible for more deaths than COVID and masks don’t prevent the disease, they spread it. They’ll believe his lies that pipe-wielding Proud Boys were just showing the Capitol police some love.The problem faced by the House Select Committee is this: What do you do in the face of such blissful ignorance?

Well, so far Democrats have been winning the insurrection commission wars because they have Nancy Pelosi leading them. She has outmaneuvered McCarthy every time he’s tried to throw up a Trump-licking roadblock. He thought he could beat her by getting together with Mitch McConnell to cancel the truly nonpartisan 9/11 style commission Pelosi proposed to investigate the attack on the Capitol. Pelosi fired back with the Select Committee. Then he thought he could turn her committee into a clown car by appointing the two Jims, Ohio Republican Jordan and Indiana Republican Banks, to the committee. Pelosi rejected both of them. Then McCarthy announced Republicans would boycott the committee entirely, apparently thinking Pelosi would wilt under charges that her committee was too partisan. Pelosi shot back by appointing Cheney and Kinzinger. What the Lickspittle Caucus is now looking at is a committee entirely controlled by the toughest Democratic speaker of the House to come along since … who? Sam Rayburn? Tip O’Neill? Neither of those glad-handers could carry Nancy Pelosi’s purse. If McCarthy and the Republicans had gone along with the nonpartisan commission that was originally worked out between the parties in the House, they would have had veto power over subpoenas and at least some role in which witnesses to call and how long the commission would last.

Gone. Republicans won’t be able to stop Democrats on the committee from subpoenaing key witnesses to Trump’s behavior during the insurrection, including Ivanka Trump and even McCarthy, who spoke with the Instigator in Chief on the phone that day. If Pelosi wants to call Trump himself to testify before the committee, she can do it. If Republicans contest the subpoenas, Pelosi can order House lawyers into court to fight, and if the court cases drag out, so will the term of the committee. Pelosi will be free to have the committee hold hearings through the fall and winter, right into the middle of the 2022 campaign season if she so chooses. And why shouldn’t she? Trump is going to stay out there on the rally circuit spreading his lies, but Democrats will have the Select Committee to counter them. If Pelosi wants to schedule a hearing for the day after every one of Trump’s rallies, she can. If she wants to call witnesses to rebut specific lies he blathers, she can. Best of all, there are enough hours of videos from the assault on the Capitol that the Select Committee will be able to play a couple hours of video every time they hold a hearing and hardly make a dent in the supply. The video of the murder of George Floyd is what convicted Derek Chauvin. Videos of the Capitol insurrection present the same sort of damning evidence.I lost track years ago of the number of times I’ve wished Democrats would learn to fight as hard as Republicans. Nancy Pelosi is, thankfully, as principled as she is tough, and she’s exactly what we need right now. As for Kevin McCarthy, he can make all the pilgrimages he wants to Bedminster and Mar-a-Lago or wherever else Trump is holed up with his golf clubs and his Diet Cokes and his burgers. He can huff and puff all he wants, but he won’t be able to blow Nancy’s House down.

#Lucian K Truscott IV #January 6 2021 #political 2021 #insurrection commission wars #politics #House Select Committee

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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What Is An Example Of Republicanism

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-is-an-example-of-republicanism/

What Is An Example Of Republicanism

The Founding Fathers And The Republic

What is a republic?

When the Founding Fathers were brainstorming the kind of government they wanted for America, they studied the histories of other nations to determine what worked and what didnt. Of particular interest to them was the Roman Republics government, which had been around a full 2,000 years before the American revolution. The Founding Fathers decided that a republican government was the best possible government for America.

The decision to create a republic was largely influenced by the ideas that the Roman Republic incorporated into its rule. The most attractive principles to which the Founding Fathers were drawn include:

Government power is held by the people.

The people elect the leaders they want representing them and, in doing so, invest their power in their representatives.

The representatives are tasked with helping every citizen in the country they serve, not a select few.

Some of the ideals that guided the Founding Fathers choice for a republic included:

Fairness The Founders believed that the elected representatives should create fair laws and, if they did not, they could be easily replaced by other representatives who would.

Common Welfare The laws that those representatives created would benefit everyone in the country, rather than one person in particular, or even a select few.

Freedom and Prosperity The Founders liked the idea of their people being afforded the freedom to live prosperous lives.

What Is Republicanism In Simple Terms

Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic with an emphasis on liberty and the civic virtue practiced by citizens. More broadly, it refers to a political system that protects liberty, especially by incorporating a rule of law that cannot be arbitrarily ignored by the government.

What Is A Republican Government

The government of Rome was called a republican government. The Founders read that republican government was one in which:

The power of government is held by the people.

The people give power to leaders they elect to represent them and serve their interests.

The representatives are responsible for helping all the people in the country, not just a few people.

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Opiniondemocrats Challenged Electoral College Votes First And Set The Precedent For This Mess

There is no way to justify continuing the false designation of radical rightists as conservatives and people willing to end the republic as Republicans. The dozen-plus elected members of the Republican Party in the Senate and the more than a hundred in the House who announced that they would vote to overturn various states electoral slates Wednesday should not, despite their nominal party membership, be referred to as conservatives or Republicans.

All who fail to condemn President Donald Trumps phone call threatening and pressuring state officials in Georgia and who do not forcefully disassociate themselves from his reported musings about declaring martial law to remain in power show themselves to be opposed to conserving our republic.

Todays Republicans plainly are not deserving of the inheritance of Lincolns party or its name.

The unconscionable effort to keep Trump in office despite the stated will of the people is tantamount to throwing democracy and the American republic into the dustbin of history. Republicans do not wish to end the republic in which they serve or else they are Republicans in Name Only. Conservatives who do not wish to conserve the very foundation of the American experiment our democratic republic is no kind of conservative their intellectual predecessors would recognize.

In What Ways Does The Declaration Of Independence Reflect Principles Of Classical Republicanism

In what ways does it reflect principles of classical republicanism? The Declaration of Independence reflects John Lockes social contract by withdrawing their obligation to obey the monarchy, by grouping colonists to change leadership because they believed the monarchy failed to protect their rights.

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Classical Republicanism And Natural Rights

Classical republicanism promoted the natural rights philosophy, which is echoed in the Declaration of Independence. Natural rights are those rights that are not dependent on, nor can they be changed by, manmade laws, cultural customs, or the beliefs of any culture or government. These rights include such things as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Other natural rights include the right to protect oneself from physical harm, the right to worship as one chooses, the right to express oneself, among others.

The reason why classical republicanism is so prevalent in the Declaration of Independence is because of the colonists recognition of the fact that they wanted their government to be vastly different from that of the British parliament. They believed that they were following their civic duty by separating from Britain for the purposes of preserving the common good.

What Is Civic Virtue

When you work to help others and promote the common welfare, you are showing civic virtue. The Founders thought civic virtue was important for a republican government. People with civic virtue are interested in having the government help all the people.

The Founders thought it was necessary to teach children the importance of helping others. Young people learned about civic virtue in their homes, schools, and churches. Adults also heard about civic virtue from their religious and political leaders.

The Founders thought a republican government would work in our country. They believed most of the people had civic virtue. They thought the people would select leaders who would work for the common welfare.

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On Types Of Republicanism

The academic literature on republicanism, in my experience, largely assumes one major distinction between kinds of republicanism. As I did not do conduct a major literature review just recently on the issue, I may have missed something, but it seems safe to say that the distinction I am getting onto is well established. That is the distinction between Roman and Athenian republicanism, with the two big names in the field, Philip Pettit and Hannah Arendt lined up on either side.

There are other distinctions between Pettit and Arendt, in the ways they;approach political thouht but I will leave those aside here. In terms of general political thought, Pettit has a more individualised and reductive approach to rights, while Arendt refers to a lived experience of the political side of humanity.;Pettit’s ��Romanism’ is indeed a claim to avoid the supposed denial of individuality and the right to be free from the political sphere, apparently inherent in ‘Athenianism’. Arendt’s ‘Athenianism’ is a claim to deal with the role that politics has in the life of humanity, which can never just be ‘social’, so lacking the competition for power in a public space. There are ways we might try to equate those with differences in political position with regard to issues other than pure political structures, but I do ;not believes that those really work out and that is again something I leave aside.

Posted by Barry Stocker on 20 October 2014 at 20:39 |Permalink

Which Republican President Inspired The Teddy Bear

What is Republicanism in the United States?, Explain Republicanism in the United States

Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican U.S. president from 1901 to 1909, inspired the teddy bear when he refused to shoot a tied-up bear on a hunting trip. The story reached toy maker Morris Michtom, who decided to make stuffed bears as a dedication to Roosevelt. The name comes from Roosevelts nickname, Teddy.

Republican Party, byname Grand Old Party , in the United States, one of the two major political parties, the other being the Democratic Party. During the 19th century the Republican Party stood against the extension of slavery to the countrys new territories and, ultimately, for slaverys complete abolition. During the 20th and 21st centuries the party came to be associated with laissez-fairecapitalism, low taxes, and conservative social policies. The party acquired the acronym GOP, widely understood as Grand Old Party, in the 1870s. The partys official logo, the elephant, is derived from a cartoon by Thomas Nast and also dates from the 1870s.

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Definition Of Republican Government

Republicanism Government;is a system of government in which the supreme power in the state rests in the people and their elected representatives. Republicanism is a form of representative government.

The concept is derived from the word republic. Republicanism is a form of government in which the head of state is an elected president and not a hereditary ruler. It therefore refers to a system of government in which sovereign power is widely vested in the people either directly or through their elected representatives.

In short a republician government may be defined as a form of government in which the Head of State is elected for a fixed term of office.

The Lessons Of Civic Republicanism

Thomas Jefferson is known as the author of the Declaration of Independence, and the articulator of the separation of church and state. These high profile accomplishments tend to overshadow his other important contributions. For example, Civic Republicanism is a Jeffersonian notion that deserves our contemporary attention.;

Civic Republicanism centers on two interrelated ideas, civic responsibility and community. Civic responsibility refers to the sense of responsibility that we have toward one another, and for one anothers well being. It is the practice of placing the common good above our individual self-interest. We do this willingly because, in communities, we get to know one another and, in turn, feel connected to the people around us. Our neighbors, religious leaders, teachers, and store owners are all part of this network of common bonds we call community. In other words, we learn not to be narcissists because we have learned the benefits of mutual dependence and mutual responsibility. ;

While Civic Republicanism is a good idea, its not one that seems to inform contemporary America. As populations become more segregated based on race and more stratified by economic class, traditional notions of community have disappeared.

Well, what has happened to them? What has robbed of us this tradition?;

Today, however, as inequality has raised the stakes and undermined traditional notions of community, self-interest has come to rule day.;

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Republicanism And Fundamental Rights

The foregoing discussion should not be construed as implying a necessary correlation between, on the one hand, liberalism and democracy, and, on the other, communitarianism and authoritarianism. Some versions of communitarianism approach a pure, popular democracy more closely than do some versions of liberalism, which would expressly renounce pure democracy. If a society is to be governed by a principle of collective welfare, and if notions of collective welfare are to be ascertained by consensus, then majority rule provides sufficient justification for deciding which acts should be penalized. No additional justification, with reference to the specific harm that would be caused by penalized acts, would be required. If the majority wishes to penalize gambling, alcohol consumption, flag burning, contraception, or homosexuality, then it may do so with no greater notion of harm than the sentiment that individuals and society would be better off without such things.

Ordinary right Putative harm caused by exercise of right Exercise of right may be penalized without special justification Exercise of right may not be penalized without special justification

Wilfried Nippel, in, 2015

The British Empire And The Commonwealth Of Nations

In some countries of the British Empire, later the Commonwealth of Nations, republicanism has taken a variety of forms.

In Barbados, the government gave the promise of a referendum on becoming a republic in August 2008, but it was postponed due to the change of government in the 2008 election. A plan to becoming a republic was still in place in September 2020, according to the current PM, with a target date of late 2021.

In South Africa, republicanism in the 1960s was identified with the supporters of apartheid, who resented British interference in their treatment of the country’s black population.

In Australia, the debate between republicans and monarchists is still active, and republicanism draws support from across the political spectrum. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was a leading proponent of an Australian republic prior to joining the centre-right Liberal Party, and led the pro-republic campaign during the failed 1999 Australian republic referendum. After becoming Prime Minister in 2015, he confirmed he still supports a republic, but stated that the issue should wait until after the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The centre-left Labor Party officially supports the abolition of the monarchy and another referendum on the issue.

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Republican As Party Name

In 1792â93 Jefferson and Madison created a new “Democratic-Republican party” in order to promote their version of the doctrine. They wanted to suggest that Hamilton’s version was illegitimate. According to Federalist Noah Webster, a political activist bitter at the defeat of the Federalist party in the White House and Congress, the choice of the name “Democratic-Republican” was “a powerful instrument in the process of making proselytes to the party. … The influence of names on the mass of mankind, was never more distinctly exhibited, than in the increase of the democratic party in the United States. The popularity of the denomination of the Republican Party, was more than a match for the popularity of Washington’s character and services, and contributed to overthrow his administration.” The party, which historians later called the Democratic-Republican Party, split into separate factions in the 1820s, one of which became the Democratic Party. After 1832, the Democrats were opposed by another faction that named themselves “Whigs” after the Patriots of the 1770s who started the American Revolution. Both of these parties proclaimed their devotion to republicanism in the era of the Second Party System.

Republicanism In The United States

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Republicanism in the United States is a set of ideas that guides the government and politics. These ideas have shaped the government, and the way people in the United States think about politics, since the American Revolution.

The American Revolution, the , the Constitution , and even the Gettysburg Address were based on ideas from American republicanism.

“Republicanism” comes from the word “republic.” However, they are not the same thing. A republic is a type of government . Republicanism is an ideology set of beliefs that people in a republic have about what is most important to them.

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What Counts As Arbitrary Power

A second major difficulty in developing the republican idea offreedom lies in giving precise meaning to the notion of arbitrariness.According to what criteria are we to consider power arbitrary? Notsimply when its exercise is random or unpredictable. This view wouldundermine the whole point of the republican conception of politicalliberty. As discussed above, with long experience a slave is betterable to predict his masters behavior, and so it appears lessrandom to him, but the slave doesnot enjoy greater freedom by that fact alone. Just because one isbetter able to cope with arbitrary power, it does not follow thatones domination is any less.

Discretionary is much closer to the relevant meaningof arbitrary, but it is not quite right either. Discretionary powermight be delegated to a public agency with a view to advancing certainpolicy goals or endsas for example Congress has delegateddiscretionary authority to the Federal Reservebut we would notwant to say that this reduces our freedom . For reasons explained inthe fourth section of this entry, contemporary civic republicans mustbe able to offer an account of non-arbitrary, yet discretionaryauthority.

Democracy’s Discontent: America In Search Of A Public Philosophy

RwandaâCAR Cooperation is an example of what Africa can achieve through unity

In this book, Sandel contrasts the tradition of civic republicanism with that of procedural liberalism in the US political history. The presentation is organized as the intertwining of philosophical and mostly historical analyses. Philosophically, based on LLJ, Sandel continuous his criticism of liberalism and argues for the idea of civic republicanism with the sense of multiply situated selves. Historically, Sandel shows, while both procedural liberalism and civic republicanism used to be present throughout American politics, American political discourse, in the recent decades, has become dominated by procedural liberalism, and has steadily crowded out the republican understandings of citizenship, which is important for self-government.

Sandel reminds us that the American Revolution was originally aspiring to generate a new community of common good. By separating from England, Americans attempt to stave off corruption and to realize republican ideals, to renew the moral spirit that suited Americans to republican government . Unfortunately, in the years following independence, leading politicians and writers started to worry the corruption of the public spirit by the rampant pursuit of luxury and self-interest. Nowadays, most of American practices and institutions have thoroughly embodied the philosophy of procedural liberalism. Despite its philosophical problem, it has offered the public philosophy by which Americans live.

T. O’Hagan, in, 2001

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Zombie Brains Are A Thing

There is life after death if you’re a pig…sorta. Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Recently at the Yale School of Medicine, researchers received 32 dead pig brains from a nearby slaughterhouse. No, it wasn’t some Mafia-style intimidation tactic. They’d placed the order in the hopes of giving the brains a physiological resurrection.

The researchers connected the brains to an artificial perfusion system called BrainEx. It pumped a solution through them that mimicked blood flow, bringing oxygen and nutrients to the inert tissues.

This system revitalized the brains and kept some of their cells “alive” for as long as 36 hours postmortem. The cells consumed and metabolized sugars. The brains’ immune systems even kicked back in. And some samples were even able to carry electrical signals.

Because the researchers weren’t aiming for Animal Farm with Zombies, they included chemicals in the solution that prevented neural activity representative of consciousness from taking place.

Their actual goal was to design a technology that will help us study the brain and its cellular functions longer and more thoroughly. With it, we may be able to develop new treatments for brain injuries and neurodegenerative conditions.

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