Showing posts with label Socialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Socialism. Show all posts

Thursday, November 23, 2023

2023 Elections In Other Countries.


May 15, 2023

Turkey


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has governed the country for twenty years, is headed into a runoff election against Kemal Kilicdaroglu, having failed to secure 50% of the vote.

May 22, 2023

Ulster


Sinn Fein made big gains in local election in Northern Ireland this past week.

May 29, 2023

Turkey


Erdoğan unfortunately won the run-off election in Turkey.

May 30, 20223

Alberta, Canada


Danielle Smith's United Conservative Party won provincial elections yesterday. 

July 23, 2023


Spain exhibited cheating the prophet in that, contrary to predictions, there were no clear winners in its election.

The With center-right Christian Democratic Party, Partido Popular (PP) came in first, winning 136 seats. The far-right Vox party, which was predicted to be a kingmaker, won 33 seats and it might through in with the PP.  The ruling center-left Socialist party won 122 seats, with likely coalition partner Sumar at 31 seats.

But there's no telling, really.  The Socialist Party is in power. . . it might throw in with the PP.

So, it's hard to tell who won.  They're working out the deals now, but chances are that whoever won will not be in power long.

October 16, 2023


Left and center left parties took   248 seats in the 460-seat lower house of the Polish parliament, compared to the 200 taken by the governing Law and Justice party and 12 by a right wing partner.  

The government of Poland will accordingly change in the first European defeat of the king of right wing populism/National Conservatism that most notably emerged in Hungary and recently can be imperfectly argued to have gained ground in several other European countries.  It had made statements about openly following Hungary's lead.  As recently as 2019 it was gaining ground.

And it might still be.  Parliamentary politics are not the same as republican politics. The Law and Justice Party still was the largest vote getter, and the number of votes for it increased.  Effectively, it has 212 seats to 248 seats held by various other opposition parties that cross a political spectrum.  A government still has to be assembled and it will remain a major voice in the parliament.

November 23, 2023

Argentina.

Difficult to describe, socially conservative, a member of the Austrian school of economics, and sort of a libertarian, Javier Milei won the Argentine presidential election.

This election is so sui generis that it's hard to put in an international context.  The temptation is always to view these sorts of shifts as to the hard right, or hard left, and this would sort of be hard right, but it also reflects a rejection of Argentina's political history going back for 90 years or so.

The Netherlands.


The Dutch Party for Freedom made big election gains in the Dutch parliament, signaling a large leap to the far right in the country. While being expressed as a shock, this has been going on in the Netherlands for some time.

This victory makes it possible that its leader, Geert Wilders, could become prime minister of the country, but only if he is able to put together a coalition with other right wing and center right wing parties.

The party is strongly anti immigrant and wishes to leave the European Union.

Sunday, May 21, 2023

Monday, May 21, 1923. Delmonico's closed.

The original family owned Delmonico's restaurant closed.  The restaurant had been in business, in more than one location, since 1827 and had become one of the most famous restaurants in New York.  It was a favorite of Theodore Roosevelt.

It was not able to survive Prohibition.

Not surprisingly, the famous name had cache and there were subsequent operations that used it, having some connection with the original, but not owned by the original family.  There are plans to reopen a restaurant in the location late this year.

The restaurant is the claimed originator of a variety of famous dishes, the best known being the Delmonico's Steak.  Roosevelt favored the double lamb chops.

The  Labour and Socialist International, an organization of socialist and labor parties, was formed and became the largest organizational union of those entities.  It ceased to exist in April, 1940.

Thursday, February 9, 2023

Grandstanding

 Does Congress have so little to do that it actually needed to pass this:

118th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. CON. RES. 9

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Whereas socialist ideology necessitates a concentration of power that has time and time again collapsed into Communist regimes, totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships;

Whereas socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide;

Whereas many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialist ideologues, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Nicolás Maduro;

Whereas tens of millions died in the Bolshevik Revolution, at least 10,000,000 people were sent to the gulags in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and millions more starved in the Terror-Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine;

Whereas between 15,000,000 and 55,000,000 people starved to death in the wake of famine and devastation caused by the Great Leap Forward in China;

Whereas the socialist experiment in Cambodia led to the killing fields in which over a million people were gruesomely murdered;

Whereas up to 3,500,000 people have starved in North Korea, dividing a land of freedom from a land of destitution;

Whereas the Castro regime in Cuba expropriated the land of Cuban farmers and the businesses of Cuban entrepreneurs, stealing their possessions and their livelihoods, and exiling millions with nothing but the clothes on their backs;

Whereas the implementation of socialism in Venezuela has turned a once-prosperous nation into a failed State with the world’s highest rate of inflation;

Whereas the author of the Declaration of Independence, President Thomas Jefferson, wrote, “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.”;

Whereas the “Father of the Constitution”, President James Madison, wrote that it “is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest”; and

Whereas the United States of America was founded on the belief in the sanctity of the individual, to which the collectivistic system of socialism in all of its forms is fundamentally and necessarily opposed: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America.

Passed the House of Representatives February 2, 2023.

Attest:

First of all, this conflates Socialism with Communism.  Most of this pertains to Communism.  Socialism doesn't work as an economic theory, but you can't blame, say, the Social Democratic Party, Germany's largest political party and one that opposed both Communism and Nazism, for killing people.

But then most Americans can't seem to tell the difference between Communism, Socialism, Social Democracy, and the Girl Scouts, so we shouldn't be surprised.  "No coconut cookies? Why you dirty Marxist. . . "

And what does this do.  Isn't this sort of like declaring the Barbary Pirates to be bad?  Does anyone own a calendar back there?

Friday, January 20, 2023

Saturday, January 20, 1923. Children singing, railroad mergers, German mines, and when masks didn't cause political posturing.

 


As it was Saturday, the Saturday Evening Post hit the stands.  On this occasion it had an illustration of children playing music, probably loudly but badly, by Alan Foster.

For some reason, uploaded versions of period illustrations from the Saturday newsstands are a lot harder to find after late 1922 for a while.  Probably the drama of the war and the comparative lack of drama of the early 20s was the reason. The Country Gentleman hit the stands with an excellent illustration of Independence Hall.  Judge had a fascinating, nearly photo realistic painting of flappers in a club.


The Canadian Northern Railway and the Canadian Government Railways merged into the Canadian National Railway.  The merger of the CNR and the CGR was forced by the government due to the financial failure of the CNR, although at one time the railroad had steamships as well as trains.


The CNN is one of the world's great railways, spanning all of Canada and the Eastern United States.

You'll note that the creation of this system is either an application of the American System of economics, albeit in Canada, or of Socialism. At one time the nationalization of railroads was not the controvery it would be now.

The French arrested twenty-one German mine operators for failure to cooperate in the occupation, and Essen's banks all voluntarily closed.

The London Daily Mirror ran this cartoon:


Some current Chicago expats in the solon in Cheyenne would likely take offense.

As odd as it is to realize it, with yesterday being the birthdate for Janis Joplin, this is the same for Slim Whitman.  The country music star who came to prominence in the 50s, but who continued to record through the 90s, died at age 90 in 2013.

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Monday, June 22, 1942. Laval wishes for a German victory.


Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister of (Vichy) France, stated in a radio address; 

I wish for a German victory, because, without it, Bolshevism tomorrow would settle everywhere.

He was in his third period of being the Prime Minister, with the second and third both being during the Vichy period.

The statement came as a shock to many of his countrymen, who assumed that Vichy France was playing a waiting game until an Allied liberation would come.  Laval, however, had come to heavily sympathize with the Nazis.

Laval had been Prime Minister in 1931-32. He originally had been a pacifist Socialist politician and a lawyer who championed working men, but by the 1940s he'd migrated towards fascism.  He was executed following a trial after the war.

Sarah Sundin reports the following for today:

Today in World War II History—June 22, 1942: Germans take Bardia, Libya. US Flag Code becomes public law, regarding the Pledge of Allegiance and treatment of the flag.


Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Thursday, June 8, 1922. The Show Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries

In part of what would end up being a decades long process, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union began to the massacre of its fellow travelers. The Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries began.

Scene from the trial.

The Socialist Revolutionaries were a left wing Russian Party that were pro-democracy and had participated in Kerensky's government.  Indeed, the Socialist Revolutionaries out polled the Bolsheviks in the 1917 election for a Constituent Assembly, and only the Bolshevik's illegal seizure of power precluded a democratic body from forming.  By 1922, they had been crushed, but Lenin's government opted for a show trial anyhow, resulting in death sentences for the party figures who were tried.

It turned into a pr disaster, with the victims of the show trial becoming a cause célèbre among non Communist radicals.  Marxist, but anti Bolshevik, Karl Kausky said about the event:

The Bolsheviki were first to use violence against other socialists. They dissolved the Constituent Assembly not by way of resistance against any violence on the part of the Socialists-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, but because of their realization of their own inability to obtain the support of a majority of the peasants and workers by means of free propaganda. This was the fundamental cause of the Bolshevist coup d'etat against the representatives of the revolutionary workers and peasants. Hence, the abolition of all rights of all other socialists who refused to submit to the crack of the Bolshevist whip. Hence, the establishment of a political regime which leaves but one form of open political action for the opposition — civil war.... The real crime of which the Socialists-Revolutionists are guilty before the Bolsheviki at the present moment is not in the preparation of terroristic acts and armed uprisings, but in that...[they] are acquiring in ever increasing measure the confidence of the toiling masses of Russia. This bids fair to bring about the complete isolation of the Bolsheviki in a short time.

The results of the trial were that Central Committee of the SRP were found guilty, of course, and sentenced to death.  The Communists position was still sufficiently tenuous that disquiet over the results meant the sentences were commuted. All twelve were later murdered during Stalin's purges, of course.

While this trial was a well known event, and while mass killings were already a feature of Soviet rule, Stalin's later purges overshadowed these to such a degree that they're often treated as something uniquely Stalinesque.  In truth, the Communist Party everywhere featured the murder of its rivals as a norm, once in power, and murdering those who were closest to it in views, but not wholly their views, was not unusual at all.  In some ways, therefore, Stalin's murder of party members was a mere continuation to what had become the blood soaked norm already, different only in degree and that it was typically based on nothing at all.

Sunday, January 16, 2022

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXVII. The Pope Francis Followup Edition.

Pity poor Pope Francis, whatever he says, he makes people mad.

Recently I posted on Durveger's Law and American politics.  A similar law, it seems, applies to people's views of whatever the Pope is doing, even though only the College of Cardinals cast a vote on his election, and there's no "first past the post" type system.  Americans, or at least Americans, having divided themselves into liberals and conservatives, try to pigeonhole everyone else into the same left/right divide.  And this includes American Catholics.

Pope Francis just won't go there.

Early in his papacy, he issued Laudato si', which addressed a lot of issue, including economics.* While what he said wasn't really that much different from earlier Popes, and various Popes have been critical of capitalism as well as socialism, this has somehow been missed in recent years by Americans.  Indeed, while the Papacy has been very hostile to communism, and quite hostile to socialism, its treatment of capitalism has been far from praiseworthy.  It's worth remembering that distributism came about due to a Papal Encyclical.  Most Americans, including most American Catholics, don't know what distributism is, however.

The year before last, he followed up on his economic comments with an epic length letter on economics, called Fratelli Tutti.  Maybe because of other events, that one was largely missed.

Anyhow, his economic comments convinced some American conservatives including Catholic conservatives that the Pope must be a hard left socialist, even though there was certainly no evidence of that.

Problems really ensued, however, when the Pope issued Amoris Laetitia, which contained some vague language and which resulted in the issuance of a Dubia by several cardinals seeking clarification. The reason for this is that the encyclical could be read to suggest, maybe, that the Pope seemed to be taking a position contrary to earlier Popes in regard to the Sacraments and couples that were outside marital norms of the Church, or not.  At least the very careful Catholic intellectual Fr. Hugh Barbour suggested that it was being misread and reflected certain European conditions rather than those outside of Europe, and had to be carefully considered, but others were not so convinced.

The Pope, to the consternation of many, never answered the Dubia but, interestingly enough, it seems that Pope Emeritus Benedict actually may have, something that's been missed.  That this happened might, or might not, be an indication of a soft message from Pope Francis, and if so it would be a very conservative one.

Indeed, while not really recalled much now, the Pope's early comments on homosexuality were certainly very conservative, and have continued to be.

Anyhow, late last year and then again early this year, the Pope clearly had enough of Rad Trads who were being aggressive about everything and he has acted to enormously restrict the Tridentine Mass.  And he also sent the Church into a Snyodal process, both of which have arched up the backs of conservatives, although I suspect the latter is a way of taking the wind out of the sails of the German bishops who seem to be headed towards a liberal schism.

So, just when people think they have him figured out, he makes a blunt statement about childish couples, suggesting they're selfish.  

And now he's commenting on "cancel culture".

The part of his statement making waves is the following one.

The diminished effectiveness of many international organizations is also due to their members entertaining differing visions of the ends they wish to pursue. Not infrequently, the centre of interest has shifted to matters that by their divisive nature do not strictly belong to the aims of the organization. As a result, agendas are increasingly dictated by a mindset that rejects the natural foundations of humanity and the cultural roots that constitute the identity of many peoples. As I have stated on other occasions, I consider this a form of ideological colonization, one that leaves no room for freedom of expression and is now taking the form of the “cancel culture” invading many circles and public institutions. Under the guise of defending diversity, it ends up cancelling all sense of identity, with the risk of silencing positions that defend a respectful and balanced understanding of various sensibilities. A kind of dangerous “one-track thinking” [pensée unique] is taking shape, one constrained to deny history or, worse yet, to rewrite it in terms of present-day categories, whereas any historical situation must be interpreted in the light of a hermeneutics of that particular time, not that of today.

Hmmm. . . some things in there are pretty liberal. . . and some quite conservative.

And predictably it enraged some on the far left, who amusingly dragged out the same historically ill-informed diatribes used by Protestant "reformers" during the Reformation, an interesting example of how fake history never goes away.

Will conservatives take a second look?

My guess is not.

Here's his most recent address, the wave making parts highlighted

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS ACCREDITED TO THE HOLY SEE

Benediction Hall
 Monday, 10 January 2022

________________________________

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Yesterday concluded the liturgical season of Christmas, a privileged period for cultivating family relationships, from which we can at times be distracted and distant due to our many commitments during the year. Today we want to continue in that spirit, as we once more come together as a large family which discusses and dialogues. In the end, that is the aim of all diplomacy: to help resolve disagreements arising from human coexistence, to foster harmony and to realize that, once we pass beyond conflict, we can recover a sense of the profound unity of all reality.

I am therefore particularly grateful to you for taking part today in our annual “family gathering”, a propitious occasion for exchanging good wishes for the New Year and for considering together the lights and shadows of our time. I especially thank the Dean, His Excellency Mr George Poulides, the Ambassador of Cyprus, for his gracious address to me in the name of the entire Diplomatic Corps. Through all of you, I extend my affectionate greetings to the peoples you represent.

Your presence is always a tangible sign of the attention your countries devote to the Holy See and its role in the international community. Many of you have come from other capital cities for today’s event, thus joining the numerous Ambassadors residing in Rome, who will soon be joined by the Swiss Confederation.

Dear Ambassadors,

In these days, we are conscious that the fight against the pandemic still calls for a significant effort on the part of everyone; certainly, the New Year will continue to be demanding in this regard. The coronavirus continues to cause social isolation and to take lives. Among those who have died, I would like to mention the late Archbishop Aldo Giordano, an Apostolic Nuncio who was well-known and respected in the diplomatic community. At the same time, we have realized that in those places where an effective vaccination campaign has taken place, the risk of severe repercussions of the disease has decreased.

It is therefore important to continue the effort to immunize the general population as much as possible. This calls for a manifold commitment on the personal, political and international levels. First, on the personal level. Each of us has a responsibility to care for ourself and our health, and this translates into respect for the health of those around us. Health care is a moral obligation. Sadly, we are finding increasingly that we live in a world of strong ideological divides. Frequently people let themselves be influenced by the ideology of the moment, often bolstered by baseless information or poorly documented facts. Every ideological statement severs the bond of human reason with the objective reality of things. The pandemic, on the other hand, urges us to adopt a sort of “reality therapy” that makes us confront the problem head on and adopt suitable remedies to resolve it. Vaccines are not a magical means of healing, yet surely they represent, in addition to other treatments that need to be developed, the most reasonable solution for the prevention of the disease.

A political commitment is thus needed to pursue the good of the general population through measures of prevention and immunization that also engage citizens so that they can feel involved and responsible, thanks to a clear discussion of the problems and the appropriate means of addressing them. The lack of resolute decision-making and clear communication generates confusion, creates mistrust and undermines social cohesion, fueling new tensions. The result is a “social relativism” detrimental to harmony and unity.

In the end, a comprehensive commitment on the part of the international community is necessary, so that the entire world population can have equal access to essential medical care and vaccines. We can only note with regret that, for large areas of the world, universal access to health care remains an illusion. At this grave moment in the life of humanity, I reiterate my appeal that governments and concerned private entities demonstrate a sense of responsibility, developing a coordinated response at every level (local, national, regional, global), through new models of solidarity and tools to strengthen the capabilities of those countries in greatest need. In particular, I would urge all states, who are working to establish an international instrument on pandemic preparedness and response under the aegis of the World Health Organization, to adopt a policy of generous sharing as a key principle to guarantee everyone access to diagnostic tools, vaccines and drugs. Likewise, it is appropriate that institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization adapt their legal instruments lest monopolistic rules constitute further obstacles to production and to an organized and consistent access to healthcare on a global level.

Dear Ambassadors,

Last year, thanks also to the lessening of the restrictions put in place in 2020, I had occasion to receive many Heads of State and Governments, as well as various civil and religious authorities.

Among those many meetings, I would like to mention that of 1 July 2021, devoted to reflection and prayer for Lebanon. To the beloved Lebanese people, who are working to find a solution to the economic and political crisis that has gripped the nation, I wish today to renew my closeness and my prayers. At the same time, I trust that necessary reforms and the support of the international community will help the country to persevere in its proper identity as a model of peaceful coexistence and brotherhood among the different religions.

In the course of 2021, I was also able to resume my Apostolic Journeys. In March, I had the joy of travelling to Iraq. Providence willed this, as a sign of hope after years of war and terrorism. The Iraqi people have the right to regain their dignity and to live in peace. Their religious and cultural roots go back thousands of years: Mesopotamia is a cradle of civilization; it is from there that God called Abraham to inaugurate the history of salvation.

In September, I travelled to Budapest for the conclusion of the International Eucharistic Congress, and thereafter to Slovakia. It was an opportunity for me to meet with the Catholic faithful and Christians of other confessions, and to dialogue with the Jewish community. I likewise travelled to Cyprus and Greece, a Journey that remains vivid in my memory. That visit allowed me to deepen ties with our Orthodox brothers and to experience the fraternity existing between the various Christian confessions.

A very moving part of that Journey was my visit to the island of Lesbos, where I was able to see at first hand the generosity of all those working to provide hospitality and assistance to migrants, but above all, to see the faces of the many children and adults who are guests of these centres of hospitality. Their eyes spoke of the effort of their journey, their fear of an uncertain future, their sorrow for the loved ones they left behind and their nostalgia for the homeland they were forced to depart. Before those faces, we cannot be indifferent or hide behind walls and barbed wires under the pretext of defending security or a style of life. This we cannot do.

Consequently, I thank all those individuals and governments working to ensure that migrants are welcomed and protected, and to support their human promotion and integration in the countries that have received them. I am aware of the difficulties that some states encounter in the face of a large influx of people. No one can be asked to do what is impossible for them, yet there is a clear difference between accepting, albeit in a limited way, and rejecting completely.

There is a need to overcome indifference and to reject the idea that migrants are a problem for others. The results of this approach are evident in the dehumanization of those migrants concentrated in hotspots where they end up as easy prey to organized crime and human traffickers, or engage in desperate attempts to escape that at times end in death. Sadly, we must also note that migrants are themselves often turned into a weapon of political blackmail, becoming a sort of “bargaining commodity” that deprives them of their dignity.

Here I would like to renew my gratitude to the Italian authorities, thanks to whom several persons were able to come with me to Rome from Cyprus and Greece. This was a simple yet meaningful gesture. To the Italian people, who suffered greatly at the beginning of the pandemic, but who have also shown encouraging signs of recovery, I express my heartfelt hope that they will always maintain their characteristic spirit of generosity, openness and solidarity.

At the same time, I consider it essential that the European Union arrive at internal cohesion in handling migration movements, just as it did in dealing with the effects of the pandemic. There is a need to adopt a coherent and comprehensive system for coordinating policies on migration and asylum, with a view to sharing responsibility for the reception of migrants, the review of requests for asylum, and the redistribution and integration of those who can be accepted. The capacity to negotiate and discover shared solutions is one of the strong points of the European Union; it represents a sound model for a farsighted approach to the global challenges before us.

Nonetheless, the migration issue does not regard Europe alone, even though it is especially affected by waves of migrants coming from Africa and from Asia. In recent years, we have witnessed, among others, an exodus of Syrian refugees and, more recently, the many people who have fled Afghanistan. Nor can we overlook the massive migration movements on the American continent, which press upon the border between Mexico and the United States of America. Many of those migrants are Haitians fleeing the tragedies that have struck their country in recent years.

The issue of migration, together with the pandemic and climate change, has clearly demonstrated that we cannot be saved alone and by ourselves: the great challenges of our time are all global. It is thus troubling that, alongside the greater interconnection of problems, we are seeing a growing fragmentation of solutions. It is not uncommon to encounter unwillingness to open windows of dialogue and spaces of fraternity; this only fuels further tensions and divisions, as well as a generalized feeling of uncertainty and instability. What is needed instead is a recovery of our sense of shared identity as a single human family. The alternative can only be growing isolation, marked by a reciprocal rejection and refusal that further endangers multilateralism, the diplomatic style that has characterized international relations from the end of the Second World War to the present time.

For some time now, multilateral diplomacy has been experiencing a crisis of trust, due to the reduced credibility of social, governmental and intergovernmental systems. Important resolutions, declarations and decisions are frequently made without a genuine process of negotiation in which all countries have a say. This imbalance, now dramatically evident, has generated disaffection towards international agencies on the part of many states; it also weakens the multilateral system as a whole, with the result that it becomes less and less effective in confronting global challenges.

The diminished effectiveness of many international organizations is also due to their members entertaining differing visions of the ends they wish to pursue. Not infrequently, the centre of interest has shifted to matters that by their divisive nature do not strictly belong to the aims of the organization. As a result, agendas are increasingly dictated by a mindset that rejects the natural foundations of humanity and the cultural roots that constitute the identity of many peoples. As I have stated on other occasions, I consider this a form of ideological colonization, one that leaves no room for freedom of expression and is now taking the form of the “cancel culture” invading many circles and public institutions. Under the guise of defending diversity, it ends up cancelling all sense of identity, with the risk of silencing positions that defend a respectful and balanced understanding of various sensibilities. A kind of dangerous “one-track thinking” [pensée unique] is taking shape, one constrained to deny history or, worse yet, to rewrite it in terms of present-day categories, whereas any historical situation must be interpreted in the light of a hermeneutics of that particular time, not that of today.

Multilateral diplomacy is thus called to be truly inclusive, not canceling but cherishing the differences and sensibilities that have historically marked various peoples. In this way, it will regain credibility and effectiveness in facing the challenges to come, which will require humanity to join together as one great family that, starting from different viewpoints, should prove capable of finding common solutions for the good of all. This calls for reciprocal trust and willingness to dialogue; it entails “listening to one another, sharing different views, coming to agreement and walking together”. Indeed, “dialogue is the best way to realize what ought always to be affirmed and respected apart from any ephemeral consensus”.  Nor should we overlook “the existence of certain enduring values”. Those are not always easy to discern, but their acceptance “makes for a robust and solid social ethics. Once those fundamental values are adopted through dialogue and consensus, we realize that they rise above consensus”. Here I wish to mention in particular the right to life, from conception to its natural end, and the right to religious freedom.

In this regard, in recent years we have seen a growing collective awareness of the urgent need to care for our common home, which is suffering from the constant and indiscriminate exploitation of its resources. Here I think especially of the Philippines, struck in these last weeks by a devastating typhoon, and of other nations in the Pacific, made vulnerable by the negative effects of climate change, which endanger the lives of their inhabitants, most of whom are dependent on agriculture, fishing and natural resources.

Precisely this realization should impel the international community as a whole to discover and implement common solutions. None may consider themselves exempt from this effort, since all of us are involved and affected in equal measure. At the recent COP26 in Glasgow, several steps were made in the right direction, even though they were rather weak in light of the gravity of the problem to be faced. The road to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement is complex and appears to be long, while the time at our disposal is shorter and shorter. Much still remains to be done, and so 2022 will be another fundamental year for verifying to what extent and in what ways the decisions taken in Glasgow can and should be further consolidated in view of COP27, planned for Egypt next November.

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Dialogue and fraternity are two essential focal points in our efforts to overcome the crisis of the present moment. Yet “despite numerous efforts aimed at constructive dialogue between nations, the deafening noise of war and conflict is intensifying”.  The entire international community must address the urgent need to find solutions to endless conflicts that at times appear as true proxy wars.

I think first of Syria, where the country’s rebirth does not yet clearly appear on the horizon. Even today, the Syrian people mourn their dead and the loss of everything, and continue to hope for a better future. Political and constitutional reforms are required for the country to be reborn, but the imposition of sanctions should not strike directly at everyday life, in order to provide a glimmer of hope to the general populace, increasingly caught in the grip of poverty.

Nor can we overlook the conflict in Yemen, a human tragedy that has gone on for years, silently, far from the spotlight of the media and with a certain indifference on the part of the international community, even as it continues to claim numerous civil victims, particularly women and children.

In the past year, no steps forward were made in the peace process between Israel and Palestine. I would truly like to see these two peoples rebuild mutual trust and resume speaking directly to each other, in order to reach the point where they can live in two states, side by side, in peace and security, without hatred and resentment, but the healing born of mutual forgiveness.

Other sources of concern are the institutional tensions in Libya, the episodes of violence by international terrorism in the Sahel region, and the internal conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan and Ethiopia, where there is need “to find once again the path of reconciliation and peace through a forthright encounter that places the needs of the people above all else”. 

Profound situations of inequality and injustice, endemic corruption and various forms of poverty that offend the dignity of persons also continue to fuel social conflicts on the American continent, where growing polarization is not helping to resolve the real and pressing problems of its people, especially those who are most poor and vulnerable.

Reciprocal trust and readiness to engage in calm discussion should also inspire all parties at stake, so that acceptable and lasting solutions can be found in Ukraine and in the southern Caucasus, and the outbreak of new crises can be avoided in the Balkans, primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dialogue and fraternity are all the more urgently needed for dealing wisely and effectively with the crisis which for almost a year now has affected Myanmar; its streets, once places of encounter, are now the scene of fighting that does not spare even houses of prayer.

Naturally, these conflicts are exacerbated by the abundance of weapons on hand and the unscrupulousness of those who make every effort to supply them. At times, we deceive ourselves into thinking that these weapons serve to dissuade potential aggressors. History and, sadly, even daily news reports, make it clear that this is not the case. Those who possess weapons will eventually use them, since as Saint Paul VI observed, “a person cannot love with offensive weapons in his hands”. Furthermore, “When we yield to the logic of arms and distance ourselves from the practice of dialogue, we forget to our detriment that, even before causing victims and ruination, weapons can create nightmares”. Today these concerns have become even more real, if we consider the availability and employment of autonomous weapon systems that can have terrible and unforeseen consequences, and should be subject to the responsibility of the international community.

Among the weapons humanity has produced, nuclear arms are of particular concern. At the end of December last, the Tenth Review Conference of the parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which was to meet in New York in these days, was once again postponed due to the pandemic. A world free of nuclear arms is possible and necessary. I therefore express my hope that the international community will view that Conference as an opportunity to take a significant step in this direction. The Holy See continues steadfastly to maintain that in the twenty-first century nuclear arms are an inadequate and inappropriate means of responding to security threats, and that possession of them is immoral. Their production diverts resources from integral human development and their employment not only has catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences, but also threatens the very existence of humanity.

The Holy See likewise considers it important that the resumption of negotiations in Vienna on the nuclear accord with Iran (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) achieve positive results, in order to guarantee a more secure and fraternal world.

Dear Ambassadors!

In my Message for the World Day of Peace celebrated on 1 January last, I sought to highlight several factors that I consider essential for promoting a culture of dialogue and fraternity.

Education holds a special place, since it trains the younger generation, the future and hope of the world. Education is in fact the primary vehicle of integral human development, for it makes individuals free and responsible. The educational process is slow and laborious, and can lead at times to discouragement, but we can never abandon it. It is an outstanding expression of dialogue, for no true education can lack a dialogical structure. Education likewise gives rise to culture and builds bridges of encounter between peoples. The Holy See wished to stress the importance of education also by its participation in Expo 2021 in Dubai, with a pavilion inspired by the theme of the Expo: “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”.

The Catholic Church has always recognized and valued the role of education in the spiritual, moral and social growth of the young. It pains me, then, to acknowledge that in different educational settings – parishes and schools – the abuse of minors has occurred, resulting in serious psychological and spiritual consequences for those who experienced them. These are crimes, and they call for a firm resolve to investigate them fully, examining each case to ascertain responsibility, to ensure justice to the victims and to prevent similar atrocities from taking place in the future.

Despite the gravity of such acts, no society can ever abdicate its responsibility for education. Yet, regrettably, state budgets often allocate few resources for education, which tends to be viewed as an expense, instead of the best possible investment for the future.

The pandemic prevented many young people from attending school, to the detriment of their personal and social development. Modern technology enabled many young people to take refuge in virtual realities that create strong psychological and emotional links but isolate them from others and the world around them, radically modifying social relationships. In making this point, I in no way intend to deny the usefulness of technology and its products, which make it possible for us to connect with one another easily and quickly, but I do appeal urgently that we be watchful lest these instruments substitute for true human relationships at the interpersonal, familial, social and international levels. If we learn to isolate ourselves at an early age, it will later prove more difficult to build bridges of fraternity and peace. In a world where there is just “me”, it is difficult to make room for “us”.

The second thing that I would like to mention briefly is labour, “an indispensable factor in building and keeping peace. Labour is an expression of ourselves and our gifts, but also of our commitment, self-investment and cooperation with others, since we always work with or for someone else. Seen in this clearly social perspective, the workplace enables us to learn to make our contribution towards a more habitable and beautiful world”. 

We have seen that the pandemic has sorely tested the global economy, with serious repercussions on those families and workers who experienced situations of psychological distress even before the onset of the economic troubles. This has further highlighted persistent inequalities in various social and economic sectors. Here we can include access to clean water, food, education and medical care. The number of people falling under the category of extreme poverty has shown a marked increase. In addition, the health crisis forced many workers to change professions, and in some cases forced them to enter the underground economy, causing them to lose the social protections provided for in many countries.

In this context, we see even more clearly the importance of labour, since economic development cannot exist without it, nor can it be thought that modern technology can replace the surplus value of human labour. Human labour provides an opportunity for the discovery of our personal dignity, for encounter with others and for human growth; it is a privileged means whereby each person participates actively in the common good and offers a concrete contribution to peace. Here too, greater cooperation is needed among all actors on the local, national, regional and global levels, especially in the short term, given the challenges posed by the desired ecological conversion. The coming years will be a time of opportunity for developing new services and enterprises, adapting existing ones, increasing access to dignified work and devising new means of ensuring respect for human rights and adequate levels of remuneration and social protection.

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The prophet Jeremiah tells us that God has “plans for [our] welfare and not for evil, to give [us] a future and a hope” (29:11). We should be unafraid, then, to make room for peace in our lives by cultivating dialogue and fraternity among one another. The gift of peace is “contagious”; it radiates from the hearts of those who long for it and aspire to share it, and spreads throughout the whole world. To each of you, your families and the peoples you represent, I renew my blessing and offer my heartfelt good wishes for a year of serenity and peace.

Thank you!

So, one week the Pope suggests that furbabies aren't babies at all, and that it's selfish to avoid children, a very conservative, and very Catholic, position.  Now he follows it up with a suggestion that cancel culture is a bad thing, yet another conservative position.  

It's pretty hard to get radical left wing out of that.

And it's hard to really place him in that right/left divide. 

All of which suggests that he should get more credit than he does, and that his statements should be carefully watched, including by conservatives like me.

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXII. Weary

Checking out.


I already posted this on another thread, but I'm seriously thinking of just stopping doing this, the blog that is, for a couple of weeks.

And I might not.  

Part of the reason for this is that I'm at a peak of disgust over certain things.  I'm really tired people of people being willfully blind and lying.  I posted a thread on our companion blog, Courthouses of the West, which touches on this a bit.

It's not  like this is a new thing in the world. . . but something about this era.

The Washington Post ran a Veteran's Day article on a guy who is a veteran who significantly helped get the 9/11 conspiracy theories rolling with a film for the gullible.  Even in the comments' section there were some who posted, even though the vet has recanted, who believe the theories principally because they want to. I'm sick of people being like that.

And there's a pile of people like that anymore, those willfully believing wild things.  I don't mean simply differences in opinion, but stuff that's demonstratively false that they're choosing to believe on just about any topic you can think of.

Something is really in the air right now, and it's hard to define what caused it.  Something needs to address it too. The problem is that once things get badly out of whack, getting them back in line seemingly requires something dramatic.

Or not.  I suppose if this blog demonstrates anything is that big weird events happen in which a lot of people are deluded by something, but then things seemingly straighten back out.  Let's hope and pray that occurs.

What I should do is work on my book.

An armed movie tragedy

When I first started this edition, the tragedy on the movie set of Rust had just occured.



Edward Peters
@canonlaw
The reporting is instantly biased, of course. If something really fires real bullets, it’s a “gun” not a “prop”. Doesn’t matter what it’s intended USE was, it IS a gun. Heck, Baldwin actually used it at the time as a toy. That doesn’t make it a “toy gun”, it was a gun.


Fr. Joseph Krupp
@Joeinblack
The tragedy is that a woman with a promising future is dead. The good news is, apparently her death is an excellent chance for us all to vomit our politics & opinions everywhere.

I think both of the comments above are quite right, and I don't think they're contrary to each other in any fashion.  That is, I don't think that Fr. Krupp's comment is aimed at comments such as that made by Mr. Peters. 

Fr. Krupp has a really good point, and it basically had occurred to me already.  I don't know that it's particularly unique to our times, but everyone who thinks they have a point to make will come out on Twitter and Facebook and the like with a series of comments, a lot of which will be really dumb.

Let's start with some obvious statements.

First of all, Mr. Baldwin did nothing that's morally blameworthy.  Somebody screwed up, for sure, but under the facts and circumstances as we know them, it wasn't him.  This is an awful tragedy, but its not one that you can put personal blame on the actor for.  It's purely an accident.  Indeed, it's at least the third such similar, but not identical, accident of a similar type of which I'm aware of in the movie industry, the first being the death of Jon-Eric Hexum back in the 80s, who was killed when the plastic from a blank round struck him on the temple, and the other being the death of Brandon Lee, who was killed when a portion of a previously shot live round, which was apparently stuck in the barrel, dislodged when a blank round was fired. 

And, of course, deaths on movie sets from other causes are hardly unknown.

Okay, so what happened.  

Well Baldwin was working on the filming of the movie Rust, which I'd not previously heard of, and I'd guess most of the readers here haven't either.  According to the Internet Moview Database, the film's is summarized as follows:

A 13 year-old boy, left to fend for himself and his younger brother following the death of their parents in 1880's Kansas, goes on the run with his long estranged grandfather after he's sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher.

I have to say there's an element of strange irony at work here, in that the film is about an accidental killing.

Of note, Baldwin is a co-author of the screenplay and this appears to be very much a project that he's been involved with from its inception.

There apparently had been complaints during the filming by people working on it regarding safety, including the safety of the firearms used in it.  During filming, Baldwin was handed a "cold" firearm, likely a handgun, and it turned out to be loaded with live rounds.  Therefore, when the pistil discharged, it killed Halyna Hutchins, who was down muzzle of it.

So what can we learn, if anything, about this.

Maybe, quite frankly, nothing whatsoever.

Well, not quite that little.

One thing that we can learn is that the firearms weren't being properly handled.

Accidental deaths from firearms in the United States has declined remarkably over the years, and they're actually quite rare now.   In 2019 the total number of deaths from firearms was 39,707, of which a little over 14,000 were homicides.  In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, there were 19,300, which has been reported as a dramatic rise, but really basically isn't.  With a huge section of the population idle, at home, and out of work, we could have expected that.

Suicide accounted for 60% of deaths by firearm in 2019.  I don't know what it was in 2020, but looking at the figures, we'd expect it to have gone up some but it might not have much, if at all. Contrary to all the dire warnings, suicide rates went down 5% in 2020, which is also probably due to COVID 19.  Lots of people didn't have to go to their crappy jobs for much of that year and were likely happier at home.  The pandemic reportedly boosted the level of all sorts of other personal vice, but the much predicted wave of suicide just didn't happen.

Which says a lot about how people view their work.

While I don't have the statistics, accidental deaths from firearms has also really declined over the years.  We used to hear about "hunting accidents", and a few happen every year, but quite frankly hunters are likely more at risk driving to the game fields than in them.  Wyoming had one such accident this year, which was tragic, and frankly looking at it, it involved a lack of gun safety, but this is also pretty rare anymore.

Indeed, the US isn't anywhere near as violent as the news media would suggestion.  There were a little over 20,000 murders total in the US in 2020.  Interestingly, crime was overall down in the country (again, the pandemic. . . ) and violent crime went up in cities, but not in rural areas.

None of which seems to have been reported very well, but all of which is true.

Which gets me to the next thing.  

I truly don't grasp how this could have happened.  Most people who are really familiar with firearms check to see if they're loaded the second they're handed one, save perhaps in a store where they're new.  Most hunters compulsively check to see if their own arms are loaded once they get them out of the safe, and then they do it again once they put them away.  Even as a soldier, when handed a rifle, I checked to see if it was loaded, even though if it was in the arms room it shouldn't have been.

The other lesson is this.  As Ed Peters notes, these movie guns were real guns.  They were guns being used as props, not "prop guns".  There's obviously a large difference.

Which makes me wonder how many guns movie studios own.  Or maybe they don't own them, but rent them from a supplier.

In the wake of the terrible accident, this question is being asked:

Why are real guns still used on film sets? In wake of 'Rust' shooting, their future is in question
It's probably a legitimate question, although I hate to think what that might mean.  We already have the example of the absurd John Wick series, which I've watched as a guilty pleasure, glamorizing armed violence in a weird ballet like  way.  Yes, its completely absurd, but its an absurdity that very realistic CGI has given us.

And It's hard not to assume faked CGI violence becoming the norm doesn't make it all the more appealing to some people.

Something else on this, there have actually been meme's pop up making fun of Baldwin. That's sick.

Image

While we're on the Baldwin tragedy, we should add something about image.

It's no doubt copyrighted by the "armorer" from the movie set Hanna Gutierrez-Reed, age 24, has had a publicity photograph appear in articles in which she's posing in a sultry dreamy eyed manner with two revolvers crossed against her chest and leather bandoliers of ammunition.

There's no reason, I'd note, that a 24 year old couldn't do this job perfectly competently.  I was dutied as an armorer for a time in my National Guard unit before I went to basic training, and I was 18 years old at the time and perfectly competent to do it.  That's not the point.

The point is that this is really the wrong image.

First of all, every young woman in the movie industry doesn't have to look like she's auditioning for a photo spread in the now out of publication Playboy magazine.  And mixing firearm messages and sex messages is flat out weird.  Firearms in recent years have already had unfortunate associations made in magazines promoting the concept that just going about your daily business is as risky as delivering a message to the opposition in Damascus.  Not hardly.  And the introduction of sexy women in the same role that they used to play in tool catalogs (and maybe still do) has come about also.  The dough eyed look with guns . . . stop it.

An armorer, in my view, probably ought to look like a grumpy technician who doesn't bother to wash his clothes and who generally holds most of the world in contempt.

And that person shouldn't have youthful Goth photos that can show up in British tabloids.

It's Ain't All Black and White

I saw this post on Reddit about the recent Wyoming Special Legislative Session:

'Angry old white men nearly done wasting limited taxpayer resources to pointlessly yell at clouds . . . again'
To start off with, I've been pretty critical of the Special Session, mostly as it appeared at first that it was going to enact legislation that was Unconstitutional due to the Supremacy Clause through votes that violated the legislators oaths of office.  As it was, however, I was pleasantly surprised when the legislature didn't enact something unconstitutional

I'll note, however, that the concept that the legislature unilaterally of its own isolated volition put itself into session is wrong. Governor Gordon got it rolling in the first place when he indicated he was going to do it, and then never acted on it.  And the right-wing populist members of the legislature, which turns out to be a minority, was acting in compliance with the views of its constituents, whom are also probably a minority.  There's a lesson in that.

But what is really miffing me is the now constant insertion by the Woke of the term "white" into anything they deem lacking.  At this point I wouldn't be surprised to see people angry over traffic accidents noting that the drivers were "white".

Not every member of the Wyoming legislature is white.  Granted, the minority members are largely Democrats, but there are members of minorities in the legislature. And they aren't all "men" either.  Nor are they all old. There's some surprisingly young members, including one of the most populist members, Chuck Gray.  Gray is far from old, even if he is a while male.  He's a 2012 graduate of the Wharton School of Business, which would mean that he's probably about 31 years old.  It's really the older members of the legislature that kept this session from going full bore populist radical.

Moreover, while I've been critical of the American gerontocracy, it proved to be the more seasoned, and therefore older, Republicans in the legislature who really tempered what it was doing, as noted.  

I just posted on this elsewhere, but the "white" thing is really becoming a left wing cliché said mostly by white upper middle class dinks and sinks.* Say it often enough and you'll really piss off what amounts just regular folks.  "White" doesn't really exist as an ethnicity anyway, and lumping everyone who puts "Caucasian" down on the form at the DMV together in one category is stupid.  Beyond that, its racist, inaccurate, and arrogant.

What's also ignorant is assuming that the legislature, whatever you think of it, must be made up of "angry old men" because it must be.  The angry men and women in Wyoming politics seem to be younger, FWIW, than older, and they aren't all men.

D'uh
Harvard professors warn that war-torn countries will miss global vaccine goals in 2022

So reads a headline.  

Wars have always been associated with the spread of disease. Why would this one be any different?

Where the capitalist and socialist meet

Bernie Sanders Calls U.S. 'International Embarrassment' for Not Offering New Moms Paid Leave

Paid family leave means that the employer pays for the leave, which means that the cost is passed on to the consumer, as in the American economy we now have, there's not that much slack to absorb such things.  So everyone ends up paying for the leave, whether they have children or not.

Bernie might  need to actually get a regular job for a while so he knows how these things actually work.

One of the really interesting aspects, by the way, of how these supposedly kind-hearted social welfare programs work is to shift the paying to somebody else while tethering the benefitted person to their work.  It's interesting.

Paid family leave is paid for by employers.  Basically, what Bernie is doing is walking into offices across the land, opening up the till, and taking some money from it so that somebody can pay for somebody else's "paid family leave".  The employer has to make that up, of course, so what he does is raise prices or. . . .lay somebody off.  You don't have to give leave, after all, to people who aren't there.

In Bernie's world none of these connections exist as progressives secretly believe that all employers are sitting on giant piles of cash.  

Not hardly.

The flip side is also interesting, however.  The thought is that this act of kindness at a metaphorical gunpoint means that workers are super happy and now aren't faced with all sorts of difficult struggles.  In reality, a lot of female employees would rather be home with their children, but prior economic acts of kindness have wrecked that and they have to be at work.  Yes, extraction of cash from their employers by operation of law means they get some time home, but they're going to have to come back, and the net impact of the law is to make that all the more certain.

A better and more just kindness would be to have an economy in which families can be supported by one paycheck, but economic policies of the last few decades have made that pretty much impossible for most families  Part of that also would be to really require those responsible for bringing children into the world pay for them.

But, no, we're going down a path here that actually is a socialist one of sorts, but mixed into a capitalist system. We're going to tax everyone so people with newborns can have leave, and then they can drop them off in subsidized, i.e., taxpayer supported, daycare, so we can get women, and for that matter men, who'd rather stay home with their kids back at their desks, darn it.

The big shift.

Somewhat related to this, there's lots of news about inflation, which is very scary, but at the same time there's lots of news that employees aren't coming back to work.  Not only that, people are quitting work everywhere.  Some are calling it the Great Resignation.

Indeed, this is pretty surprising in lots of ways, as its not the youngest employees doing it. According to the Harvard Business Review:
Employees between 30 and 45 years old have had the greatest increase in resignation rates, with an average increase of more than 20% between 2020 and 2021. While turnover is typically highest among younger employees, our study found that over the last year, resignations actually decreased for workers in the 20 to 25 age range (likely due to a combination of their greater financial uncertainty and reduced demand for entry-level workers). Interestingly, resignation rates also fell for those in the 60 to 70 age group, while employees in the 25 to 30 and 45+ age groups experienced slightly higher resignation rates than in 2020 (but not as significant an increase as that of the 30-45 group).
If you work in an office, you're seeing this.

There's something distributist and agrarian in this story somewhere.

Well apparently you really don't know what communism is.

Wiesters
@CalebWiest
So my wife found out today that if she doesn’t get the jab within the next 2 months she will possibly lose her job. She is 24 weeks pregnant and will definitely not be getting it before delivery. If that’s not communism I don’t know what is #LetsGoBrandon

It must be a legacy of the Cold War or something, but Americans are incredibly free in stating something is "Communist" or "Socialist" if they don't like it.  I wouldn't be too surprised if some people claimed hurricanes were Communists.

A vaccine mandate of any kind, public or private, isn't Communist.

Communism is the economic theory advanced by Karl "I'm sitting on my ass in the British Library" Marx. The theory was that everything of every kind ought to be owned by the government, and the government would be run by 19th Century workers, as technology had advanced as far as it was ever going to go and that was the end state of technology.  Once the workers had shot everyone who had money, and everything was owned in common, including wives, universal bliss would break out.

Marx was an economic idiot whose family turned into a disaster, but he didn't write much about epidemiology or vaccinations.

Like vaccine mandates or not, they've been around as long as vaccinations have existed.  George Washington at some point in the Revolution reversed the policy of the Continental Army and started requiring troops to be vaccinated. . . with live vaccines, as it were, for Small Pox.

So, truly, Wiester doesn't know what Communism is.

This could be reduced to a joke level, but this is now so common it's actually an American social problem.  here in Wyoming we hear bitching all the time about "socialism" but we're pretty darned keen on Federal government funding of the roads and airports, which is. . . Socialism. We have a state captive Workers Compensation system also, which is. . gasp. . Socialism.  

Truth be known, our free market economy, which isn't purely free market by any means, has always had some elements of socialism in it, none of which have anything whatsoever to do with vaccination mandates.  I guess free vaccines could be regarded as a social welfare policy, but not socialism.

Big Bird and Ted Cruz

The popularity of Ted Cruz frankly escapes me, but perhaps that's because I'm cynical to start with, but in the current climate, it's stuff like this that causes certain things to constantly have a certain weird tinge to them.

Cruz was a central figure in the "stolen election" post insurrection episode, so he's also a central character in the movement inside the GOP that is fanning the flames of a lie that's creating to a dangerous erosion in democratic values in the country.  

Not that there weren't roots in the left, which is being missed.

Since the 1970s at least the American left promoted rule by the courts, as it couldn't get what it wanted at the ballot box.  It was hugely comfortable with that, and in fact became completely acclimated to it. That helped create a conspiratorial atmosphere on the right that the courts were in league with "elitist" elements which were out to recreate society, and frankly there was pretty good evidence that was true.  

Disenfranchise one element, and it becomes a dangerous fanciful minded one.  If we look back on Russia, for example, leading up to the Revolution and during it, we have to wonder how people were led to believe such moronic slop as dished out by the Bolsheviks. Well, decades of repression by the Imperial household and the Russian elites set them up for it.  We're seeing something similar now.  That, as addressed here earlier, gave us Trump, and Trump is clearly now anti-democratic, so the irony turns full circle.  His supporters don't see it that way, however, as they've learned to regard the left as illegitimate.

The left isn't illegitimate, and it remains democratic, but it has an anti-democratic legacy that it hasn't dealt with and right now it really can't.  A person can't worry about having left matches around when the house is on fire.  Things are really a mess.

If a person was a mediator over the national psyche, you'd probably send the entire country out for counselling.  You'd have to get the right to admit the election wasn't stolen and that Trump is more than a little weird.  You'd have to get Republican lead legislatures to quit trying to rig votes, and you'd also have to get the right to admit that it hasn't won the popular vote for the Oval Office in over 20 years, and for a reason.  

The left would have to admit that a lot of people in the country are pretty conservative and that it's fallen prey to some deeply weird beliefs itself that are contrary to science.  Indeed, both political sides are picking and choosing the science they like and disregarding the science they don't like.

Frankly, the country could use about two more middle oriented political parties.

But people also have to quit listening to really self-serving figures, and I'd put Ted in that category.  A friend of mine who knows him and likes him says he's a "nice guy", but I mean come on, picking on Big Bird? 


Footnotes

*Double Income No Kids and Single No Kids.