Stephan: This is what worries me: We have not had civil stress and violence in the U.S. in living memory; we don't expect it, and most people seem incapable of really believing our current situation in this country is as bad as it actually is. All living Americans are used to the fundamental structures of our government operating without much controversy. How often have you and your family discussed poll workers over a family dinner? How often have you worried about the integrity of your local election?
For most of our lives, the big concern about government has been racism, which is America's foundational sin. And then we elected an utterly corrupt, woman molesting, liar, and mafia-like criminal, Donald J. Trump. And that led to MAGAt world, and the deliberate attempt by one of our political parties, the Republican Party, to destroy our democracy. As Jeffrey Berman's new book, Holding the Line, lays out Trump only surrounded himself with men and women whose corruption and criminality was equal to his own. Working from inside the government they created a government of historically breathtaking criminality and corruption. Donald Trump, William Barr, and a host of Republican Congress members need to be indicted, tried, and if found guilty convicted and sent to prison. Something akin to the Nuremberg Trials would be appropriate. If we do not fix what has happened, it will happen again.
Credit: David McNew / Getty
In his widely-praised speech two weeks ago in Philadelphia, Joe Biden (finally) issued a clear and direct public warning about the Republican-fascist movement as an existential threat to American democracy.
In an interview Sunday on “Meet the Press,” Vice President Kamala Harris expanded on Biden’s warning, connecting the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to the much greater internal threat to America’s future now represented by the Republicans and Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.
Recent public opinion polls also show that a large percentage of Americans are beginning to accept that the MAGA forces pose an extreme threat to the country’s democracy.
But why has it taken the country’s leaders, and Americans in general, so long to accept this clear and obvious fact? The rise of the global right and its assault on democracy in America, Europe and around the world should not have been a surprise. This crisis was decades in the making. The end of the Cold War was not in fact the “end of history,” and did not […]
Albus Eddie
on Tuesday, September 13, 2022 at 5:36 am
“At the end of this conversation, Rosenberg counsels that despite the grave condition of American democracy, it can still be saved through dramatic reforms in education and the introduction of more expansive and responsive forms of democratic participation and governance.”
So, do you really believe that the Democrats are capable of instituting dramatic reform? Their history over the past 20 plus years says “No”.
Rev. Dean
on Tuesday, September 13, 2022 at 3:18 pm
I wonder if anyone really understands how Eisenhower warned us about unwaranted power of the Military in the USA. If you watched 9/11 happen on the day it happened, it certainly did not look like it was portrayed in the media. I now jump ahead to a propaganda piece called “Rebuilding America’s Defences” which started being bult in 1997 and was released in September of 2000. It was put together by many people from the military and / or military-related sources, as well corporations (who may have been involved with military projects. All together, they wanted to build up our military enough so we could basically control the world. They were worried that they would not have enough money to do it, and on page 51, they stated “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a NEW PEARL HARBOR. Then guess what happenned? 9/11 happenned! “Coincidence or not coincidence?”, that is my question? Do not forget, Osama Bin Laden worked for us earlier (through the CIA), helping us when the Russians were in Afghanistan to help deplete their forces. It makes me wonder, does it make you wonder?
“At the end of this conversation, Rosenberg counsels that despite the grave condition of American democracy, it can still be saved through dramatic reforms in education and the introduction of more expansive and responsive forms of democratic participation and governance.”
So, do you really believe that the Democrats are capable of instituting dramatic reform? Their history over the past 20 plus years says “No”.
I wonder if anyone really understands how Eisenhower warned us about unwaranted power of the Military in the USA. If you watched 9/11 happen on the day it happened, it certainly did not look like it was portrayed in the media. I now jump ahead to a propaganda piece called “Rebuilding America’s Defences” which started being bult in 1997 and was released in September of 2000. It was put together by many people from the military and / or military-related sources, as well corporations (who may have been involved with military projects. All together, they wanted to build up our military enough so we could basically control the world. They were worried that they would not have enough money to do it, and on page 51, they stated “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a NEW PEARL HARBOR. Then guess what happenned? 9/11 happenned! “Coincidence or not coincidence?”, that is my question? Do not forget, Osama Bin Laden worked for us earlier (through the CIA), helping us when the Russians were in Afghanistan to help deplete their forces. It makes me wonder, does it make you wonder?