authoritarian regimes & wannabes grab bag

[barnswallow]

... a place to discuss anti-democratic trends from Hungary to the Horseshoe Nebula

Yesterday, I read Ezra Klein's piece in the NYTimes:
Steve Bannon Is Onto Something [NYTimes;1.9.22] kind of a click-bait title and it got me (and I'm sure it got bannon) hot...

... and it had me wondering if I was just the thing he was describing: a political hobbyist - someone who wastes an inordinate amount of time getting worked up about the state of the union and the world but has no action plan. I don't belong to social media, which seems to be an essential qualification but I lurk on twitter, daily. At the time, I had been about to post a couple of depressing articles about different roads the US may take. I stopped myself.

Today, here's this article about BoJo in Britain and the race to authoritarianism. It seems the US and UK are neck-and-neck! I'm back in, up to my ears in alligators! yippee.

Boris Johnson Is Revealing Who He Really Is [NYTimes;1.10.22] cheerful little piece, that. Remember all the kerfuffle about Theresa May (who>??) way back when? This guy's hunka munka hitting the ham in the grate and no one cares - he's popular! so trump-y, mmmm...

In Canada, they're looking south and scratching their heads:
The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare [The Globe and Mail;1.2.22]

I'll post an Orban article later on... or, you can...

 

[mdiver]

... a place to discuss anti-democratic trends from Hungary to the Horseshoe Nebula

Yesterday, I read Ezra Klein's piece in the NYTimes:
Steve Bannon Is Onto Something [NYTimes;1.9.22] kind of a click-bait title and it got me (and I'm sure it got bannon) hot...

... and it had me wondering if I was just the thing he was describing: a political hobbyist - someone who wastes an inordinate amount of time getting worked up about the state of the union and the world but has no action plan. I don't belong to social media, which seems to be an essential qualification but I lurk on twitter, daily. At the time, I had been about to post a couple of depressing articles about different roads the US may take. I stopped myself.

Today, here's this article about BoJo in Britain and the race to authoritarianism. It seems the US and UK are neck-and-neck! I'm back in, up to my ears in alligators! yippee.

Boris Johnson Is Revealing Who He Really Is [NYTimes;1.10.22] cheerful little piece, that. Remember all the kerfuffle about Theresa May (who>??) way back when? This guy's hunka munka hitting the ham in the grate and no one cares - he's popular! so trump-y, mmmm...

In Canada, they're looking south and scratching their heads:
The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare [The Globe and Mail;1.2.22]

I'll post an Orban article later on... or, you can...

It makes me sad that people don’t read history and resort to following authoritarian morons


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[maplenpg]

... a place to discuss anti-democratic trends from Hungary to the Horseshoe Nebula

Yesterday, I read Ezra Klein's piece in the NYTimes:
Steve Bannon Is Onto Something [NYTimes;1.9.22] kind of a click-bait title and it got me (and I'm sure it got bannon) hot...

... and it had me wondering if I was just the thing he was describing: a political hobbyist - someone who wastes an inordinate amount of time getting worked up about the state of the union and the world but has no action plan. I don't belong to social media, which seems to be an essential qualification but I lurk on twitter, daily. At the time, I had been about to post a couple of depressing articles about different roads the US may take. I stopped myself.

Today, here's this article about BoJo in Britain and the race to authoritarianism. It seems the US and UK are neck-and-neck! I'm back in, up to my ears in alligators! yippee.

Boris Johnson Is Revealing Who He Really Is [NYTimes;1.10.22] cheerful little piece, that. Remember all the kerfuffle about Theresa May (who>??) way back when? This guy's hunka munka hitting the ham in the grate and no one cares - he's popular! so trump-y, mmmm...

In Canada, they're looking south and scratching their heads:
The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare [The Globe and Mail;1.2.22]

I'll post an Orban article later on... or, you can...

I'll confess I've only read the Johnson article because of time constraints, but what I'll say is that I wish articles like that were written over here. Our press is predominately controlled by Tories, so our headlines are mostly very much supportive of them.

 

[barnswallow]

 

[barnswallow]

Here is an interesting explanation of anti-semitism and how it differs from other types of bigotry. I think it fits in this thread. Not sure. And, I hesitated to focus on the topic at all. Does it belong in the thread on authoritarianism? Ruth Ben-Ghiat re-tweeted this tweet and authoritarianism is her area of expertise.

 

[barnswallow]

 

[Adorecream76]

Really sick of dictators, regimes and communism. Seems anywhere ruled by a dictator, communists or Islam seems to have problems.

Iran needs to give up the 80 year old bearded men in dirty sheets telling them to live like its 622AD, same with the Taliban in Afghanistan - 80 year old men in Turbans and bedsheets.

Chinese need to heave ho the shit show communism - the shit does not work, never has and never will.

South America is littered with corrupt dictators - enough already.

Russia has shit for brains Putin, Lukashenko in Belarus, Maduro in Venesuela and Kim in North Korea - enough already. There is more regimes, communists, theocracies and presidents a vie in the world than actual democratic ones.

Just about every country has some fuckwit in power. I grieve for humanity.

Ever noticed the places with "Democratic" in their country title are the least "democratic" places on earth.

 

[mdiver]

Really sick of dictators, regimes and communism. Seems anywhere ruled by a dictator, communists or Islam seems to have problems.

Iran needs to give up the 80 year old bearded men in dirty sheets telling them to live like its 622AD, same with the Taliban in Afghanistan - 80 year old men in Turbans and bedsheets.

Chinese need to heave ho the shit show communism - the shit does not work, never has and never will.

South America is littered with corrupt dictators - enough already.

Russia has shit for brains Putin, Lukashenko in Belarus, Maduro in Venesuela and Kim in North Korea - enough already. There is more regimes, communists, theocracies and presidents a vie in the world than actual democratic ones.

Just about every country has some fuckwit in power. I grieve for humanity.

Ever noticed the places with "Democratic" in their country title are the least "democratic" places on earth.

Well, those are all words for sure.

 

[Adorecream76]

Glad I could say that, that post would have got me banned elsewhere.
Really over - over moderated forums (Prince.org was one of the worst, but another coin one I was on, was basically the Christian and Ned Flanders style Taliban).

Political correctness has made us scared to speak our minds about these things. I have been reading with shock the rise in anti semitic incidents in the world, but especially the USA, as the left and ethnic minorities feel emboldened. If we look at all the anti Israel/Zionism frhetoric coming from Black celebrities like Ye and Kyrie Irving, along with the usual Jew bashing by Muslims - none of it gets reported and nothing is done, because Muslims are seen as a "coloured and disadvantaged minority group suffering discrimination" - yet Jew Bashing gets a free pass as Jews are considered "White" and apparently have privilege and status. This is wrong as both religions are not ethnicities and their followers cover all ends of the racial spectrum (My coin club secretary is a white Muslim of Scottish descent) and there are several Falasha (Ethiopian) and Mizrahi/Magribi (Yemeni and North African Jews) in our city who are very much not white and get saddled with all the usual racist crap white people level at people of colour around the world.

That is not say white nationalists are also ramping up the Nazi/White supremacist rhetoric against Jews as well - but we have this left wing and ethnic minority bashing too. People like Joe Biden standing with some pro Palestinian Muslim congresswoman and Jeremy Corban attending the memorial of a Palestinian terrorist who murdered Jews for fun. The Palestine trope is rolled out to justify anti semitism and its usually based on the erroneous idea every Jew supports Israel and its Zionist thrust. In fact Israel is controlled by the right wing religious fanatics and very few Jews support them. Yet many Arabs of both Islamic and Christian faiths live peacefully and happily in Israel. A Jewish person supporting Zionism is only the same as a Christian who belongs to a born again or evangelising church that promotes discrimination against gays and people who are not Christians, yet do we get bent out of shape over it.

Everyone should have the right to practice their own religion regardless of if its Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Bahai, Pastafarian or anything else or be an atheist. But they have no right to force those beliefs on others.

My own country New Zealand is generally okay, although there is seething anger at our current government, which is a bit more "socialist" than we would like it and has passed some unpopular centralist policies which have put council assets like water into government control and a centralised Polytech (Community college basically) system which has failed. They also claim to eliminate poverty, yet so many people can't afford rent and many are living in cars and government subsidised motel accommodation which has caused problems. The government was also slammed over some of the most restrictive covid lockdowns and rules in the world and now that covid is stilling running rampant with over 40% of the population catching it (We were famoulsy very low until the Omicron wave).


Even worse is the soft approach on crime, it seems multiple rapists or underage girls get home detention, but a woman selling coffee without following some covid sign in rule, got 3 months jail. More anger is caused by a rash of "ram raids" in which cheap cars stolen by teenagers smash into shops and steal mostly money, smokes, vapes and booze for gangs. The offenders being aged 12 - 17 get something called "Youth aid" and are often not punished or punished lightly. Nearly all of this crime and the extreme poverty is caused by Maoris and Pacific Islanders, mostly the former, but the PC woke brigade will not allow this to be identified as angry Maoris will cry racism and blame the government and everyone else for their predicament.

Maybe some communism, dictatorship or theocracy based around medieval interpretations of some religions may stem this socialism gone mad!

 

[barnswallow]

Here's a 13 February 2023 episode of the Rachel Maddow show. Posting here because the majority of it concerns creeping authoritarianism in several countries: Hungary under victor orban; the Philippines under rodrigo duterte; Israel under benjamin netanyahu; Russia under vladimir putin. And, then pointing to the various actions of governors and others in the U.S.A., Maddow makes the point that seeing these signs in other countries makes it easier for us to recognize similar signs, here. Note that the start to the clip involves District Attorney Fani Willis of Fulton County, Georgia and the Grand Jury investigation of d trump. The part I'm referring to follows that reporting.

Watch Rachel Maddow Highlights: Feb. 13 [MSNBC]

 

[barnswallow]

And, in case Twitter implodes or bans, here’s the link to the clip: oh, I went to C-Span but couldn’t locate it right off. Will return and add, if I find it. The post is dated 3.24.23, so just yesterday…. It turns out the clip was created using an app called snap stream, by twitter poster scum and that’s why I can’t isolate it, I guess…

 

[barnswallow]

t—— was just indicted, 2 days ago, on espionage charges resulting from his refusal to return government documents important for our national defense, taken from the White House on his way out the door in early 2021. He has played a shell game w them, shuttling them about maralago, while claiming he’d returned everything requested by NARA [National Archives and Records Administration]. Actually, despite the FBI raid on maralago, some docs remain missing. Meanwhile, he’s campaigning for the gop nomination for president 2024. And, raising millions off his indictment, by claiming it’s all a hoax, a euphemism for ‘I’m guilty as - - - -‘ and saying he’s treated so unfairly. And calls the special prosecutor, Jack Smith, a thug and tries to implicate Biden, calling his admin the most corrupt in history!!! We know, by now, it’s all projection, describing himself. Read the following article by Milton Friedman for his perspective on t- - - -‘s political survival throughout. It looks like the more he is held accountable, the more he plays the victim, the more his lock on the nomination solidifies.

Trump Thrives in a Broken System. He’ll Get Us There Soon [NYTimes; 6.13.2023]

 

[mdiver]

t—— was just indicted, 2 days ago, on espionage charges resulting from his refusal to return government documents important for our national defense, taken from the White House on his way out the door in early 2021. He has played a shell game w them, shuttling them about maralago, while claiming he’d returned everything requested by NARA [National Archives and Records Administration]. Actually, despite the FBI raid on maralago, some docs remain missing. Meanwhile, he’s campaigning for the gop nomination for president 2024. And, raising millions off his indictment, by claiming it’s all a hoax, a euphemism for ‘I’m guilty as - - - -‘ and saying he’s treated so unfairly. And calls the special prosecutor, Jack Smith, a thug and tries to implicate Biden, calling his admin the most corrupt in history!!! We know, by now, it’s all projection, describing himself. Read the following article by Milton Friedman for his perspective on t- - - -‘s political survival throughout. It looks like the more he is held accountable, the more he plays the victim, the more his lock on the nomination solidifies.

Trump Thrives in a Broken System. He’ll Get Us There Soon [NYTimes; 6.13.2023]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[barnswallow]

This one has to do with learning about the forces behind the far right mindset in the US today. The movement that’s overtaken the gop is not new, as we’re reminded by historians. It’s had a latent presence all our lives and in generations past and, for whatever reason, has emerged now with vigor and can’t be ignored, if we value this democratic republic.

Here’s an article that describes the underpinnings.

Get to Know the Influential Conservative Intellectuals Who Help Explain G.O.P. Extremism [NYTimes guest essay;11.4.23]

I’d seen that article but ignored it till I was reading a favorite blogger, Kevin Drum. He was focusing on it. See below.

Right-wing catastrophism is now an intellectual movement, too [Kevin Drum; 11.4.23]

A common line is that t—— is a symptom, not the cause. Okay. But he is the vessel they’ve chosen for this moment.

I'll finish with this article that I’d planned to ignore about recent poll results measuring U.S. population preference between the two likely presidential candidates in 2024.

Trump Leads in Five Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds [NYTimes; 11.6.23]

*Expletive deleted*

Cross-tabs: Times/Siena Poll of the 2024 Battlegrounds [NYTimes; 11.5.23]

Oh. One more video, an interview that complements the NYTimes guest essay at the beginning of this post:

SECRET MAGA Billionaire Plot COMPLETELY EXPOSED, Expert BRINGS RECEIPTS [Burn the Boats podcast; 11.7.2023]

 

[barnswallow]

Fred Wellman tells it like he’s seen it. He draws on his experience, having served in the military in Iraq, to explain the dread he feels when considering Stephen Miller’s fever dream for immigration policy in a 2nd term with t—— as POTUS.

FED UP hosts DROP THE HAMMER on Trump’s DANGEROUS plans, new details EMERGE [Fred Wellman’s On Democracy podcast;11.20.23]

The podcast draws on reporting from the NYTimes:

Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportation: Inside Trump’s Immigration Plans [NYTimes;11.11.2023]

I appreciate Wellman’s commentary for making the repercussions of such a policy vividly real. It would affect all of us US citizens. And we should all be scared by the possibility.

He cites a WaPo article which I’ll try to load later.

 

[barnswallow]

Putin Didn't Hate Navalny. He Envied Him. [Opinion - NYTimes;2.20.24]

Authored by a founder of Pussy Riot.

 

[Adorecream76]

Putin juts gets away with murder. UN is complete crap, toothless organisation that can't stop dictators.

Wish you guys would stop bitching about Trump, yes he is racist and a sexist idiot - but he is hardly Putin, Netanyahu, Hamas or some other barmy dictator. On the dictator/murderer/tyrant scale, Trump does not even rate.

Meanwhile - 3 African countries have had revolutions - Mali, Niger and Republique do Congo (Not the Mobutu one, the other one - a bone poor country in the jungle). Seems all the French African places are the least stable in the world. The French were terrible colonisers and barely a developed stable country themselves like Portugal.

Now we have another Francophone Afrique (Senegal) country with the people carping over some election and showing the usual riots, burning cars and men in donated clothes jumping up and down and screaming whilst soldiers run around shooting people (Another day in Africa). This country spent kabillions on a giant statue showing an African throwing off the chains of colonialism. After 60 years of revolutions, coups, wars, massacres, fighting between the Ongo and Bongo tribe - you would think some colonialism would help these silly fighting child like states.
DRC/Zaire also has people fighting over some election and people unable to vote as they live deep in the jungle or some shit. The Kabila dynasty has been in power since 1997, the year they overthrew Mobutu's 32 year long regime. DRC is not French but formerly Belgian in which the king used it as a resource chest and murdered millions of blacks for not cutting enough rubber! Mobutu and Kabila have carried on the killing spree, the country sits on mountains of Diamonds and rare earths pludered by foreigners (Mainly those Chineses) and corrupt leaders and foreign nationals.

Then you have Equatorial Guinea, controlled by the Obiangs since 1968 and current president teodoro has been in power since 1979 when he overthrew his barmy uncle - Fernando Macias (He changed his name to some African thing and then tried to use voodoo to power the electricity station and buried foreign cash reserves in the sand, which propmptly rotted away). Oil makes it look wealthy, but 99% of the people live in shacks whilst the elite under the Obiang family live well. His son has the worlds largest collection of Michael Jackson memoriabilia and USA and UK rappers are flown in to entertain various Obiangettes who are their fans.

Meanwhile Putin murders thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, laughs when his rivals die in a Gulag and the UN is like "We strongly condemn this, whilst Russia sits PERMANENTLY on the security council. Gazans die because some rednecked Republican trash can't release aid money or weapons for Ukrainians and/or Gazans.

I for one are thankful I live in a safe country, enough food, money and health - because under UN watch and USA as good guys, this world is completely stuffed!

 

[barnswallow]

Oh. Well. Let’s start some other threads . One for the whole African continent?! That will have to cover a lot of ground. I guess that’s better than none, which is what we have now! And you seem to have the knowledge. I know the U.S. is isolated, insulated, and poorly informed.

t—— is just a dick-tater wannabe, maybe, but he’s our dictator, the American pseudo-version. Something’s propping up that two-bit poor excuse though and I’m determined to pay attention, tiresome though it be. He’s as corrupt as the best of them, anyway, and dreams. He and his cronies didn’t get their way in 2020 and I’d like to do my part to keep it like that.

For you though? I’ll take a week off! I will not write the name t—— in P&B till next Wednesday 2/28. Since it’s funky leap year, I’ll stretch that through 1 March. Special deal.

Btw, do you know people who talk politics? In my mean circles, it’s practically taboo. When I was growing up, people talked about issues. Now, the conversation is reduced to a little stencil on the stop sign at the end of the street: “I could shit a better president.”

I kind of use the Politics and Religion forum to keep track of what’s going on, just for myself. It’s like

If a tree falls in a forest . . . [Wikipedia; ~1.24.24]

. . . Maybe someone’s listening. Sometimes I check and notice there’s a crazy amount of views. Mystifying, I’ll admit. Possibly they’re just curious to know if this idiot has finally wised up.

 

[barnswallow]

On second thought, with all the dictators in Africa . . . They fit perfectly right here in this thread.

It is frightening and miserable what people endure. I know I’m lucky to live here and not in those other places. But people who are experts on authoritarianism are warning us it can happen here, no matter that we think we’ll endlessly live in this sanitized bubble.

Oh. . . It’s you, Adorecream76, all the way over in NZld. So, when you speak of being in a safe country, you’re so right. My brother is there, right now. He goes for a few weeks every year. He and my sister-in-law have a little place they go, way out of the way. I think he’d like to live there forever.

 

[Adorecream76]

Yes Africa is a place that will never learn. In the 2000s under massive pressure the IMF and World Bank wiped billions of dollars of loans that African nations could not pay back (The interest was causing worse inflation and most countries had frequent changes of government).

So Africa gets a clean slate, do they build on it? No they go to China who start pumping in infrastructure (Railways, dams, buildings and "advisors" along with gifts and then loans" Its all bribes to make these countries dependent on China. China now pretty much control most of African economy. Rare earths for cellphone parts are mined in DRC and Malawi, Zambia - who gets all the profits? - China.

China have tried the same shit in the Pacific, but a meeting last year has seen Australia and New Zealand step up to the plane - getting rid of the nefarious Chinese influence. It does not help most of the infrastructure China provides - is built using cheap or forced labour and falls apart quickly. A Chinese highway in Fiji fell apart after 6 months, and NZ repaired it for free, Chinese gave Congo a train - already mothballed due to cheap steel used in the rails rusting in Congo's tropical wet climate.

No one has enough guts to stand up to African dictators, as they know they will pull the race card and invoke the ghosts of colonialism (African states handbook one - All failure is blamed on colonialism and racism, we have dictators because of racism, we are poor because of racism) - yeah maybe except its fellow Africans being racist. All whitey does now is help, every famine, every war we are sending aid, money and food, we have global charities run by whitey building wells and educating Africans to little or no gain.

Same with Islam - good luck telling the Iranian and Afghani leaders to give women human rights (Nunofya bidness - now butt out racist imperialist scum).

But when these African countries or Black run countries like HAITI are still bone poor and unstable after 60 years of Independence and no racist colonialists - there must be something going wrong other than Racism by whitey. There is something biologically wrong with African people, if all they do is fail and if one comes along who is bright - ends up going corrupt (Aristide, Kagame, Mugabe) or is killed because they are a Marxist or wrong tribe (Azikwe, Obote, Lumumba).

Africa is a problem that will never change unless Africans action the change, they need to look past the immediate few months, listen to advice and sit down and plan a strategy forwards. That may involve a lot of deprivation in the meantime - sadly most Africans only look to instant gratification and nothing else. Most western nations now are successful and rich, but not always - the 19th century weas hard, WW1 and WW2 were hard, the Depression was hard, covid was hard. Hardtimes make us tougher and more resilient. The challenge of populism and the election of halfwitted racist people with no class like Trump, Bolsanaro, Boris Johnson and Christopher Luxon (Our new right wing PM) is hard, but we don't have them for 60 years of the same dynasty and they don't rob our countries, pit us against each other in enedless civil wars and people's revolutions.

Glad I can type all this here and not get censured or labelled a racist like I would on Prince.org. the number of angry "Do me Prince" systas is very low here obviously. Glad there is no Seventeen Dayze, daphelovesPrince (Crazy churchified type), NurseV, Scdls etc.