America. What is it?

The success of the organized right, (Heritage, Cato, Freedomworks, American Enterprise, etc,.) in demonizing the American Government is stunning in several ways.

FIRST: “America” IS our government, plain and simple. The rule of law and the vast expensive machinery that makes it work (more or less) is run by the government.

SECOND: The evil government regulations, so maligned and hated by the right’s echo chamber and politicians, are likely responsible for you and/or a loved one still being alive to read this. Literally. Created and enforced by the… government.

THIRD: Our standard of living isn’t some lucky happenstance of having just the right mix of hard working ‘mericans (essentially all directly descended from immigrants I might add). It’s our government keeping the monopolies in-check, brave progressives in our recent past suffered greatly as they created unions which forced our government to make the wealthy, inherently greedy, corporations play fair with living wages, overtime, vacation and sick leave, etc,.

Our beloved Constitution (which is more than just the 2nd amendment by the way) is a founding document of, can you guess, our GOVERNMENT!

I could go on of course, but you get the idea.

Really, Russia couldn’t have done a better job of undermining our country than these guys have. But they’ve apparently been working on it.

For further reading: A Day in the Life of Joe Conservative is short and puts it another way.

Sam Harris Podcast – On Tyranny

If you hunger for in-depth, well informed, discussion concerning the political situation we find ourselves in as I do, then you might like THIS PODCAST #79 episode from neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author Sam Harris.

Sam interviews Yale professor and historian Timothy Snyder about his timely new book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.

If the podcast catches your interest consider buying the book. It is a quick 128 page read.

Flake Town Hall Scheduled!

Save the date people and show up!

I’m already thinking up my questions: “After years of ignoring your constituents and working for corporate interests why would anyone vote for you in 2018?”

or, “After the 2018 election is over will you be seeking an honest job with any of the industries you currently work for?”

See you there people!  TOWN HALL INFO

4-Star Admiral: “the greatest threat to democracy”

William McRaven

Willian McRaven, not your average libtard snowflake, was commander of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command, created and oversaw the operation that finally killed Osama bin Laden about six years ago. He had this to say about Trump:

“William H. McRaven, a retired four-star admiral and former Navy SEAL, slammed President Trump’s characterization of the media as “the enemy of the American people,” calling that sentiment the “greatest threat to democracy” he’s ever seen.”

Rest of the article is here: Washington Post

 

This is a MUST READ

Robert Mercer

A great article in the UK’s Guardian outlines who is bank rolling the Trump administration and some of the right wing ‘media’ outlets.

I already knew that Mercer gave $10 million to get Breitbart news off the ground but my eyes didn’t go wide and hair on the back of my neck didn’t stand up until I got to this paragraph:

But there was another reason why I recognised Robert Mercer’s name: because of his connection to Cambridge Analytica, a small data analytics company. He is reported to have a $10m stake in the company, which was spun out of a bigger British company called SCL Group. It specialises in “election management strategies” and “messaging and information operations”, refined over 25 years in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. In military circles this is known as “psyops” – psychological operations. (Mass propaganda that works by acting on people’s emotions.)

It’s a long read but it’s worth it. This partially explains to me how so many people can vote against their own self interest. They’ve taken what Lee Atwater and Carl Rove developed and weaponized it.

Full article is here: Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media

Esquire: Regretful Trump Voters

Best paragraph ever written:

Holy mother of god, I’m tired of reading quotes from people who live in places where the local economy went to hell or Mexico in 1979, and who have spent the intervening years swallowing whatever Jesus Juice was offered up by theocratic bunco artists of the Christocentric Right, and gulping down great flagons of barely disguised hatemongering against the targets of the day, all the while voting against their own best interests, now claiming that empowering Donald Trump as the man who will “shake things up” on their behalf was the only choice they had left. You had plenty of choices left.

Link to the full article: Why I’ll Never Sympathize with Regretful Trump Voters