alanjjohnstone
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The search for answers continues
https://apnews.com/article/business-middle-east-russia-france-syria-e88ff67968e4ac1462a6cba84a500d10
Former president Jimmy Carter adds his tuppence worth
A relentless and powerful disinformation campaign to sow distrust – and a rising tolerance for political violence – has left the nation teetering “on the brink of a widening abyss.”
“I now fear that what we have fought so hard to achieve globally – the right to free, fair elections, unhindered by strongman politicians who seek nothing more than to grow their own power – has become dangerously fragile at home,”
Russian troops to be deployed in Kazakhstan to suppress protests
More whites are killed and more whites are in poverty because there are simply more whites proportionate to the population.
The rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 37 fatal shootings per million of the population as of November 2021. While for White Americans, the rate stood at 15 fatal police shootings per million of the population.
Again as fully predicted due to Africa’s lack of vaccine coverage another mutation from Cameroon has been detected.
https://www.dw.com/en/new-coronavirus-variant-identified-in-france/a-60329823
Yes, many elected and appointed officials within the machinery of government have resisted Trump, but Trump and his supporters and funders are working systematically to ensure that next time Trump loyalists will occupy as many key positions as possible.
I took this to mean referring to what Steve Bannon’s strategy has said the strategy should be – capture power locally. And yes an example would be individual state laws passed such as anti-abortion in Texas and school textbook censorship
Oklahoma might allow parents to ban books with LGBTQ or “sexual” content from libraries
A very de-stabilised USA is far from political fiction. There are those who genuinely believe the 2nd Amendment rights are to defend the threat to their perceived liberties and the idea of armed resistance is being increasingly legitimised by the Right
Autocrats rely on the loyalty of their military and sometimes create their own paramilitaries to enforce their rule. The Nazi SA/SS, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, for example
I think we should not mistake Trumpism and the associated right-wing movements and MAGA Republicans as being rational. They are crazies.
There is much more akin to cults and closer to theocracies. How can any reasonable person believe the QAnon or the tele-evangelists fundamentalist creed. Yet we can count those in the millions in the USA, Not yet a majority, gratefully, but in sufficient numbers to be politically significant.
There is no absolute certainty. Will the US shift right-wards, In a few months we will see if the 2022 Mid-Terms reward or punish the Democratic Party.
If they lose more presence in the red states these will persevere with imposing further gerrymandering and voter limitations.
The case is being made as Stephen S says, to shift power away from the federal level to the state and district. Is it a coincidence we find local school boards the centre of controversies on CRT and vaccines? They are emasculating the influence of who they call the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) within the Republican Party such as Cheyney and McCarthy. The “sensible” Republicans are being ousted.
Politics in the USA is becoming polarised and believe me in my visits to right-wing discussion groups, anything mildly liberal is described as leftist and socialist.
Atifa is portrayed as some sort of giant entity and BLM a tool of George Soros. Republican judges laying down unpopular decisions to the right are now pinkos.
Civil war, though? Wars between the various states? Doubtful. The US Military mutinying? Unlikely.
But already Republican regions are seeking secession to join other Red states.
Civil unrest, terrorist acts, riots and mob action with the National Guard being deployed and siding with the “blue lives matter” and not the “black lives matter” will make the difference between dictatorship and democracy a distinction without a difference.
A police state is very possible.
A return to red scare McCarthyism, a possibility.
The end of the separation between state and church, not impossible.Just how many churches have lost their tax exemption status for endorsing political candidates? Zero.
Just add to the mix, climate change, refugee influx, wars abroad yet another plague and we will see the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…And now where is the good news…
Capitalism can exist under authoritarian regimes, China and Vietnam one-party states, being examples.
Totalitarianism can co-exist with oligarchal dictators, Russia under Putin being one.
Actress Emma Watson accused of anti-semitism for expressing pro-Palestinian solidarity
Supportive I think of your position is Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague, authors of The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and People Who Stopped It, who say Trump was ultimately stopped by “the integrity of hundreds of obscure Americans from every walk of life, state and local officials, judges and election workers. Many of them Republicans and some Trump supporters”.
It is also reflected by the consensus of opinion in a right-wing discussion list I visit.
My purpose in posting on the forum is three-fold.
Sometimes it is to express my own views.
At other times it is to provide arguments for other people’s opinions for fair honest debate.
On other occasions, it is simply to update topics with fresh data.
I have settled with the idea that we will gradually shift towards a general flexitarian diet with increasing vegetarian and grain content and meat and fish featuring less and less. It is already a trend appearing within capitalist society with the food corporations incorporating it in their marketing.
Two of the biggest US phone firms have rejected a government request to delay the rollout of 5G services this week.
The US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) made the request over concerns about aviation safety.
Plane makers have warned that C-Band spectrum 5G wireless signals may interfere with sensitive aircraft electronics and could disrupt flights.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59856063The US could be under a rightwing dictatorship by 2030, Thomas Homer-Dixon, founding director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University in British Columbia, a Canadian political science professor has warned.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/03/us-rightwing-dictatorship-2030-trump-canada
“By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a rightwing dictatorship.”</em
“We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine,”
There has been suggested to me by an ex-member another debate we could be having
“If the spgb are looking for worthwhile opponents to tackle maybe don’t bother with Justin T Hastins and try Peter Harrison (posting on libcom as Tom Henry) and his book ‘The Freedom of Things’ etc, but you need to delve into ‘Pre-History’. It is a case for reformism of sorts rather than a straight defence of capitalism since he is still against any global extension of capitalism to the remnants of earlier social systems.”
The link to Libcom and the topic is a long conflated one is
http://libcom.org/forums/general/monsieur-dupont-22122021
