The Generalist

One's identity is far more than one's profession.

extremism

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What We Are For

The Friends Committee on National Legislation reminds Quakers and everyone to recognize the threats of our nation’s new leadership while honoring our core values: justice, mercy, truth, simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. Below, I quote one of the public statements from FCNL :

“We are not for names nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for this party nor against the other… but we are for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom that these may be exalted in our nation… that these things may abound.”Quaker Minister, Edward Burrough, 1659.

This week, we were grateful that millions of people participated in our democracy and that the elections were conducted in a broadly fair, free, and peaceful manner.

With Burrough’s words in mind, we are called to raise a grave warning of the threats we see in the re-election of Donald Trump. Threats to the dignity and lives of millions of our neighbors, including many with whom we work. Threats to the values we hold dear. Threats to a wide range of issues crucial to building the world we seek. To our democracy itself.

These threats only magnify the challenges before us. The weeks, months, and years ahead will not be easy. Like so many across our communities, we are heartbroken by the election result and anxious for what lies ahead.

Yet as people of hope, we will persist in our belief that our democracy is strongest when we are all engaged with it, and with one another.

We will continue to stand in solidarity with people most impacted by government policies. We will continue to fiercely advocate and lovingly defend human dignity and the rights of all people. We will continue to seek opportunities for cooperation across political divides and peacebuilding amid conflict. We will continue to work relentlessly to advance policies that will bring about the more just, peaceful, and sustainable world we seek.

In times of fear and danger, we are called into deeper community with one another – and with those with whom we disagree. Difficult as it may be, we continue to be called to love our neighbors, no exception.

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Trump Voters Got What they Wanted

There will be weeks or months of analysis and opinion, most of it pure speculation, as liberals try to figure out why America re-elected Trump. This article by Tom Nichols has it right in my opinion.

But in the end, a majority of American voters chose Trump because they wanted what he was selling: a nonstop reality show of rage and resentment. Some Democrats, still gripped by the lure of wonkery, continue to scratch their heads over which policy proposals might have unlocked more votes, but that was always a mug’s game. Trump voters never cared about policies, and he rarely gave them any.

Trump Voters Got What They Wanted
Those who expect that Donald Trump will hurt others, and not them, are likely to be unpleasantly surprised.

Watch for the buyer’s remorse.

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2 lpm (Lies Per Minute)

“A team of NPR reporters and editors reviewed the transcript of his news conference and found at least 162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies in 64 minutes. That’s more than two a minute. It’s a stunning number for anyone – and even more problematic for a person running to lead the free world.

Politicians spin. They fib. They misspeak. They make honest mistakes like the rest of us. And, yes, they even sometimes exaggerate their biographies.

The expectation, though, is that they will treat the truth as something important and correct any errors.

But what former President Trump did this past Thursday went well beyond the bounds of what most politicians would do.“

~ Domenico Montanaro, NPR News Team

And, it’s not even news! It has become what the media and the rest of us expect from the man who would end the need to vote for his followers, the weird, mentally sick man who wants to dominate America and the free world.

What motivates those who follow and worship a self-serving politician with no integrity, no morals, and no redeeming virtues that anyone can name?

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The GOP’s Moment of Truth

Sometimes things have to go very wrong before they come back right. I hope we have reached the moment when rational Republicans decide to sink the extremist wing of their party instead of riding it to power and scuttling the democracy they have sworn to serve virtually every time they were installed in an official position.

Heather Cox Richardson gives an excellent summary of what is now going public about GOP loyalists having a moment of truth, an opportunity to change course and purge their party of its cancerous extremism.

Opinion | We Are Republicans. There’s Only One Way to Save Our Party From Pro-Trump Extremists.
Moderates of both parties will need to build trust and cooperate in campaigning.

HCR’s article has links to other current articles. If you have strong feelings about democracy, now would be an excellent time to make them clear to the Republican elected officials in your district.

And vote your conscience at this and every election going forward.

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Choosing Party over Country

As we go about the ordinariness of our lives, making breakfast, chatting with friends, shopping for groceries, and watching Netflix, our government is under attack by a political party that holds its power to be more important than our democracy. The GOP, for more than 20 years has been on the attack, and the end game grows more clear with each passing day.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson in her “Letters from an American” chronicles the events. The post below cites some of the current actions that should alarm all of us. But it is the inaction of GOP leadership that signals where the GOP is headed.

September 24, 2021
On Monday, we learned that after last year’s election, John Eastman, a well-connected lawyer advising former president Donald Trump, outlined a six-point plan to overturn the outcome of the election and install Trump as America’s leader. They planned to cut the voters’ actual choice, Democrat Joe Bi…

Some will say that HCR is an alarmist, others that she is partisan. Ask yourself this, “What behaviors do you see in the GOP leadership that suggest that we should NOT be concerned?”

Here is what I see:

  • Actions to foster distrust of our elections.
  • Years of strategic work to disenfranchise opposition.
  • Support of secretive gerrymandering.
  • Pandering to fringe elements of the GOP base.
  • Inaction on obvious corruption.
  • Near total partisan obstructionism.
  • Purges of moderate leadership.
  • Improper courting of foreign propaganda support.
  • Desperate efforts to prevent investigation of January 6th.

And this is only an off-the-cuff partial list.

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Populists vs. Elite

In 1966 I wasn’t paying much attention to world politics and none at all to Red China, but Mao was tipping over the socioeconomic apple cart much as the populists here in the USA seem to want to do. Mao felt that the pointy-headed elite intellectuals (no, he didn’t call them that) had become over-educated and were perpetuating an elitism that was introducing too much capitalism.

The fix was to tell the elites “we don’t need you” and banish them to the rural mountains and country side where they could be re-educated through hard work on the farm.

Chaos ensued for five years. The resulting hardships took even longer to overcome. In the US, there was little empathy. As commie-fearing devout capitalists, we were happy to see the Reds shoot themselves in the proverbial foot.

I can’t help thinking that today’s populists and their “Make America Great Again” revolution are the US version of China’s cultural revolution half a century ago: so much anti-intellectualism; so much blind faith in a man whose image and career is more smoke and mirrors than substance; so much arrogant ignorance and bravado.

When all our political elites and pointy-headed intellectuals have been dispatched to the hills and country, will we too face a decade of economic chaos while the Trumpists figure out that their leader doesn’t have any capacity to lead or to fulfill his sweeping pledges to make the mythical greatness of yesteryear return?

So far it looks like most Americans are smarter than Mao was, but in less than 90 days we will know for sure.

 

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Guns and Freedom

“Freedom’s Safest Place” is how the NRA styles itself in its current series of self-promoting ads. The ads run on YouTube.com and tend to be linked as preludes to gun-related content.  They also show up if Google searches have associated your internet address with gun interest.

Freedom's Safest Place
NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION VIDEO SERIES

Everyone interested in the interplay of gun violence and politics should take time to watch a few of these. They stoke the fears of gun enthusiasts, promote guns as the solution to violent crime and terrorism, and in not so subtle ways reinforce a conservative political agenda.

On August 8th, 2016, Donald Trump was speaking about the prospect of Hillary Clinton nominating the next members of the Supreme Court of the US.  “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment,” Trump said at a rally in Wilmington, N.C., on Tuesday. “By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

The facial expressions and body language of those present was alarming. Smiles, glances at companions that said, “Did he really say that out loud?” And, most shocking, nods of agreement.

Apologists immediately “clarified” Mr. Trump’s meaning saying he was only acknowledging the legendary political cohesiveness and clout of the NRA.  But here I will make the argument for a much more sinister meaning.

FREEDOM’S SAFEST PLACE

What does this tag line mean? If you follow NRA’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, it affirms the notion that Americans have not only a right but a patriotic duty to own and be proficient with arms. The idea is that freedom’s enemies, foreign and domestic, would never prevail against the populist will of an armed and ready citizenry. Should the government get out of hand, the people so armed can and will defend freedom; or so the myth goes. If you listen carefully to Wayne Lapierre’s “We Don’t Need You” rant, he’s articulating the anti-establishment, anti-elite anger of what’s come to be termed populism. “I am the NRA, and I’m Freedom’s Safest Place,” he says.

Yes it is a myth.  The stereotypical NRA life member is overweight, over 50, and no match for a squad of modern combat trained troops no matter what his gun collection holds. But more important, which political faction do these latter-day Minute Men represent?

In their fantasy, these defenders of liberty imagine a clearly defined enemy. Someone or some ideology that all good souls agree is Freedom’s enemy, and all are willing to die a hero’s death to repel. Alas, the real world is many shades of grey, full of nuance and complexity, and not something that all unite in recognizing as “the enemy.”

But, the myth has become reality in some dark recess of a few minds. And this is the context for Mr. Trump to refer to them as “the Second Amendment people.”

One observer of the Trump crowd said that there was a pause after Trump said, “By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. …”  His impression was that Trump heard something in the shouts of the crowd and responded, as he so often does. We can’t tell just what he heard in the crowd’s shouts, but for sure it was not a nuanced statement about the political cohesiveness and clout of the NRA’s Second Amendment defenders.

Thomas Friedman observes, “After all, an informal Trump adviser on veteran affairs, Al Baldasaro, a Republican state representative from New Hampshire, already declared that Clinton should be ‘shot for treason’ for her handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack.” In his column he compares the extreme hatred and anger of Trump’s followers to the climate that culminated in the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

Is it really hard to decode “…Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” What would a  gun zealot, one of the Second Amendment people, one who hates and fears Hillary Clinton, be expected to think was meant?

God Save America, my beloved country.

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Fear

For about 10 seconds our conversation was impossible. Two Navy jets on final approach to the US Naval Station just a couple of miles from where we are camped made a deafening roar that it was impossible to talk over. “The sound of freedom,” Mark declared after they passed.

That sentiment has provided me with a lot of food for thought over the last several days. It’s is emblematic of the widely held belief that our overwhelming military strength alone is capable of safeguarding our freedoms. Although I recognize our need for strength, I question the scale of our military and the focus. Russia and China together spend half what we do each year. I think a great deal more than military power is required to keep us free. In fact I’m coming to believe that the greatest enemies toward freedom lie within our own society. [Read more…] about Fear