The Lifeblood Of Democracy - A Guest Post By Pamela MacNeil

In response to my post yesterday on rebellion, Pamela MacNeil had this commentary, which I am featuring as a guest post:

Rebels Lorne, especially intellectual rebels, are the life blood of democracy.

From the time we are born or at the very least from the time we start school, we eventually learn that conformity is much more valued than independence, particularly independent thinking.

In almost every area of our society, education, work, relationships, sexual identity, etc. we are pressured to conform, to be like everyone else. It's like there is an underlying code everyone absorbs that, when translated, means keep your mouth shut and your mind closed.

Every great advancement and change in humankind has been instigated by a rebel. Men and woman who question the established concepts can mean speaking out against racism, as did Martin Luther King. Speaking out against the accepted norms of women's very identity: Betty Friedan. The earth does revolve around the sun: Galileo. The origin of the human species is evolutionary: Charles Darwin. Hiding Jews from German Nazis: anyone with courage and integrity, even at the risk of losing their own lives.

Conformity breeds obedience. Once a person has abandoned critical thinking, all they have left is obedience. Conformity also creates a power dynamic.This dynamic consists of those who want to rule and those who want to be ruled.The independent person wants neither to rule nor be ruled. Ultimately they just want to live their life in freedom. They do not recognize anyone having authority over their life.

Men and woman like Chris Hedges speak out against power and are an inspiration to all of those, especially the young, who are starting to question the accepted ideas of their day.

The anti-intellectualism that so permeates American culture today has been evolving for over 50 years. The U.S. is in the final stages of that evolution, so much so that one no longer need ask why Johnny can't read, but rather more fundamentally why Johnny can't think.

The intellectually bankrupt wasteland called American culture has reached its pinnacle. The battle for ideas, such as freedom and democracy, will be left for the rebels to fight, because with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, there will be no right to peaceful protest, no freedom of speech, and there will be no due process. Trump will double down on dissent, permitting his military and police forces as much violence as needed to stop the American people from saying NO.

Every dictator rules by force. Donald Trump is no different.

UPDATED: Donald Trump Delivers His Punchline

But outside the wealthy minority whose interests he serves, few of the masses who supported his candidacy will find much to laugh about. Go to about the 1:25 minute mark of the following video to find out why:



His pronouncements about lowering corporate taxes and eliminating regulations, as you can see, brought hearty but predictable responses from the audience, but the fact that they cheered most lustily over his announcement that he will repeal Obamacare, for which they have no skin in the game, is the clearest indictment of both their ideological and moral bankruptcy.

It reminds me of this old Internet meme:

I envy them not a whit.

UPDATE: Thanks to Anon pointing it out, we now now that the follicly-challenged fellow looking so pleased as he stands beside Trump is Joseph "Joey No Socks" Cinque — a convicted felon with ties to notorious Gambino crime family boss John Gotti.

Beyond a 1989 felony conviction for possessing nearly $100,000 worth of stolen artwork, Cinque "used to be friends with John Gotti," according to a New York Magazine profile from 1995.

Cinque was also "shot three times and left for dead" in a 1980 incident that authorities described as "a hit," according to the profile.

Hmmm, seems I remember Mom telling me that one is judged by the company they keep. By that measure alone, given his appearance onstage with the president-elect, Joey No Socks must be condemned.

The Virtue Of Rebellion

"Perhaps in our lifetime we will not succeed. Perhaps things will only get worse. But this does not invalidate our efforts. Rebellion - which is different from revolution because it is perpetual alienation from power rather than the replacement of one power system with another - should be our natural state."

-Chris Hedges

There is something brave, honest and bracing about those words, and although I cannot call myself a rebel in any meaningful way, I envy and am attracted to the kind of intractable commitment that Chris Hedges has to fighting the shackles of corrupt economic, social and political systems that hold us all captive in one form or another. As the next part of this century unfolds, there will likely need to be much more of such spirit.

Although it may not exactly constitute rebellion, the students and faculty of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York seem prepared for the worst from the incoming Trump administration and are making a commitment that may have no legal force, but whose moral dimensions are clear:

At Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., more than 2,000 students and professors signed a petition asking the university to join other institutions and declare itself a sanctuary, or safe haven, for undocumented students.

“I am frightened,” said one literature student, who asked not to be identified for fear she could be deported. “But I am also encouraged to see people mobilizing and organizing and preparing for Trump to carry out his threat to deport millions of illegals.”

Four years ago, Obama signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which provided temporary amnesty for over three-quarters of a million children and teenagers whose parents had entered the U.S. illegally.

Now these “DREAMers” — named after an earlier version of the act which was not passed — fear they, or their parents, will be targeted if they come out of the shadows.

“My parents brought me from Mexico to Los Angeles when I was 8. They worked hard and paid taxes and put me and my two siblings through college,” said the Cornell student, who attended a recent campus rally. “I registered in DACA, and gave authorities my fingerprints. The threat is serious now that I could be deported. It is stressful not knowing when this could happen.”

Their fears would seem justified:

Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, has said that during his first 100 days he plans to “cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama.” The president-elect has not listed the specific actions he plans to cancel to back up his hyperbole, but his campaign website singled out the amnesty law, which was passed by executive action in 2012.

So is Cornell's moral and ethical choice an isolated phenomenon, or is it a signal that none of us should yet abandon all hope?

UPDATED: Fearless Journalism, Or Presidential Appeasement?

Happy New Year, everyone.

And now, a return to regular programming.

As 2017 dawns and the Trump presidency draws near, I have been wondering if the MSM will show any real backbone and fulfill the role traditionally ascribed to them as bulwarks of democracy. Or will they simply continue to be the abject failures that journalist and social prophet Chris Hedges calls them, sell-outs as part of the liberal class he takes to task in his book Death of the Liberal Class?

One of the prizes that journalists, on behalf of their corporate employers, hold most sacred is access. Given the unbridled contempt Trump has shown toward criticism, will there now be an effort at appeasement of the temperamental one? Indeed, Will both external and internal factors influence the media's approach to political coverage?

Early signs offer cause for concern. Take, for example, this report from The Guardian:

A journalist was temporarily banned from Facebook after a post in which he called Trump supporters “a nasty fascistic lot”, in the latest example of the social media platform’s censorship of journalists.

The social media giant later reversed its decision and apologized, but the trouble began when writer Kevin Sessums shared a post by

ABC political analyst Matthew Dowd that read: “In the last few hours I have been called by lovely ‘christian’ Trump fans: a jew, faggot, retard. To set record straight: divorced Catholic.”

Sessums added his own commentary, writing:

But as those who do hold Trump to the standards of any other person have found out on Twitter and other social media outlets these Trump followers are a nasty fascistic lot. Dowd is lucky he didn’t get death threats like Kurt Eichenwald. Or maybe he did and refuses to acknowledge them. If you voted for Trump and continue to support him and you think you are better than these bigoted virulent trolls, you’re not. Your silence enables them just as it did in the racist campaign that Trump and Bannon ran. In fact, hiding behind a civilized veneer in your support of fascism I consider more dangerous. We’re past describing you as collaborators at this point. That lets you off the hook. You’re Russo-American oligarchical theocratic fascists.

Seesums was initially informed that his post violated FB's community standards, a curious justification given much of what it deems to be consistent with those standards.

The writer's reaction was swift and excoriating:

It’s chilling. It’s arbitrary censorship ... Do I have to be careful about what I say about Trump now?

That does become the central question, doesn't it? And that leads to this concern: will mainstream journalists now practice a kind of prophylactic self-censorship? They might be wise to heed the advice of Newsweek reporter Kurt Eichenwald, who said on Saturday that

journalists needed to “grow a backbone” to deal with President-elect Donald Trump.

With a Republican-controlled House and Senate, expect the usual checks and balances of the American political system to completely fail. Let us all hope that mainstream journalism doesn't have to be consigned to the same category as well.

UPDATE: This Washington Post piece, replete with links, gets to the journalistic heart of the matter.

2016: In Memoriam

2016 was a terrible year on many, many fronts. Compounding those tragedies in which human beings played major contributing roles was the one over which we have no influence: death. It may be my imagination, but it seems to me that this was a year in which we said goodbye to an unusual number of giants who walked among us in fields as disparate as politics, sports and entertainment.

If I had to pick two that saddened me the most it would probably be the departure of Mohammad Ali and David Bowie. If you know anything about him beyond his public persona, you will know that Ali was a man of deep conviction, principle and integrity, qualities for which he paid a very heavy price. Bowie, of course, was a remarkably versatile artist whose career spanned several decades, and who seemed to have been taken from us far too soon, with work still undone.

As you will see in the following tributes, each of the many who died in 2016 lived fully during their time, exploiting their talents to the maximum, using their gifts to uplift all of us. Not a bad legacy, and one we would all do well to emulate in the time remaining to each of us.

The Shape Of Ideological Purges To Come?

History teaches us that when political ideologies mutate into forms of state religion, those who stand in opposition or refuse to 'get with the program' are targeted. Nazism, with its elevation of the Aryan race at the expense of all others, is one prime example. Those who didn't conform were swept away. Another, more recent manifestation, is China. Even while expressing a willingness to have a constructive dialogue with the Vatican, it insists that Chinese Catholics “hold up high the flag of patriotism” and adapt Catholicism to Chinese society.

Ideology must have its way.

And now it would seem that, with a president-elect endorsed by white supremacists and a myriad of other misfits, that much beset-upon minority, white people, will have the opportunity to stamp out wrong-thinking when they are under critical scrutiny. That is, if events unfolding in Wisconsin are any indication of things to come.

Damon Sajnani, a professor in the African Cultural Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is offering a course in the new semester entitled “The Problem of Whiteness.”

“Have you ever wondered what it really means to be white? If you’re like most people, the answer is probably ‘no.’ But here is your chance!” the description reads.

“Critical Whiteness Studies aims to understand how whiteness is socially constructed and experienced in order to help dismantle white supremacy.”

The course explores “how race is experienced by white people.” But it also looks at how white people “consciously and unconsciously perpetuate institutional racism.”

A criticism of the white race? That has proven too much for David Murphy, a Wisconsin state assemblyman,

who expressed outrage last week that taxpayers “are expected to pay for this garbage.”

Using the time-honoured cudgel of funding, the assemblyman is expressing his aversion to what used to be one of the main missions of universities, the exploration, discussion and exchange of ideas:

“UW-Madison must discontinue this class. If UW-Madison stands with this professor, I don’t know how the University can expect the taxpayers to stand with UW-Madison.”

Within his fiscal gun sights is not just the 'offending' professor, but also the university's administration for allowing this 'outrage' to occur:

In a statement emailed to The Washington Post, Murphy (R) said the decision to approve the class makes him question the judgment of university leaders.

“I support academic freedom and free speech,” he said. “Free speech also means the public has the right to be critical of their public university. The university’s handling of controversies like this appears to the public as a lack of balance in intellectual openness and diversity of political thought on campus.”

All of the above, by the way, was delivered without a hint of irony, suggesting that the good assemblyman's own intellectual reach is lamentably limited.

For the time being, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has not expressed interest in tying funding to ideological purity, but does offer the following as a possible basis for backtracking, should Murphy's call for academic jihad find favour with the public:

“I could certainly as a citizen or as a father who pays part of my kids’ tuition roll my eyes and raise concerns about some of the classes,” Walker told the newspaper. “But our focus in the budget should be on overall performance and not individual classes.”

No one can heave a sigh of relief at this anemic response, especially given the governor's own rather sordid record.

One of those noteworthy aspects of the rabid right is that, even when they achieve victory, as they have in electing an egregiously unqualified and unfit president, happiness and satisfaction elude them. I suspect it always will until they have wiped out the last dissenting thought, the last contrary opinion, the last remnant of resistance which, of course, is impossible.

Yet I have no doubt that they will do their damnedest to try.

Almost Too Grim To Contemplate

While the Pope is imploring world leaders to act with dispatch to mitigate climate change, it is hard to remain optimistic about the prospects of American engagement under incoming president Donald Trump: