90 Miles From Tyranny

Sunday, May 8, 2022

To All Mothers: Happy Mothers Day!!

Dear Mom/Moms:

You Comfort Us
You Protect Us
You Fight For Us.

All the little tender things you have done for us,
All the sacrifices you have made for us

We see these things. We appreciate these things.

How can we repay you for all these things?

We can love you
We can spend time with you
We can do all these things as you grow old and frail
We will comfort you, protect you, and fight for you.

I love you mom, more than any words can describe.

Happy Mother's Day To All Mothers Especially Mine!!

Genetic Mutants? 5 Strange Science Facts About Moms

Is the American Postmodern Left a Fascist Movement?

For my work in corporate social responsibility, I was recently reading The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi’s critique of capitalism, when something he wrote gave me one of those really uncomfortable “Aha” moments.

Polanyi was discussing the alternatives to capitalism -- left socialism and right socialism (which we call “Fascism”). His point was that these two socialisms were created to undo the disruptions of capitalism which had privileged “money power” to degrade human sociality into atomic individualism driven by self-seeking greed.

When I read his observation that the Fascist phase of anti-capitalism brought about “Irrational philosophies, racialist aesthetics, anti-capitalist demagogy, heterodox currency views, criticism of the party system, widespread disparagement of the ‘regime’,” I thought “How odd, that sounds just like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the postmodern Left.”

So, I took a moment to do a quick scan of Polanyi’s criteria of a Fascist movement to see how well they embrace our postmodern Left.

I concluded that our postmodern Left meets each of Polanyi’s criteria:

Irrational philosophies: Postmodernism is an irrational will to power; intersectionality is irrationally prejudicial; toxic masculinity is irrationally prejudicial; destruction of a fetus when it can survive as a person outside the womb is an unbalanced application of the principle of human dignity.
Racialist aesthetics: stigmatizing “Whites” or considering them morally deformed by “White Privilege” is a racialist aesthetic regarding human persons; blaming institutional racism for the achievement gap is racialist aesthetics at work in public education; Harvard created a special racialist aesthetics for Asians to denigrate their possible contributions to “student life”.
Anti-capitalist demagogy: Green New Deal, Medicare for All, forgiveness of college debt, Woke Capitalism.
Heterodox currency views: Modern Monetary Theory
Criticism of the party system: privileging ideology with cancel culture
Widespread disparagement of the ‘regime’: the narrative of Systemic White Racism; defund the police; the fervid anti-Trump Resistance using mainstream media, the CIA, the FBI, and a special prosecutor; setting up a purifying “Ministry of Truth” in the Department of Homeland Security, our modest version of a Ministry of State Security; abolishing the Electoral College, and packing the Supreme Court.

I investigated further, pulling out my copy of Mussolini’s pamphlet The Doctrine of Fascism (1932), finding the 25-point program (1920) of the German Workers Party (which was soon renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party) and the 1919 Manifesto of Mussolini’s new Fascist Party in Italy, to see how our progressive Left might align with the national socialist goals of that earlier era.

Perfectly, it seems.

The 1920 Program of the National Socialist German Workers Party demanded that the State nationalize all industries; arrange for a division of profits of all heavy industries; expand old-age welfare; create a healthy middle class and the contract directly with small firms; expropriate land for public use, abolish land taxes and prevent of all speculation in land, provide higher education for every capable and industrious German and subsequently give them leading positions, and elevate national health.

The 1919 Manifesto of the Italian Fasci of Combat (Mussolini’s new party) demanded that the State provide Italians with: an eight-hour workday, a minimum wage, worker and union power to supervise industry; medical care; retirement at age 55; and impose “a strong progressive tax on capital (including a “partial expropriation” of concentrated wealth).”

Fascism thus proposed replacing the market with the national State. Mussolini said that “The one who can resolve the contradictions of capitalism is the State.” The National Socialist German Workers Party program demanded:

Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,

Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.

If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.

Please Leave Silently Into The Night......

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,

from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

you could be inspired, you could be appalled.

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

Girls With Guns

Visage à trois #224

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #394

GOP Senators Slam Schumer For ‘Slandering’ Justices And Enabling Left’s ‘Authoritarian’ Tactics

Blackburn, Lee, and Cruz asked Schumer to condemn threats against justices and ‘respect’ the court’s independence.

A trio of Republican senators from the powerful Judiciary Committee is calling on Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to dramatically walk back his rhetoric on the leaked Dobbs opinion, accusing the majority leader of “slander[ing]” Supreme Court justices and enabling “authoritarian” conduct from Democrats.

In a Thursday letter first obtained by The Federalist, Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, directly asked Schumer to condemn threats against justices and “respect” the court’s independence by refraining from intimidation efforts aimed at pressuring the majority into a different ruling.

Asked by The Federalist on Friday whether Schumer condemns the tactics of groups like “Ruth Sent Us,” which include publishing the alleged private addresses of justices and demonstrating outside their homes, the senator’s press secretary did not respond. Schumer’s office also declined to respond when asked whether the leaking of Justice Alito’s draft opinion will subject the judicial process to inappropriate external pressures.

Blackburn, Lee, and Cruz took particular issue with Schumer’s rapid reaction to the Politico report that included Alito’s February draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs. “Immediately after this draft was leaked, you attacked the Supreme Court justices from the floor of the Senate, and again from the steps of the U.S. Capitol,” they wrote. “Specifically, during your May 3, 2022 remarks on the floor of the U.S. Senate, you stated, ‘Several of these conservative justices . . . have lied to the U.S. Senate, ripped up the Constitution, and defiled both precedent and the Supreme Court’s reputation.'”

“We have serious concerns about your decision to slander our Supreme Court justices in order to achieve your preferred policy results,” said Blackburn, Lee, and Cruz, arguing that Republican-appointed justices who acknowledged Roe as “important precedent” in their confirmation hearings did not lie, as Schumer asserted, but demonstrated “neutrality.”

Citing Brown v. Board and Loving v. Virginia, the senators wrote, “There is no question that you support the Court overturning precedent where the Constitution and principles of stare decisis so require it—you just don’t want the Court to overturn the precedents you happen to like.”
They also cited Schumer’s statement in March of 2020 that Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch would “pay the price” if they decided a different case against the leader’s wishes. “This kind of inflammatory rhetoric is toxic to our democratic system of government,” the letter argued.

After celebrating the opinion for returning decisions about abortion back to the states, the letter further cited Schumer’s failure to “renounce” Democrats’ calls for court packing and nuking the filibuster. “Make no mistake: these are tactics of authoritarian leaders. Dictators change the rules and shatter norms when they cannot achieve their...

Biden's Department of Justice said the Office of Environmental Justice will be a 'central hub' for advancing the administration's efforts

The Department of Justice announced the creation of a new Office of Environmental Justice that will serve as a "central hub" for the department's efforts to advance its "comprehensive environmental justice enforcement strategy."

The new office within the Department of Justice was announced on Thursday by Attorney General Merrick Garland and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan along with stating a "series of actions" that will be taken to "secure environmental justice for all Americans."

One of the objectives of the newly formed Office of Environmental Justice is to work with the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal investigative agencies to "develop or enhance investigatory agencies’ protocols for assessing the environmental justice impacts during investigations."

As part of the series of actions announced on Thursday, each U.S. Attorney’s Office is being tasked to designate an environmental justice coordinator within their office, who will then identify "areas of environmental justice concern" in areas within their district. The environmental justice coordinator will also be tasked with creating and publicizing a procedure for individuals to report environmental justice concerns.

U.S. Attorneys and other Department of Justice components are also being encouraged as part of the plan to create "environmental enforcement task forces" that can be used as a tool to pursue environmental justice enforcement matters, according to the series of actions announced.

Garland said that the new Office of Environmental Justice will "prioritize the cases that will have the greatest impact on the communities most overburdened by environmental harm."

"Although violations of our environmental laws can happen anywhere, communities of color, indigenous communities, and low-income communities often bear the brunt of the harm caused by environmental crime, pollution, and climate change," Garland said. "For far too long, these communities have faced barriers to...