Dispatches From A Collapsing State is an independent venture and one of the few places you’ll find serious and independent analysis of this rolling, worsening crisis.
You missed what he said. Fascism is the cultural (sometimes the brutal, violent, palingenetic and pseudo-political) means to the economic ends of the WEALTHY RULING CLASS OLIGARCHY. It’s an economic class war of the super-rich minority and their merely somewhat rich enablers (often from BOTH SIDES of an apparent political party divide) engaged in against the ENTIRETY of the working class majority that is occurring and is being camouflaged by the culture war and the fascist versus liberal political struggle. We should stop fighting the culture war and focus on the class war quietly empowering the destruction of the democratic principles that are the last guardrails holding back the wealthy and their businesses from running the nation without regulation or restraint of any kind.
As long as half (or more) of the working class keeps siding with the wealthy we will have a great deal of difficulty maintaining effective democratic governance (as we’ve seen clearly over the last couple of decades where our politicians have shown they have NO interest in co-operating for the good of the people). Now that they can see their goal right before them of installing a permanent autocratic executive branch of “government” (and we might as well begin calling it what it is … the American Emperor … for he presides over a great global economic and military empire), the GOP are going to try to push the ball over the goal line and it’s clear there’s few in the DEM that have any interest or power to stop them. The working class American people must do this before they lose the institutions so many have struggled and died to build and preserve for us … and we’ve traded for cheap T-shirts, NFL football, shitty rehashed Comic Book movies, Fastfood on every corner making us obese, and smartphones and social media to lose our once sound civic conscience and consciousness.
We might be the generation that truly witnessed the end of the USA as anyone would recognize it for the last 250 years. The next 12 to 18 months will tell.
You have not been alone in your knowledge of this protracted and now accelerated dismantling of a great idea - a constitutional democracy of sorts that provided the verbiage that made us believe that our Constitution was intended to unite the disparate states and people of our country. We commoners who were Conquered, Enslaved,POC, Oppressed, of differing ethnicities,Sexual/gender identity, Indentured, economically exploited and impoverished, and everyone else and anything else that was supposed to be protected and a part of that hopeful naive virtue of a just existence and nation.
I saw it collapsing for the past 50 years, spoke about it but was labeled a cynic, unpatriotic, stupidity, naive, didn’t understand how things worked, a woman a problem. I saw it, fought it and now, have to figure out how to fight it and survive.
Now we must vote in our last free election. But, I implore us to demand that our existing president assert his presidential immunity, power and authority to take down this fascist former president and his terrorist organization. He must assert his newly ordained authority and give us all that he can before the authoritarians do away with us.
I believe that this criminal Trump and his regime and armies will immediately accelerate their stochastic terror.
Sorry to be pessimistic, but I honestly don't see how 'we the people' have the power to stop this from happening. I'm glad that you still hold onto some hope (and maybe I have a tiny speck seeing as how I've bothered to reply at all), but I just can't see realistically a way out of this situation. They've been laying the groundwork to this for decades, and we are so far behind to respond that it's like a high school runner going up against an Olympic athlete. I hate adding to the doom & gloom, but I just am having a hard time seeing the light in this situation.
We absolutely need to start laying the groundwork for a general strike if Trump is successful in his inevitable attempt to steal the election, and while, in my opinion, the last few SCOTUS decisions of this term are bad enough to warrant one, I think it'd be much harder to get the necessary momentum behind one solely on that basis. These decisions are definitely worth protesting though
Edited for spelling error and to reflect the fact that there's not going to be an "if" when it comes to Trump attempting to grab power again.
Happy Canada Day!…perhaps now also known as Death of American Democracy Day.
Going forward, our best action is to build community. Community can be a foundation…a thousand bases upon which we can build opposition to the destruction of liberal society.
If you haven’t already done so, meet your neighbors. Have discussions and learn who you can trust, and let folks know they aren’t alone.
Together we can become a powerful force. As the IWW (a radical labor organization) used to say, “To defeat the bosses all workers need to do is put their hands in their pockets.” (In other words, stick together and do *nothing* to support your enemies.)
The Wobblies! This whole sad nation once proudly built on the wealth provided to the working class by millions of union jobs has forgotten the strength of collective action. “Tools down”. The rich suffer and fret at the thought of losing everything and they know they cannot continue in their priveleged position without the work of millions of compliant laborers. Tools down. Tools down. Tools down. A newly renewed battle cry to save democracy from the rich.
I hope someone is helping to organize a general strike. We need to hit the streets in the millions. If we could have a million Man March and a million pussy March we better be 5 million pussies and get the hell out there in March! I've always said that let them try running a country without us. That should mean the doctors, the plumbers, the servicemen and women. Some mechanism of supporting this financially. Folks like Mark Cuban and Bill Gates can afford to support the working class strike. Again let them try running a country without us
The only choice we have (or have ever had) is to vote, but "playing along" with this phony uniparty shit show has become more than tedious and tiresome, and Trump's absurd "legitimacy" has been shoved down our throats by the corporate owned and controlled American political/media machine. It goes beyond the creepy.
This culture/country doesn't ever seem to want to let go of its long and historic traditional position of appeasing a minority of assholes while the majority of Americans are continually expected to take it or leave it.
I am (like President Biden and many of my contemporaries) too old to march in a protest. I have instead written to President Biden through Whitehouse.gov and I have written to my U.S.
Representative and Democratic Senator too. I think President Biden should retire at the end of this term. There is no cure for old age and the trend is in one direction. To think otherwise is hubris and foolishness. I also think Biden should not anoint his successor but leave that choice to the Democratic leadership. They need to do this before ballots are printed (before some states can claim it is too late). Pick someone the MAGA crowd and Fox News don’t know too well. I would favor Hakeem Jeffries but that’s just one example. There are a lot of brilliant people in this country. Give them all the $ support they need to barnstorm the country. It would catch the MAGA crowd off guard and hopefully the white Christian nationalists too. I think it can be done. Not everyone agrees with me I know. No matter what your opinion I think it is good to let your elected representatives know what you think about this issue. They all have emails and phone numbers. Let them know.
Thank you for stating this so clearly and eloquently. It is vital that we unite to defeat fascism.
You missed what he said. Fascism is the cultural (sometimes the brutal, violent, palingenetic and pseudo-political) means to the economic ends of the WEALTHY RULING CLASS OLIGARCHY. It’s an economic class war of the super-rich minority and their merely somewhat rich enablers (often from BOTH SIDES of an apparent political party divide) engaged in against the ENTIRETY of the working class majority that is occurring and is being camouflaged by the culture war and the fascist versus liberal political struggle. We should stop fighting the culture war and focus on the class war quietly empowering the destruction of the democratic principles that are the last guardrails holding back the wealthy and their businesses from running the nation without regulation or restraint of any kind.
As long as half (or more) of the working class keeps siding with the wealthy we will have a great deal of difficulty maintaining effective democratic governance (as we’ve seen clearly over the last couple of decades where our politicians have shown they have NO interest in co-operating for the good of the people). Now that they can see their goal right before them of installing a permanent autocratic executive branch of “government” (and we might as well begin calling it what it is … the American Emperor … for he presides over a great global economic and military empire), the GOP are going to try to push the ball over the goal line and it’s clear there’s few in the DEM that have any interest or power to stop them. The working class American people must do this before they lose the institutions so many have struggled and died to build and preserve for us … and we’ve traded for cheap T-shirts, NFL football, shitty rehashed Comic Book movies, Fastfood on every corner making us obese, and smartphones and social media to lose our once sound civic conscience and consciousness.
We might be the generation that truly witnessed the end of the USA as anyone would recognize it for the last 250 years. The next 12 to 18 months will tell.
You have not been alone in your knowledge of this protracted and now accelerated dismantling of a great idea - a constitutional democracy of sorts that provided the verbiage that made us believe that our Constitution was intended to unite the disparate states and people of our country. We commoners who were Conquered, Enslaved,POC, Oppressed, of differing ethnicities,Sexual/gender identity, Indentured, economically exploited and impoverished, and everyone else and anything else that was supposed to be protected and a part of that hopeful naive virtue of a just existence and nation.
I saw it collapsing for the past 50 years, spoke about it but was labeled a cynic, unpatriotic, stupidity, naive, didn’t understand how things worked, a woman a problem. I saw it, fought it and now, have to figure out how to fight it and survive.
Now we must vote in our last free election. But, I implore us to demand that our existing president assert his presidential immunity, power and authority to take down this fascist former president and his terrorist organization. He must assert his newly ordained authority and give us all that he can before the authoritarians do away with us.
I believe that this criminal Trump and his regime and armies will immediately accelerate their stochastic terror.
No time to mourn or be sick. What’s our plan?
Sorry to be pessimistic, but I honestly don't see how 'we the people' have the power to stop this from happening. I'm glad that you still hold onto some hope (and maybe I have a tiny speck seeing as how I've bothered to reply at all), but I just can't see realistically a way out of this situation. They've been laying the groundwork to this for decades, and we are so far behind to respond that it's like a high school runner going up against an Olympic athlete. I hate adding to the doom & gloom, but I just am having a hard time seeing the light in this situation.
We absolutely need to start laying the groundwork for a general strike if Trump is successful in his inevitable attempt to steal the election, and while, in my opinion, the last few SCOTUS decisions of this term are bad enough to warrant one, I think it'd be much harder to get the necessary momentum behind one solely on that basis. These decisions are definitely worth protesting though
Edited for spelling error and to reflect the fact that there's not going to be an "if" when it comes to Trump attempting to grab power again.
Happy Canada Day!…perhaps now also known as Death of American Democracy Day.
Going forward, our best action is to build community. Community can be a foundation…a thousand bases upon which we can build opposition to the destruction of liberal society.
If you haven’t already done so, meet your neighbors. Have discussions and learn who you can trust, and let folks know they aren’t alone.
Together we can become a powerful force. As the IWW (a radical labor organization) used to say, “To defeat the bosses all workers need to do is put their hands in their pockets.” (In other words, stick together and do *nothing* to support your enemies.)
The Wobblies! This whole sad nation once proudly built on the wealth provided to the working class by millions of union jobs has forgotten the strength of collective action. “Tools down”. The rich suffer and fret at the thought of losing everything and they know they cannot continue in their priveleged position without the work of millions of compliant laborers. Tools down. Tools down. Tools down. A newly renewed battle cry to save democracy from the rich.
I hope someone is helping to organize a general strike. We need to hit the streets in the millions. If we could have a million Man March and a million pussy March we better be 5 million pussies and get the hell out there in March! I've always said that let them try running a country without us. That should mean the doctors, the plumbers, the servicemen and women. Some mechanism of supporting this financially. Folks like Mark Cuban and Bill Gates can afford to support the working class strike. Again let them try running a country without us
The only choice we have (or have ever had) is to vote, but "playing along" with this phony uniparty shit show has become more than tedious and tiresome, and Trump's absurd "legitimacy" has been shoved down our throats by the corporate owned and controlled American political/media machine. It goes beyond the creepy.
This culture/country doesn't ever seem to want to let go of its long and historic traditional position of appeasing a minority of assholes while the majority of Americans are continually expected to take it or leave it.
I am (like President Biden and many of my contemporaries) too old to march in a protest. I have instead written to President Biden through Whitehouse.gov and I have written to my U.S.
Representative and Democratic Senator too. I think President Biden should retire at the end of this term. There is no cure for old age and the trend is in one direction. To think otherwise is hubris and foolishness. I also think Biden should not anoint his successor but leave that choice to the Democratic leadership. They need to do this before ballots are printed (before some states can claim it is too late). Pick someone the MAGA crowd and Fox News don’t know too well. I would favor Hakeem Jeffries but that’s just one example. There are a lot of brilliant people in this country. Give them all the $ support they need to barnstorm the country. It would catch the MAGA crowd off guard and hopefully the white Christian nationalists too. I think it can be done. Not everyone agrees with me I know. No matter what your opinion I think it is good to let your elected representatives know what you think about this issue. They all have emails and phone numbers. Let them know.