Daily Archives: July 21, 2021

To the Editor:

Re Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric Creeps From Fringe to Fox Prime Time (front page, July 12):

The C.D.C. has made it clear that those dying of Covid now are almost all not immunized. Yet Fox News continues to preach an anti-vax message, as if fighting a pandemic somehow is a political act. Would they want a return of polio or smallpox?

At the same time, Rupert Murdoch, Foxs founder, has been immunized, Donald Trump and his family were immunized, and I bet the bloviators of Fox News have all been vaccinated. Isnt Fox News being hypocritical?

Mitchell RothmanMerion Station, Pa.

To the Editor:

As a nurse practitioner taking care of some of the sickest Covid-19 patients in Baltimore, I am appalled at the irresponsibility of Fox News hosts supporting anti-vaccination rhetoric. The June deaths from Covid in my state were all among unvaccinated individuals. Surely it cant be a good long-term business strategy to encourage your viewers to get sick and die?

Marian GrantReisterstown, Md.

To the Editor:

Re Rationing Care for a Last-Resort Covid Therapy (July 12) and Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric Creeps From Fringe to Fox Prime Time:

The two front-page articles on physicians struggling to decide which dying Covid patients will receive treatment with scarce lifesaving machines and on Foxs escalating opposition to President Bidens vaccination outreach efforts suggest a common solution: Give vaccinated patients priority for these critical resources.

Carried a step further, why dont insurers charge higher premiums for vaccine refusers (as they do for smokers), or even refuse to cover their Covid-related expenses?

Steven LeinerSan Francisco

To the Editor:

Re To Help Haiti, Stop Trying to Save It (column, July 13):

Bret Stephens and others suggest that foreign assistance to Haiti has not only been ineffective but also harmful. Instead of asking whether foreign aid should stop, we should ask: How might Haiti benefit from improved foreign assistance that respects its culture and history, and elevates Haitian voices and institutions?

Since 2010 my Mercy Corps team of more than 70 Haitians has worked with grass-roots groups, the Haitian government and donors like the United States to tackle Haitis biggest challenges, including gang violence, hurricane preparedness, food insecurity and cholera.

In 2020 we partnered with social enterprises, telephone companies and Haitian social media influencers to reach more than two million Haitian families through an interactive Covid prevention platform, curbing the spread of the virus.

The young Haitians with whom we work are eager to chart a way forward for their country, if given the chance and with the right support.

Foreign assistance isnt a silver-bullet solution for Haitis woes, but shutting it off is certain to erode efforts by local organizations as well as Haitian-led international organizations to create real change. A deeper analysis would show the positive impact that aid and development funds have made in the lives of Haitians.

Justin ColvardPeguy-Ville, HaitiThe writer is Haiti country director for Mercy Corps.

To the Editor:

Bret Stephenss column captures the widespread fatigue and disbelief after the stunning assassination of Haitis president, but the abstemious cure he offers is a prescription for widening disaster and almost certain American intervention.

Since its first democratic, albeit flawed, election in 1990, Haiti has spent a third of the intervening years with some combination of foreign military forces on its soil. Haiti has received more than $13 billion in relief since the devastating 2010 earthquake; the recent political earthquake represents one more seismic disruption to this beleaguered country.

The Assassination of Haitis President

But while much of Haitis foreign aid has certainly been misspent, Mr. Stephens is wrong to conclude that the answer must be inaction. Instead, what is required is a middle road that prioritizes stabilizing the security environment so that an interim government can deliver a credible election in which Haitians determine their political future.

Such a path may well need to be cleared with external help. Its provision ideally through multinational cooperation is an investment that will help keep military intervention at bay.

Jenna Ben-YehudaWashingtonThe writer is president and chief executive of the Truman National Security Project and a former Haiti analyst at the State Department.

Dont Stray From the 9/11 Museums Mission

To the Editor:

Re 9/11 Museum Vexed by Cuts and Feuds (Arts page, July 13):

Contrary to the criticisms leveled at the exhibitions, I believe that the museum has always done a fine job of faithfully presenting the history of 9/11, and very admirably free of political correctness no mean feat in todays world.

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum should be about Sept. 11. The critics here seem to be bent on imposing their points of view upon history and shifting attention away from the attacks.

Many matters may be worth a discussion on the museums 20th anniversary. The museum, however, must remain forever dedicated to its core mission: preserving and presenting the story of Sept. 11 the attacks, the death and destruction, and the heroism and sacrifice.

Michael BurkeBronxThe writer, whose brother, Billy Burke, a firefighter, died at the World Trade Center, served on the family advisory committee to the museum.

Link:

Opinion | The Anti-Vaccination Messages From Fox News - The New York Times

Tom OConnor, a comedian and television show host for decades in the UK, died Sunday in a hospital in Buckinghamshire at age 81 of complications related to Parkinsons disease.

His son, Steve Finan OConnor, said he was a unique comedian who was light years ahead of political correctness. He added,Tom was famously known for a brand of humour that was 100% clean and always totally family friendly.

Born in Bootle, Merseyside, OConnor started out as a teacher. His early show business days was as a singer, before introducing comedy into his act. That won him attention from TV scouts, and he soon was hosting shows likePick Pockets and The Zodiac Game.

He also won attention for the showOpportunity Knocks, which he won three times.

OConnor became a staple of British television, starring in The Comedians and hosting shows like Name That Tune, Crosswits, Ive Got a Secret, Gambit, and the Tom OConnor Show.

Beyond hosting quiz shows, he was also an actor, starring as Father Tom in daytime soap Doctors in the early 2000s. He also won the celebrity edition of Come Dine With Me in 2010 and competed on the Pointless Celebrities quiz show with his daughter-in-law, Olympic gold medallist Denise Lewis.

Survivors include a wife and four children, as well as 16 grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.

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Tom OConnor Dies: UK Comedian, TV Show Host And Actor Was 81 - Deadline

Generations of patriots have fought for this country. It's impossible not to see the tearing of the fabric of everything that makes this nation great today.

The founding fathers didn't wilt from this fight 245 years ago; nor can we leave this battle to others. I see this as a war of ideas. We were warned about this. Benjamin Franklin famously quipped, We have given you a republic, if you can keep it.

But this is not for the faint of heart. Political correctness has weaponized free speech. Remember when President Barack Obama said, If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun? When conservatives see everything they love about this country being maligned and vow to fight it, they are canceled, fact-checked, mocked by big media and shouted down.

When you say its time to fight for what made America great, you should prepare to be labeled an insurrectionist.

We can learn many lessons on how to wage this war of ideas from a 27-year-old modern day founding father, Charlie Kirk. He was in Fargo this week (his second of three trips to North Dakota just this year) to help launch Freedom Matters USA, a grassroots activist group that is bringing together people to fight for education over indoctrination, real journalism versus fake news, election integrity and protecting the freedoms for which the founding fathers died.

Kirk has built the largest conservative youth organization in America, Turning Point USA. His radio show (heard in North Dakota on AM 1100 The Flag-Fargo and AM 1090 The Flag-Williston/Tioga) and his podcast are heard by millions across America. He leads the largest student organization in America, fighting for Western ideals, mobilizing a force of conservative fighters in tomorrow's leaders.

We conservatives have been a silent majority for far too long. If you don't like what you see happening to your country, to your state, in your schools and communities, you only have one option. Lend your voice to this fight for freedom or prepare to lose it.

Those who wish to transform this country into something very different than the republic the founders gave us are very well-funded and organized. We see strains of socialism, communism and Marxism in these dark forces. Their goals and aspirations are relentless. We must match theirs to keep our republic.

Find your place in this battle. Well be talking more about these groups, and others like them, in future columns and on my radio show. Like the tea party or MAGA movement, Freedom Matters USA will be attacked. Try wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat in downtown Minneapolis. That's what Donald Trump fought for. Despite what the extremists have done to him, we should never have to apologize for fighting for the greatest country on the earth.

Scott Hennen hosts the statewide radio program Whats On Your Mind? On AM 1100 The Flag, KFYR AM 550, AM 1090 KTGO The Flag and AM 1460 KLTC. Email him at ScottH@FlagFamily.com

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Hennen: Is America worth a fight? - Grand Forks Herald

Director Lucy Bailey didnt see David Mamets campus drama Oleanna when it was first staged almost 20 years ago, but she remembers the fire and fury it detonated across auditoriums. The 1992 play comprises meetings between a university professor and an aggrieved female student who claims sexual harassment. The student was widely seen to be weaponising political correctness, with some audiences turning mutinous in outrage.

Bailey sat down to read the script last year after being asked to direct a revival at Theatre Royal Bath. She felt smacked across the face she says, speaking from her London home on Zoom. Her strong reaction was not to Carol, the student, but the professor, John. I had this immediate thought that I wrote down: He keeps jumping into her mouth. I felt that this man, who was eloquent and well-equipped, was jumping into the mouth of an ill-equipped, ineloquent young woman and she didnt have the tools or confidence to fight back.

Bailey sought to enact their fight in all its gladiatorial drama but also to balance out the power between them. Its a strange, awful wrestling match You do instinctively feel its been written on the side of John [but] I wanted to balance out the play. I was compassionate towards him in my first reading but I was deeply compassionate toward her. I could hear Carols story, and I think we will respond to her in a different way now. They vilified her then. As women we know that anger.

There has been a spectrum of responses to the revival, which transfers to the Arts theatre in London this month. An older woman in the audience at Bath reprimanded Carol when she told John: Dont call your wife baby. The woman shouted out: And why not? An argument broke out among those sitting around her. In general, though, Bailey thinks maybe we are seeing [the play] in a more balanced way now.

Since Harvey Weinsteins watershed conviction, we cant see John (played by Jonathan Slinger in the new production) and Carol (Rosie Sheehy) the way we did then either, Bailey suggests. Her production can be read as a post-#MeToo critique of the invidious yet slippery ways in which male power exerts itself without being easy to call out as inappropriate. John intends to help his student, says Bailey, but in doing so, he starts rubbing away boundaries. In the past 10 years, we have realised just how we had accepted those lack of boundaries. Were putting them back in place and we have to be careful about that too.

There is an activist group in the play that helps Carol mobilise a legal case against John. To some degree, we see the group from Johns point of view, as an antagonistic force using Carol for its own purposes. Bailey admits she had mixed feelings about it until she and Sheehy discussed the play with a womens officer at Cambridge University. We did a Zoom call where Rosie was playing Carol throughout. She talked to the womens officer about what had happened in the classroom [within the play] and my whole education was turned on its head. The officer was such a brilliant woman and we suddenly saw everything from her perspective which was completely condemning. Carol grew and grew as she talked to her, realising she wasnt on her own and that what she had to say was real and right.

At the same time, Bailey wanted to insert enough nuance and psychological complexity to show that there is no pure victim or aggressor here, but that the impurity exists on both sides. Mamet built this complication into the text, she believes. You think Mamets been on Johns side all this time but lets really look at whats there: if you scratch the surface then suddenly theres this overwhelming aggression and a need to obliterate his opponent.

Bailey is referring to the outbreak of furious violence in the plays last minutes. The decision to make this aggression explicit wasnt taken lightly: At a certain point, the trigger goes and the animal comes out. He doesnt just want to hurt the other animal, he wants to hurt the woman.

In the wake of #MeToo, does Bailey think women have made big enough gains in theatre and beyond? I have felt that the industry is enormously prejudiced in terms of women. I came into it when there were very few other contemporary female directors and when it was so difficult to get an equal platform to men. I do feel optimistic now but its got to get to the point where the world becomes 50-50. Were not at that stage yet but were fighting better.

As well as sexual politics, issues of censorship and freedom of expression are tucked inside the play: Carol demands that John remove his book from the syllabus because the group finds it offensive. Was the current debate about university no-platforming on Baileys mind in these sections of the drama? Absolutely. We discussed it at all points. You feel theres something slightly terrifying about a decision by a student body to start removing textbooks. It has terrible implications for all of us, and history shows it can only go wrong if we start denying a spectrum of opinion just because one lot of people have decided that opinion is not right.

Does Bailey have her own views on the so-called cancel culture that overshadows debates on identity today? I do have an opinion but like a lot of people I feel ill-equipped and a sense of not trusting my own awareness to be able to speak properly. That feels very strange you feel youre not able to take part in the debate through a fear of looking like youre uneducated and insensitive to something prejudiced without even being aware of it. Which is of course exactly what this play is about.

Does she think we should talk about it anyway? You have to keep talking. I like to feel that you can offend and be forgiven. And also that offence can provoke. I dont mean I want to be offensive in any sense but you cant be afraid of that. This is what David Mamet is saying: hes very provocative and if we get frightened of being provocative then the status quo will suddenly solidify and none of us want to be in a position where we are not able to question it.

Oleanna is at the Arts theatre, London, from 21 July to 23 October.

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We know that anger: the return of David Mamets incendiary Oleanna - The Guardian

Caste continues to be a system of discrimination, but remedies for removing that discrimination keep eluding us, partly because of caste-based interests and partly because of the penchant to seek satisfaction in political correctness alone.

Two rulings of the Supreme Court have frayed nerves in Maharashtra on the broader question of reservation. One relates to creating a separate backward class consisting of Marathas and granting them reservation in jobs and education. The other pertains to OBC reservation in local bodies. Both issues have relevance beyond Maharashtra. But the habit of blinking at the big picture has so far allowed these issues to be limited to Maharashtra. Both rulings were the only expected judicial outcomes, but they represent an intellectual bankruptcy of our politics and the deadlock that the social justice project has hit.

The ruling about OBC reservation in local bodies goes at the root of the 73rd and 74th amendments, but the game in Maharashtra is confined to blaming political rivals. The crisis emerging from this ruling symbolises one aspect of what is wrong in implementing the policy of social justice. The issue of actual numbers or population share of OBCs has been talked about for over a decade, besides the need to understand the socio-economic situation of different backward communities. A clumsy initiative by the UPA government was not going to help much since the UPA government and its supporters did not know what to do with quantitative data gathered without a proper policy perspective. Besides the limited state capacity for enumeration, the Narendra Modi governments priority lay elsewhere, as was shown in the case of the NRC. Therefore, during its seven years, the present government has chosen to keep the matter on the back-burner while benefiting from the OBC vote. But the central problem goes far beyond making available the numbers. In the last instance, we have to decide which groups are backward and what needs to be done for them.

That is why the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Maratha reservation was predictable. Equally predictably, the political class, including those in the forefront of the pro-reservation agitation, have consistently followed an ostrich-like approach of avoiding the juridical reality and clinging to a new consensus among parties not only in Maharashtra, but elsewhere too that the 50 per cent cap needs to be set aside legislatively. How the judiciary will respond to such a legislative response is anybodys guess.

This response, as also the state governments helplessness in the matter of OBC reservation in local bodies, represents the policy deadlock that stares at the political class and society in general. While experts will fruitfully debate the legal side of these issues, there is a need to realise that these are, in essence, political issues. They are the late legacies of the Mandal Commission. But that is only part of the story. Three decades ago, the marriage between politics and jurisprudence gave birth to a consensus. That consensus had three dimensions: Accepting (rather indirectly and unwillingly) that caste is the main cause of tradition-born backwardness among a large section of the population; resorting to reservation as the easiest policy response and third, recognising and accommodating the political aspirations of the backward sections by expanding the social base of the political elite.

This consensus has helped Indias elite and policymakers bypass the caste question since the mid-Nineties. But that same marriage between politics and jurisprudence has resulted in an unwanted child: The current deadlock on the question of social justice.

Today, that question has resurfaced in a distorted but politically attractive manner. Not only the Marathas, but Jats and Patidars, too, claim that vast numbers among them have been left behind in the contemporary economy. This may have an objective basis, but this argument has more than successfully deflected attention from two matters that the enabling provision of the Constitution aims at social backwardness (caused by societal location) and that the causes of economic distress originating in development policies are distinct from backwardness primarily originating in caste location. Granting reservations on an economic basis seems to have complicated matters

Neither the judiciary nor politics seem to have any clue about how to now resolve this impasse. Like the consensus that survived the past three decades, the current deadlock, too, has three dimensions. First, it is represented by demands for reservation made by relatively better-off and politically powerful castes. Two, it represents the deep chasm that exists within backward sections, rendering politics of backwardness nearly impossible. Three, it sits at the cusp of sharpening caste identities and a weakening social justice agenda and tends to consolidate caste boundaries more than connecting to issues of social justice.

In a sense, both in terms of politics and policy, the energy generated by Mandal is now exhausted. This has happened both through the misuse and overuse of the weapon of reservation. A combination of political mediation and policy rejuvenation is now warranted.

Five issues require systematic consideration in the fields of politics, policy and intellectual discussions. Our superficial concerns of political correctness and quick popularity keep dissuading us from doing that. These five issues are not exactly new, but are acquiring renewed urgency.

The first is about intra-OBC differentiations. This was already flagged by a member of the Mandal Commission itself and most states have resorted to clumsy arrangements for most backward even as the Centre, too, is currently waiting for a report on this question. Two, intra-caste stratification is increasing something that was rather limited at the time of Mandal. What sociologist D L Sheth called as classicisation is now becoming the central issue, with much complication. The third question is about the specific advantages and logic of reservation in the three different arenas of employment, education and political representation.

This, then, leads to the fourth and related issue which nobody wants to talk about, namely, the limits of reservation and the need to think of additional measures to augment the policy of social justice. Finally, the most challenging issue is setting boundaries. In a country where poverty and suffering is the norm, and well-being only a distant dream, how do we distinguish between backwardness primarily caused by a groups social location in traditional social order and backwardness resulting from distortions of the political economy? While this surely is a tough task, unless we grapple it by the horns, reservation is bound to become the plaything of the political clout of different communities, probably producing a regime of separate reservation for relatively dominant castes.

These issues, particularly the last one, can be grappled only through a time-consuming process of harsh debates and drab detail. This and the related tasks are best left ideally to a third backward classes commission whose time has come. The only question is, are we ready for it?

This column first appeared in the print edition on July 16, 2021 under the title On caste, the road not taken. The writer, based in Pune, taught political science and is currently chief editor of Studies in Indian Politics.

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How do we address the complicated claims of backwardness by various politically powerful castes? - The Indian Express

Two days before the Capitol riot, Doug Mastriano ended one of his frequent Facebook Live videos on an abrupt note. The Pennsylvania state senator had referenced his upcoming speech at a pro-Trump Stop the Steal conspiracist rally in D.C. on Jan. 6 but didnt want to discuss the event on his official government page.

Were gonna hop over on the other page, Doug Mastriano Fighting For Freedom, where we can talk freely, Mastriano told viewers, directing them to his personal Facebook account. So please follow me over to Doug Mastriano Fighting For Freedom, well continue the conversation off of this government page, and onto a page where we can speak freely about everything.

The video on his personal account has since been deleted, along with other posts related to Mastrianos activity on Jan. 6. But his social-media strategy, beginning with open courtship of the QAnon conspiracy theory, has long walked the line between elected official and far-right instigator. Via a network of near-identical Facebook pages, Mastriano has amassed a following that calls itself his army. And while some Mastriano fans are facing prison time for their alleged involvement in the Capitol riot, the state senator has continued to push election-fraud hoaxes, culminating this month in his demand for an audit of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania.

Mastriano spent much of his career in the military, deploying three times to Afghanistan and reaching the rank of Army colonel before his retirement in 2017. Soon after that, he entered into a different form of battle: the world of the QAnon conspiracy theory and its self-described digital soldiers.

In February 2018, Mastriano announced his bid to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives. Like many first-time candidates establishing an internet presence, Mastriano registered his Twitter account the same month as his announcement. Some of his first tweets were equally conventional: links to his campaign website, descriptions of his work in the military, photos of family.

This is all just bad performance art.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman

But months into his campaign, Mastriano began soliciting attention from more fringe figures. In May of that year, he tweeted at far-right internet personality Jack Posobeic, asking for an endorsement. That month, he also tweeted that the artist of a school mural should face 20 years in prison for that painting, which depicted an Aztec warrior beheading Donald Trump.

By that August, Mastrianos tweets regularly included eyebrow-raising hashtags.

#QAnon #MAGA #Trump2020 #PatriotsFight #TheGreatAwakening #Trump, Mastriano wrote in multiple early tweets. The identical order of the hashtags across the tweets suggests that Mastriano repeatedly copy-pasted the string of hashtags. A Media Matters report this month found that Mastriano tweeted the #QAnon hashtag more than 50 times. Included in Mastrianos hashtagged tweets were pictures of Donald Trump as an anime character, and a cartoon girl in a sailor uniform staring wistfully at a Trump sign.

The QAnon conspiracy theory falsely accuses Trumps enemies of a number of outrageous acts, including pedophilia and/or child cannibalism.

Mastriano lost his congressional bid but won a special election for a state Senate seat the following year. Billing him as a candidate for protecting families, Mastrianos campaign site advertised his belief that marriage is between a man and womanand that no amount of disinformation or political correctness will change these facts. (He also caught flak that year for multiple anti-Muslim posts, including one that claimed Islam wants to kill gay rights, Judaism, Christianity, and pacifism, and another that falsely accused Rep. Ilhan Omar of encouraging the attempted murder of a child in a mall.)

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the country in spring 2020, Mastriano expanded his online audience with a recurring series of fireside chats on Facebook Live, during which he slammed health precautions. After one such video, in which Mastriano appeared to encourage listeners to quit churches that did not hold in-person services, a coalition of nearly 50 religious leaders in his district signed a letter complaining about his remarks.

By November 2020, when Mastriano joined legions of far-right conspiracists in falsely claiming that fraud had cost Trump a second term, the Pennsylvania lawmakers fans were beginning to take up a new name for themselves: Mastrianos Army.

Some of the hashtags earliest invocations came in attacks on Mastrianos foes. Supporters tweeted it alongside photoshopped images of President Joe Biden in jail, as well as at a Democratic Pennsylvania lawmaker who spoke out against Mastriano.

Not all of those fans were even Mastrianos constituents; one such attack on Biden, for instance, came from a Pennsylvanian who lists their location as outside Mastrianos district. But Mastriano encouraged that support across the state.

Beginning in September, Mastriano became an administrator for nearly 40 county-level Facebook pages dedicated to him. The pages, discovered by Erin Gallagher, a researcher of disinformation at Harvard Universitys Shorenstein Center, include groups like Philadelphia County For Doug Mastriano, despite Mastriano not representing that area of the state.

Gallagher also found Mastriano to be an administrator in the Facebook groups Senator Doug Mastriano, We the people ask you to run for governor! and Draft Senator Douglas Mastriano for Governor of Pennsylvania. The first group currently has more than 16,000 members.

Mastrianos activity was not limited to the online sphere.

The #MastrianosArmy hashtag is full of pictures of Mastriano with fans at pro-Trump, post-election events, including one in which he poses with a woman in a shirt with a QAnon slogan. By last December, as the myth that the election was stolen germinated, those pictures were increasingly geotagged in Washington, D.C., where Mastriano fans marched at pro-Trump events while holding signs with Mastriano slogans like walk as free people. In a harbinger of the election obstruction to come, at least one group photo of Mastrianos Army at a D.C. rally in December was hashtagged #DoNotCertify.

Mastriano was a scheduled speaker at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol attack. In a video blitz two days before the rally, he promoted it in the now-deleted Facebook Live video, as well as in an appearance on a far-right radio show during which he described Republicans as in this deathmatch with the Democrat Party. He was also responsible for transporting some of the events attendees into the citysix days before the riot, Mastriano used $3,354 in campaign funds to reserve buses to D.C., according to campaign finance documents reviewed by Philadelphias WHYY.

Mastriano speaks at a protest against an extended stay-at-home order to help slow the spread of the coronavirus in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on April 20, 2020.

REUTERS/Rachel Wisniewski

Sandra Weyer, a Pennsylvania woman, was charged last month for allegedly breaking into the Capitol and encouraging a mace attack on a New York Times journalist. Truth be known about storming the capitol . . . we were sick and tired of DITHERING!!! Weyer tweeted about the event.

Dithering is a Mastriano catchphrase, as his colleagues noted positively before the riot. As photos hashtagged #MastrianosArmy in a pro-Mastriano Facebook group reveal, some of his fans have even made We Dont Dither T-shirts. A New Yorker report previously suggested that Weyer rode on one of Mastrianos buses, although Mastriano denies that. Weyer was previously pictured at a D.C. rally in December, where she held a Mastriano sign alongside a group of his fans.

Mastriano disavowed Weyer in an email to The Daily Beast, and generally rejected the idea that the crowd that has followed his social-media organizing trail was his responsibility. Regarding your photo, it is a dangerous and nonsensical precedent to imply that a public figure is responsible for all of the actions of their supporters, he wrote. (Mastriano did not respond to other questions for this story.)

Another alleged Capitol rioter, Samuel Lazar, has repeatedly been photographed alongside Mastriano, including at a Mastriano event in May, as HuffPost reported. Mastriano told the outlet he did not know Lazar, and that he condemned the mans actions. Lazar, who appeared on video boasting about macing Capitol police, has not been charged with a crime, though his photo has appeared on FBI wanted lists.

Other alleged Capitol stormers overlapped with Mastrianos circles. During the rally, the state senator posed for a photo with former Pennsylvania lawmaker Rick Saccone, who later posted on Facebook, We are storming the capitol. Our vanguard has broken through the barricades. We will save this nation. Are u with me? Saccone has not been charged with a crime. Rachel Powell, a Pennsylvania woman who is facing charges for allegedly smashing a Capitol window, traveled alone to the Capitol. Earlier that summer, however, she attended the same far-right July 4 event as Mastriano, when both showed up to Gettysburg National Military Park in response to a hoax about leftists burning flags there.

Mastriano, for his part, claims to have left the Capitol area before Jan. 6 turned to violence, even as footage from that day appears to show him in a crowd as the front of that group began to breach Capitol barriers. In a statement to HuffPost, Mastriano claimed to have respected police lines.

Despite calls for Mastrianos resignation, or an investigation into his involvement with the Capitol riot, Pennsylvanias Senate has not taken action against the lawmaker. Instead, Brian Sims, a state representative who has called for an investigation into Mastriano, has faced threats from members of Mastrianos army. In one of Mastrianos Facebook Live videos, a commenter noted that Brian Sims has been rubbing me the wrong way for a few yrs. Maybe Ill pay him a visit.

Sims, in turn, accused Mastriano of attempting to get him killed.

Since the riot, Mastriano has joined the bandwagon of Trump supporters calling for audits of the 2020 election. The only such actual audit is a chaotic, ongoing affair in Arizona, staffed by conspiracy theorists and uncredentialed vote-counters. They have racked up millions in public funds while searching for bamboo fibers in ballots, based on a conspiracy theory about fake ballots being shipped from Asia.

In June, Mastriano took a trip to the site of the Arizona audit, which is being run by a Florida-based company whose CEO previously promoted election-fraud hoaxes. While the Arizona audit was ongoing, that CEO also participated in a documentary alleging voter fraud.

Nevertheless, in a blog post, Mastriano wrote that he was more than impressed with what I saw on the ground in Phoenix. He has not disclosed the funding of his trip, which he described in a Facebook Live video as a justifiable business expense that did not involve taxpayer dollars.

Mastriano, who has previously promoted a Telegram channel for a fringe group demanding a Pennsylvania audit, set out his own demand for an Arizona-style recount on July 7, and the Washington Post reported last month that he met with Donald Trump about the idea.

In an interview, Pennsylvanias Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman dismissed the demand as a publicity stunt for what he suspects are Mastrianos gubernatorial ambitions.

Its burnishing his own political credentialing to run for governor, Fetterman told The Daily Beast. Thats all this is. No one thinks it [the audit] is going anywhere. This is all just bad performance art.

Mastriano asked three counties to turn over their voting machines. Two of the counties, (Tioga and York), have already declined, with their Republican commissioners stating that they could not compromise voting equipment by turning them over to a third party. Mastriano has threatened to subpoena the counties, an avenue that Fetterman recently characterized as unlikely to succeed, though some Republicans in the legislature have signaled potential support.

This is just theatrics in an attempt to secure a Trump endorsement, which is obviously highly coveted in any Republican primary, Fetterman said. If you want to talk about whats really insidious in Pennsylvania, its the blatant attempts to impose mandatory voter ID through a ballot initiative, which is straight-up voter suppression.

Fetterman suggested Mastriano was tailoring his statements to a Trumpist audience. It was a recalibration previously evident in Mastrianos changing tone on Twitter.

During those early days, when Mastriano was still searching for his audience, he tweeted a meme that falsely attributed a quote to Hillary Clinton. Anybody not willing to accept the results of an election is a danger to democracy, the quote read.

Well well well, Mastriano tweeted. I actually agree with Hillary.

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Heir to Election Audit Freak Show Throne Has 'Army' Behind Him - The Daily Beast

Are we living in the age of stupid? The era of the idiot? The answer of course is yes, with examples of monstrous moronicism everywhere from climate deniers to the plandemic crowd who believe Covid-19 was cooked up in Bill Gates basement. On the other hand, human beings have always been illogical creatures. A better question is whether we are, as a species, becoming dumberer. If this is already the era of the idiot, what comes next?

An Idiocracy, according to film-maker Mike Judge. The Beavis and Butt-head, King of the Hill and Silicon Valley creators dystopian 2006 comedy (which he directed and co-wrote with Ethan Cohen) arrived with its own terminology to help us prepare for the upcoming reality TV special that we may call The Collapse of Reality Itself.

Suggesting that morons rather than nerds will inherit the earth, and that the results will be catastrophic, the film begins with a context-setting intro so real it hurts. Judge cuts between an intelligent adult couple discussing why they wont be having children right now (not with the market the way it is) and a ... less intelligent couple breeding like rabbits (I thought youse was on the pill or some shit?).

Observing that evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence, the narrator explains that with no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most and left the intelligent to become an endangered species.

In the current era I couldnt help but think of the BirthStrikers, taking a reasoned response to the climate crisis while hordes of the hoi polloi refuse to accept there is even a problem. Also that famous quote from Charles Bukowski: The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

The story follows mellow everyman Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), who is selected by the US army to participate in an experiment to test cryogenic hibernation. Hes chosen because hes average in every way: average IQ; averagely inoffensive personality; even an average heart rate. Placed inside a machine and expected to wake up one year later, the experiment goes awry and instead Joe and his fellow participant a sex worker named Rita (Maya Rudolph) emerge 500 years later. Its the year 2505 and Joe is now the smartest person on earth by a very wide margin.

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The environment has crumbled and garbage is stacked in huge mounds, like the mountains of rubbish in WALL-E. A blunt-smoking doctor at the hospital (Justin Long) is shocked that Joe doesnt have a barcode on his arm, like everybody else, and asks, Why come you no have a tattoo? Hes one of the more eloquent people; most speak a butchered dialect combining groans, grunts, insults and slang words.

This disturbingly hilarious film is as horrifying as 1984 or Brave New World, but takes a different route emphasising the dangers of collective incompetence rather than oppressiveness of the state. Its Urban Dictionary entry reads: A movie that was originally a comedy, but became a documentary.

In a 2017 interview discussing the end of political correctness, Terry Crews who plays President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho described Idiocracy as so prophetic in so many ways it actually scares people. When Camacho lets off rounds of an automatic rifle to get peoples attention in the House of Representatives (now called the House of Representin), its hard not to think of the carnival US politics became under Trump.

Many visual and verbal gags highlight a capitalist hellscape, in which language has basically become a function of advertising. We see a billboard, for instance, with the spiel: If you dont smoke Tarrlytons ... Fuck you! Every time customers enter Costco, an employee at the door greets them with: Welcome to Costco, I love you.

The restaurant chain Fuddruckers has changed its name to Buttfuckers. The most popular show on TV is called Ow, My Balls! and the current Oscar winner is a single unbroken shot of a naked butt. A Gatorade-like sports drink called Brawndo (the thirst mutilator) has replaced water; people even water crops with it (which of course no longer grow). Fox News is the only news source. Starbucks offers handjobs.

The films savage critique of American corporatisation may be why 20th Century Fox, its distributor, got cold feet and effectively buried it, releasing Idiocracy in just enough cinemas (without so much as a theatrical trailer) to satisfy contractual requirements. The film got bigger with time and became a cult hit, roughly mirroring the trajectory of Judges previous feature Office Space (which also achieved popularity only on home release).

The jokes flow thick and fast and the premise, while a little one-note, never gets old. The underlying message of course is that humans ought to take such things as science, research and knowledge seriously, lest we create our own Idiocracy.

Will we heed the warning? In the cacophony of modern existence, with so much stupidity flying at us from so many directions, its difficult to be optimistic. One day future humans may very well ask provided they are still capable of forming a sentence why come we no listen?

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Idiocracy: a disturbingly prophetic look at the future of America and our era of stupidity - The Guardian

The ancient Greeks endlessly debated the role of democracy, a developed language, education and the role of practical and theoretical knowledge in the construction of what they referred to as knowledge and today we refer to as a world view. Platos philosophy elevated theoretical knowledge to the highest levels of humanity and Aristotle added the important role of practical knowledge acquired through lived experience and not just philosophical reflection. Both were concerned with knowledge and truth.

Much of modern philosophy is still influenced by these observations of the ancient Greeks.

Perhaps the most influential living philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, makes no secret of the important influence on his thinking of the ancients as well as more contemporary thinkers like Hegel and Kant. For me one of Habermas most insightful comments was that for Karl Marx human labour was a quasi transcendental ontological concept.

To interpret this lofty philosophical observation: human labour is that enigmatic mechanism whereby we appropriate through the labour of our senses and minds what we assume to be reality including constructing our own world view. Despite its contingent, historically and culturally relative nature, we defend our world view as an ontological representation of reality.

Habermas comment was made in dialogue with the most influential Marxist humanist philosopher of his time, Herbert Marcuse, who was quick to retort that under capitalism our labours construct a reality which is functional to the system itself. We are led to believe that we are unique individuals even while we behave homogeneously. One Dimensional Man is thus the title of Marcuses seminal book.

READ MORE:Guide to the classics: Platos Republic

Why are these philosophical musings important today?

Well, despite our claims to support diversity I think that in reality we are increasingly moving towards one dimensional thought. In particular towards a politically correct world view which through the media, social pressure and our educational system we are passing on to large numbers of adults and children alike.

But this is not without consequence. In modern America, the one dimensionality of politically correct thought has led to a huge backlash. It is this backlash that Donald Trump tapped into, created an alternative equally one-dimensional alternative narrative which has effectively divided America.

So arguably there are now two prominent world views, two realities in America.

One sees the world as a rules based democratically legitimated order demanding politically correct behaviours when it comes to gender, race and LGBTI differences and a Green-Left agenda on such things as climate change.

The other sees the world as a set of establishment institutions and political forces that seek to exercise power over them, deny them access to the nations wealth and force liberal/Green ideas upon them.

These two world views are convinced that their reality is the true reality. In this sense they are both one dimensional. The differing social circumstances from which they derive means that they construct divergent realities that are then capable of being used to empower political parties. The understanding of this was part of the genius of the Trump mobilisation and is the reason it will not go away quickly.

So extending Marcuses analysis, postmodern society may be moving towards the creation of not one but two diametrically opposed one dimensional personality types with little chance of meaningful dialogue between them.

This somewhat disturbing analysis of what may be happening in America led me to consider one dimensionality in Communist China.

READ MORE:Love problems? There is a pill for that, but Plato offers a wiser cure

The most powerful living Marxist Xi Jinping has stated that the Chinese Political economy can only be a Marxist political economy. In Xis schema markets have a role but adherence to Marxism/Communism is paramount. In practice China has adopted many capitalist features in running its new economy. This makes me think that Xi merely uses the Marxist political economy designation as an ideological smokescreen to maintenance of CCP power rather than any real Marxist political economy as an operating reality in China.

Despite increasing constraints on democracy in China some still argue that discussion and debate are allowed, for example in elite universities. One Chinese friend put it thus. How could we be so innovative if all thought was constrained? I would say that this is only within a framework of adherence to the Chinese communist system. But for my friend, CCP political constraints are a small price to pay to deliver prosperity, progress and education.

If two one dimensional personality types are emerging in modern Capitalist America, arguably in Communist China conformity means one-dimensionality is the norm. This of course is quite the opposite of promised Communist Utopias.

So I ask this question: Is the hegemony that facilitates a self-justifying one dimensional world view in China really any different to the two diametrically opposed self-justifying one dimensional world views produced in modern America?

Ultimately I think there are crucial differences. In China questioning the prevailing world view is allowed but not if it challenges the CCP.

In America, notwithstanding the attack on Congress, there are still democratic institutions and a relatively free media. Political correctness when taken too far can still be challenged as can baseless challenges to democratic processes and institutions from the Trump camp.

Habermas criticism of Marcuse and Marxism was that they failed to recognise an important aspect of our self-construction of reality. Its the ongoing human interaction through language that plays a crucial part in shaping it. This is also the key to our freedom.

According to Habermas our very utterances in communicating with each other have implied within them a truth claim. These truth claims in turn imply that we could defend them in open discourse, free of constraints on such discourse.

Habermas believed that it is precisely because orders of authority whether communist or capitalist cannot defend their truth claims in open discourse that they instead develop mechanisms that will distort open free communication to maintain their power. We now see this happening not only in China but in the rise of authoritarianism around the world in Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Myanmar, Thailand, and a host of African and South American countries.

But it is also occurring in the Western Democratic world with attacks on freedoms and democracy now widespread. In the Trump era the distorted communication that Habermas refers to took a dangerous path. In the US. Trump managed to transform truth itself into reimagined alternative facts. This circumvents the quest for truth with the idea that there are alternative truths based on alternative facts. This is not just an attack on ideological differences which are a legitimate part of political debate, it is an attack on democracy itself insofar as it is meant to be based on truth.

Plato foresaw this vulnerability of democracy when he warned that tyranny can naturally arise out of democracy. It does so because the very freedoms acquired within a democracy can be used by tyrants to paint a narrative and world view that facilitates their grabbing and holding onto power. It is why we must not allow the erosion of fundamental elements within our democracy such as a free press, academic freedom and democratic decision making to be eroded.

READ MORE:Ancient Philosophy in the 21st century

In Communist China we can only hope that in the vast communicative systems emerging as part of its development they begin putting to the test the truth claims and the world view of the CCP.

In America the emerging division into two one dimensional realities/personality types has allowed some self-serving politicians to hang on to power by manipulating those who feel excluded while others gain power through appeals to politically correct Green/Left world views. Ominously, electoral manipulation of voting is also becoming the norm whereby whole disadvantaged segments of society are being disenfranchised.

We must believe that the same human labour that constructs our world view that Marcuse referred to and the communicative truth power of language Habermas alerted us to, will lead us to question one dimensional thinking and the motives of authorities that seek to manipulate our reality for their own benefit.

But we must always be vigilant as Plato noted that tyranny does not replace democracy by using democracies very freedoms to undermine democracy itself.

Theo Theophanous is a Commentator and Former Victorian Government Minister.

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Democracy and Truth The ultimate challenges of our age - Neos Kosmos

DES MOINES: Three potential Republican presidential candidates collectively lambasted many Democrats views on race relations and spotlighted state-level anti-abortion successes and other bedrock GOP positions in headlining one of the states premier conservative gatherings Friday in Des Moines.

More than 1,200 people, including 200 pastors, attended the Family Leadership Summit at the Community Choice Credit Union Convention Center.

Democrats have moved so fast to move their liberal agenda, sometimes I feel the left hand doesnt know what the far-left hand is doing, former Vice President Mike Pence said.

The event overall served as a one-two punch, and something of a conservative strategy preview of the next two elections cycles: hit Democrats on national issues, notably critical race theory on which speaker after speaker made rhetorical hay, while hailing the actions of conservative governors like Iowas Kim Reynolds and South Dakotas Kristi Noem, who favored more openness during the COVID-19 pandemic than other governors and aggressively pushed their anti-abortion agendas in statehouses.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds was one of the first speakers of the day at the Family Leadership Summit.

She gave the church the keys to the state. Holy cow! Greg Baker, vice president for church engagement with The Family Leader, said of Reynolds, who is expected to seek re-election in 2022.

Several conservative leaders, including Chuck Hurley, vice president of the Family Leader and one of its long-time lobbyists, say they view last session of the Iowa Legislature as best in history for their agenda.

There hasnt been a more exciting time to fight in decades, Reynolds said of her anti-abortion position.

We still have the winning agenda, Pence said.

For his part, Pence elicited some of the most sustained applause during the day-long summit with a rebuke of critical race theory an approach to teaching and culture many see as balanced for pointing out historical and systemic racism, but others view as political correctness, a revisionist overreach aimed at making white students feel guilty.

Under the Biden administration, patriotic education has been replaced by political indoctrination, Pence said.

He said patriotic education is essential to the survival of the nation.

Instead of teaching all our children to be proud of their country, critical race theory teaches children as young as kindergarten to be ashamed of their skin color, Pence said. Critical race theory is state-sanctioned racism, pure and simple, and it should be opposed by every American everyday.

Noem said South Dakota did one week of advertising in the wake of civil unrest in 2020 in Minneapolis to make the case South Dakota was a more hospitable place for police officers to serve. As a result, the state had inquiries from 900 police officers interested in moving there from 41 states, she said.

Gov. of South Dakota Kristi Noem attended the Family Leadership Summit and championed the states' economic bounce-back from the pandemic.

I dont recognize the country I had the opportunity to grow up in. I just dont, Noem said. When I grew up, people were proud to have a job. They werent confused on the difference between boys and girls. We prayed in schools.

Noem said the United States does not suffer from systemic racism.

We do not have hatred and racism in our DNA, she said.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Family Leader is wise to stress family and church solutions over government involvement in Americans lives.

As we stare at the problem sets that we all are aware of today, we see in our homes, on television, that the breakdown of the American family is at the core of most it, Pompeo said. Its why the left attacks it. Its why the left wants to undermine the family unit upon which this nation was built.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during the Family Leadership Summit that he opposes the teaching of Critical Race Theory, referring to it as "garbage."

Pompeo, a Republican who served in the Trump administration, urged conservatives to remember the former presidents anti-abortion advocacy in policy and court appointments.

We were in fact the most pro-life administration in the history of the United States of America, Pompeo said.

Tim Ried of Newell attended the summit to further his inspiration to stand up for biblical principles.

I dont think there is any hope for our country if we dont, Ried said. We are done.

Of the speakers from the event, Ried said Pompeo is the figure he would like to see run for president in 2024.

The Family Leader has it right; they have their priorities right, and its principle over politics, Ried said. My hope is not in politics. No matter what happens in this nation, my hope is in eternal things. It is not in this country.

Hannah Shady, 37, is the executive director at a pregnancy medical clinic in Preston, Iowa, and has attended the summit for multiple years now after speaking with legislators and members of Family Leader in Des Moines. She has also attended the Family Leader pro-life collation meetings.

For potential runs in 2024, Shady said Pence is a very godly man and she had never heard Pompeo prior and was impressed but doesnt have her heart set on anyone yet.

I really dont know what this country needs other than a leader who will follow the word of God and who will be unashamed and bold to share the gospel and to stand for what they believe in, Shady said. I think thats really hard for candidates to do, especially in the public eye, but I pray for all those in authority, because I just worry about what is in their hearts and the state of their health, being under such pressure all of the time.

Jeff and Sandy Rekers, 63 and 67 respectively, from Winthrop, said this was the fifth summit they have been to for Family Leaders. Jeff said he would love to see Pence, Pompeo and former President Donald Trump run for president in 2024.

A lot of people are saying Kristi Noem and that, but she is doing such a good job in South Dakota you hate to have to lose her, the same thing with Ron DeSantis (the Republican governor of Florida), Jeff said.

Both Sandy and Jeff Rekers agreed that whoever the candidate is, they have to be opposed to abortion.

We are totally against anything that has to do with critical race theory or any of that, Sandy said. What they teach in the school should be what parents want, not what the government wants.

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Pence: Republicans 'still have the winning agenda' | News | carrollspaper.com - Carroll Daily Times Herald

Brush up on your history, and youll find that weve been stuck on repeat for some time now.

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead

History has a funny way of circling back on itself.

The facts, figures, faces and technology may change from era to era, but the dangers remain the same.

This year is no different, whatever the politicians and talking heads may say to the contrary.

Sure, theres a new guy in charge, but for the most part, were still recycling the same news stories that have kept us with one eye warily glued to the news for the past 100-odd years: War. Corruption. Brutality. Economic instability. Partisan politics. Militarism. Disease. Hunger. Greed. Violence. Poverty. Ignorance. Hatred.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Brush up on your history, and youll find that weve been stuck on repeat for some time now.

Take the United States of America in the year 2021, which is not so far different from the United States of America during theCivil Rights era, or theCold War era, or eventhe Depression era.

Go far enough afield, and youll find aspects of our troubled history mirrored in the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany, in the fascism of Mussolinis Italy, and further back in themilitarism of the Roman Empire.

Were like TV weatherman Phil Connors in Harold Ramis classic 1993 comedyGroundhog Day, forced to live the same day over and over again.

Here in the American police state, however, we continue to wake up, hoping each new day, new president and new year will somehow be different from what has come before.

Unfortunately, no matter how we change the narrative, change the characters, change the plot lines, we seem to keep ending up in the same place that we started: enslaved, divided and repeating the mistakes of the past.

You want to know about the true State of our Nation? Listen up.

The State of the Union:The state of our nation is politically polarized, controlled by forces beyond the purview of the average American, and rapidly moving the nation away from its freedom foundation. Over the past year, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have found themselves repeatedly subjected to egregious civil liberties violations, invasive surveillance, martial law, lockdowns, political correctness, erosions of free speech, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, etc.

The predators of the police state have wreaked havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives. The government does not listen to the citizenry, refuses to abide by the Constitution, and treats taxpayers as a source of funding and little else. Police officers shoot unarmed citizens and their household pets. Government agentsincluding local policeremain armed to the teeth and act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies continue to fleece taxpayers. Government technicians spy on our emails and phone calls. And government contractors make a killing by waging endless wars abroad.

Consequently, the state of our nation remains bureaucratic, debt-ridden, violent, militarized, fascist, lawless, invasive, corrupt, untrustworthy, mired in war, and unresponsive to the wishes and needs of the electorate.

Thepolicies of the American police state continueunabated.

The Executive Branch:All of theimperial powers amassed by Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bushto kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountabilitywere inherited by Joe Biden.

Biden has these powers because every successive occupant of the Oval Office has been allowed toexpand the reach and power of the presidencythrough the use ofexecutive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statementsthat can be activated by any sitting president. Those of us who saw this eventuality coming have beenwarning for yearsabout the growing danger of the Executive Branch with its presidential toolbox of terror that could be usedand abusedby future presidents. The groundwork, wewarned, was being laid for a new kind of government where it wont matter if youre innocent or guilty, whether youre a threat to the nation or even if youre a citizen. What will matter is what the presidentor whoever happens to be occupying the Oval Office at the timethinks. And if he or she thinks youre a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then youll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides. In effect, you will disappear.

Our warnings continue to go unheeded.

The Legislative Branch:Congress may well be the mostself-serving, semi-corrupt institutionin America. Abuses of office runs the gamut from elected representatives neglecting their constituencies to engaging in self-serving practices, including the misuse of eminent domain, earmarking hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracting in return for personal gain and campaign contributions, having inappropriate ties to lobbyist groups and incorrectly or incompletely disclosing financial information. Pork barrel spending, hastily passed legislation, partisan bickering, a skewed work ethic, graft and moral turpitude have all contributed to the publics increasing dissatisfaction with congressional leadership. No wonder only31 percent of Americans approveof the job Congress is doing.

The Judicial Branch:The Supreme Court was intended to be an institution established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the justices of the United States Supreme Court have become theguardians of the American police statein which we now live. As a result, sound judgment and justice have largely taken a back seat to legalism, statism and elitism, while preserving the rights of the people has been deprioritized and made to play second fiddle to both governmental and corporate interests. The courts have empowered the government to wreak havoc on our liberties. Protections for private property continue to be undermined. And Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice.

Shadow Government: Joe Biden inherited more than a bitterly divided nation teetering on the brink of financial catastrophe when he assumed office. He also inherited ashadow government, one that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officialswho are, in essence, running the country. Referred to as the Deep State, thisshadow government is comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes right now.

Law Enforcement:By and large the term law enforcement encompasses all agents within a militarized police state, including the military, local police, and the various agencies such as the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, Americas law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace but now extensions of the military, are part of an elite ruling class dependent on keeping the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens. As a result, police are becoming even more militarized and weaponized, and police shootings of unarmed individuals continue to increase.

A Suspect Surveillance Society:Every dystopian sci-fi film weve ever seen is suddenly converging into this present moment in a dangerous trifecta between science, technology and a government that wants to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful. By tapping into your phone lines and cell phone communications, thegovernment knows what you say. By uploading all of your emails, opening your mail, and reading your Facebook posts andtext messages, thegovernment knows what you write. By monitoring your movements with the use of license plate readers, surveillance cameras and other tracking devices, thegovernment knows where you go. By churning through all of the detritus of your lifewhat you read, where you go, what you saythegovernment can predict what you will do. By mapping the synapses in your brain, scientistsand in turn, the governmentwill soon know what you remember. And by accessing your DNA, thegovernment will soon know everything else about you that they dont already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc. Consequently, in the face ofDNA evidence that places us at the scene of a crime,behavior sensing technologythat interprets our body temperature and facial tics as suspicious, and government surveillance devices that cross-check ourbiometrics,license platesand DNA against a growing database of unsolved crimes and potential criminals, we are no longer innocent until proven guilty.

Military Empire:Americas endless global wars and burgeoning military empirefunded by taxpayer dollarshave depleted our resources, over-extended our military and increased our similarities to the Roman Empire and its eventual demise. Black budget spending has completely undermined any hope of fiscal transparency, with government contractors padding their pockets at the expense of taxpayers and the nations infrastructurerailroads, water pipelines, ports, dams, bridges, airports and roadstaking the hit. The U.S.now operates approximately 800 military bases in foreign countriesaround the globe at an annual cost of at least $156 billion. The consequences of financing a global military presence are dire. In fact, David Walker, former comptroller general of the U.S., believes there arestriking similarities between Americas current situation and the factors that contributed to the fall of Rome, including declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.

I havent even touched on the corporate state, the military industrial complex, SWAT team raids, invasive surveillance technology, zero tolerance policies in the schools, overcriminalization, or privatized prisons, to name just a few. However, what I have touched on should be enough to show that the landscape of our freedoms has already changed dramatically from what it once was and will no doubt continue to deteriorate unless Americans can find a way to wrest back control of their government and reclaim their freedoms.

So how do we go about reclaiming our freedoms and reining in our runaway government?

Essentially, there are four camps of thought among the citizenry when it comes to holding the government accountable. Which camp you fall into says a lot about your view of governmentor, at least, your view of whichever administration happens to be in power at the time.

In thefirst campare those who trust the government to do the right thing, despite the governments repeated failures in this department.

In thesecond campare those who not only dont trust the government but think the government is out to get them.

In thethird campare those who see government neither as an angel nor a devil, but merely as an entity that needs to be controlled, or as Thomas Jefferson phrased it, bound down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution.

Then theres thefourth camp, comprised of individuals who pay little to no attention to the workings of government. Easily entertained, easily distracted, easily led, these are the ones who make the governments job far easier than it should be.

It is easy to be diverted, distracted and amused by the antics of politicians, the pomp and circumstance of awards shows, athletic events, and entertainment news, and the feel-good evangelism that passes for religion today.

What is far more difficult to face up to is the reality of life in America, where unemployment, poverty, inequality, injustice and violence by government agents are increasingly norms.

The powers-that-be want us to remain divided, alienated from each other based on our politics, our bank accounts, our religion, our race and our value systems. Yet as George Orwell observed, The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.

The only distinction that matters anymore is where you stand in the American police state.

In other words, youre either part of the problem or part of the solution.

America is at a crossroads.

History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a militaristic state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom.

Certainly, we have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age: the age of authoritarianism. Even with its constantly shifting terrain, this topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has become Americas new normal.

As long as we continue to put our politics ahead of our principlesmoral, legal and constitutionalwe the people will lose.

And you know who will keep winning by playing on our prejudices, capitalizing on our fears, deepening our distrust of our fellow citizens, and dividing us into polarized, warring camps incapable of finding consensus on the one true menace that is an immediate threat to all of our freedoms? The government.

As I make clear in my bookBattlefield America: The War on the American Peopleand its fictional counterpartThe Erik Blair Diaries, when we lose sight of the true purpose of governmentto protect our rightsand fail to keep the government in its place as our servant, we allow the government to overstep its bounds and become a tyrant that rules by brute force.

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The State of Our Nation: Still Divided, Enslaved And Locked Down OpEd - Eurasia Review