HOOK, LINE AND SINKER

 "American fascists claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.  They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest.  Their final objective is to capture political power so that using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."

                                                                      Henry Wallace, U.S. Vice President (1941-1945)

     Democratic republics are hard institutions to maintain, given nature's variables and human nature. The price requires persistence, patience, and boring compromises, even for people who "know" they are absolutely right.  Stressful times can be aggravated by a constant barrage of information from electronic media.  Sometimes the stress seems overwhelming, and people can be tempted to let strongmen who make a good pitch take over, even in America.  The survival of the United States as a functioning democratic republic for over two centuries attests to the solidity of our country's foundation, and to the willingness of we the people to do the hard, dull work of maintaining it, trying to rectify mistakes, trying to make society more inclusive.

     Each threat to government of, by, and for the people could have ended the experiment, but in every case people did what was needed to keep, even expand, our freedom.  We are in the midst of another such challenge, with our free society on the line.  Corporate and government power are merging.  The conflict now is between various personalities involved in the ongoing coup.  They will fight each other to the bitter end, because first prize is absolute power, and there are no booby prizes.  No matter who wins, following the "odd man out" rule, common people are among the odd.  So far we have always made it through, which is encouraging.  Still, the current threat is genuine.

     The authoritarian playbook never changes.  Keep people confused and fearful, willing to trust a ruling clique to get them through the crisis of the day.  Keep them unaware, because "ignorance is strength."  Convince them that resistance is hopeless, that the top-down order is "the way it is."  No matter who wins the power struggle at the top, the plebes stay outside.  We will be allowed to watch some of the more entertaining episodes in the struggle--the drama is a distraction.  Decisions important to us will be made by whomever wins the insiders' struggle.  We will be allowed to validate the results in the voting booth, because after all, we live in a "democracy."

     Unification of government with big business is Mussolini's definition of fascism.  Some fascistic rulers allow more dissenters to run free (for a time) than others.  It depends on whether the corporate state can maintain its power with overwhelming domination of communication and entertainment.  If the rubes stay quiet, there is no need for expensive political prisons.  On the other hand, there would be little to inhibit an American Gulag--it would make the rulers seem more powerful, and "God is power."  We already have a huge prison system.  The odd arrest in the middle of the night has shown to be effective at keeping the neighbors quiet...reducing thoughtcrime.

     Before Americans accept our own Gulag, ongoing occurrences of thoughtcrime must be cut down substantially.  Otherwise vaporizations and disappearances only prod people into asking difficult questions.  Abject poverty being effective at stifling dissent, current efforts to eliminate healthcare and social security, at the same time reducing taxes for the rich, are right on schedule.  The desperately poor are unable to organize rebellion or protest, or even to think clearly at all.  Cuts in public education are another manifestation of an ongoing effort to eliminate critical thinking in the society, ignorance among the plebeians being the source of the patricians' strength.  The combination of economic inequality and mass propaganda can effectively eliminate social thought among the masses.  Since people who believe they are free are more easily enslaved, "freedom is slavery." Many commoners have been convinced that all these assaults on the social safety net are actually in their best interests, and having taken the bait, they are being reeled in.  They are not bothered with having to think.   But they are also fish on the land.

     We who continue committing thoughtcrime live in times that are beyond exciting, they are downright scary.  There is a strong temptation to give up, to simply withdraw.  Some of us no doubt already have.  Those of us who have not probably cannot (short of a stay in Room 101).  It is tempting to believe the situation may not be all that bad.  But the evidence is obvious, when we are not distracted by the sideshow that is the struggle for supremacy among the elites.  When the drama is played out we will know, in no uncertain terms, who is in charge.  For those of us who have dared to commit thoughtcrime, the scene could turn ugly.  We might not need to undergo torture in the Ministry of Love, but we will be buried in an avalanche of alternative facts to the point where we lose our bearings.  With everybody around us seeming to believe the corporate doublethink, we could seriously doubt our perceptions of reality, at which time the rulers own us and we might as well learn to love Big Brother.

  

HARD TIMES AHEAD

"When this circuit learns your job, what are you going to do?"
                                                                Marshall McLuhan
                                                                THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE

"From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared."
                                                                George Orwell
                                                                1984


   We know the jobs are not coming back.

   First they went to Third World sweatshops, now they are being done by robots, which never complain, which are not paid--slaves requiring neither food nor whipping.  Assembly lines, road crews, even food service and farms--are now highly automated, with no end in sight.  Already more humans need work than are needed to do work, producing what we can buy.  Ongoing debates are held about competition for jobs--between countries, between states, between cities.  This competition means that no matter what strategies are used, somebody winds up unemployed--no matter how low the rich peoples' taxes are, no matter how many regulations are ended, no matter how long and hard the workday.  As this trend proceeds, humanity has arrived at a crossroads.  We could enter a future in which we are freed from grueling labour, freed to create, to express ourselves, to interact and build a world of peace and comfort--to play, and benefit from the inspiration that play provides.  Or we could live in a science fiction dystopia:  a tiny few owning everything, trying to keep a slightly larger support group from getting it, while the overwhelming majority of mankind has nothing to do and is dependent for subsistence on whatever the owners feel inclined to spare.

   Missing from the future is anything like the social framework we have gotten used to:  a society in which goods and services are bought by people who work to produce them, who buy them with money they earn from working.  We are nearing the logical conclusion of five centuries of mechanization, a time when everything people need will be mechanically produced.  People will not be needed to work for a living.  They will still need a living.  Who gets what they need will depend on who is in charge.

   We now live in a global village, as Marshall McLuhan observed half a century ago.  We are all dependent on each other--a discommoding concept to many of us who were born and raised in cultural adulation of the "rugged individualist"--steeped in the notion that humanity progresses to the extent that individuals are left alone by society and its "hideous offshoot," government.  While individualism is desirable in many ways, while few of us would do without it, individualism, like any other human trait, can have harmful results when left unchecked.  As the Industrial Revolution progressed, creative, inventive, persevering individuals gave way to shrewd, greedy, relentless ones, whose greed came to dominate the world.  "Individuals" (the single humans who can not be divided into smaller groups) gave way to "capital"--individuals who made their way to the "head" of organizations--invariably by ruthless means.  Capitalists use their resources to satisfy their greed, which like any addiction, can never be satisfied.  Since capitalists' profits prevent paying workers enough to buy back all they can produce, surpluses build up, workers are no longer needed, and unemployment rises.  The capitalists solve this problem with war, whereby surplus production is blown up, along with unneeded workers.

   Socialism arose in reaction to individualism's perversion into capitalism.  If rugged individualism leads to such misery, then society must retake control.  This solution then proceeded to recreate the problem, as the heads of the "socialist" states quickly became crueler and more power-mad than the capitalists had considered, up till then.  If we have learned anything of value in the century of chaos involving those actions and reactions, it is that individuals and societies are quite interdependent, each becoming oppressive and destructive when "thinking people" are left out of the plans.  The elusive yet desirable goal is to balance the needs of society with the aspirations of individuals.  While we all have differing opinions regarding where the balance is, and these opinions will change depending on circumstances, a healthy respect for both individuals and society as a whole is apparently necessary for general human satisfaction.  People instinctively think, and humanity is better off when more people do think, and trade their thoughts.  Our civilization is not founded on the limited thinking that improves the processes of making and distributing goods and services.  Rather, productivity is a result of unlimited and unimpeded human thought.  But within the strict zone of production for compensation, thinking people get in the way.  In the end, thought becomes a criminal act.  To both capitalist and socialist ruling elites, working people are problems to be solved, and workers who think make the problems worse.  Both types of rulers are firm believers that "Ignorance is Strength."

   Whenever society comes under the control of a small clique, individuals no longer matter...in fact, they turn troublesome.  God becomes power, war consumes surplus production, and humanity ceases to progress.  But production and distribution nonetheless become more efficient, increasing the obscene wealth of a few.  Or we could use the immense productive capacity of automation to reap a world of plenty for all.  We may still have a choice, but it appears we will not have it for long.  The jobs are not coming back.  Time to commit thoughtcrime?

RADICAL REVIVAL

"I would bet that fewer Americans have read WALDEN than have heard that Thoreau's mother did his laundry."
                                                                                          Jedediah Purdy
                                                                                          THE NATION, June 19/26, 2017

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

                                                                                          Henry David Thoreau
                                                                                          WALDEN


   Thoreau, hugely influential in those times known as "the sixties", is somewhat a dud nowadays...not enough of a corporate man.  Peaceful resistance?  Dropping out?  Hippie stuff.  Practical modern folks know there is but one game in town, and it is corporate.  Anybody who knows which side of the bread has the butter needs to know the company line, and that line could change tomorrow, so better pay attention.  No need for radical ideas like living simply, or going to jail in a righteous cause.  If you want to be a player, you've got to play the game.  Shame on Thoreau, for proposing a different way of living, and more shame for showing it could be done.  Well, his mommy washed his clothes, so back to the corporate ladder.

   Thoreau inspired Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. to wage their peaceful (and successful) revolutions.  But history shows those two were human, no better than you or me.  And are we going to change the world?  Of course not.  Why should Gandhi or Dr. King try?  The people in charge can be generous when they want to be, to those they believe can help and serve them.  Serve them well, and hope for the best.  Those who dissent, who drag their feet, are holding up progress, and need to abandon all hope.  The defiant are insane, and we dare not forget the fates of Gandhi and King:  both shot.  They learned their lessons.  They should have packed heat.

   Research holds that Dr. King, late in his life, began to entertain the prospect of violence as a possible solution to racial inequality.  We all entertain many differing thoughts throughout our lives.  But the fate of black militants ought to answer that question.  Early in this new millennium, the armed potential revolutionaries tend to be white and radically conservative in their outlook, in reality supporting and strengthening the corporate state.  Should they decide to oppose, they play into the rulers' hands.  The power structure is well-equipped to deal with violent revolt.  And historically, even where violent revolutionaries have come to power, the military organization and cruelty of war replace old dictatorships with new ones.  But the "here's to the new boss, same as the old boss," adage applies to peaceful revolts as well.  It is human nature for those who take power to want to keep it, to increase it, by any means necessary--unless the people continuously resist.

   In the corporate world (bedrock of modern society) thought comes from the top down, and every other thought, from whatever source, no matter how much sense it makes, is considered resistance, therefore not tolerated.  Thinkers do not earn themselves a stay in Orwell's Room 101, but while some corporate leaders may pretend to forgive, they never forget.  There are consequences.  Mankind,  creator of the corporation, derives benefits from this useful tool.  Its organized structure makes it capable of producing and distributing abundant goods and services, as long as it works for the people who allow it to exist.  For people to remain in charge of their world they must think freely and openly, which the established top down structure cannot tolerate.  While it is true that in a strictly legal sense thought is not crime, it is a discouraged activity.

   So powerful is the corporate state in 2017 that it can simply ignore and sweep aside "radical" thinking.  Corporate leaders did pay lip service after the upheaval of the sixties (when radical ideas and observations of Thoreau and others were openly explored by leaders within the establishment) to alternative ideas:  tolerance and open-mindedness; importance of individuals; community interdependence.  There is none of that today.  In pursuit of profit and power, the rulers now destroy the environment, bankrupt millions of people, wage endless war, and reap profits of ugly proportions (enough to buy governments wholesale) so that they are allowed to keep doing the same destructive things.  Everyone knows this is happening, yet seven billions are powerless to stop or even slow down the juggernaut.  In this way, corporations have actually become people:  super people who never die, who are impervious to bad weather, who need not eat or drink or breathe.  Yet, they can give large sums of money to individuals seeking elective office, individuals who, if elected, then owe favors to the people/corporation.  Corporations wind up controlling governments--which is the definition of fascism, at least according to Mussolini, who ought to know.  

   The doublethink required to elevate corporations to personhood is astounding.  Those who accomplish this trick need lifetimes steeped in corporate thought, which is riddled with doublethink, also defined by Orwell as "reality control."  Those who can do this trick well can reach the summits of wealth, influence, and power.  No wonder so many people strive to prove and improve their skills.  No wonder they revive someone like Thoreau, for no other reason than to bury him again.  The people in control like that...it leaves no room for dissent.  The possibility that people could consciously simplify their lives gets no credence in the corporate world.  People might just try it.

ARE "CONSERVATIVES" CONSERVATIVE?

"Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order."
                                                                    Barry Goldwater


   Liberals have no trouble agreeing with Goldwater, whose statement expresses goals shared by anyone desiring to live in a successful society.  Within this setting is room for debate and trial-and-error, room for change depending on changing circumstances, room for honest, reasonable give-and-take.  Still, politics being practiced by human beings, opportunists on all sides will push beyond these widely tolerant bounds, and there is ample evidence that Goldwater's party has been led astray from his ideal by opportunists within its ranks.  Functioning societies require people from all sides to respect the needs and opinions of all individuals, and the success of individuals depends on a functioning social order.  The party now in control of government at the national level and in most states is determined to dismantle the social order, at the same time allowing individuals who own most of the country to acquire the rest of it.  Everyone else will depend on the corporate state for whatever the state allows, under the state's supervision.  Economic and social democracy will disappear, rendering political democracy a useless sideshow.  In a society dominated by a corporate social order, the individual has no import whatever.

   Theoretically, we will be freed to achieve our maximum potential with no restraints, but in reality we must compete in a thoroughly rigged game.  Few conservatives are willing to look at how badly disfigured the modern political scene has become, and for good reason:  American politics over the last half century has held that winning is the only worthwhile goal.  Those who argue for honest political dialogue are scoffed at as being hopelessly naive.  Politicians who want to eliminate the admittedly flawed yet popular healthcare plan we now have no longer even meet their voters to discuss the issue.  They are going to do this, end of debate.  Beyond that a few conservative writers have spoken out against the words and deeds of Donald Trump.  A few Republican politicians have floated occasional arguments against certain policies.  But overall the "conservatives" are now firmly committed to a corporate social order that seeks maximum freedom for those individuals who control the corporations, leaving the rest of us with whatever crumbs the corporate rulers choose to drop.  Nothing will remain of the social order except police and military--existing only to serve those who run the corporate state.  Never mind the high talk about rugged individualism and concern for the working man.  The reality has become the corporate state, and the party of Goldwater means to keep it that way.  Oh, well, at least they are anti-communist, and they will let everyone--even psychopaths--acquire more guns.

   A large body of work (including my own) exists which tries to explain how our country arrived at this frightening place in history.  A flood of information and entertainment, along with individual isolation, perceived hidden enemies, and personal helplessness--contribute to what we have today:  a corporate state that is seizing total control...by Mussolini's terms, fascism.  The modern Republican party has gradually surrendered the simple goal expressed by Goldwater, and taken power for the wealthy elite.  Conservative principles have been abandoned.

   On the liberal side, the renewed protest movement has inspired renewal of hope and energy out of defeat.  If it can be sustained, the resistance could bring about positive changes, restoring a balance of individual freedom and social order.  The changes will take time; the entrenched corporate state will use its vast resources to retain power (regardless of who is nominally in charge) and the supporters of the corporate state are not likely to be converted.  We will be better served by efforts to keep the resistance alive, perhaps to convince non-participants that they can make a difference.  In addition to fighting in court the efforts of some state government to gerrymander and to restrict voters, progressives could help themselves by getting people registered and to the polls, despite efforts by corporate politicians to rig elections.  It would help too if liberals enthusiastically push initiatives like single-payer healthcare, maternity leave, job programs to rebuild infrastructure, minimum wage increase, and progressive taxation, among others--programs that not only will enhance life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,  but which are popular with most Americans.

   It is up to liberals, who apparently are the only "conservatives" left, to restore a culture that practices Goldwater's ideals.  It is no longer effective to hold the lines against further elimination of the welfare state, against strengthening the corporate state.  Neither will we find any lasting success by pointing out the hazards and flaws of the cult of the personality.  A well-maintained social order that protects individual freedom has virtually ceased to exist in the United States of America.  If we would restore it, we must be ready to peacefully fight a long battle, with stakes as high as they are in any war.

GO FOR BROKE

"There are other safer substitutes for a mass movement.  In general, any arrangement which either discourages atomistic individuality or offers chances for action and new beginnings tends to counteract the rise and spread of mass movements."
                                                                                   Eric Hoffer
                                                                                   THE TRUE BELIEVER


   Franklin Roosevelt had the foresight to involve Americans in their own recovery project.  The New Deal repaired the disaster caused by unchained free-enterprise without having to resort to the authoritarian collectivism endured by Russians, Italians, and Germans.  Americans overcame hard times with our democratic institutions intact because Roosevelt utilized the human desire to belong to a society greater than one.  The wealthy disagreed, a right they still have (unlike Russia under the Leninists), claiming no difference between higher taxes and Gulags.  Roosevelt overcame that resistance by getting people involved.  The elites and their advocates learned their lesson:  rugged individualism is best packaged and sold in a collective wrapper.  The conservative "movement" emerged.  Since the Depression it has patiently acquired power.

   To the astonishment of liberals and conservatives alike, the rightwing now controls the national government and most states.  Its supporters, mostly from the working class, cheerfully approve their government's effort to disband itself--at least until they are personally harmed.  America is in the process of dismantling not only Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, but Theodore Roosevelt's Square Deal.  Millions of Americans face poverty, but at least they feel united in the process.  Liberals are stuck defending a century's social progress by appealing to reason and self-interest--obviously ineffective strategies against the rightwing's libertarian togetherness.  To regain the initiative, the left needs to regain its togetherness, which could be done by enthusiastically advocating bold yet popular proposals, starting with universal healthcare, to counter the Republicans' push to eliminate Obamacare.

   Those who truly believe America was at its best when robber barons ruled supreme and the masses were left scrounging whatever crumbs the plutocrats had not yet grabbed, rule once more.  They could never have acquired this supremacy with only their numbers.  They need, and have, fervent support from millions of commoners.  Understanding why average working stiffs willingly vote against their economic and social self-interests is the key for those of us who, being in the same class, want to protect those interests.  The "logical" argument for dismantling government social programs is that people are freed to do great things, which will bring peace and prosperity on an undreamt scale.  It sounds good, but history shows that unfettered individualism leads to primacy of the most ruthlessly avaricious, to the misery of everyone else...over and again.  Movement conservatism exploits the human need to belong, even though its guiding principle is every man for himself.

   Once physical survival is achieved, other human needs make themselves known, and a primary need is to belong to something greater than one.  The shock of the Great Depression aroused everybody's consciousness, and the practical solutions of the New Deal brought people into a sense of shared accomplishment--followed by WWII, which united Americans solidly in common, altruistic goals.  Despite the misery surrounding these events, Americans were satisfied with who they were, what they were doing, and their cooperative efforts toward the greater good.

   The fifties opened the way to widespread dissatisfaction.  We had our needs met, and many of our wants, but the sense of shared purpose was gone.  We had the Cold War, but that was a long siege, with no resolution other than mankind's obliteration.  A population of well-off, atomized rugged individualists was ripe for the appeal of mass movements.  Humanity's pre-historyis a long tale of clannish pot-lucks.  Individualism is fairly new.  These two sides of human nature often conflict.  John Kennedy tried to restore the balance by adding the New Frontier to the New Deal, but he got shot.  Then events moved quickly.

   The hippies brought to the culture a sense of togetherness along with the individualism of "doing your own thing."  But their concepts were non-traditional, and cooperative endeavors need the vision of a future anchored in the past.  The hippies having no past, they never caught on in general society.  Uncomfortable times were made more so by widespread civil unrest and an unending war.  George Wallace was an adroit manipulator of that subconscious desire to strive together for a future like the good old days.  Then he got shot.  Richard Nixon gathered Wallace's supporters,  bringing together workers and plutocrats, into America's current political reality.

   The Democrats were left rationally defending workable, popular government programs.  Rationality is fine as far as it goes, but the Republicans kept exhorting people to recover a vague, glorious past, as a sure way to bring everyone into a healthy, wealthy future.  With the occasional splendid little war to keep Americans lined up behind noble causes, the rich kept getting richer.  Money buys power, and now the plutocrats control just about everything.  Democrats, left in the enviable position of having nothing left to lose, might as well go for broke.  Now is a glowing opportunity to push single-payer healthcare, followed by other progressive plans.  If Democrats cling to corporate donors, hoping for compromise to protect a cadaverous status quo, they remain irrelevant.  People will move collectively to bring about progressive change without them.  We already are.

 

KEEP HIDING THE PEA

"With socialism still closely associated with the decades of brutality carried out in its name, public anger has few outlets for expression except nationalism and protofascism."
                                                                                                 Naomi Klein
                                                                                                 THE SHOCK DOCTRINE

   When the movement to repeal "Obamacare" ended in a self-induced train wreck, the one-party state representing the one percent found itself in temporary limbo.  In the confusion, we the people have an opportunity to get accurate damage reports.  What stands out is that the goal of the one percent is to impoverish the rest of us, because people who are barely scraping by lack time and energy to think for themselves.  Strictly business:  there is money in Obamacare, in Medicare and Social Security accounts, in National Parks and infrastructure maintenance, among other sources.  The elites do not have it and since greed, like all addictions, has no end, they want it.  They have a government in place determined to get it for them, an elected government which functions on the premise that unmitigated greed is the source of all human progress.  We'll see.

   While the pitch directed to the Tea Partiers is freedom from the intrusive government interference of Obamacare, the core of the repeal is a massive tax cut for the rich.  Since governments function only because people pay taxes, the U.S. government will be obligated to cut spending on programs that help the common people--disguised as freedom.  The wealthy sincerely believe they deserve to possess everything.  People are momentarily aware of the hardships this transfer will cause, and the left could take advantage of this awareness, and make an honest, enthusiastic push for nationwide single-payer healthcare.  Most Americans, secretly or openly, admire and envy the Canadians.  Why not flatter them sincerely with imitation?  Of course, Democrats have not forgotten how Bill Clinton's healthcare proposal was cruelly battered by the right, nor have they forgotten that not a single Republican voted for Obama's plan, though it was originally a Republican program.  And they cannot forget that the right is in control of the entire national government.  There is no way single-payer healthcare would be adopted in the United States in 2017, which is the point:  the Democrats have been backed into a corner, and have nothing to lose...nothing.  Most Americans want healthcare available for all, and Democrats, presented with an opportunity to show they truly represent the ninety-nine percent, can change the country's perceptions.

   The Republicans' pitch to "repeal and replace" Obamacare shows they know how popular universal healthcare is.  What the owners and leaders of the Republican Party want is repeal:  end government participation in healthcare and return to the "good old days" before a "Kenyan" tried ordering Americans about.  The hallmark of those halcyon times (for them) was unfettered free enterprise--every man for himself.  While rugged individualism sounds good in theory, it is small comfort to someone who is bankrupted by health problems over which he has little if any control.  But outright repeal could have adverse effects at the polls, so the politicians for the one percent tried to hide the pea again with vague attempts to "replace."  But now the nutshell has turned over, the pea is exposed, and people see the con job.  Liberals have a rare opportunity to change the game.

   Of course the rightwing Ministry of Truth (Madison Avenue, talk radio, cable TV news) will howl, as it does whenever people get together to promote the general welfare.  Frightening cries of socialism, communism and loss of freedom are heard constantly.  And there is always war.  Donald Trump, suddenly "shocked" at the ongoing Syrian mayhem, responds with missiles, knowing that explosions are effective pea hiders.  Next he drops the biggest non-atomic bomb ever on Afghanistan.  Then he goes and trades schoolyard taunts with North Korea.  Scare enough people with fear of imminent war, and those in power can do anything.  The big perception problem for right wingers now is that they have complete control, and their trickle-down policies are obviously not working.  Blaming the "Kenyan" is starting to wear thin.  In the chaos of utter defeat, liberals momentarily have the rare upper hand, which they would be wise to play.  Americans are paying close attention to actual events in greater numbers than they have in many years.  They are ready for the truth.

   An enthusiastic effort to bring single-payer healthcare to America will be noticed and welcomed.  Why not throw in a constitutional amendment declaring corporations are not human?  To do these things with the help of the Democratic Party would be helpful, but with or without the Democrats, it is time for left wingers to take the initiative.  The opportunity will not last long.  Trump is determined to get us into another war, and when we go to war, dissent gets suppressed.  And wars last a long, long time.

EVIL FOR A GOOD CAUSE

"Despite my sharp disagreement with the authoritarian political system of Chile, I do not regard it as evil for an economist to render technical economic advice to the Chilean government."
                                                                                                       Milton Friedman, 1982


   Hoping to implement his ideals of economic purity, Friedman washed his hands of the fact that Chile had gone, through brute force, from a democracy to an American-sponsored police state.  He believed his goal of an economy free of all government control (mere theory until he had a chance to test it with the Chilean military coup) was within reach.  Therefore any and all assaults on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were acceptable (albeit sharply disagreeable) since upon full achievement of economic liberty, the other liberties would naturally be restored.  Friedman, one of the holy trinity (along with Ayn Rand and Ronald Reagan) of the free enterprise religion, was not about to let his opportunity go to waste.  That the Chilean experiment failed miserably is forgotten.  Disciples of the capitalist religion are now in control of the United States government.  Some of us feel a healthy fear of the future.

   Lenin's smug allusion to breaking eggs in order to make an omelet, as if people were something to eat, is similar to Friedman's stand on helping rightwing authoritarians.  To Leninism's true believers, as it is with adherents to the free enterprise faith, purgatory is a necessary stop on the road to nirvana. In our circular universe the two mortal enemies among economic theories have grown so far apart they have come back around and tied themselves together in their belief that the end justifies the means.  Donald Trump's newly vaporized chief advisor, Steve Bannon, calls himself a "Leninist."
(As an aside:  does it seems Trump uses people the way most of us use napkins or other paper goods?)  America has arrived at a historical moment similar to Russia in 1917 and Chile in 1973.  Events will unfold according to American culture in the twenty-first century, but the similarities are that the people in charge of the nation are convinced they are on the brink of a new world.  They are bent on bringing it about, and they are so sure of their moral righteousness that they will forge ahead, impervious to whatever anguish they might inflict on those who stand in the way.

   Small wonder many rightwing politicians avoid meeting their constituents.  They answer to a higher authority:  the magic hand of the marketplace, which if fully liberated will bring in an era (why not a millennium) of peace, freedom, and prosperity heretofore unknown to mankind.  Of course, the lame, the halt, the "useless", must be gotten out of the way as efficiently as possible.  Same with the rebels.  But to true believers, the worst barrier to the new era of health, wealth and wisdom is the United States government, which they now control.  All who benefit from this government must be either liberated or jettisoned.  For those who will not quietly accept the new order, the police and military organs of the government will be retained and used.  America probably will not endure the ongoing wholesale slaughter that was Russia from 1917 to 1953, or even the more surgically directed terror in Chile between 1973 and 1988.  But they who now rule America must use some force to establish their ideal society, for the simple reason that Americans overwhelmingly approve the government programs and protections that the one-party state intends to eliminate.

   Remembering that the Chilean junta replaced a popularly elected government, we can all come up with scenarios about the dystopia we have elected.  Why not--imagination is the key to progress.  But we also need to take stock of reality, which is that America's one-party government is dedicated to eliminating itself.  Since one of the most important rules of our politics is that people can change their minds, the losing side can and should continue using all available methods of persuasion short of armed rebellion to bring about the changes.  We are not dealing with small changes.  What we face in the short run is termination of programs that benefit most Americans, and giving that money to the wealthy.  People who think this is a good idea are of course entitled to their opinions--but so are those who think it is insane.  Getting over it is not an option.

   The kernel of reality is that we are in a long, hard struggle against powers with enormous influence, supported by people who are irrevocably convinced that the only hope for preserving our democracy is to destroy it.  Those of us who are unconvinced we are on the cusp of a wonderful new millennium need to persistently practice the same old methods of protest even when it seems our democracy is gone, to stay cheerful even when the news is completely depressing, to stick together and encourage one another, even when it seems we're all alone.

   Or we can await our dystopian scenarios.

RESISTANCE WITHOUT VIOLENCE

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison."
                                                                                                  Henry David Thoreau
                                                                                                  "Civil Disobedience"

"When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system's game."
                                                                                                  John Lennon

 
   In this age of alternative facts, we who commit thoughtcrime need to strengthen our efforts to make our point plainly, repeatedly, and peacefully.  Our enthusiasm for resistance to the neofascist policies of the current government of the United States must be expressed in strategies that are smart, effective, and above all (since violence is neither smart nor effective) non-violent.  Current outpourings of activism against the one-party state carry an optimism born of desperation that we (who are old enough) remember of the civil rights and anti-war protests of the sixties and seventies.  An encouraging rebirth of that confident commitment is essential, but we must learn from past mistakes.  Peace activists of the sixties and seventies allied with destructive revolutionary elements because it appeared we shared the same goals.  We were wrong, and our mistaken alliance meant death and burial of progressive politics for the next half-century.  The lesson is clear, now that we have a new chance:  we reject violence outright.

   Gandhi and King showed us that peaceful resistance leads to satisfactory redress of grievances, for those who persevere.  Peaceful assemblies of the cities and seventies began to fail when movement leaders collaborated with protesters who sought bellicose shortcuts:  urban rioting, militancy, robberies and kidnappings, destructions of universities and other public property.  The Chicago police riots of 1968 were enormously popular among average Americans, who saw that shocking brutality as necessary pushback to criminals who were destroying the society we had built over a couple centuries.  Most Americans, perceiving only two choices, preferred creeping fascism to chaotic revolutionary upheaval.  The establishment propaganda machine deserves praise for eliminating any third choices in the culture's perception.  "Our" fascism or "theirs" were the only alternatives most Americans could see.

   People like orderly existence.  Americans are blest with political and social systems which have provided order with reasonable liberty for most of us, in the long run--despite the wars, depressions, genocides and man-made tragedies we share with all mankind.  Now, finding ourselves facing government exclusively by corporate interests--real fascism--many of us are exercising our right "peacefully to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances."  If we do not want to get used to fascism we have no choice but to resist--peacefully.

   Attendance at the "Women's March" of January 21 happily exceeded everyone's predictions.  Progressives were uplifted and energized.  Soon afterward came a protest at Berkeley against a rightwing speaker.  The speaker had a right to be there, as did the protesters against him.  Then anarchists entered the scene, breaking and burning.  Right-wingers instantly pounced on this news, associating the destructive elements with the peaceful ones.  We need to denounce this and all violence--going beyond words.  We need to routinely co-operate with police efforts to assure our demonstrations remain peaceful.  At the Women's Marches, police officers showed an unexpected tendency to co-operate with the marchers, to share our common humanity.  It is to our advantage to build on that understanding.

   Acknowledging that civil disobedience means that some laws will be broken, we know the difference between impeding traffic and burning down neighborhoods.  When protesters blocking bridges for civil rights are attacked by dogs or sprayed with fire hoses by the police, the general public is confronted with two choices:  Build enough jails to hold all trespassers, or ask why they risk arrest.  We find they seek for themselves the same rights we all want.  Instead of rigidly enforcing the letter of the law, we might look toward redressing their grievances.  But since most people (no American exceptionalism here) prefer rigid order to chaos, public attitudes change once peaceful protest turns violent, which helped ruin the hopes of the sixties--proving the means justifies the end.

   The prison boom of the past half-century, finally running down from its own inertia, can be revived if average citizens are frightened enough.  The rich and powerful skillfully use media to keep people scared, and to take advantage of that fear.  We need not help the plutocrats' cause by appearing to embrace or entertain violent resistance to the alternative facts.  Our only hopes for surfing this tsunami of neofascism and rebuilding afterward lie in staying focused and saving our strength.  To be fair, radical events of the Vietnam era:  takeover of public buildings, burning of storefronts, even the odd kidnapping of a rich man's offspring, are tiny compared to the enormous destruction our country committed on a foreign country in our name, or the wholesale violence committed by police on our citizens.  No matter--the need for order prevailed fifty years ago, as it will prevail now, and we who seek positive chance must work with that truth.  Besides, even if our side won a violent revolution, we would only be taking on fascism with a different name.

   Witness Russia a mere century ago.

REVIVING HOPE

"It was not the least of Hitler's formidable powers that he knew how to drain his opponents (at least in Continental Europe) of all hope."
                                                                   Eric Hoffer
                                                                   The True Believer

   To watch congressmen sneak away from their constituents under police escort, or refuse to meet them at all, is astonishing--one thing politicians love is meeting with their voters.  Then Donald Trump holds a press conference wherein he answers none of the questions he is asked, instead rambling about his election victory.  Afterward he goes on a campaign tour, revitalizing his still loyal base.  Something's happening here, something strange to America.  Traditional relationships between elected leaders, media, and voters have been shattered, and politicians of the one-party state are making sure we know about it.  Steadfast opposition has sprung up.  There is a fight, and it matters who will win.

   Current issues deal with medical and retirement benefits.  Voters elected people who pledged to end these benefits...maybe to replace, maybe to improve, but definitely to end them in their present form.  Though it is hard to see how these changes will help commoners, it is obvious how they will improve the bottom line for the upper classes who generously donate to the politicians on the winning side, leaving no doubt where the politicians' loyalties lie, and why they are not interested in hobnobbing with constituents.  Going further down the road to hopelessness, Trump bans from press conferences reporters working for news agencies he dislikes.  We get the message:  the one-percent controls the one-party state, and the sooner we the people shed our tired concepts of democracy, the less trouble we shall have.  Ignorance is strength, and freedom is slavery.  Get over it.

   The marches, demonstrations, town hall protests, and other ongoing happenings show us hopefully that many citizens have no intention of surrendering.  The congressmen who avoid their voters look like cowards, and the president who rants against the media looks like a buffoon.  But the president and congress, unconcerned by the opinions of public or press, have no intention of recognizing the opposition's validity.  Rationally or not, the rightwing base is unwavering in its support for the one-percent and the one-party state, and Trump and the congress will use that loyal following to show the rest of us that resistance is in vain.  Tempting as it is to believe it, to get over it, we dare not fall into this trap.  The conflict is about how we shall live, and what kind of future Americans will have--indeed, the stakes truly are that high.

   The elites who dominate the movement known as conservatism are possessed by a religious determination to restore the social and political order they enjoyed at the end of the nineteenth century, when they held sway over everyone and everything.  They are equally determined to strengthen their hold using modern methods of persuasion.  Inspired by Saints Ayn, Ronald, and Milton, disciples of this plutocratic faith have been regaining power slowly since WWII.  Now they have it all, and will stick at nothing to keep it.  Our motivation for resistance springs from a healthy desire to avoid going back to being wage slaves.  There is scant room for reconciliation between these two goals.  Our resistance strengthens our hope.  When the raucous supporters of the election's winners tell us to get over it, they tell us to submit to the hopelessness that (for reasons we cannot see) seems to work for them.  With the lines drawn and the curse cast, our choices are clear.

G.W. Matson: JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE PARANOID

G.W. Matson: JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE PARANOID: "Robbery, whether of land or a way of life, requires force or at least its credible threat; it's why thieves carry guns, and often ...

JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE PARANOID

"Robbery, whether of land or a way of life, requires force or at least its credible threat; it's why thieves carry guns, and often use them."
                                                              Naomi Klein
                                                              The Shock Doctrine

   As a businessman, Donald Trump is well aware that he did not win the presidential election in a landslide.  Still, he makes the claim:  Is he setting America up for another "deal"?  America's current one-party government is dismantling what remains of the New Deal, against the will of the American people, while Trump hides the pea, again, under a false election controversy.  The drama will end with corporate interests (Trump being one) robbing the country--and the people, realizing they have been robbed, will have to "get over it."  We will be reminded that we do not have a democracy.  We have a republic, whereby a few rule for the benefit of all.  And the few who rule will decide who benefits most.  When Donald Trump says "I will be your voice," he invites the rest of us to keep quiet.  Some Americans--yes, Americans--will like that freedom.  Those who speak out will not be allowed to spoil the party.  Force comes in here.

   State coercion is now quite sophisticated.  Beheading, stoning, and firing squads have fallen out out of fashion, though some despots in small countries are trying to revive the traditions.  Dachaus and Gulags are also obsolete, at least on the grand scale of old times.  Elites no longer need such gross displays of brute force to retain their power.  Certainly, these methods are still available, and are still used by dictators here and there.  But to plutocrats who rule on a global scale, who covet real power, subtler and more effective methods are available.  That boot can be kept on the human face most of the time without the face's owner even knowing it.

   When face owners do become aware of the boot, our corporate rulers have refined ways to make them see reason...cultural, social, bureaucratic, and economic in nature...some artistically simple.  They who control the economy control jobs, and high unemployment rates keep most troublemakers harmless if not quiet.  The threat of force is there:  Starvation is brutal.  But it is a step removed from the plutocrats who are manipulating the threat.  With joblessness high, the rich can get people to work for less, to surrender medical and pension benefits.  The rich can put the money they have taken into stocks--robbery plain and simple.

    When the workers start to complain, the powerful point out "others" who are making life tough for the "real American good people."  Since tribalism goes back untold thousands of years, humans are already programmed to hate those who look or sound strange; those who pray differently, come from different places, or in the age of electronic information, live far away.  Dwelling on and denigrating peoples' superficial differences make it difficult to realize how much in common we all have.  If the elites play their cards right they can even convince people to brutalize one another over superficial differences, thus saving both money and blame.  Serious rebellion, through force, is out of the question.  Police, now equipped with armor, often behave more like occupying colonial armies than neighborhood protectors.  And though some individual cases of police brutality may have rational explanations, there is no doubt that police in America are killing far more citizens than police anywhere else in the "advanced" world.  And when we allow violence to be routinely visited on "others", we automatically give police the authority to do the same to us.

   American upper class citizens, like those everywhere, crave the acquisition, retention, and expansion of  power.  Having lost some of that power in the Great Depression (when Franklin Roosevelt, termed by the upper class he came from a "traitor to his class", instituted measures to reduce some of the social and economic differences between classes) they have ever since been plotting and implementing a coup to restore their power.  Having achieved gradual success over the past forty years, they have now completed the coup.  The only struggle now is between those in the upper crust, concerning who will be in charge.  The rich and powerful do not consider Donald Trump to be their first choice, even though he is one of them.  Still, he can be counted on to enhance his assets--and therefore their own.  However, there are risks with their base.

   The French aristocrats thought they could control the Jacobins, and the German capitalists and Junkers thought they could control the Nazis.  Hope springs eternal, and greed crowds out rational thought. But if civilization survives, the one percent should see their fortunes improve dramatically, at the expense of everyone else.  America's flirtation with fascism is over.  It has become a date rape.

                                                           TO KEEP IT SIMPLE

"The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves.  Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment.  Whither they are being led is of secondary importance."
                                         Eric Hoffer
                                         The True Believer

"They've got the guns, but we've got the number.  Gonna win, yeah, we're taking over.  COME ON!"
                                                                                              The Doors
                                                                                              "Five to One"

  A sad fact of life is that sometimes, the best we can do is not good enough.  This is especially true when we set specific goals.  A brutality clear example of this reality is the presidential election of 2016.  The result, which shocked both sides, has set off a furious round of blame casting among the losers.  The winners of course are preoccupied with grabbing the spoils.  Hillary Clinton's supporters are desperate to find reasons for her stunning loss, so that the proper heads will roll.  We lost.  Hillary Clinton was an experienced and capable presidential candidate with a smart, well-disciplined, organized campaign staff.  She campaigned on issues and programs that set well with most Americans, including many who voted against her.  She won all three debates and the popular vote.  Yet she lost the election, and her party lost everything else.  The Democrats put up a good fight and got whipped.  They need to accept it--not "get over it" as the victors demand, implying they should bow down and slink off.  But if they are to even have a "next time", not to mention win it, they need to accurately appraise the opposition and realize what happened.  Otherwise there is no rematch.
  After an unexpected loss, human nature demands explanations and scapegoats.  Again, the Democrats put up their best efforts and still lost.  The election was not entirely above board, but under current laws, rules, and practices, it was fair enough--or at least legal.  Voting restrictions probably kept some Democratic voters away from the polls, and campaign finance laws probably gave the plutocratic side a lopsided advantage.  We would do well as a nation to work together to make changes that will make our elections freer and fairer.  Good luck getting the winners to help.  But none of these change the fact that nearly half the voters were eager to vote against their obvious self-interest.
  Did the Democrats ignore the needs and fears of the white working class?  Good question.  But are the aspirations of white workers different from those of working people in other ethnic groups?  Strengthening Social Security, Medicare, and unions have been proven to help all workers.  Democrats campaigned for them, while Republicans made no bones about their opposition.  The Republicans won--not only the White House (Donald Trump, after all, was never clear on how he really felt) but the Congress and most states.  Naturally, they had the support of the business class and elites, who look on labor as an expense to be reduced wherever possible.  But they could not win on those numbers alone.  White laborers voted for politicians who vowed to make life tougher for the working class.
  Is climate change only a threat to liberals?  Is the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is happening, and is caused by humans, false?  Obviously, the Left Coast liberals are first to suffer from rising oceans, but are other Americans immune?  Democrats campaigned on facts, Republicans on wishful thinking.  We live in an age of conflicting "facts", but the truth is still available, and people who use their reasoning powers can find the truth if they want to.  Yet nearly half the voters chose to renounce the evidence of their own rational observations.  These people are as intelligent as anyone else, and in everyday matters quite capable of gathering evidence and solving problems.  There is no logical explanation for their forsaking reason in this matter.  We must look elsewhere.
  Donald Trump is a genuine leader, after the fashion of other autocrats: able to persuade crowds to follow them blindly.  He promises only that he will be the unsung workers' "voice", and will make the country "great again." Hoffer attributes the success of people like Trump to a general sense of frustration on the part of people who are modestly successful, but who feel their prospects are severely  limited.  We can theorize, but without getting inside their heads, we cannot know how they actually feel.  So far, they appear impervious to rational arguments.  And now we face the real prospect of fascism, right here in the United States of America.  We have been flirting with fascism for nearly a century, and the flirtation has finally gotten serious--the date rape happened.  If we want to change the situation, we must look beyond reasoning with the opposition.  We already outnumber them.  We must overwhelm them.
  The unexpectedly huge turnout for the Women's March, not only in Washington, D.C. but worldwide, not only women, is an encouraging start.  It shows that fascism won the battle of 2016, but the fight goes on.  Popular, peaceful, joyful yet determined demonstrations, happened on January 21.  The momentum for an invigorated campaign based on equality for all, superiority for none--is here.  The event was heartening.  If we can keep our enthusiasm, we have the possibility for real change.  Our side was beaten.  Now we need to try winning.

                                                THE DEMISE OF MANY THINGS

  Surprises never cease.  I expected by now to be discussing the Republican Party's death and rebuilding.  Instead, November 8, 2016 saw the "sudden death" of the Democratic Party, which sent supporters and detractors alike reeling.  Freedom depends on a new party arising, and the more input on the party's reincarnation the better for the country.  Looking back, the Democratic Party was terminally ill for a long time, and the 2016 presidential loss was its last gasp.  Congress, the Supreme Court, judges down the line, and most governorships and state legislatures were already under Republican control.  Many Republicans could come to regret their unexpected victory, but their party,  now subjugated by Tea Party hardliners, has everything.
  Some of us are old enough to remember 1964, when the Democrats held the present, and it looked as if the future belonged to them too.  The Republican presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater, had won only his home state, Arizona, and five solidly Democratic states in the Deep South.  Southerners voted for Goldwater because unlike Texan Lyndon Johnson, Goldwater favored preserving states' rights regarding race relations.  Even so, fewer than half the Confederate states, and less than a third of the former slave states, voted Republican.  Johnson feared the Democrats could lose the South, but he persevered with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts anyway.  Most of the country agreed it was the right thing to do.  The War on Poverty was also popular with most Americans, as a continuation of the New Deal.  At the time, most Republicans also favored the goals of the New Deal and War on Poverty, though they held other plans for how to accomplish them.  Goldwater's proposal to return the country to the free-for-all of the 1920's had been solidly rejected.  Under the circumstances, the Democrats could have overcome Southern recalcitrance.
  But the Democrats could not overcome Vietnam.  Why Johnson, after campaigning against Goldwater's pitch to send American soldiers to fight, suddenly reversed himself, is a matter of argument still.  But he did.  In the ensuing chaos, perhaps the majority found stability in simply accepting that America was in a fight--unwanted, unessential, but a fight nonetheless--that the country must slog through no matter how unpleasant it got, and it got extremely unpleasant.  Somehow, the Republicans vaporized their anti-war members, but the Democrats were hopelessly divided.  In 1972 George McGovern, who campaigned for expanding the New Deal and ending the Vietnam involvement, was stomped by widely mistrusted Richard Nixon.
  Later, with most of his administration in jail, Nixon resigned.  Gerald Ford, the appointed Vice President, fell into the presidency.  Ford was in a tough spot, trying to hold together the remnants of the Nixon presidency and oversee the final Vietnam withdrawal.  Still, he barely lost to Jimmy Carter, a conservative Democrat from Georgia.  After one term Carter was thoroughly defeated by Ronald Reagan, who picked up Goldwater's banner and marched to triumph.  The bad news for Democrats was that Carter was the strongest candidate they had.
  By the eighties, the consensus of America had moved so far rightward that policies once regarded as "reactionary" were perceived as "conservative."  The Republicans had forsaken preservation of the status quo, instead pushing for return to the halcyon past, when capitalism had no controls and no opposition.  The Democratic Party adopted conservatism, feebly trying to find a balance that would preserve some of the New Deal while professing loyalty to free enterprise...probably the best they could do, which shows how beaten the party was.
  Bill Clinton was successful because he was skilled at getting to the center of many issues before the Republicans did.  Still, his presidency was mainly a holding action, an orderly retreat, as the New Deal was attacked and clipped.  His major liberal proposal, medical care for all, was trounced.  The Republicans arrogantly replaced it with nothing, and for good measure, impeached Clinton over some personal issues that had nothing to do with the nation's business.  Though Senate Democrats, sticking together, kept Clinton in office, the ordeal sapped the sickly party of energy it could not spare.
  The 2000  presidential election was decided by one vote in the Supreme Court on a straight party-line vote...so much for the expectation that judges hold the law above party loyalty.  But the Democrats had no choice but to surrender and sue for peace.  Why not--the election had been close, Al Gore had actually won the popular vote, what better time to make peace?  But George W. Bush acted as if he had an immense mandate, and the Democrats were too ineffectual to offer much resistance.  Bush got us into two unending wars, with support from the Democrats...what choice did they have, with the drums pounding?  Bush did fail at privatizing Social Security, because voters of both parties were against it.  But the Democrats were too weak to follow that victory with progressive initiatives.
  Bush was so unpopular by the end of his second term that a Democratic takeover, with a new spirit of co-operation from Republicans, seemed possible.  But the chronically ill Democratic Party was unable to withstand pressure from a fanatically powerful Republican machine.  During Barack Obama's eight years in office, no Republicans worked with him, though Obama's policies would have been in line with liberal Republicans back when there were such people.  Obama finishes his term as the most popular president ever, yet he could not revive his deathly ill party.  This included Hillary Clinton, who had copious experience, a strong organization, solid policy proposals, and many endorsements  Instead, the nation chose someone who had none of these qualities.  She had character issues, but so did her opponent.  She got the most votes, but she still lost.  Along with her, the Democrats are now on the outside of every branch of government, on every level.
  All that remains of the Democratic Party is the corporate-friendly fundraising machine.  It won't be long until the big money people desert to the winning side, leaving that house of cards to crumble.  There is an opportunity here to build a party with honest, populist principles and a progressive agenda.  Whatever its name, the new party will be up against horrible odds, but we might as well give it a try.  A free country needs two parties, and right now America has only one.

TRUMP APPEAL

"One mass  movement readily transforms itself into another.  A religious movement may develop into a social revolution or a nationalist movement; a social revolution, into militant nationalism or a religious movement; a nationalist movement into a social revolution or a religious movement."
                                                                                                  Eric Hoffer
                                                                                                  THE TRUE BELIEVER

  Those of us who seek logical explanations for the recent election could be looking for something that does not exist.  Since logic is essential to enlightened democracy, we must consider that the United States is no longer an enlightened democracy--that the horror stories of despotism in other countries and in other times really can happen here.  The Mussolini-like preening and strutting of Donald Trump are merely symptoms of a serious illness infecting our society.  The willingness of a nation's people to elect somebody who resembles a strongman-despot tells us that democracy is endangered, if not extinct.  When convenient, the supporters of the incoming regime are quick to point out that we have a republic, that the Founders never trusted democracy, that checks and balances were written into the Constitution to prevent mob rule.  These reminders are supposed to quiet the majority who voted for Hillary Clinton, and they will fail to convince.  What is evident is an America so unbalanced, for whatever reasons, that someone with no government experience and a poor character reputation could get into--not to mention win--a presidential election.
  The status quo is shaky, the future is uncertain, the end always near.  Bad news strikes from everywhere, all the time.  Escape is impossible, and individual attempts to improve the situation seem doomed to failure.  And everyone seems to know it.  Rational thought and collaboration could devise solutions, unexciting and incomplete to be sure--but progress could be made.  But who has time for all that?  We are unable to agree on the nature or importance of our problems.  Sitting still, communicating calmly about solutions, are astoundingly distant prospects.
  The appeal of someone who claims to have all the answers is understandable, if we throw out the possibility of reason.  A majority is obviously not necessary for someone to take power who probably should not have power.  An alliance of the rich and the religious (some of the leaders of the movement are both) has taken control of the country.  Many Americans have long held simultaneous loyalty to both, and in recent times the two seemingly conflicting sensibilities have become solidly merged.  Reason has nothing to do with it.  Add to this merger of God and Mammon a hot-tempered patriotism, and we have a formidable, if not unstoppable, force.
  The ultimate joining of God, Mammon, and America has no basis in logic.  For example, worshippers have long been told that no man can serve both God and Mammon.  The Founding Fathers were wary of establishing a national religion, and the followers of a universal God supposedly believe that the deity loves everyone, regardless of nationality.  The greedy will claim that  avarice is patriotic because it gives jobs to other people in the same country.  The ultimate patriotic endeavor, war, despised by religions, is waged to increase trade.  More examples are probably endless.  The ultimate joining of greed, godliness, and fatherland represents an ultimate triumph for doublethink, the holding of at least two opposing thoughts in the conscious mind simultaneously, and believing them.  This has happened in nearly half the American electorate.  They have elected a man who has no actual plans, but whose demeanor promises he has all the answers, that he will shake things up, that he will relieve them of the unbearable ennui of their mundane lives.
  Whether their lives are superficially better or worse than others' lives is a matter for endless debate.  The fact is that the beliefs many Americans, that their candidate can deliver them to a better state of being, are short-lived.  A demagogue who wishes to stay in power must continually renew the crowd's enthusiasm.  Donald Trump is up to the challenge.  Orwell's "Two-Minutes Hates" are too gross for modern methods of mass communication and mind control.  As a master of electronic media, Trump is second to none.  For brevity, zeal, and finding a despicable "other", nobody is more capable than the new leader of the free world.
  Hoffer observed in 1951 that the adherents of religious, social, and nationalist movements could readily shift their loyalties.  The only requirement for each movement was that it demanded total self-surrender in return for assurance of having all the answers.  Today's electronics allow the instant exchange of dogma in the human mind.  Demagogues do not care which philosophy is current as long as the result is constant, total loyalty from their followers.  The rapid changes in accepted ideology could resemble a psychic strobe light, with similar emotional results.  Small wonder crowds can lash out on command.
  Good government is something we had better not hope for--after all, the Republican Congress has been elected and re-elected on a promise to get government off our backs.  Trump can be counted on to keep the masses occupied while the politicians go about their business of eliminating the parts of government that help the common people while strengthening the parts that enrich the elites.  The ultimate goal is to render working people so impoverished that scraping out a living will keep them too busy to poke their noses into social, political, or commercial reform.  Resistance will be difficult, and some will think it impossible.  The Constitution was ordained and established in hopes of preventing what has happened, but it provides scant resources for reversing it.
  We should insist on rigorous adherence to the Bill of Rights, in both letter and spirit.  This will get harder as the president appoints, and the Senate approves, judges who will toe the party line.  Violent revolution being useless, we will need to resist peacefully, and the powers that be will not be peaceful.  Some of us, perhaps all of us, will be tempted to change sides, to play the game and line up with the winners.  I doubt if they will have any success in their efforts--ideologues and authoritarians do not forgive or forget.  Those who continue to resist will need to constantly strive to "hang loose, stay strong, and watch for the signs."  It will not be easy.