The Uncultured War On Civilization

There is no culture war; that is a misnomer. What we really have is an uncultured war. I am tempted to say a war on democracy, but it really goes beyond that. The GOP's uncultured war is a violent rejection of reality, the will of the majority, and civilization. It is a movement characterized by tribalism, unwarranted fears, guns, and delusions, and it seeks to replace the concept of community with an every man for himself anarchy blessed and protected by an autocrat. Needless to say that the base Republicans cannot grasp the fact that anarchy and autocracy are mutually exclusive -- or are they?

The community the uncultured warriors wish to replace is not without its flaws. Indeed, historians such as Howard Zinn are quick to point out that our country is controlled by an oligopoly that acts like an oligarchy, and if the plutocrats have to choose between an authoritarian leader and a democratic leader, they will choose the despot. The Plutocrats justify that preference by pointing out our founding fathers' concern about their property and the threat to it posed by the passions of the masses. “The masses are far too likely to decide that there should be a more equitable distribution of the wealth, and that is evil socialism,” the plutocrats say. But what about capitalism? The purist form of capitalism is economic anarchy which eventually results in monopolies and/or oligopolies that exploit and starve all but the powerful few. The Fox disinformation factory is almost a perfect example of the danger of capitalism. As Salon reported, Rupert Murdoch agreed with a Dominion attorney's suggestion that Fox's motive in lying to and inciting its viewers "... is not red or blue, it is green." One would think that Fox viewers would be insulted and angry over Fox's deliberate lies and the disdain Fox' “hosts” have for the channel's viewers. But it is very unlikely that the base MAGA's will punish Fox in any way for the deceit or the disdain. The problem is that what the MAGA's crave is a validation of their delusions, and they will rationalize, deny, and/or ignore Fox's contempt for them if Fox tells them what they want to hear! Fox is more than happy to sell fear and loathing and validate the delusions to keep their audience. Why wouldn't they?

According to the FCC Consumer Guide:

“The FCC is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press. It is, however, illegal for broadcasters to intentionally distort the news, and the FCC may act on complaints if there is documented evidence of such behavior from persons with direct personal knowledge."

But when was the last time you heard of the FCC penalizing any broadcaster for presenting false information or intentionally distorting the news? How many people kill and how many are killed because of Fox's exploitation of right wing paranoia does not matter to Rupert Murdoch because he has a strong profit motive for giving the right wing what it wants. I might add that the gun manufacturers also treasure the deadly paranoia that boosts the sale of their products. The bottom line is that capitalists are too greedy and ruthless to be considered benign.

My use of the word "anarchy" in the first paragraph is somewhat problematic. Anarchy is a difficult term because it is defined differently by sundry groups of proponents and detractors. If we define anarchy as, “a state of disorder due to the absence or nonrecognition of authority or other controlling systems,” than anarchy is antithetical to community and civilization, both of which depend on a coordination of many people and tasks, a certain conformity in regard to acceptable and unacceptable behavior, and the protection of individuals. Since an authoritarian is someone who enforces strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom, it would appear that anarchy is also antithetical to authoritarianism. But chaos is a condition authoritarians frequently use to gain power. People who arm themselves in fear of their neighbors, strangers, and facts they do not want to believe can be turned against the government, and the chaos those people create can be used by would be Autocrats who promise to retore peace and order. Odd how that works – the despot promises “law and order” to the paranoid anarchists who think the law should protect only the right people, and “peace and order” to the people who think the government should protect everyone. The autocrats are aware of the difference, but they also know they can distort the meanings to suit their purposes. Peace is thus defined as no demonstrations or dissent of any kind, and order means keeping the marginalized in their place and available to be used as scapegoats as needed.

So it is that I offer this Caveat: Autocrats have to sell the population an alternate reality that is whatever the despot says it is. Disinformation factories, such as Fox, prepare the ground for the despot by destroying the ability to determine or trust what is real! The Republican Party is rejecting democracy because it has lost a majority of the people. The threat is real! Do I need to say more?

All right, the pundits got me. I decided to let this sit for a while before editing and I heard people on MSNBC saying the Republicans will put pressure on Biden to negotiate raising the debt ceiling if they pass a bill to raise the ceiling! They made it clear that they think Biden will have to negotiate. My reaction is, “bullshit!” You do not negotiate the full faith and credit of the United States. If you want to negotiate the budget, the time do it is when you are considering the budget. Educate the public, and tell the Republicans they have to raise the debt ceiling clean! Believe me, the Republican donors will not be happy with Kevin (Charlie) if he crashes the economy.

Mash It!

The R-MAGA Fascists seem to be singing the MASH song, “Suicide Is Painless!” For decades the Republicans ignored all of the polls indicating that a vast majority of the voters favored the Roe v. Wade decision. The reason why the Republicans did not pay a price for chipping away at the right Roe v. Wade protected is because voters did not make that right the priority when they voted. For some reason the voters simply refused to see that the Republicans are really intent on destroying a woman's right to choose. Moscow Mitch's rape of judiciary has given us an illegitimate, theocratic, and, I would argue, a fascist judiciary that is determined to destroy the first amendment separation of church and state. The people (particularly women) are now fighting back. In deep red Kansas the voters used the initiative process to tell the R-MAGA theocrats to stuff it! In the mid-term elections the abortion issue caused the Republicans to lose many elections they might have otherwise won. And now in Wisconsin the Democrats gained control of the State Supreme Court because of the abortion issue. Yet here we have a despicable judge in the high church of sanctimonious stupid trying to defy the first amendment and science by ruling that the FDA has to decertify the abortion pill Mifepristone regardless of the fact that that pill has been on the market for over twenty years and is proven to be safe and effective.  Furthermore, Republicans in red states such as Idaho, Floriduh, and Texas are passing draconian anti-abortion laws in defiance of the will of the voters.

Not being content with infuriating the voters over a woman's right to choose, the Republicans are also putting the profits of the gun manufacturers ahead of the inalienable right to life. The death of so many innocent children demonstrates the lie behind the “Pro-life” stance of the far right wing, and it is traumatizing children and their parents. Then there is the Gerrymandering, the attempts to negate or overturn election results, the banning of books, attacks on the LGTBQ community, and other attacks on free speech, education, and democracy. As anyone who has been paying attention already knows, the anti-democratic, racist display of Tennessee's NRA owned legislature is only an aberration in the sense that most red states are not as blatantly open about their bigotry. Then again, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott showed how little black lives matter to him by promising to pardon Sgt. Daniel Perry, who was convicted shooting and killing 28-year-old Garrett Foster as Foster marched in the July 25, 2020 Austin black lives matter demonstration.

My point is that rather than correcting course the Republicans are doubling down on the uncultured war issues that are so unpopular:

“About two in five (41%) agree that the Dobbs decision was correct, while three in five (60%) say they believe the original 1973 Roe v. Wade was correct to protect abortion rights."  Even more troubling for Republicans is the fact that "... in key contests for control of the Senate and the White House, there is widespread support for abortion rights. Republicans looking over these stats should be nervous about their 2024 prospects in these conditions. After all, look what happened in 2022.”  This caused Ann Coulter to urge her fellow Republicans to: “Please stop pushing strict limits on abortion, or there will be no Republicans left.”

Like abortion the gun control issue is one the Republicans have been able to dominate because voters did not prioritize it as an issue.  That is changing as the death toll continues to escalate. “Nearly two-thirds of Americans support moderate or strong regulations of gun ownership, including 53% of Republicans, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of 940 people conducted online on Wednesday, one day after the Uvalde shooting.  In regard to the R-MAGA's attack on democracy it should be noted that “Election deniers lost key races for federal and state offices,”and that Every Library poll backs up a national poll commissioned by the American Library Association earlier this year, which found that some 71% of voters oppose efforts to remove books from public libraries, including majorities of voters across party lines.

“Woke!” The Republicans, always the victims, are screaming about the evil woke. Women are woke! Black people and brown people are woke! LGTBQ people are woke! And young people (our children) are woke! They have all been brainwashed. How else can the Republicans explain why all those groups oppose everything the R MAGA Fascists stoop (presumably in prayer) for. It cannot be because the fascists are wrong. Oh God, NO! We all know that democracy has failed the white nationalists!

Can Gerrymandering and other attacks on democracy save the GOP? Many tea bagging MAGAs seem to have deluded themselves into believing that it can. And yet there is this stubborn reality setting in just below the surface, telling all but the most insane of the insane that the times are changing. “Not fast enough impact you,” the demagogues say, and besides “suicide is painless!” There is an old saying that you should get out of the way if your adversary is hurting himself. The problem is that the Republicans seem intent on killing themselves with weapons of mass destruction that make their suicides painful and deadly for innocent people. We have to stop the theocratic fascists now! We have to take proactive steps to end their attempted reign of terror! We have to take to the streets and work our butts off to win every election, local as well as national.

Unfortunately, defeating the fascists before the damage they cause is too great will also require us to act like Republicans by forcing us to change the rules and ignore the traditions that prevent or stop much needed reforms. By that I mean the filibuster and blue slipping in the senate, the size of the supreme court, the term and ethical code* of supreme court justices, etc. One long term goal we need to adopt is the end of the archaic electoral system. Democracy (rule of the majority) is far more important than the narrow, regional interests that seemed so vital to slave owners! And since each state gets two senators, regional interests have more than enough protection. I know there are people out there who will say we cannot make those changes because those traditions and rules protect Democrats as well as Republicans. But the Republicans are abusing those rules to prevent the government from functioning, and they (the Republicans) will do away with anything and everything that gets in the way of their fascist agenda anyhow. If we do not move forward we will be hurled backward. There is no such thing as a democracy merely surviving fascism; in order to survive fascism democracies must crush fascism!

*There is presently no ethical code governing Supreme Court Justices!