The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
--George Orwell

Trump is the first antidemocratic president in modern U.S. history.  On too many days, beginning in the early hours, he flaunts his disdain for democratic institutions, the ideals of equality and social justice, civil discourse, civic virtues, and America itself.  If transplanted to a country with fewer democratic safeguards, he would audition for dictator, because that is where his instincts lead.  This frightening fact has consequences.  The herd mentality is powerful in international affairs.  Leaders around the globe observe, learn from, and mimic one another.  They see where their peers are heading, what they can get away with, and how they can augment and perpetuate their power.  The walk in one another's footsteps, as Hitler did with Mussolini--and today the herd is moving in a Fascist direction.
--Madeleine Albright in Fascism: A Warning, page 246 (in what I think is the final chapter).

Following the Axis surrender, Korea's fate, like that of Central Europe, was still to be worked out.  Officially, the victorious Allies were committed to a free, united and independent Korea.  Then in the war's last week, Stalin's Red Army penetrated far into the country's northern half.  American diplomats, their inboxes overflowing, shifted their focus from what should be done to what could be achieved most easily.  In Washington, late one night, they met with their Soviet counterparts and, tracing lines on a map from National Geographic magazine, consented to the peninsula's "temporary" division along the 38th parallel.  The people who lived there were not consulted.

In 1948, with the Cold War well under way, the U.S.-supported Republic of Korea (ROK) and the USSR-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) officially declared their existence--the former in Seoul, the latter in Pyongyang.  North Korea's head of government, hand-selected by the Soviets, was Kim Il-sung, a thirty-three-year-old military officer who had spent the bulk of his life in exile and possessed little formal education.  He did, however, have big ideas.  Determined to reunify the Korean Peninsula on his terms, Kim persuaded the Soviets to underwrite an invasion of the South, boasting to Stalin that he would win easily.   He almost did prevail, but the United States surprised the DPRK by intervening, under a UN umbrella, prompting China to counter by also entering the fray.  In 1953, an amistice was signed to end the fighting, but with no victor, no formal peace, no significant change in borders, and a death toll that included more than a million and a half Koreans, 900,000 Chinese, and 54,000 Americans.

The war was a colossal waste of lives and treasure, so it matters that the DPRK has been built on a lie about who started it.  The worldview of any North Korean begins with the conviction that, in 1950, their country was attacked by sadistic murderers from America and the ROK.  If not for Kim Il-sung's brave leadership and the pluck of DPRK fighters, their homeland would have been laid waste and their ancestors enslaved.  Worse still, the story continues, Americans are evil and do not learn from their mistakes.  Given a chance, the savages will return and wreak more havoc.  Out of this sham narrative come the fear, the anger, and the yearning for revenge that Kim Il-sung harnessed to justify that world's most totalitarian regime.

--Madeleine Albright in Fascism: A Warning, pages 189-191, published in 2018.

From "You Can't Take it With You" (1938)
View clip: https://youtu.be/AUzB73j7s3o

Transcribed dialog:
( Read more...Collapse )

I don't know much about this bill, but I ran across this today: 87% of Wikipedians despise the bill and support a Wikipedia Blackout to protest it. SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act, and it goes before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee this Thursday, December 15.

I can relate that at the public library in the town of my birth, if you type "finish it" the computer system changes your "sh it" to xxxx. Pain in the A$$. But I have a feeling that's not the kind of censorship that's coming down the pipe on this one. Can anyone give me a primer on what this law would really do? I'd appreciate it.

Fascism
should rightly be called
Corporatism,
as it is the merger
of corporate
and government power.
~Benito Mussolini

To Americans: Have you been following the debate? Do you know where you stand? Have you communicated your opinion to your representatives? If the answer to any of these is no, it is time to get on the ball. This matters. Congress is being influenced more by insurance companies and pharmaceuticals than they are by regular people. Even if you are no expert, you must have some basic values that you apply to the question of healthcare. If congress is supposed to represent us, we need to let them know what we believe. We have got to get more people to have an opinion and say so, including ourselves if we're not used to doing it. If we don't, our nation is headed into the deepest fascism. If you have children, or care about the young ones of others, this legislation matters even more.

Now you may think that I am a Republican. I am currently registered as one. I have been registered as Democrat and Independent too, and as far as I can tell it makes little difference what label is applied. You certainly won't be correct if you align me with Palin or Limbaugh. The neocons would label me a socialist. I support single payer healthcare for the US. My positions are not based in belief in anyone's platform, but in my own synthesis understanding of what would be most helpful to us as a nation and a people relative to where we currently stand. The labels don't apply to me because I would like us to take tools from different toolkits depending on the situation and the time. I want us as a people to be flexible enough in our thinking to avoid suicide. But right now we're headed down a dangerous path. Together.

Behind the cut is information from The Pen, which is mainly Dem in slant but often independent and insightful. This time they are working to support an option by which states can put together their own single-payer systems, and opt out of the federal plan of mandated insurance. It sounds reasonable to me. There's some info in here about how to make noise about what you believe---even if you don't agree with The Pen, or with me. I hope that you will get involved. We need you. All the people of America need you.
( Straight from The PenCollapse )

I can't vouch for the factuality of this report from Prison Planet, but they say that national guard troops are doing practice drills to prepare for possible riots. The scenario they are playing out is people clamoring to get flu shots, when the swine flu re-emerges in the fall. I have a hard time imagining people wanting shots that much, considering the reports that the flu isn't that dangerous, and the panic and emerging knowledge about vaccine risks. The comments on the site reflected that people were more concerned that the military might be engaged to force us to get shots when we don't want to.

It is clear to me however that this site is anti-Obama. One of the ads I saw was a T-shirt for sale that had the image of Obama's face with the eyes blacked as if he were dead, and the word fascism underneath. People who call Obama a fascist have no idea what fascism is. Shrub and his crowd were far more fascist. Obama is a social activist who so far seems unwilling to tackle the economic and environmental emergencies of our time.

I had hoped so much that things would get better, but it seems that our reality is continuing to splinter, and has several large cracks right down the middle. Until Obama starts leveling with the people again, his approval ratings are on a downhill slope.