dwayneb
dwayneb's JournalJust some ramblings and meanderings on a Saturday morning...
While I am not surprised by where we are right now, watching our beloved country slide toward the pit of authoritarianism, it's still a little hard to grasp how rapidly we fell. I guess it says more about the essential weakness of our democracy as much as it does about the stupidity of our electorate. It was just a matter of time before someone like Trump emerged to take advantage.
The only solace that I can find is the knowledge that we had a really good run; the generations before us that enjoyed relative peace and prosperity, and the decades after the Civil Right Movement where we had some steady progress toward justice and equality.
We also have to take solace by looking back at history and seeing the horrific things that human beings have done to one another, and to know we aren't there (yet) in modern Fascist America. Even so, there is little doubt that one day soon the USA is poised to become the first advanced police state that will use modern technology to enslave it's citizens. China uses these methods but they do not have the military power that Trump has at his disposal.
I think everyone here realizes that every single citizen in this country has a digital dossier which contains everything about you, from your daily movements, your daily consumption, your political affiliations, your communications and your sexual behavior. A simple matter to track all of that for a mere 300 million people, it takes a tiny fraction of Federal government's computing capacity to do it.
Knowing where we are going now, looking back I am not sure that I would have brought children into this world. I completely understand that some of my kids have resolved to never procreate and I think we are going to see more and more of that. In the end a declining population may be the undoing of the modern police state. Maybe that's another reason why MAGA is pushing for the abolishment of birth control. Without proles, how can the oligarchy build wealth?
What will an American totalitarian police state look like?
Sadly, what I had predicted for the last 50 years has come to pass here in the USA. My regret is that I didn't do more to prevent it happening, or to at least delay it. Like many other people too busy with daily life and presuming that our freedoms would survive and that somehow magically our Constitution would protect us from tyranny.
Unfortunately the modern Fascists have tools at their disposal that the Nazis could only dream about 80 years ago. Namely, information technology. The weapons of propaganda and surveillance at their disposal are far more powerful that any gun.
Watch for the confluence of technological power with government - Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Meta, Apple. Watch for the construction of new government data centers like this one:
https://www.ksl.com/article/51355852/worlds-largest-data-center-campus-could-be-coming-to-central-utah
With the enormous capacity of computing power today, it is a simple matter to have a full dossier on every American citizen which will include every single thing about you from your political beliefs to your sexual orientation to any public statements on forums such as this, or other social media. And it will be updated with your location and and movements in real time in the years to come.
Make no mistake, that will be used to enslave us and to ensure our allegiance to the Corporate State.
Implications of Antifa being declared a "terrorist organization"
Here's the quote directly from the throne:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-targets-antifa-movement-terrorist-organization-2025-09-18/
Trump said that he was "designating" the movement as a terrorist organization. "I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices".
We all know who he is targeting with this and it isn't Antifa. This opens the door for the pogrom that MAGA amd the Fascist Right has had planned from day 1; any citizen who dares to criticize Trump, especially those who have a strong social or other media presence will be characterized as "Antifa supporters", and since that's a terrorist organization there will be "justification" for them to be threatened or even prosecuted and jailed. And even if that's just a verbal threat, the real impact will be to silence his critics through fear and intimidation.
It is very similar to the 60's if any of you are old enough to remember those days. Anyone daring to oppose the Vietnam war, or to oppose the Administrations that were supporting that war were derided as "pinkos" or "communists". Enormous pressure was put on anyone in the public eye that dared to speak out against the war.
It's far scarier today since Trump has much greater power than any of those Administrations ever dreamed of having. Far more wealth, a SCOTUS that will rubber stamp anything he wants, and the power of the tech giants at his disposal.
I don't see any of this having a happy ending. We have a rough road ahead of us. I'm an old geezer and I won't live to see the ramifications but my kids and grandchildren will surely lose much of the freedom and security that we all took for granted.
America- Bastion of feedom, or trash nation?
Am I the only one who no longer feels proud to be an American, or hopeful for our future?
We are witnessing the destruction of everything that we fought and died for in two World Wars. We are witnessing the demolition of everything we struggled for in the Civil Rights movement, as the Fascist Right moves us backward year by year. The Dodd's decision was only the beginning, the next target in their sights is the Voting Rights act, and then it will be the fundamental freedoms of speech and press next. The rest of the free world views us as a potential adversary, not an ally.
It's not just Donald Trump - he is simply the populist figurehead that was always destined to emerge one day from the cesspool of the authoritarian Right. The seeds of our own destruction were planted in the framework of our government long ago by the founding fathers. It was just a matter of time before a determined autocrat would be enabled to use our freedoms in order to grasp total ultimate power. Only surprise is that it took this long for it to happen.
Looking back on it I don't think if I knew what I knew today that I would have brought children into this world. And I think many other younger people are making the same decision, as we watch the fertility rates in the West plummet. Who wants their children to live under the boot of scum-trash like Trump and Putin? Who wants their children and grand children to survive in a Corporate State that will track and control every single movement, every single statement, and finally, every single thought and desire?
Even 20 years ago if I know where we would be today, I would have enabled my children to at least leave the USA. It's too late for them now as they have children of their own. But they are actively looking for a way out, maybe Canada. But as we all know every free nation in the West is moving away from representative democracy.
It was the Obama era that really hoodwinked me. It made me think that the dream of freedom here in the USA was alive and well. When all along the reality was that our rickety vulnerable system of government was ripe for the taking by a determined Fascist minority. I KNEW that from the time I was a child so I should not have been surprised. What we learned from Obama's two terms is that while hope can be a powerful instigator, in the end hope cannot prevail against the ignorance and evil that surrounds us here in the USA.
The American experiment has largely run its course. At least we had our brief window of freedom and prosperity after WWII, but that time is done. Now we have to learn to live in a brave new world - Huxley and Orwell's predictions from 70 years ago are coming to pass. Sadly they were dead on, I think we always knew it, we just hoped we were wrong.
"The Greening of America" 1970, Charles Reich
This book is worth a read for anyone who wants to understand how we got to where we are today. Much of it is dated since this is just after Woodstock and the Vietnam war protests, but the basic premise of this book has not changed.
Reich explains how the Corporate State came to be and how they were ready, even in 1970 to control our government and every one of our lives. That has not changed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greening_of_America
Feb 28 Economic Blackout - This is the time
Every single person on DU should be participating in this.
The People's Union website:
https://theonecalledjai.com/
The 24 hour Economic Blackout
As our first initial act, we turn it off.
For one day we show them who really holds the power
WHEN:
Thursday February 27th from Midnight till Friday The 28th Midnight
(A full 24 hours of the 28th)
12:00 AM to 12:00 AM
WHAT NOT TO DO:
Do not make any purchases
Do not shop online, or in-store
No Amazon, No Walmart, No Best Buy
Nowhere!
Do not spend money on:
Fast Food
Gas
Major Retailers
Do not use Credit or Debit Cards for non essential spending
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Only buy essentials of absolutely necessary
(Food, Medicine, Emergency Supplies)
If you must spend, ONLY support small, local businesses.
SPREAD THE MESSAGE
Talk about it, post about it, and document your actions that day!
WHY THIS MATTERS!
~ Corporations and banks only care about their bottom line.
~ If we disrupt the economy for just ONE day, it sends a powerful message.
~ If they don't listen (they wont) we make the next blackout longer (We will)
This is our first action.
This is how we make history.
February 28th
The 24 Hour Economic Black Out Begins.
Why we are here - the passing of the Greatest Generation
It's no coincidence that the American Fascist Right, now personified by MAGA and oligarchs Trump and Musk, has solidified it's power base over the last decades.
Today nearly all of the leaders that emerged from the Greatest Generation are dead and gone - with Jimmy Carter being one of the last. Not only that, the Boomers who were the sons and daughters of the Generation that fought and died in WWII to keep Fascism from our shores are dying off as well. I'm one of them.
They were the rock that held our democracy together for decades after the War. After Kent State and the Nixon disaster their influence began to wane, and then with the emergence of Reagan and Rush Limbaugh we started to see the direction that the Right was ultimately going to take.
Now that almost all of them are gone, there is no one left to shame the disgusting traitors that are happy to defile and violate all of the patriots that lie in Arlington Cemetery and in countless other military cemeteries around the world. No one left to remind them that their loyalty to our Constitution is what gave them their freedoms and the prosperity that they have enjoyed every day of their lives. No one left to teach them that common sense and cooperation and compromise is how we survived as a Constitutional Republic for over 250 years.
Instead they are prepared to burn it all to the ground. In their haste they will destroy themselves as well and yes, every working man and woman will lose. Except of course the predatory billionaires and oligarchs who will feed on the remains of this once great country.
My main regret is that I didn't do more as a young man through activism and engagement with our political process to help stop what was coming. I will go to my grave with that regret, as I watch my children and grandchildren try to comprehend the terrible new world they have inherited.
Pentagon removes major media outlets, including NBC News, from dedicated workstations in new 'rotation program'
I think this has already been discussed here, but seeing the actual memorandum is truly stomach wrenching.
The New York Times, NBC News, NPR and Politico are being removed from the Pentagon news corps.
Who's rotating in? The New York Post, One America News Network, Breitbart and Huffington Post.
I guess they are in competition to see which one is going to be MAGA's TASS.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa2c3c944-e41f-4962-917c-b8a7375f4d85_1161x1606.jpeg
MAGA verbal and political violence WILL lead to more physical violence
Time to get this off my chest.
Americans surely understand that the MAGA verbal violence that we see continuously online and in media leads directly to the MAGA political violence that we are seeing in Congress today. Why don't they comprehend that this will lead to more physical violence like we saw on January 6th 2021? It is coming, and many people seem to be clueless. We like to think that we are somehow unique or civilized here in the USA but the harsh truth is that the Radical Right is composed of the same tribal primitive human beings that we see destroying one another in the Middle East.
Make no mistake, today the MAGAs in Congress are effectively committing acts of political violence every day against our Constitution and our democracy by creating chaos and halting the day to day business of our Federal government. They are nothing more or less than anarchists and terrorists at this point.
They are the ultimate opportunists who will do anything to get re-elected by constituents who have been brainwashed into thinking that it is in their own self interest to destroy our system of representative government. It is hard to really comprehend the depth of evil and depravity of these "civil servants" - men and women who are perfectly willing to violate the memories of all the soldiers buried across the river in Arlington. Their vile and despicable actions defecate on the graves of every single patriot who fought and died for this country.
This descent into madness started accelerating in earnest about 50 years ago here in the United States after Nixon's resignation. At first just a verbal ideological division, eventually leading to the emergence of Trump and MAGA, it is no surprise that this led directly to the violence of January 6th 2021 in our nation's Capitol.
I think many people in America are asleep at the switch in that they do not understand that there is a natural progression from verbal to political to physical violence. Those history books are dry reading after all.
Worth repeating - it is coming. We have to be prepared for living under the fascist boot and fighting them in the streets - whether it happens in 2024 or in 2028 or in future years. Because our enemies within and without our borders will not sleep until they have destroyed our democracy.
America will not go gently into that good night of that I am certain. This is one old man that will go to my grave fighting Fascism, of that I can assure you.
Did Trump digitize all of the classified documents?
I never hear this mentioned, in all of the coverage I have seen over the last couple of years. Did the DOJ confiscate computers and laptops and other digital devices during their raid? If they did I never heard about it. To me this is the elephant in the room. Sure they can get boxes of documents back in their possession, but what if all of these were scanned and those files are stored - somewhere.
Maybe DOJ is keeping this quiet, but even then you would think media would be bright enough to ask this question.
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Member since: Sun Dec 20, 2015, 10:08 AMNumber of posts: 1,102