Archives for August 2017

We Now Have a Fascist in the White House

August 25, 2017 by Stephen Altschuler Leave a Comment

We now have a fascist in the White House, and, for all intents and purposes, with Tea Party and other radical conservatives running Congress , along with Trump fascist appointees in the executive branch and increasingly in regulatory agencies, controlling the entire government.

Americans are generally known for rejecting extremism when voting for President. But this time, with the advent of ISIS cutting off the heads of anyone they captured, and refugees from the war-torn Middle East and Africa pouring into Europe like the ancients did out of Africa thousands of years ago, the voting public was scared and highly protective of anything like that happening here. Hillary won the popular vote, but enough Rust and Bible Belt Americans voted for Trump, especially after FBI Director Comey opened another investigation into Clinton’s email that were now connected to sex-texter Anthony Weiner, ex-husband of one of Clinton’s closest advisors, Huma Abedin. Fake news on social media perpetrated by the Russian government, seeing a way to cyber-muscle past its enemies’ defenses, then opened up a small hole in the front line for the fascist fullback Trump to squeeze through.

In addition, 10 per cent of Bernie Sanders progressives voted for Trump (as a recent research study shows), and a significant number of Sanders loyalists [Read more…] about We Now Have a Fascist in the White House

Taking Back Our Country

August 19, 2017 by Stephen Altschuler Leave a Comment

It’s a strategy the Republicans used when they beat Eric Cantor in the primary, one of their own but not conservative enough, in 2014. Cantor, House Majority Leader and seemingly unbeatable, was vulnerable in one particular area: immigration reform. And the keyword Tea Party Republicans latched onto was amnesty. Cantor was for it, but voters in his Virginia district were not. Nobody saw it coming when an obscure, bland economics professor from an equally obscure college in his district beat Cantor, quite handily, on that issue alone. Shockwaves reverberated throughout the halls of Congress as Eric Cantor tumbled back to his old banking position in the private sector.

Now in Wisconsin a similar race is shaping up pitting powerful Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who won his race by 35 percentage points in 2016, with ironworker turned congressional candidate Randy Bryce, a Democrat. Bryce seems to be attacking Ryan broadside with no particular issue as hot button as amnesty, but he is definitely attracting attention. Can he find Ryan’s vulnerabilities? He seems to think so, pointing out Ryan’s lack of visibility in conducting town hall meetings during the Fourth of July recess with the Trumpcare vote pending in the Senate, his advocacy relationship with a very unpopular Donald Trump, and a “mean, mean” (Trump’s words) version of a Republican health care bill, passed in the House under Ryan’s auspices. The First Congressional District in southeastern Wisconsin is generally not happy with Paul Ryan these days.

Randy Bryce, on the other hand, is a perfect foil to Ryan. He is a full time, longtime ironworker, with a mother who has cancer in fear of losing [Read more…] about Taking Back Our Country

People, by nature, are…

August 19, 2017 by Stephen Altschuler Leave a Comment

In my experience, people, by nature, like to help each other. Helping a woman who cannot reach an item on a high shelf at the market. Helping an older man who has tripped over a curb and fallen. Offering a meal to one less fortunate than ourselves. Assisting a neighbor whose house has been flooded by a swollen river. Helping someone get to the polls no matter what their political persuasion. This is generally true when we’re talking about an individual helping another individual. Usually color, creed, religion, ideology does not enter the equation. Someone’s in trouble or inconvenienced: We’ll often go help them. No judgements. No hesitation. No decisions. The human instinct is to help, setting aside all conditions to the contrary, even one’s personal safety at times, as in helping the victim of a mugging while that attack is taking place.

Even the right wing radicals of Charlottesville would likely react this way to an individual in need. But as soon as you dehumanize and demonize individuals into a maligned class designation, such as Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Foreigners, Hispanics, Liberals, and so forth, you open up a Pandora’s Box of actions often tinged with innuendo, hatred, and even violence based on some stereotyped, prejudiced image of each group. When we start judging people more by “the color of their skin than by the content of their character,” paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jr., we open the door to an Archie Bunker-barrage of slurs designed to denigrate and disparage.

The solution to this emphasis on hatred derived from prejudice towards broadly stated groups is a long term one. It starts with [Read more…] about People, by nature, are…