eppur_se_muova
eppur_se_muova's JournalKurt Godel predicted a Fascist takeover of the USA, 76 years ago:
official of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). “[Gödel] rather excitedly told me that in looking at the Constitution, to his distress, he had found some inner contradictions and that he could show how in a perfectly legal manner it would be possible for somebody to become a dictator and set up a Fascist regime never intended by those who drew up the Constitution. I told him that it was most unlikely that such events would ever occur, even assuming that he was right, which of course I doubted. But he was persistent and so we had many talks about this particular point. I tried to persuade him that he should avoid bringing up such matters at the examination before the court in Trenton, and I also told Einstein about it: he was horrified that such an idea had occurred to Gödel, and he also told him he should not worry about these things nor discuss that matter.
Many months went by and finally the date for the examination in Trenton came. On that particular day, I picked up Gödel in my car. He sat in the back and then we went to pick up Einstein at his house on Mercer Street, and from there we drove to Trenton. While we were driving, Einstein turned around a little and said, “Now Gödel, are you really well prepared for this examination?” Of course, this remark upset Gödel tremendously, which was exactly what Einstein intended and he was greatly amused when he saw the worry on Gödel’s face.
After this remark, Gödel wanted to discuss all sorts of questions relating to the Constitution of the United States and his forthcoming examination. Einstein, however, rather deliberately, turned the conversation around. He told Gödel and me at great length that he had just read a rather voluminous account as to how it came that the Russians adopted the Greek Orthodox religion of Catholicism instead of the Roman Catholic faith.... Gödel did not want to hear any of this but Einstein in his sardonic way insisted on going into incredible details of this entire history, while I was trying to drive through the increasingly dense traffic at Trenton.
When we came to Trenton, we were ushered into a big room, and while normally the witnesses are questioned separately from the candidate, because of Einstein’s appearance, an exception was made and all three of us were invited to sit down together, Gödel, in the center. The examiner first asked Einstein and then me whether we thought Gödel would make a good citizen. We assured him that this would certainly be the case, that he was a distinguished man, etc. And then he turned to Gödel and said, Now, Mr. Gödel, where do you come from?
Gödel: Where I come from? Austria.
The examiner: What kind of government did you have in Austria?
Gödel: It was a republic, but the constitution was such that it finally was changed into a dictatorship.
The examiner: Oh! This is very bad. This could not happen in this country.
Gödel: Oh, yes, I can prove it.
So of all the possible questions, just that critical one was asked by the examiner. Einstein and I were horrified during this exchange; the examiner was intelligent enough to quickly quieten Gödel and broke off the examination at this point, greatly to our relief.
https://www.ias.edu/sites/default/files/pdfs/publications/letter-2006-spring.pdf
More background info at https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html . Links to the original handwritten document at IAS are broken.
ETA: A somewhat more fulsome account by the same author is at https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/finding_lost_doc.html ; unfortunately, it still does not contain the actual pdf of the original document, or a text version thereof. It does provide some informed speculation on what Godel's "proof" was, but the account ends abruptly.
Donald Trump is The Joker but he's not joking (Baptist News Global) {little long, but interesting read}
Opinion
Rodney Kennedy | October 7, 2024
When Donald Trump claimed Tim Walz is a “moron” and Kamala Harris was “born mentally impaired,” Lara Trump said he was “joking around.” In defense of what it means to joke around, I suggest Donald Trump is The Joker and he is not joking.
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Nailing Trump to a particular persona presents extraordinary challenges. He is a Janus-faced politician. One day he is proclaiming he is the only one who can save the world. Like a caring father, he promises to make his children secure. Then the next day he is an authoritarian bully demanding police be given “one rough day” to wipe out crime. He is a chameleon.
My insistence on studying Trump as an evil character, a villain, opens the door to an array of character comparisons. To date, I have found no better movie/television character to describe Donald Trump than The Joker. According to communication scholar Paul Achter, in literary and television terms, “Trump is a shadow figure, a representative of our cultural unconsciousness, the unspoken ‘true spirit’ of life, a character whose actions offer constraints to the thoughtful and democratic people we profess to be.”
***
Trump’s tone and demeanor suggest sternness, militancy, violence and authoritarianism. The laughter at a Trump rally is not comedy; it is the jouissance of thousands of people joining Trump in demeaning, insulting and degrading fellow human beings.
***
more: https://baptistnews.com/article/donald-trump-is-the-joker-but-hes-not-joking/
Ho Lee Crap, I just posted a link to an article in a religious publication by a religious thinker. Surely that's fodder for the End Times crowd. What's next ? Dogs and cats living together ?
For most of us, there's a lot of background here we already know about, which makes the article seem a little long. But the guy has clearly thought about this a lot, and considers tfg's support by evangelicals to be a travesty, to say the least.
The line in bold above is, IMHO, the best description yet of what binds tfg's followers to him. He doesn't just hate who they hate, he revels in demeaning and degrading them, as they do. Like tfg, they define who they are by who they like to beat up on. That's the central fact of their lives.
How Project 2025 plans to reshape the American family (Velshi/MSNBC) ***IMPORTANT READ***
So much for Republicans being the party of limited government. The next GOP administration wants to dictate what your family should look like.Aug. 12, 2024, 5:02 PM CDT
By Ali Velshi
This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 11 episode of “Velshi.”
Project 2025, the authoritarian blueprint for dismantling federal agencies in the next Republican presidency, has a lot of thoughts on what your private relationships should look like and whom you should marry.
In fact, a Christian nationalist vision of the family is a key centerpiece of the 922-page manual. It describes proposals for the American family as “central to the next conservative President’s agenda:"
According to Project 2025, not all families are created equal. On page 451, it defines the “right” kind of family as “a married mother, father, and their children.” It claims this is the “foundation of a well-ordered nation and a healthy society.”
Promoting this biblical concept of family is cited as a top-five goal for a revamped Department of Health and Human Services, which it criticizes for “having lost its way” by “promoting equity in everything we do.”
The document says efforts at promoting diversity should be repealed and replaced with policies that support what it calls the formation of “stable, married, nuclear families.”
***
more: https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/project-2025-reshape-family-christian-nationalism-trump-rcna166276 (lots of links in the story)
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who will guard these guardians?)
Although often attributed to a quote or paraphrase from Plato's Republic, it does not explicitly appear in that work. The version we are familiar with is attributed -- with some debate -- to the Roman poet Juvenal, where the guards in question are guaranteeing the marital fidelity of women (apparently men didn't need similar guards, which suggests Juvenal had a thing or two to learn). The question is inherently unanswerable, but for centuries, many have offered their own "solutions". Today's crop of radical reformers, parading under the ludicrously inaccurate banner of "conservatism", includes people like Kevin Roberts, who wants government to decide when women should have children (the more the merrier), and Curtis Yarvin and his billionaire backer Peter Thiel who want to replace American democracy with a (presumably all-wise) absolute dictator. In short, we are to place the power to make all the important decisions in our lives (or at least the most important ones) in the hands of strangers who have been given the power to make these judgments based on --- what, exactly ? Why believe these (mostly) unnamed authorities are more knowledgeable or more capable of good judgment than free adult citizens ? Religions pull the ultimate pass-the-buck here by saying their leaders take orders from an all-powerful, all-knowing deity, but they can't agree on even the basics of what this deity (or deities, depending) has to say. So why should we think some "conservative"-approved functionary -- let's call him (you know it'll be a him) the "National Nanny" -- is going to be better at the job than the people actually doing the job now ? If their choices of leaders so far are any indication, I'd say all indicators are that that would be a VERY, very, very BAD IDEA.
People have been struggling with this idea for millennia. What gives these looniest of the lunatic fringe (i.e. the heart of the current GOP) the hubris to hold that suddenly, they, alone in the history of mankind, have got it all figured out ? That they, have at last, something which they can barely restrain themselves (for now) from calling "The Final Solution"?
I don't often quote scripture, but when I do I look it up first, and sometimes discover that the usual "quote" is in error, or at least incomplete. So this time. The quote I actually found was this:
Proverbs 16:18 (KJV)
It's a more insightful proverb than I realized, because it doesn't place any limits on who, or what, gets destroyed.
How Kevin Roberts' new book shows Project 2025's intent to "control" women -- and even worse **IMPORTANT READ**
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published 08/14/24 7:08 PM EDT
Well, the progressive media watchdog group, Media Matters, got its hands on an advanced copy of that book that Roberts has written. It's titled "Dawn's Early Light, Taking Back Washington to Save America."
And in it, they find this: "Roberts repeatedly invokes revolutionary rhetoric. 'It's time for a conservatism of fire,'" he writes. Roberts also proposes a question to his readers asking this, "What's your Alamo? What are you dying for? There's a time for writing and reading and a time to put down the books and go fight like hell to take back our country and build our future."
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ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): One thing that always sticks out at me since we went through the copy is this one part in the book. And it'll sound familiar because it -- and it explains partly why Vance was so willing to write the foreword -- where Roberts writes about the fact that he doesn't believe -- and argues -- that having a child should not "be an optional individual decision."
And what he argues for is that it's a societal one. That did not only take -- they should use soft means like pressures, but they should do everything possible from a policy perspective to take away that choice from individuals. That means banning contraception. That means taking a whole suite of issues against reproductive health and, you know, banning abortions. That is a massive overhaul.
And to me, the one through line throughout the book -- whether he's railing against education or he's arguing for rolling back unions and eliminating them and rolling back workplace safety protections, or even when he goes into this massive tangent about dog parks, which he's sort of angry about the fact that there are more people that have dogs than children which can't be entirely true -- that feels like one of the through lines, which is that fundamentally, if you just read it and you let it absorb, you're left with this idea that there's a bunch of childless people out there that are destroying the country, and that something really drastic is needed. And that is a theme that we've heard throughout Project 2025 and Roberts in order to stop them from ruining the country.
***
more: https://www.mediamatters.org/project-2025/msnbcs-deadline-white-house-angelo-carusone-explains-how-kevin-roberts-new-book-shows
https://www.nbc.com/deadline-white-house/video/deadline-81424/9000374447 (you need to sign up for an "NBCUniversal Profile" for permission to watch)
Kevin Roberts is one deeply misguided individual. His thinking that "whoever has the most population, wins" is out of date by centuries. Education, science, technology, and freedom from superstition and suffocating religious oppression have made the individuals in modern society so much more powerful than their predecessors that an average American can accomplish things that an ancient king with thousands of slaves and thousands of soldiers could never do. WE DON'T NEED additional human bodies to achieve great ends -- more population only sucks the resources from the planet and threatens to exhaust our ability to live the lives that we do. Great ideas and great movements thrive and grow when individuals grow inwardly, more than when they grow in numbers. Conservative DO NOT recognize internal growth -- other than being "born again" -- as a factor in people's lives, nor as a desirable end. As Mr. Roberts makes clear, people (presumably "ordinary" people, not their self-annointed leaders) can not serve any worthwhile function other than breeding. Their only contributions come from their bodies; the authority to make contributions from the mind is reserved for the entitled who lead them.
The whole idea of conservatism is to keep things as they are -- those who are comfortable don't want to risk their comfort, so just don't change anything! But ANY form of improvement requires growth and change -- which is complete anathema to conservatives.
Conservatism is the idea that not only do things not need to improve, but that no change in their imagined "ideal" society can possibly constitute an improvement.
Is that 7 out of 9 likely voters, or 7 out of 9 registered voters ? nt
(I know, just kidding)
When was the last time - and in what century - that no previous POTUS or VP attended their party's National Convention ?
Dubya and Cheney have been pretty quiet since leaving office, but normally you might expect one of them, or a previous nominee (such as Romney or Ryan or even Dan Quayle) would put in an appearance. Even Sarah Palin couldn't make it. And of course we didn't expect Mike Pence to be invited.
It just emphasizes the complete rupture between today's GOP personality cult and the party of the past.
Sorry JD Vance, but being a 'childless cat lady' is actually not a bad thing (Guardian)
Arwa Mahdawi
***
Anyway, I’m not really here to write about what a hateful and self-serving hypocrite Vance is*. A million thinkpieces have been published on that already. If you’re in a masochistic mood please do read up on how excited he is to force rape victims to give birth and how he thinks divorce laws have gone too far and how he reckons Britain is an “Islamist country”.
No, what I’m really here to say is that, rather than being the insult conservatives seem to think it is, “childless cat lady” is a state that more women actually ought to aspire to. Rather than being “miserable”, as Vance said, women who are childfree by choice are often happier and healthier than men and married women with children. This isn’t my opinion; there’s data that backs this up. Back in 2019, Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics, made headlines when, during a speech at Hay festival, he cited evidence that women are happier without kids or a spouse.
“[I[f you’re a man, you should probably get married; if you’re a woman, don’t bother,” Dolan joked about the longitudinal data suggesting “the healthiest and happiest population subgroup are women who never married or had children.” Dolan didn’t say anything about cats but I’m sure there’s a case to be made that a feline friend only adds to life satisfaction. Of course, there’s no point telling the likes of Vance that their misogynistic and anti-cat assumptions are wrong. Republicans don’t like to have facts get in the way of their feelings.
***
more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/20/jd-vance-childless-by-choice
*But she does a pretty good job of that, with links in the article.
Excerpt from NYT Op-Ed today: I think this may be the best part to share with friends & family who may vote for Trump.
III.Character
Matters
Character is the quality that gives a leader credibility, authority and influence. During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump’s petty attacks on his opponents and their families led many Republicans to conclude that he lacked such character. Other Republicans, including those who supported the former president’s policies in office, say they can no longer in good conscience back him for the presidency. “It’s a job that requires the kind of character he just doesn’t have,” Paul Ryan, a former Republican House speaker, said of Mr. Trump in May.
Those who know Mr. Trump’s character best — the people he appointed to serve in the most important positions of his White House — have expressed grave doubts about his fitness for office.
His former chief of staff John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine Corps general, described Mr. Trump as “a person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution and the rule of law.” Bill Barr, whom Mr. Trump appointed as attorney general, said of him, “He will always put his own interest and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interest.” James Mattis, a retired four-star Marine general who served as defense secretary, said, “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try.”
Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s vice president, has disavowed him. No other vice president in modern American history has done this. “I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” Mr. Pence has said. “And anyone who asked someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.”
These are hardly exceptions. In any other American administration, a single cabinet-level defection is rare. But an unprecedented number of Mr. Trump’s appointees have publicly criticized his leadership, opposed his 2024 presidential candidacy or ducked questions about his fitness for a second term. More than a dozen of his most senior appointees — those he chose to work alongside him and who saw his performance most closely — have spoken out against him, serving as witnesses about the kind of leader he is.
***
more: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/11/opinion/editorials/donald-trump-2024-unfit.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6U0.j99V.BtTSOE-G_g53
Is there any truth to the rumor that Trump's team are keeping him out of the public eye because ...
... he's finally suffered that "complete psychotic break" that the mental health professionals have been warning us about for years ?
Just asking for a friend.
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