THE " GREAT REPLACEMENT "

 

The massacre in Buffalo few days back, a young man 18 years old, probably still a high school element or barely a graduate, a self described fascist, a full adherent to the "replacement" theories, a well hidden ideology kept in secret under different names and adjectives, until it pushed its disciple to arm himself to teeth with army assault gear, and bullet proof jackets, even mention his intentions on many social media platforms, while acquiring a car, drive more than 3hrs the equivalent of 200 plus miles to a black neighborhood in a totally strange city from where he lived, storms into a market place, and brutally in very cold blood shoots 10 people to death , and injuring many more, terrorizing many others in the building and around it. 

This scene, as awful as it is, and many other ones like it at different levels and backgrounds, are becoming the regular norm in America, in all of America, rural, urban, smaller towns and larger cities, whereby well armed young civilians attack innocent people in crowded places, it is growing as well in many parts of the world, mostly though in Europe. 

The "great replacement" is a relatively newer version, a milder and more acceptable way to talk about some older and more classical words like "white genocide, Jewish cabal, immigrant invasion, Muslim take over". In the U.S. it's often called white genocide, while its counterpart in Europe is called "Eurabia". The baseless theories claim generally, that these population's shifts are orchestrated by elite power players. In Europe it is the traditional political elite, bringing in Muslim immigrants, while in the U.S. it's ascribed to Jews, who are pushing to bring more immigrants, promoting interracial marriages, replacing the white labor forces, all to suppress the white population. 

Nowadays in the U.S. the new way is to blame Democrats for all of this, while Republicans are harboring and becoming more and more the party of the pure white masses. The "great replacement" propaganda, is capitalizing on sharing and spreading their ideology on major scales among the wider population through well organized and orchestrated social media platforms. The white supremacy messages are now the norm at web sites like " The Daily Caller, Breitbart, and Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham,  both Fox News hosts, it is carried faithfully by many other AM radio DJ's programs and talk shows, and now more than ever Republican politicians repeating openly some of this stuff. 

All official investigations, are consistently ignoring the real side of the back ground, the environment, the parents, the schools, the neighborhoods producing these young perpetrators like the Buffalo shooter, or the South Carolina before it, and nowadays an almost daily occurrence of similar actions across the country. The new trend is to put more restrictions and more arms control measures, on vulnerable individuals, these are for sure necessary and helpful measures, but surely not enough by any means by themselves, we are facing a new and well organized movement, spreading like an epidemic among vulnerable and innocent populated groups of the younger population, and no one is seriously trying to address or even look it up straight in the face. 

The Replacement demagogy theory, espoused by the Buffalo shooter, has been published, talked about and discussed, even embraced officially by some ultra right-wing politicians and commentators, its roots lie down deep in certain communities and families, even in some private schools and institutions, they should all be investigated, rationed and stopped if we really care to eradicate such dangerous maladies from our society, and not just target the young perpetrators judge and condemn them. 

My, as always, many thanks for your time.... stay safe and well.                           

INDEED A FURIOUS AMERICA ......

 

Published in

Eudaimonia and Co

umair haque   May 6

Why a Furious America Feels Betrayed By the Democrats

I Asked Average People What They Think About the Democrats After Roe, And the Results Aren’t Pretty 

How angry are Americans at the Democrats right now? Don’t take it from me. Here’s a smattering of opinions, from my kid sister’s friends — and I asked them particularly because they’re the constituency the Democrats need to survive. To say that they’re not happy would be an understatement.

“It’s the total failure of leadership! The fact that they can’t get anything passed or done. They have accomplished nothing major. No student debt relief. No stimulus checks. They keep increasing military spending. They’ve continued f*cking up Covid. They’re just completely absent. They don’t know what to do with power. They have no clue how to use it and for what. And it’s because they don’t believe in the policies they won on. They’re in a holding pattern. Like you yell at them to do something they said they would and they go well you know we would but we can’t because the parliamentarian said so or because the republicans are so bad or because we can’t do anything about Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema so we’re just going to sit here, twiddle our thumbs and shrug. Or they say nothing. I’m so pissed.”

That particular rant comes from a young gay man. Why is he this upset? Because faced with the greatest attack on and seizure of rights in half a century, the Dems are doing nothing.

Why is a young gay man this upset? Well, one because he’s a decent person. But two, because he can see the writing on the wall.

Is he right to be this mad? Context. This attack on rights — putatively taking bodily autonomy away from women, but even more than that — is probably the single greatest regressive move that’s happened in a rich country in modern history. That is how bad this is, and that’s just on its face. When the obvious implications are factored in? This is one of the greatest losses of rights in modern history, period, anywhere, full stop.

Americans understand this. And they are furious.

“The only people in America, apparently, who didn’t understand that this was coming — a full blown removal of women’s autonomy? The Republicans knew, which is why they advanced crazy, authoritarian laws making people citizen-vigilante-informants well in advance. We all knew — women, young people, old people, everyone. Everyone knew. Except, apparently, the Democrats.

They were, incredibly, caught flat-footed. Paralyzed. How did they not know this was coming? Are they idiots? Are they complicit? I don’t even know anymore! It’s crazy-making. I want to burn their party to the ground.”

That’s from a young woman who’s in policy. She understands very well the simple reality at work here. It couldn’t be any more absurd, really. It goes like this. The Republicans bent the rules to appoint an incredible cast of characters to…The Supreme Court. A religious nutcase literally a member of a cult which has Handmaids. An alleged multiple-times-over sexual predator. A coup-plotter.

And the Dems went along with this, pretending that these people weren’t going to do what they were obviously…going to do. Attack everyone else’s rights, beginning with women. Take those rights away. The Dems appear to have genuinely believed the lies that were told under oath, which is why they’re in disbelief that the painfully obvious has come to pass. Are they idiots? Who doesn’t get that religious nuts, sexual predators, and coup-plotters are going to attack everyone they can, not uphold democracy?

All this is anti-democratic in almost surreal sense. 70% of Americans are against what an illegitimate Supreme Court made of cranks and predators and religious nuts is forcing on them. Meanwhile, the Dems — who are the governing party of the most powerful country on planet earth — didn’t just believe the lies the cranks and predators and religious nuts told — “why, we’d never take anyone’s rights away!!”…now they’re sitting there holding their heads in disbelief and doing nothing.

It’s insane. How…insane?

“There is a feeling from women that the Dems have had 50 years to codify Roe into law, but have not because they wanted it to remain a bargaining chip. Something they could hang over women’s heads, and say, ‘you better vote for us, or they’ll get rid of it!’ Now that they’ve gotten rid of it, the Dems aren’t even fighting, they’re just handwringing, making excuses for it, and… asking for money. It’s incredible. 70% of Americans are against this. And the Dems are doing nothing.”

That’s from a young woman who’s a teacher. My brilliant friend Sarah Kendzior put it like this — the only place she’s seen this stunning level of gullibility and inaction is in advanced kleptocracies, where democracy really is a sham. She’s right. It is totally, completely, utterly abnormal for an opposition party — let alone a governing one — to sit there yelling at you that they can’t do anything. That is a sign that democracy is not working: when even the side that’s supposed to be for the people is now fighting them. American democracy is made a sham and mockery of by this shambles — and Americans are furious because they know it.

And the average American isn’t buying the Democratic Party loyalists’ and insiders’ excuses, either — that a) nothing can be done, b) what they’re doing is good enough, and c) if they let the Republicans have this, then somehow, that’s smart politics. Nobody believes that anymore.

Here, read more reactions.

“Dem men’s reactions have been to urge people to vote in November. It makes me wonder whether this leak was a calculated attempt (or a convenient way) for the Dems to court votes. But many women’s responses have been, now that Roe is gone, why should we vote for a party that did nothing to secure its place in law?”

“People hate a traitor more than an enemy, and it is for this reason there is going to be an intense backlash against the Dems for, one, letting this happen (and yes they could have done plenty: ended the filibuster, expanded the SCOTUS, codified Roe, passed the effing ERA!), and two, for doing nothing after it happened. Why don’t they organise and fund a sustained protest outside the White House? A strike? ANYTHING?”

I think I like that one the best, because it’s straight to the point — which is that the Dems should be going for the jugular right at this moment. There are so, so many things they could be doing. So many. They could be organising a national strike. Weeks of protest. A general strike. They could be expanding the court or passing the Equal Rights Amendment. Setting term limits on Justices, limiting their powers in numerous ways. They could even, for Pete’s sake, just be giving fiery speeches at the steps of the Supreme Court. See them doing any of that?

What they should be doing — what a serious party would do, in any other country — is simple, and lethal. What do you do when public officials are found to have lied under oath? For Supreme Court Justices, in particular, there is no graver violation than that. It is disqualifying. You impeach them for it. You remove them from office.

See the Dems doing that? Nope. They’re actually OK with fanatics like religious nuts, sexual predators, and coup-plotters lying under oath to the entire country, to history, to the world, to ascend to power — so they can abuse it.

It’s as shocking as it is sickening. If lying under oath — perjury — isn’t grounds for immediate impeachment, then more or less all of democracy is rendered meaningless. Anyone can say anything under the auspices of a formal government procedure — and it doesn’t matter. Witnesses can lie, Senators can, Presidents can — nothing matters. And yet this is the precedent the Dems are OK with.

It is crazy. Like I said, I’ve never seen this anywhere else in the world that calls itself a democracy, even hardcore failed states, and as Sarah explained, the only other places she’s seen it is in kleptocracies where democracy really is a sham.

It’s so insane, bananas, over the top, I struggle to find an analogy. This is like asking a serial killer to slit your wrists because you can’t be bothered to lock the door. It’s like inviting a religious nut and a sexual predator to abuse your kids because, hey, they said they wouldn’t, but now that they are — well, who can be bothered to stop it? Go right ahead!!    Crazy.

And it is having an effect. But not the one the Dems want. The Dems think people will now have to see them as saviours, come November — an abusive frame of mind to begin with. They are wrong. Here, have some more reactions.

“So this is the first time I’ve seen the most diehard Democrats question their party and actually be critical of how they’ve behaved. People who have always defended the Dems are now incredulous, saying WTF? What was my vote for?”

“The Republicans at least care about their campaign of evil. They are evil but we know they’re evil, we know what they want, what they care about, and in that sense they’re a known quantity (as long as you’re not in denial about it.) What are the Dems? What do they care about? It doesn’t seem to be democracy, since they’re not putting up a fight. It doesn’t seem to be women, since they haven’t done ANYTHING in response to this decision. It doesn’t seem to be much of anything, and that’s why they can’t get anyone to care. They cannot simply be Not-Trump, they have to be FOR something, anything. ‘Vote us in in the midterms’ isn’t exactly meaningful when you’ve plenty of power right now and you’re not doing anything.”

The Dems are badly wrong to think that this is going to work out well for them. This, meaning, letting Republicans rip democracy away from Americans, of whom 70% and more don’t support any of this, from women losing their bodily autonomy to the obvious attacks on gay people and minorities which are coming next — letting all that happen, so that Dems can be the good cop to the Republicans bad cop. That strategy has barely been working for decades now — witness how little respect and trust people have for the Dems, and the question of actually liking them is LOL — and now it’s at an end.

The logic is super clear to anyone and everyone. Why should we vote for you then when you didn’t do anything for us when it mattered? Why bother at all when you don’t stop the bad guys from doing incredibly, shockingly, crazily bad things — like making societies places of full of vigilante-informants and tip lines and fanatics who are slavering to attack everyone they don’t like, and now they have to power to rip their lives apart — when you don’t stop all that when you have power, what’s the point of voting for you at all?

Americans are right to be furious with the Dems. They have never failed America more badly than they are right now. This is the real thing, code red, a nine alarm fire. The house of democracy is burning down. And the Dems are standing there, holding their heads, pretending to care — instead of throwing some water on it, even calling 911…and the arsonists are standing right there, too, laughing at them, telling them they’re going to burn down the entire neighborhood.    Words fail.

I study social collapse. I predict it. This is my professional opinion, and it should chill you to the bone. I have never seen a political party more useless than the Dems. Except maybe in Weimar Germany, or in places like Russia, where opposition parties are just shams.

And right now? More and more Americans seem to agree with me.

Umair  Haque.      May 2022

One of the best, a very true and descriptive article about the attitudes of many Americans vis-à-vis  the Democratic party and its leadership.....   My many thanks to all, stay safe and well. 

THE AMERICAN STATE OF MIND .....

 

If one asks most Americans on any street, what would they consider as the most important or threatening problems and issues the nation is facing nowadays, one will get answers like inflation, the economy, education, the cost of healthcare and medicine, and recently the war in Ukraine and the possibility of it spreading.

But you have one group fairly representative of a good third of American voters, mostly on the Republican side, the white supremacy, and some distinct religious factions, they are all expressing with the same fervor the same words, the same context and back ground, the same indoctrination, it is becoming an end by itself, "Don't say gay" and total anti trans laws, "Cancel culture", "wokism" and invented rumors. criminalization of abortion in all its forms, banning books of any subjects mentioning history of blacks, Jews, Muslems, immigrants et al. 

For many Republicans and groups following and serving their purposes, homophobia, islamophobia, transphobia, racism, hate, anti Semitism and supremacy are becoming the new normal. This relatively new post modern manufactured culture serves well their ultra right indoctrination as well as their electoral purposes. By diverting attention from the real problems, the stagnation of the absolute free, wild and unchecked capitalism, the economic plunder by big corporate America, by the war machines, the drug manufacturers  and cartels, all leading to total wealth disequilibrium, and totally unfair taxation and disparate distribution between the poorer majority and the very limited numbers of the powered non elected ultra rich, practically eliminating the remaining vanishing middle classes. 

Republican politicians and representatives want desperately everyday Americans divided and living in fear of one another, they want every group loathing and hating the others, so the majority don't unite behind real dangerous issues, like fair decent livable wages, safer and better working conditions, fairer wealth distribution, better public social programing, more efficient fighting to eliminate or reduce climate change effects, in few words a better and fairer economy management. 

Most Americans as well as most people around the world today are asking their leaders and law makers to address the future of a livable planet, rather than continuing the past policies and tactics and old faith in some sort of divine intervention, they are willing to sacrifice some of the most endeared slogans and ideas for a complete new look and belief in a brighter and safer future, based on more compassion, morality, equality, and dignity. American youths are forgetting how to hate words and concepts like socialist and progressive, they want to ignore religions, imperialism, colonialism, apartheid, superiority, fascism,  Zionism, ethnic cleansing, all accompanied by unchecked brutality. 

But unfortunately, we're facing a new manipulator, a racist, fascist, nationalist, populist faction, that exist not only in America but is spreading on all corners of the world, old and new world. Destroying systematically all hope for the young to look for the bright and safe future. It is the same narrative used by these oligarchies and leaders for centuries, and more so nowadays,  to divide and conquer and rule eternally by colonizing and subduing others, staging coups and terrorizing their helpless neighbors. 

Demagogues like Trump, Florida's DeSantis, Fox news' Tucker Carlson, Russia's Putin, the Zionist entire leadership in Palestine, and many other mini dictators from around the world are all selling the same narratives of a dominant culture that is always endangered and threatened by minorities and different phobic feelings emanating from immigrants, refugees, transgender people, even from different colors of skin. Always endangering their limited versions of history. The worst part is sadly, that it's working, as many are falling for this type of sick propaganda. 

In America, as it is elsewhere, sane people must fight back, by arguing and explaining directly and clearly the real economic problems, the real danger of huge inequalities between the very rich absolute minorities and the vast poorer majorities, the climate changes effects, the vulnerability and sustainability of life on our planet, that marginalized communities are not really the problem, but corporate greed and concentration, political corruption, imperialism and colonialism, plus of course climate changes, poverty and shifting populations are the real problems facing humanity. 

The new Republican nowadays in America is defined as such; rich or at least nicely well off, white, male, straight, religious, adequately well armed, and definitely a firm believer in open and wild, unchecked forms of capitalism. These people will shape America and American supremacy for decades to come, and always partnered with other similar power hungry leaders locally and across the world. 

     My usual many thanks to all, stay safe and well.