To A Communist, Supporting Trump

If my political faction made one of the greatest mistakes in history, I might be tempted to never think about it again, but I hope I would have the courage to acknowledge it and learn from it.

“Nach Hitler kommen wir.”



You are repeating the mistake of the KPD [the 1930s German Communist Party]; the public is much more likely to jump right than left. The left, to be an alternative, must stand for the best choices in the present, not some imagined future.



[In response to an objection to allying with the democratic socialists, the SPD.] I know that history. I also know that had the KPD been willing to form a coalition with the SPD the NSDAP (Nazis) would not have come to power. Instead, the KPD, probably encouraged by Stalin, chose to try to outwait the NSDAP, in one of the biggest mistakes in 20th century history.



There was a communist group that tried to unify the German left. They called themselves Antifaschistische Aktion or, for short, Antifa. 

[In response to the argument that Trump is no threat.] After four years of stepping steadily towards the right. After concentration camps. After a nearly successful insurrection which would have made Trump president for life, I think you are ignoring a few pieces of data. I know, I know. “No fair remembering stuff.” Same thing you're doing with German history. 


The Technological Singularity: a Few Links

 [For those of you who are wondering how this got there; it was misdirected. I have copied it to the sister blog Shinycroak, where I generally put this sort of article.]

 (I wrote, and then discarded, a reply to Claire Berlinski's articles on AI; she entirely believes in the TESCREAL arguments. On the way, I gathered a few links and I figured I'd record them here.)

Vernor Vinge's original 1993 essay, Technological Singularity.

“The Singularity: a Panel with Science Fiction Writers Vernor Vinge, Charlie Stross, Alastair Reynolds, and Karl Schroeder,” 2013. Link (video.)

“I believe that the creation of greater-than-human intelligence will occur during the next thirty years. I'll be surprised if this event occurs before 2005 or after 2030.” – Vernor Vinge

Seven years to go.

Biden, Wealthy Republican Donors, and the Debt Ceiling Settlement

(I lack insider information to confirm this, but I do think it is likely.)

I'm glad there is a debt ceiling deal, that the the world financial system is still standing, but I think it is more of a temporary ceasefire than a great victory.

Biden is being lauded for his negotiating skill. There is something missing from the equation: the money Republican representatives get from the very rich. I think the very wealthy Republican campaign donors mostly don't want a default, not yet anyway, maybe not ever, and they leaned on the House Republicans, so that they made a deal. I think also that those same donors very much want the Democratic left frozen out of the Congressional governing coalition. They don't want stronger labor laws, higher taxes on the extraordinarily wealthy, or environmental regulations that make fossil fuel reserves valueless and so they're prepared to make a deal, even with the hated Democrats. (It is, I think, not a coincidence that weaker regulation on fossil fuel development is part of the deal.)

I think this gives Biden a lot more credit than he deserves, though I do give him credit for taking yes for an answer. He had a lot of support from the people who fund his opposition. The opposition is still fascist and, independent of their funders, would happily burn the world. They're fascists. They prefer violence to compromise. 

 This deal also affirms the dominance of wealth in our politics. The problem with this approach, as I wrote in 2010, is that “sooner or later there's nothing left to give to the rich.”

I'm glad there is a deal, but it still seems to me more of a temporary ceasefire than a great victory.

Tweets and Toots

To create socialism in a society, Enlightenment values must first be present, or you end up with state capitalism instead - that's what happened in Russia and China.

Spoutible, with its ill-defined ban on "adult content," is falling right in with the fascist anti-LGTBQAI+, anti-sex line.

If the House Republicans destroy the faith and credit of the US government, they will be granting a boon to that modern slave empire, China.

Repeal the debt ceiling.

Could someone please hurry up and create a decent Twitter alternative already?

CNN will present the fascist and the non-fascist side of every issue?

LLM-generated content is partially garbage, and depends on human input. I don't think he's got a business model there.

Because their god wants children to die of preventable diseases. Sounds more like the devil in angel drag, but what do I know?  

I was today years old when I learned of the existence of the ammonium ion.

"I hate Illinois Nazis." (All right, he was actually from Missouri.)

A DOS attack on the world economy. Great, wonderful.

How many judges on the Fifth Circuit have taken bribes the way at least four of the "conservative" Supreme Court judges have?

It takes work to make yourself as much of a jerk as Elon Musk.

Well, Mr Musk, aren't you the little antisemite?

If my political faction made one of the greatest mistakes in history, I might be tempted to never think about it again, but I hope I would have the courage to acknowledge it and learn from it. (German Communists in the 1930s, but also conservatives now.)

There's plenty of other damage covid can do, too. You don't infect yourself with dangerous diseases.

By 2035, the Chinese economy will be the largest in the world, and it runs on coal and slavery.

Has any candidate, regardless of how corrupt, ever lost an election for being tough on crime?

Fk AI safety; I want to stop AI thievery.

Just in case you were wondering why Elon Musk caved so promptly and completely to the Turkish government, the Turkish government is hiring SpaceX to launch its satellite.

The Louisiana House doxxing Black children.

These days, instead of shooting people, tyrants deny health care.

Making deals with the world's largest human rights violator, a country which literally runs the biggest slave system in history, is not going to end well.

Draft ASHRAE proposal “Control of Infectious Aerosols” out for public review.

Woke up this morning to my phone informing me that Washington State is shutting down its covid exposure app. Thanks, guys.

With the hosting of a Trump campaign rally, CNN is not a news organization anymore; they are a fascist propaganda organization.

Trump is a groomer.

So when do Republicans repudiate the man guilty of sexual abuse? If they don't, when do women abandon the Republican Party?

“SFO becomes first US airport to formally launch airplane wastewater testing for emerging Covid-19 variants.”

A Supreme Court code of ethics is not enough. The bribery and rape claims ought to be investigated and, if true, the justices who did these things ought to be removed.

CDC director Walensky resigned unexpectedly as the covid state of emergency ended. It looks to me like she could not take fronting for the Biden administration any more. Our betters seem to have decided that the uncontrolled spread of covid is an acceptable cost.

If you put criminals in charge of your legal system, then the law itself will become criminal.

My hobby: quoting NRA firearms safety rules to ammosexuals.

The first Infinity Award recipient is Octavia E. Butler.

On Profit and Politics in Media

(In answer to Jim Wright here.)

Profit is the excuse; politics is the reason. Trump isn't the ratings draw he was in 2016. (see https://www.politicususa.com/2023/05/11/cnn-trump-town-hall-ratings.html to this point.) But CNN still hosted a Trump campaign rally.

Ever since Marx, it's become customary, on both left and right, to analyze political conduct in economic terms and for the very rich this may be valid. But, as we see time and time again, a major faction of the public acts on identity, not profit.

Time was, the USA, remembering the rise of fascism, had anti-fascist media law and regulation. This was abandoned as part of the Reagan Revolution. I expect that the country club Republicans of the 1980s, much like the German conservatives of the 1920s, felt that the public would then support them, the natural rulers of society. Instead, as in the 1930s, the public swung towards fascists, while the left opposition tries to outwait the rising tide of authoritarianism.

And here we are.

(A version of this has been posted to Jim Wright's comments.)

Patching the Constitution

Introduction

Patches: Historical Roots of the Problems

A Democracy, not a Republic

Judicial Appointments

The Judiciary in Practice

Constitutional Patches

Patches: Abandon Supermajorities

Supermajority requirements in Congress

The Supermajority and Constitutional Amendments

Patches: Voting

Who may vote?

The Electoral College

Patch: Establish the Right to Vote in the Constitution

Patch: Abolish the Electoral College

Beyond Patching: Altering the Institution of the Presidency

Patches: Congressional Apportionment

The House of Representatives

The Senate

Beyond Patching: Congressional Apportionment

Patches: Limit the Presidential Pardon Power

Patches: Enable the Removal of Judges

Patches: Limit Judicial Review

Prospect

Tweets and Elephant Cries

One thing we risk losing in attacking the US founders is separation of church and state. Does that mean we should ignore their flaws? No, not at all. But are we to discard all the thinking of the Englightenment because of their flaws?

There is a well-trodden path from suppressing sexuality to authoritarianism. When you see attacks on porn (I don't mean pornographic abuse) be wary. Digital comstockery is a thing.

If you have nothing real, you cling to symbols.

Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism all rejected slavery and colonialism in their beginnings. They have not always kept to their ideals, but if divine inspiration means anything at all, it appears that the divine hates slavery.

It took literal centuries of philosophical effort to get to the point where, despite his hypocrisies, Thomas Jefferson could write, "All men are created equal" and have it widely accepted. We forget this at our peril.

So. Five of the six "conservative" judges on the Supreme Court are now known to have been bought; the sixth seems to be a resentful second-rater.

To keep vulnerable people safe, you need to use a respirator before they're in your office. Putting it on after the fact works no better than stubbing out a cigarette does to cleanse the air.

Our intellectual property system is unreasonably biased toward monopolists and is disastrous in health care (and software, but that's another story.)

There are no reasonable Republicans left. Surely that is obvious by now?

Apparently Elon musk just doesn't like safety features and that is why there is no launching pad safety at SpaceX.

The first response to this story should have been, "It sounds like anti-trans propaganda - is it a plant?" And of course it was. It's only because of anti-trans editors like Chait that it got so far.

The reason that so much manufacturing has been sent to China is because the Chinese government is willing to put their people to work in slave and near-slave conditions. Some of the very wealthy really like that. Not only do the get cheap labor; they get to crack the whip, or at least hire people who will. Are we going to refight the Civil War on a global scale? “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” – Lincoln

You sure you're not channeling ChatGPT?

Torture victims remember; torturers often do not.