[Salon] [Mbrenner] FORBIDDEN TRUTHS - Guest Post by MBrenner - TRUTHS WE ARE NOT PERMITTED TO PRONOUNCE

[Salon] [Mbrenner] FORBIDDEN TRUTHS - micheletkearney@gmail.com - Gmail TRUTHS WE ARE NOT PERMITTED TO PRONOUNCE · Kamala Harris is an exceptionally attractive woman · The transcendent reality of the 2024 Presidential election is that half of America favors or accepts to place the country’s fate in the hands of a vulgar criminal psychopath who has stated boldly that he is committed to destroying our constitutional democracy – to be replaced by an autocracy with Fascist characteristics. Hence, it is a referendum on whether we trade our current system of government for the MAGA alternative · A rogue Supreme Court that has arrogated to itself the authority to rewrite the Constitution in accordance with the majority’s dogmatic, doctrinal beliefs – and to superimpose its judgment on the expressed will of the Congress and the Executive – represents a manifest, insidious threat to American democracy. It will continue to do so whatever the outcome of the election. · If the MAGA takeover of the U.S. government to occur, we should not expect that we would be buffered from its worst abuses by the powerful financial and commercial interests. History tells us that they nearly always align themselves with the autocrats; this was so during the Fascist wave of the 1930s and 1940s. More generally, established economic interests are far more fearful of the ‘Left’ (however mild) than of the autocratic Right. Witness England, France, Germany, Italy, and today in the United States as the tech barons (e.g. Eldon Musk) cozy up to Trump. We should recall the warning issued by Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs in 2020 that were the Democrats to nominate Bernie Sanders, he would give all-out support to Donald Trump · Fascism may be the natural default position of failed liberal democracies · The deeply personal animus toward Vladimir Putin by Presidents Bush, Obama and Biden (as well as a wide swarth of our political elites) goes well beyond conflicting politics. It is rooted in their envy of a man manifestly superior to them in intellect, in detailed knowledge of diverse subjects, in historical perspective, in articulateness, in diplomacy. It even irritates them that he can sing Blueberry Hill in English as well as Russian since that debunks the notion that Putin is a brutal ruthless tyrant. The crude caricatures of Putin pervasive in the West are a significant obstacle to realistic policy and productive diplomacy. The wisdom of Sun Tzu admonishes the strategist to “know thy enemy, and know thyself.” Western leaders cultivate their ignorance of Putin, and of today’s Russia, because of their reluctance to understand the sources of their own penchant for caricature. · Donald Trump’s policies in regard to Russia were no different in nature than Bush/Obama/Biden’s: sanctions, arming Ukraine. The seeming difference in attitude toward Putin the man derives from Trump’s abiding faith in and relishing of deal-making. To do so with somebody as formidable as Putin serves his voracious narcissistic ego. We are experiencing two hallmark developments of the 21st century that will have lasting consequences for Western societies: the collapse of their ethical foundations; the nullification of the civilizational compact that ensconced social justice as a central feature of our collectivity. The former is expressed both in: 1) the comprehensive strategy to attenuate all manner of social programs, to facilitate the transfer of national wealth to the upper strata of the citizenry, and to degrade public services/amenities; and 2) its participation as accomplices in crimes against humanity in Palestine and elsewhere. Their common denominator is a callous disregard for the welfare of the weak, the vulnerable and the poor. They are related. Each is a regression from the path of a more enlightened management of our public affairs. · American society has abandoned public higher education by increments over the past 50 years. In the 1960s, the University of California system required no tuition from state residents (residency was liberally defined). 90% of its operating budget was financed by direct appropriations by the legislature. Much the same held for other state systems. Today, tuition at these institutions ranges between $12,000 and $16,000. Consequently, a majority of students work and/or acquire debt. It is a self-serving fantasy to believe that they can derive the same benefit from their higher education, under those conditions, as did their counterparts in the earlier era. · “Equal opportunity” as the proposed answer to widening wealth and education gaps is a devious cop-out. All it means is that everybody should have a chance to ‘make it.’ Nothing is implied about the standard of living of the vast majority who logically don’t ‘make it.’ According to this philosophy, social justice simply means that a supposedly meritocratic elite can revel in their success while ignoring the wellbeing of their fellows since they came out on top in a ‘fair’ Darwinian competition · The greatest wealth transfer upwards in modern history has taken place over the last 25 years. First, the so-called “Third Way” launched by Bill Clinton et al had deregulation and privatization as its twin pillars. Tax breaks for corporations and the rich followed under Bush and Trump. Exceeding them has been the massive largess in trillions extended to financial institutions by Central Banks post-2008 collapse – with the Federal reserve providing the lion’s share. · Virtue, as an inherited trait in the American body politic, is now akin to a pseudogene. “A pseudogene is a segment of DNA that structurally resembles a gene but is not capable of coding for a protein. Pseudogenes are most often derived from genes that have lost their protein-coding ability due to accumulated mutations that have occurred over the course of evolution”. · The IMF is so addicted to its dogmatic neo-liberal dogma that it tells Kiev that, in order to qualify for a new loan, Ukraine must raise taxes and cut its budget. Those steps are stipulated as the immediate measures in a long-term IMF authored program entailing 130 reform milestones on the road to membership in the European Union. Yet, the country is bankrupt without Western cash handouts, its population has shrunk by 40%, inflation is mounting, the largest part of its industrial capacity has been occupied or destroyed, 80% of its electrical power generating capacity is destroyed, household incomes have nosedived, and it tops the world list of corrupt countries. We all have ways of amusing ourselves. The Society for the Propagation of the Faith on 19th Street N.W., though, remains devoted to its sacred liturgy - disconnected from reality as it is · The assault on free speech has two vectors: 1) restrictions on access to outlets for disseminating thoughts – i.e. blanket censorship; 2) punishing the dissemination of thoughts. The latter, of course, is itself a form of censorship since it inhibits free expression through intimidation, i.e. a form of deterrence. Censorship via restricted access is imposed by non-government entities, social media being the outstanding case in point; public-private collaboration as now occurs routinely through institutionalized consultation/guidance between state agencies and corporations such as Facebook/X, Google, YouTube etc.; and those agencies by denying media outlets they cannot control from operating in the United States: Tik Tok (China based), Telegram (Russia based). The last is reinforced by criminal investigation of persons who work with them (the Scott Ritter case). All of these actions constitute violations of the First Amendment guarantees. Yet, no legal defense or legislative remedy is available at present. In post-Constitutional America, they are highly unlikely to emerge. · A similar pattern is evident in regard to the right to assembly. Severe restrictions on where a group may demonstrate are coupled with severe punishments of those who violate the strict rules. These measures are being imposed in their most draconian form in American universities. There, both the imposition of controls and the doling out of penalties in done in an arbitrary manner – often on a selective basis - without the slightest bow to due process. · The West generally – and Europe in particular - clearly has a big problem with matters of religion, race and ethnicity. It is multiform, it mutates, it waxes and wanes, it shifts focus and fixation - but it remains lodged in the collective psyche. While this obviously is not universal among Europe’s population of 400 million, it is manifestly prevalent and deep-seated. When the stimulus is strong and acute, it flares like a gas field when the drill hits paydirt. · Europe has an obsession about Jews. For nearly 2 millennia, it shunned them, despised them and persecuted them. Now, after a respite of a few decades, it condemns and abuses Muslims in a similar way - all in the name of protecting Jews. The very words 'Jewish' and 'Israel' have the power to paralyze European minds and consciences - most strikingly among the political class. Thus, the current exaltation of the Jews of Israel - honored and cosseted - is matched by the dehumanization of Palestine's Muslims. · The spectacle of Western societies’ perverse, immoral conduct on Palestine/Israel stems from two principal sources: their twisted, incestuous history with Judaism and Jews; and their ingrained sense of superiority relative to other peoples whom they dominated and exploited for nearly 500 years. The latter shapes thinking today even among those who consciously have abandoned its racist corollary. Imperative acts of atonement ‘no matter what’ follow from the former; devaluation of the lives of “the other” follows from the latter. Together, they are fracturing the moral foundations of European and North American nations. · An unnatural feature of the West’s behavior re Palestine/Israel is the near unanimity of attitude and action displayed by the political class. The same holds for Russia/Ukraine – and increasingly China. We have seen nothing of this sort since WW II. Yet, these matters are notable for being multifaceted, entailing complex interactions, evocative of wrenching moral issues, and do not engage directly core national interests. The entire panoply of institutions - public and private - rise up as if choreographed to vent the same emotions, make the same harsh, unqualified judgments, use the same crude slogans, drape themselves in the same banners of self-righteousness and self-proclaimed moralism. Government leaders, politicos, media, pundits, make the same cacophonous noises, aggressively impose the same uniformity of opinion, and punish the few dissenters. This is the sign of an infirmed democracy. · The New York Times editors have compiled a selected list of the 21st Century’s 100 ‘best’ books. Only two addressed any of the matters noted above.