Mayor Rahm Emanuel rejects President Donald Trump's call for Chicago police to use stop-and-frisk tactics chicagotribune.com/news/nationwor…
Comment: Good! Human beings should be treated like human beings.
Comment: Good! Human beings should be treated like human beings.
Trump might not be a literal Nazi, but we shouldn't lose sight of the really troubling things he says and does. Like threatening to put Chicago under military occupation.
After the fact, Mr. Trump claimed that he was talking about sending in the FBI, and the mainstream media started echoing that talking point, but let's be serious.
Prior to 24 Jan 2017, who in the United States had we ever heard use the word "feds" to refer to the FBI?
Prior to 24 Jan 2017, who in the United States had we ever heard use the word "feds" to refer to the FBI?
In the context of the tweet, it doesn't even make sense. Trump is clearly adopting a threatening tone, issuing an ultimatum. One doesn't threaten to send help, one offers it.
In this tweet, we see the interpretation almost anybody in the US would have come up with.
Martial law. Feds = federales = federal troops.
Martial law. Feds = federales = federal troops.
That Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago (the city that Trump threatened) pretended otherwise is understandable. He was dealing with a freshly sworn-in maniac-in-chief who had an overwhelming amount of power at his disposal, and was trying to deflect the maniac's rage.
I won't say that Emanuel has been a good mayor (far from it), but given the disappearance of basic civil liberties under martial law (eg. the disappearance of habeas corpus protections), he did right to try to avoid a scenario in which the national guard (or worse) was sent in.
Worse being the US army. Yes, under the Posse Comitatus act of 1878, that would be illegal, but in case people haven't noticed, yet, Trump doesn't care much about the finer points of the law.
While the military could (and I hope would) refuse to obey a clearly unlawful order, there is always the risk that they would so yes, Rahm did the right thing that day and what one might call his Jedi mind trick did seem to work on the addled old fool in the Oval Office.
But the credulous response of the American media to the facts in hand aren't even understandable, much less praiseworth. Let us remember what had really happened right before the incident.
chicagotribune.com/news/local/bre…
I'll quote ...
chicagotribune.com/news/local/bre…
I'll quote ...
"Trump’s tweet came a day after Emanuel made comments critical of the new president."
Specifically ...
"The mayor criticized Trump for focusing on the size of the crowd at his inauguration ceremony and suggested his inaugural speech wasted an opportunity to appeal to 'our better angels as a country.'”
"The mayor criticized Trump for focusing on the size of the crowd at his inauguration ceremony and suggested his inaugural speech wasted an opportunity to appeal to 'our better angels as a country.'”
Trump had complained about the apparently honest reports that attendance at his inaugural address had been light.
There had been some "mainstream media" response to Trump's post-factual stance, as we see in this video
but that response seemed to go no further than an engagement in a collective act of verbal self-defense.
but that response seemed to go no further than an engagement in a collective act of verbal self-defense.
In the editorials, given the context, one might have hoped to see somebody draw the obvious conclusion, after Trump threatened to endanger the people of Chicago by sending in armed troops, because he was angry about the criticism of his comments made by the mayor of Chicago.
Namely, that the newly sworn-in president of the United States was dangerously unstable, a reality that showed its full, disturbing implications when said president seemed to be daring the perhaps equally unstable Kim Jong Un to start a nuclear war.
In theory, the 25th amendment
law.cornell.edu/constitution/a…
provides a mechanism by which a clearly unfit chief executive can be removed from office, but with the Republicans in the majority in both houses, the process for removal seems unlikely to even be initiated.
law.cornell.edu/constitution/a…
provides a mechanism by which a clearly unfit chief executive can be removed from office, but with the Republicans in the majority in both houses, the process for removal seems unlikely to even be initiated.
Nor, despite the clear and present danger posed by Trump, does there seem to be any push to set aside short-term partisan self-interest and remove somebody who has now twice shown a casual willingness to endanger his own people.
Thrice if we could the Puerto Ricans, many of whom were literally powerless for a little short of 11 months.
No, the disturbing message we get is that the worse Trump gets, the more his constituency likes him. No, he obviously isn't literally a Nazi. When we make that claim, we look silly for reasons that should be well known by now.
timesofisrael.com/meet-the-jews-…
The man has Jewish advisors
timesofisrael.com/meet-the-jews-…
The man has Jewish advisors
Why would a literal Nazi turn to Jews for advice and why, short of having a death wish, would the Jews give it to him. No, as anti-Semitic as many of Trump's supporters are, we can and should concede that there is no sign that the man, himself is an anti-Semite.
But one doesn't have to be an anti-Semite to be unfit for office, or to be showing a more than slightly authoritarian bent.
When he talks about voiding fourth amendment protections and violating the persons and the dignity of American citizens, he might not be acting like a Nazi, but he is acting like the sort of person who would be a dictator, given the chance.
Maybe not a Nazi, but definitely an authoritarian.
Yes, that's nuance. It's not the sort of thing that would reach the kind of yahoo Trump has been appealing to, but the rest of us weren't going to reach them, anyway, so why worry about that?
Yes, that's nuance. It's not the sort of thing that would reach the kind of yahoo Trump has been appealing to, but the rest of us weren't going to reach them, anyway, so why worry about that?
If the saner elements of the American populace wish to prevail, they must first remember to remain sane. To not stoop down to a level that Trump supporters, by the very nature of their candidate, can't rise above.
Trump is a fascist, but when we endorse the antics of the sort of people who run around in masks and hit other people over the heads with bike locks, we empower fascists like him, by leaving others under the impression that the only alternative to one form of Fascism is another.
That keeps us on the path to the truly dangerous future we've been on, one so daangerous that the idea of secession, something that would have gotten one laughed out of the room as recently as 2 Nov 2016, now doesn't seem so crazy, any more.
Perhaps it was never so crazy in the first place. That notion of putting Chicago under military occupation did seem to see a lot of support in the red states, from people who seemed eager to invent their own facts to make the proposal seem less horrific than it was.
If our countrymen wish to see harm done to us, in what sense are they really our countrymen?
Oh, and let's be honest - we all know that's not a completely recent development. We've just been much too polite to say much about the subject.
Let's say that you know that you can't pass for Anglo-Saxon, at all, and a friend suggest taking a road trip to Mississippi, to go visit the historical sites.
Is there enough money in the world to get you to step foot in that car?
Is there enough money in the world to get you to step foot in that car?
We've all known what rednecks were. for a long time. We've just not thought about how many of them there were, about how many of our "fellow" Americans would like to see us get beaten or worse. Then we started getting reminders.
As did others.
As an America Jew, I could not help but notice that we often saw more concern from those overseas
than we did from those in the next state, which spoke well of those overseas whose support was appreciated, but it did raise that uncomfortable question.
than we did from those in the next state, which spoke well of those overseas whose support was appreciated, but it did raise that uncomfortable question.
Are our countrymen really our countrymen, and if they are not, then should our allegiance to the Union not be at an end? Has the entire concept of the United States not been revealed to be a nonsensical one?
This isn't even a matter of wondering if the idea of American nationalism is a fatally flawed one because the way Jews or people are color are treated.
As a recent discussion I was in
helped to show, American nationalism has the remarkable ability to marginalize the vast majority of the American people.
helped to show, American nationalism has the remarkable ability to marginalize the vast majority of the American people.
As a Jew, I take a natural personal interest in how Jews are viewed and treated, but if you think we're the only ones with targets on our backs, you've been kidding yourself.
If we fall, your turn will come.
If we fall, your turn will come.
There's no getting around the fact that America has always been a diverse country, multicultural, multi-ethnic and multiracial from the beginning. Some parts of the current United States are comfortable with that. Some never will be.
No peace between the two factions can last.
No peace between the two factions can last.
We can't hope to truly be at peace with these rednecks, with these people who hate us simply for existing and, in the end, the rednecks can't even hope to be at peace with each other.
I have ears. I can hear when the Southern Baptists talk about the Lutherans and the Presbyterians, supposedly their fellow Christians, and when WASPs have badmouthed Germans.
Diversity is a relative thing. No matter how little of it there is, there will always be somebody who is a little more different from the norm than the others, always somebody to target.
A society in which uniformity is the demanded-on ideal is a society doomed to turn on itself
A society in which uniformity is the demanded-on ideal is a society doomed to turn on itself
So, perhaps the Union is doomed, and those jokes about the blue states seceding and applying to join Canada won't really be jokes, any more. Or perhaps we can keep the hate mongering Klan supporters at arm's length and remain in the Union, for a while.
But either way, Mr. Trump and his supporting cast of deplorables are a problem we need to start taking seriously, without becoming a similar problem, ourselves. If we're going to become seperate societies, then let us become something worthy of respect, instead of ... well ...
Did I write that? Yipe.
Please unroll @threadreaderapp
Please unroll @threadreaderapp
