Tag Archives: totalitarianism

Back Strokes

“The normal cycle in the life and death of great nations has been first a powerful tyranny broken by revolt, the enjoyment of liberty, the abuse of liberty – and back to tyranny again. As I see it, in this country – a land of the most persistent idealism and the blandest cynicism – the race is on between its decadence and its vitality.”

Alistair Cooke

Now that 2025 has ended, we must realize that we’re officially more than a quarter of the way into the 21st century.  And, in the United States, we have a totalitarian despot as our President.  I never would have thought we’d be in this position – the self-proclaimed “Beacon of Democracy” has a self-righteous moron as its leader.

Reminder: we’re in the 21st century – C.E.!

Last November marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Francisco Franco, who came to power during Spain’s Civil War and ruled for more than three decades.  Western Europe’s last true dictator, Franco persecuted his political opponents, suppressed certain cultural aspects, manipulated the media, and just generally wielded absolute control over the country.  His death brought democratic relief to Spain.

It’s a familiar pattern that’s occurred across the globe and throughout human history.  Certain individuals promise – and initially bring – freedom to the people and then mutate into a brutal autocrat.  The masses get sucked into the chasm of false promises and righteous dreams…then are horrified when the truth comes out.

Sometimes it appears humanity will never learn.  I feel that way now about the United States.  In 2000 we all stood on the precipice of a new century and a new millennium.  The future was ours.  Then, here in the U.S., we regressed and inadvertently chose a leader who turned out to be ill-equipped for the role of “Leader of the Free World”.  And the first decade of the 21st century – C.E. – became lost to war and the morass of class divisions.  We should have been preparing to build a colony on the moon and sending humans to Mars.  Instead Americans were trying to figure out whether to pay for utilities or buy groceries.

And we’ve reached that point again.

In June of 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion in this country.  It accompanied ongoing attacks on our literary culture, as book bans rampaged across the land.  Looking at all of it, I wondered how and why we were moving backwards.  Societies, in general theory, are supposed to move forward – much like time.  Conservatism may sound like a grand ideology, but it can be detrimental.

In November of 1979, I was a high school student and in San Antonio, Texas for a speech and drama contest, when we heard news that a band of rebels had stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran.  Some of my fellow students had no idea where Iran was, much less why it had become a target for protesters.  But we’d soon learn exactly why.  From then until January of 1981, a number of Americans were held hostage in Tehran as retribution for the U.S. support of their former national leader, Reza Shah Pahlavi.  Pahlavi had been forced from power earlier in 1979 by a populace who had grown weary of his tortuous rule.  Now Iran is in the grips of social unrest once more, and ironically, Pahlavi’s son is seeking to return to his homeland and lead his people into a new universe.

Again, the world has seen this happen before: Russia, China, France…the list is almost endless.  The citizenry gets tired of how their universe is functioning and decides to take action.  The result is often violent.

This year, 2026, officially marks the semiquincentennial of the United States – our 250th anniversary of existence.  I was twelve years old in the summer of 1976, when we marked our bicentennial, and I felt an extraordinary sense of pride and excitement.  The nation was still recovering from the brutal cultural upheaval of the 1960s, but at that moment, we all seemed to bond and become – as our founders intended – a truly united people.  I’m certain I’ll never live to see our tricenntenial, but it’s a pleasant dream.

It’s even more inspirational to know our nation will move beyond the likes of our current leaders who have no real sense of a future.  We’ll never be a utopia.  No community can ever achieve that.

Denounce me as naïve, if you want – I’ve often called myself cynical at this point in my life.  but I still hope for the best.

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Next!

“First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.”

Martin Niemöller

We’re still in shock here in the U.S.  In just a matter of weeks, the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court undid decade’s worth of progressive social reforms.  The reversal of Roe vs. Wade last month garnered the most attention, but they didn’t stop with that.

In Vega vs. Tekoh, the High Court ruled that a violation of Miranda rights doesn’t provide a basis for civil damages.  The original Miranda vs. Arizona decision ensured people accused of criminal behavior have the right to legal counsel and to remain silent in the face of police interrogation.  Miranda was decided in line with the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, which had already established certain guidelines for addressing criminal procedures.  The Vega ruling now ensures that law enforcement can act with impunity.  I suspect it’s a response to the vitriolic reactions to high-profile police killings over the past…well, several decades; the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests and all that.  In Vega, the SCOTUS majority noted that, if the original Miranda court intended to create a constitutional right versus a prophylactic rule, it would have definitively declared that immediately upon deciding Miranda.  The 1966 Court knew how to use its words, the current Court essentially declared, and those words used were not “constitutional right.”  See how verbiage can be twisted so easily by academics?

In West Virginia vs. the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Court undercut the latter’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.  SCOTUS agreed with Republican-led states and energy companies that the 1970 Clean Air Act gave the EPA too much power over carbon emissions.  The decision was also a strike back against the 2015 Clean Power Plan – an Obama-era policy that targeted adverse climate change.  To environmentalists, it wasn’t surprising that energy conglomerates were adamant in reversing the CPP, as well as the CAA.  But the West Virginia ruling falls in line with the belief of conservatives that climate change is a hoax.  That’s why energy companies overwhelmingly support Republican candidates.  I have to note West Virginia is a top coal producer.  It also ranks as one of the poorest states in the union.

In his statement regarding the Dobbs ruling, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested the Court should revisit other high-profile rulings, including Griswold vs. Connecticut, which declared the legal usage of contraceptives; Lawrence vs. Texas, which struck down anti-sodomy laws; and Obergefell vs. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage.  Curiously, he didn’t call for a review of Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education, which declared that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional or Loving vs. Virginia, which legalized interracial marriage.  I guess this is because overturning these decisions would impact Thomas, a Negro married to a White chick.  It’s amazing how some people have no problems enacting laws that wouldn’t affect them personally.

In the 1983 film “The Star Chamber”, Michael Douglas portrays a relatively young judge who becomes engaged with a group of other jurists who find the legal system has gone awry in favor of criminals and decide to enact vigilante justice to right those perceived wrongs.  They hire assassins to kill certain criminals who have escaped incarceration.  The movie is replete with scenes where highly articulate lawyers help defendants get out of trouble.  In one early scene, Hal Holbrook’s character tells Douglas, “Someone has hidden justice inside the law.”  It’s an attempt to justify the group’s brutal actions.

That’s how I often view the legal system.  Charismatic lawyers prancing around even the most heinous of crimes with carefully-crafted verbiage; a kind of Tolkien-style language only they understand, but something the rest of us have to deal with toiling away in the trenches of reality.  I certainly don’t recommend assassination as a viable resolution to our nation’s political ills.  That’s where the treasured right of voting comes into play.  People need to take their voting rights seriously and understand the significance of not voting.  We’ve seen the fruits of voter apathy in my home state of Texas.  In recent years, the right to vote has come under fire from conservatives.  As with many other rights, this isn’t a surprise.  Conservatives have always tried to suppress voting.  You know…the way totalitarian regimes like Russia have.  I’ve noted more than once that the (fair and legitimate) elections of Barack Obama prompted (mostly White) conservatives to launch their assault on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  During their convention last month, the Texas Republican Party called for repeal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which guarantees the right to vote regardless of race.  They did this because…well, because that’s what conservatives do – at least here in the U.S.  They were quick to abolish fascism in Europe during World War II, but weren’t so eager to do the same at home.

With this in mind, I wonder if many conservative queers who voted for the likes of George W. Bush and Ted Cruz are satisfied with their decisions.  Along with many mainstream right-wingers, some are ecstatic that Roe was overturned.  But now, I hate to see their reactions at the thought of reversing Lawrence or Obergefell.  But the neo-Nazi clowns who have targeted the so-called “liberal agenda” for years are coming for their faggot asses next!  I just hope they’ll be happy sitting in their designer closets polishing their Ronald Reagan Glee Club pins.

If anyone in the U.S. believes democracy is functioning just perfectly and nothing is wrong, they need to consider this: five of the current justices on the Supreme Court were chosen by presidents who did NOT win the popular vote.  George W. Bush didn’t really win the 2000 presidential election and he barely won the 2004 election; yet he was able to appoint two justices – Samuel Alito and John Roberts.  Donald Trump certainly didn’t win the 2016 presidential election (perhaps the most corrupt in U.S. history), but he was able to appoint three justices to the Court: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney-Barrett.  Gorsuch’s selection came because Republicans refused to grant President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, the decency of a hearing upon the death of Antonin Scalia in 2016; claiming it was an election year and the next president should choose the nominee.  However, Barrett’s nomination came after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg in 2020.  The same band of Republicans who denied Garland a hearing rammed through Barrett’s confirmation without hesitation.

I don’t know if most Americans fully comprehend the significance of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe.  It could lead to much worse.  But this is what happens when people don’t bother to vote in even the most mundane of elections.  Liberals seem especially reticent to take local races seriously.  I can only recommend everyone concerned about our democracy to make that concerted effort to vote.  I understand how many people feel their votes don’t count, particularly after the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections and all the corruption involved in both.

Yet, democracy is not a natural form of governing.  Humanity is more likely to construct an oligarchy-style system.  In worse case settings, totalitarianism can take root, as it almost did with Donald Trump in the White House.  People need to be wary of the current U.S. Supreme Court and its fascist leanings, disguised as social conservatism.  (Then again, fascism and conservatism are pretty much the same ideology.)

It’s starting with the Roe reversal.  Unless we place more moderates into public office, it will only get worse.

Bottom image: Michael de Adder

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