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Taliban seeks to reshape Afghanistan’s schools to push their ideology

Afghan students will get more lessons in religion and resistance under the Taliban’s proposed changes to their schools. Sanaullah Seiam

The Conversation

November 11, 2024

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 was a blow for education across the country – but especially for girls and women. Since then, the Taliban’s leaders have outlawed education for girls after sixth grade, expanded religious seminaries known as madrasas ninefold and reintroduced corporal punishment in schools.

Now, the Taliban are continuing their assault on education for both boys and girls by changing the curriculum in grades 1-12. They have already revised textbooks up to eighth grade, and they’re on track to finish the rest within months. After completion, the revised curriculum will go up for approval by the Taliban’s supreme leader and will likely be followed by swift implementation. The process is straightforward. The supreme leader of the Taliban controls education policy – including the curriculum. Once submitted to him, he has no reason to reject or delay the implementation.

As an educational policy scholar who pushed for educational progress in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover, I believe these changes echo the tactics of the Soviet-backed regime in the 1980s to impose an ideology through textbooks. They also reflect the stifling climate of the 1990s, which promoted violence and suppressed critical thinking in education. By controlling education, the Taliban aims to instill their totalitarian and extremist religious-based ideology in young minds, ensuring their grip on power for generations to come

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The Quran, Islam’s sacred text, will become a more prominent part of Afghan education under a series of proposed changes by the Taliban. Wakil Kohsar via Getty Images
The curriculum changes

Afghanistan’s education system is centralized, meaning all schools follow a single curriculum. The current textbooks are the result of two decades of reforms that followed the country’s recovery from the Soviet invasion and civil wars of the 1980s and 1990s.

Since 2001, when the Taliban’s last regime fell, the Ministry of Education, in collaboration with international developmental agencies, undertook a critical revision of the national curriculum. This initiative aimed to make curriculum and textbooks inclusive, nondiscriminatory and free from promotion of violence – a departure from previous textbooks that included illustrations of tanks, rocket launchers and automatic weapons.

In the last decade before the Taliban regained power, the Ministry of Education was still attempting to reform curriculum to focus on students’ personal and economic growth. Unfortunately, the ministry never completed the reforms.
Taliban soldiers in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Oct. 16, 2024. Wakil Kohsar via Getty Images

Within a few months after their takeover in August 2021, senior Taliban leaders criticized the previous education system and curriculum, saying it was brainwashing Afghan youth and weakening religious values. They called for a reeducation campaign.

Since then, the Taliban have been revising the curriculum and aggressively rewriting textbooks for grades 1-12. This is based on 26 recommendations from their education commission. Some of the changes approved by the commission include:

1.) Removing subjects like formal art, civil education and culture. Instead, schools are increasing time spent on religious studies.

2.) Removing content about human rights, women’s rights, equal rights, freedoms, elections and democracy.

3.) Removing all images of living beings from textbooks, including pictures of humans, animals, sports and anatomy. The Taliban believe that only God creates living beings, and producing or distributing images of God’s creation is prohibited.

4.) Adding religious material to the curriculum that enforces Taliban narratives. This includes teachings that justify violence against those who resist or oppose the Taliban’s views.

5.) Shaping student behaviors to fit the Taliban’s vision of society, similar to what they defined in recent vice and virtue laws that ban women’s voices and bare faces in public, among other rules.

6.) Requiring schools to teach and assess students on “emirate studies,” which glorify Taliban leaders and their history by characterizing the Taliban takeover as a defeat of secular values, including equal rights, civil society and democracy.

The Taliban have also banned women from studying abroad. In addition, they have prohibited the sale, purchase and reprinting of more than 400 science and philosophy books and confiscated at least 50,000 books on democracy, social and civil rights, art, literature and poetry from publishing houses, bookstores and public libraries.

A 2023 Human Rights Watch report noted an increase in corporal punishment in schools. Even some teachers of nonreligious subjects, like math and science, now have to pass the religious tests to remain employed.

Beyond shaping thought processes, the Taliban aim to influence students’ actions. Through rigid rules and corporal punishments – including humiliation, beating, slapping and foot whipping – they seek to produce immediate behavioral changes that reflect their desired norms. Their ultimate goal is to cultivate individuals who embody the regime’s values and ideologies.
Consequences for Afghan students – and the world

During their first regime from 1995-2001, the Taliban used textbooks with biased content that promoted violent jihad. For example, the alphabet taught to first graders included teachings like “J” stands for jihad and “M” for mujahideen – referring to Islamic guerrilla fighters.

They increased religious education to 50% of the curriculum and banned art, music and photography. They deemed music against God’s will, according to their interpretation of Sharia.

As a result, academic freedom vanished. Student enrollment dropped. Families lost trust in schools, and many teachers left the profession, leading to the eventual collapse of the education system in the 1990s.

The Taliban are threatening to do the same today with their latest curriculum changes. Schools may turn into indoctrination centers instead of places for real learning. I fear that the altered curriculum could breed mistrust in public education. Furthermore, the Taliban removed the 2008 law that made school mandatory. As a result, many parents may pull their kids from schools again

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Afghan school girls walk back home in Balkh province on Oct. 22, 2024.

Atif Aryan via Getty Images

The ideologically driven curriculum also raises international concerns and has already led to cuts in foreign aid. Donors won’t support institutions that promote discriminatory ideologies. This is straining an already vulnerable education system, threatening its survival.

Ultimately, the Afghan people will bear the brunt of these policies, but the effects could spill beyond the country’s borders and impact the world.

Enayat Nasir, Doctoral Research Assistant in Educational Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

What the history of blasphemy laws and the fight for religious freedom can teach us

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
person holding book while standing on field

The Conversation

November 13, 2024


Some 79 countries around the world continue to enforce blasphemy laws. And in places such as Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, violation of these measures can result in a death penalty.

While the U.S. is not among those countries, it also has a long history of blasphemy laws. Many of the U.S. colonies established blasphemy laws, which became state laws. The U.S. Supreme Court did not rule that blasphemy was a form of protected speech until 1952. Even then, it has not always been protected.

As a scholar of religious and political rhetoric, I believe the history of U.S. blasphemy laws reflects a complex fight for the freedom of religion and speech.
Early US blasphemy laws

U.S. colonies often developed legal protections for Christians to practice their religion. These safeguards often did not extend to non-Christians.

Maryland’s Toleration Act of 1649, for example, was the first Colonial act to refer to the “free exercise” of religion and was designed to protect Christians from religious persecution from state officials. It did not, however, extend that “free exercise” of religion to non-Christians, instead declaring that anyone who blasphemes against God by cursing him or denying the existence of Jesus can be punished by death or the forfeiture of their lands to the state.

In 1811, the U.S. witnessed one of its most infamous blasphemy trials, People v. Ruggles, at the New York Supreme Court. New York resident John Ruggles received a three-month prison sentence and a US$500 fine — about $12,000 in today’s money — for stating in public that “Jesus Christ was a bastard, and his mother must be a whore.”

Chief Justice James Kent argued that people have freedom of religious opinion, but opinions that were malicious toward the majority stance of Christianity were an abuse of that right. He claimed similar attacks on other religions, such as Islam and Buddhism, would not be punishable by law, because “we are a Christian people” whose country does not draw on the doctrines of “those imposters.”

Several years later, in 1824, a member of a debating society was convicted of blasphemy by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court after saying during a debate: “The Holy Scriptures were a mere fable, that they were a contradiction, and that although they contained a number of good things, yet they contained a great many lies.” In this case — Updegraph v. Commonwealth — the court argued that it was a “vulgarly shocking and insulting” statement that reflected “the highest offence” against public morals and was a disturbance to “public peace.”

By the end of the 19th century, a prominent free thought movement that rejected religion as a guide for reason had begun to emerge. Movement leaders embraced the public critiquing of Christianity and challenged laws that favored Christians, such as blasphemy laws and mandatory Bible readings in public schools.

Unsurprisingly, as historian Leigh Eric Schmidt has noted, speakers and writers in the movement regularly faced threats of blasphemy charges.

By this time, however, even in cases where freethinkers were convicted of blasphemy, judges appeared to offer leniency.

In 1887, C.B. Reynolds, an ex-preacher who became a prominent free thought speaker, was convicted of blasphemy in New Jersey after he publicly doubted the existence of God. He faced a $200 fine and up to a year in prison. The judge, however, only fined Reynolds $25, plus court costs.

While it is unclear why Reynolds was offered leniency, historian Leonard Levy suggests that it may have been to avoid making Reynolds a martyr of the free thought movement by imprisoning him.

Protecting blaspheme as free speech

Growing calls for religious equality and freedom of speech increasingly swayed blasphemy cases in the 1900s.

In 1917, for example, Michael X. Mockus, who had previously been convicted of blasphemy in Connecticut for his free thought lectures, was acquitted in a similar case in Illinois.

While expressing dislike for blasphemy, Judge Perry L. Persons argued that the court’s job is not to determine which religion is right. He said “the Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, Mahammedan, the Jew, the Freethinker, the Atheist” must “all stand equal before the law.”

Then, in 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson after New York rescinded the license for the film “The Miracle.” The film was deemed sacrilegious because of its supposed mockery of the Catholic faith.

The high court ruled that states could not ban sacrilegious films. That would be a violation of the separation of church and state, it ruled, and an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of religion and speech.

Even after the Supreme Court decision, Americans continued to occasionally face blasphemy charges. But courts shot the charges down.

In 1968, when Irving West, a 20-year-old veteran, told a policeman to “Get your goddam hands off me” after getting in a fight, he was charged with disorderly conduct and violating Maryland’s blasphemy law. When West appealed, a circuit court judge ruled the law was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.

Despite these rulings, in 1977, Pennsylvania enacted a blasphemy statute banning businesses from having blasphemous names after a local businessman tried to name his gun store “The God Damn Gun Shop.” It was not until 2010 that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court deemed this statute unconstitutional.

The decision followed a case in which the owner of a film production company sued the state after his request to register his company under the name “I Choose Hell Productions, LLC” was denied on the grounds that it was blasphemous. Citing the 1952 Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson case, the judge ruled that the statute was a violation of First Amendment rights.

A sign of democratic freedom

As historian David Sehat highlights in his book “The Myth of American Religious Freedom,” since America was founded there have been strong disagreements over what religious freedom should look like. Blasphemy laws have been a key part of this clash.

Historically, many Americans have viewed the laws as justifiable. Some believed Christianity deserved special protection and reverence. Others, including some Founding Fathers such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, have viewed the same laws as unconstitutional restrictions of free speech and religious expression.

There has recently been growing attention to the rise of Christian nationalism, the belief that the United States is or should be a Christian nation. Amid this rise, there have been attacks on free speech, such as the increase in book bans and restrictions on public protests. I believe it’s important that we, as Americans, learn from this history of the fight for the freedom of religion and speech.

Kristina M. Lee, Assistant Professor, University of South Dakota

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Data proves populist parties thrive on discontentment

A supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump rallies outside an early polling precinct as voters cast their ballots in local, state, and national elections, in Clearwater, Florida, U.S., November 3, 2024.

 REUTERS/Octavio Jones

The Conversation

November 13, 2024

Anger and resentment have become the accepted currency of populist politicians. Donald Trump is generally the first example that comes to mind, but Europe has its fair share of these leaders too, from Viktor Orban in Hungary and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands to Marine Le Pen in France and Giorgia Meloni in Italy.

These politicians portray life, the economy, and society in the present as being far worse than in the past. This is because of immigration, globalisation, taxation, corruption, and the excessive influence of politicians and intellectuals. And by positioning themselves as outsiders, they don’t have to accept any role in these wrongs.

Traditionally, when voters felt a government hadn’t delivered for them, they’d punish that government at the ballot box by voting for the main moderate (centrist) opposition party. This dynamic characterised European politics until about 20 years ago. Now, however, the punishment vote goes to populist parties.

This change can be seen by looking at the electoral performance of the largest populist parties in 17 European countries. If we look at elections held around 2000 and then the most recent election, we can see that almost all of those parties have grown in strength.

Countries that were most affected by the financial crisis of 2008 and the sovereign debt crisis in 2010 – such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Ireland – saw the emergence of populist parties. The governments of these nations had implemented painful recovery programmes, frequently anchored on austere economic policies (such as tax rises and spending cuts).

At the beginning of 2000, populist parties were either nonexistent or somewhat irrelevant in these countries. But by the time of the most recent national elections in each, the picture was very different. In Italy, a populist party is now in government. In Greece and Ireland, populists lead the opposition.

Spain and Greece have also both experienced coalition governments that have included radical left populist parties (Syriza and Podemos) in the past 20 years.

And in countries like Germany, Sweden, and Austria – some of the main recipients of asylum requests during the 2015 European migrant crisis – radical right populist parties have gained particular relevance. Fundamentally nativist parties are in opposition in Austria and Sweden. Perhaps most famously, the far-right AfD is consistently making gains in regional elections in Germany and is polling second nationally.

In my research, I’ve found that people who report feeling very dissatisfied and unhappy with their lives were up to 10 percentage points more likely to support a populist compared to those who are extremely satisfied.

In 17 countries where far-right populist parties have parliamentary seats, people who reported feeling very dissatisfied with their lives were 7.4 percentage points more likely to support those parties than those who were extremely satisfied.

In seven countries where we find far-left populist parties represented in the national parliament, very dissatisfied people were 8.2 percentage points more likely to support those parties than those who are extremely satisfied.

Countries marked by persistent economic inequality and social divides or which experienced severe economic recessions and austerity prove fertile ground for populists. The financial crisis of 2008 preceded a surge for the far left and the refugee crisis in 2015 a surge for the far right.

Distrust as the vehicle

The key to understanding why dissatisfied people are more likely to support populists nowadays than in the past lies in trust – or lack thereof it.

Political trust is, in essence, the belief that a party or politician or can (and wants to) improve your life when they take office – or that the institutions of government are capable of doing so.

Departing from a baseline with a relatively high level of trust (which, in a way, was the case before 2000), successive governments in many countries appear to have failed to substantially improve the lives of certain segments of the population.

Among working class people and people without a degree, life satisfaction has not increased. Their median level of satisfaction and happiness did not change at all between 2002 and 2018. What’s more, the gap between this group’s median level of life satisfaction and that of groups with higher education and highly skilled workers has not been reduced. In some cases, it has widened.

The perpetuation of a state of dissatisfaction has gradually eroded the trust of these voters. Many no longer believe that mainstream parties and politicians, if elected, would implement policies to help them. This has fuelled further support for populists. People who are extremely distrustful of politicians and political parties were 14 percentage points more likely to support far-right populist parties compared to those who do trust politicians.

The successes of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and the Freedom Party of Austria show that there is no immediate prospect of a downturn in support for populists.

Arguably, however, the most sensible strategy to overturn this trend is for moderate politicians and parties to invest in strategies that alleviate feelings of unresponsiveness among voters. They might perhaps begin with those without a higher education.

Those same parties should focus on restoring their credibility by looking back at how they managed the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis and the 2015 migration crisis with the benefit of hindsight.

Rui Silva, Lecturer in Economics, University of East Anglia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Archeologists long believed that ancient graves were robbed all over Europe — but here’s why they’re wrong

Photo by jessica rigollot on Unsplash
a bunch of skulls that are sitting on a table

The Conversation

November 13, 2024

From the collapse of Roman power to the spread of Christianity, most of what we know about the lives of people across Europe comes from traces of their deaths. This is because written sources are limited, and in many areas archaeologists have only found a few farmsteads and villages. But thousands of grave fields have been excavated, adding up to tens of thousands of burials.

Buried along with the human remains, archaeologists find traces of costumes and often possessions, including knives, swords, shields, spears and ornate brooches of bronze and silver. There are glass beads strung as necklaces, as well as glass and ceramic vessels. From time to time they even find wooden boxes, buckets, chairs and beds.

Yet since the investigations of these cemeteries began in the 19th century, archaeologists have recognised that they have not always been the first to re-enter the tombs. At least a few graves in most cemeteries are found in a disturbed state, their contents jumbled and valuables missing. Sometimes this happened before the buried bodies were fully decomposed. In some areas, whole cemeteries are found in this state.

The disturbance has been termed grave robbery and lamented as a loss for archaeology in the removal of hoped-for finds and data. For example, the digger’s reaction to the discovery of one disturbed burial recorded in excavation notes in Kent, England, in the 1970s is typical: “the big event – and disappointment of the day”.

But our research shows that robbing is not the right label for what happened to these graves – in fact, something else was going on.
Disappointing discoveries

Our new research has re-examined evidence from sites in different areas of Europe and shown that the grave disturbance phenomenon is far more widespread than previously recognised. From Transylvania to south-east England, communities started to adopt customs of re-entering burials and removing certain objects in the later sixth century. The practices peaked in the early seventh century.

In some areas, frequent discoveries of ransacked graves created an image of pillage and violation of the dead, which came to be seen as typical of the post-Roman power vacuum across Europe. In some cases the violations were not even attributed to strangers: earlier 20th-century French archaeologists believed that reopened graves reflected the barbaric nature of the Germanic tribes then thought to have used the cemeteries and to have robbed their own relatives

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Copy of Figure MerxheimLeVieux CLARYS. sad, Author provided

However, over the decades, many excavators in different countries pointed out that there were signs that this was not straightforward robbery. For one thing, it was highly selective, with particular objects taken and others left behind – sometimes even gold coins.

Such observations were not connected, because the discussions were mainly only of single cemeteries and divided by language barriers, so no one could see the extent of the evidence.

In our research, we collected and re-assessed thousands of records of disturbed burials in several countries to understand when graves were re-entered and what exactly was done to their contents. We show that the reopening practices have similarities across Europe, especially the careful selection of artefacts.

In one case in southern England, a complete necklace with 78 beads and six pendants, variously of silver, silver-gilt, glass and garnet, was no longer lying around the neck of the deceased, and all the remains had been moved about. The necklace seemed to have been lifted and moved but still left in the grave.

In many tombs we can tell other objects had been removed since metal staining, rust marks and few fragments of these objects were left in the graves. Such residues suggest that these items were in poor condition when they were taken as these are signs that the materials had degraded. The level of such metal staining, rust staining and fragments present suggest that the items were in such a degraded state that it was unlikely they could have been used or exchanged.
Connection through belongings

Swords and brooches are most consistently missing from disturbed burials across Europe. The choice of swords and brooches, out of all the valuables left with the dead, seems to be related to their roles as heirlooms - possessions used to connect people across

 generations

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Reopened grave from Niedernai in eastern France. Here we can see that bones were lifted from the skeleton and laid on the coffin lid. M. Zehnacker, Afan, Author provided

Typically, we found that bones and objects were moved around within coffins that had not broken down yet. This suggests that reopening happened after a few years had passed, even when the soft tissue holding together skeletons had rotted. More recent graves were mainly chosen, even though older burials in the same cemeteries were usually much richer. This would suggest that theft of valuable items was not the intention of opening the graves. Rather, the aim was to retrieve special belongings with close connections to remembered individuals and their families.

We know from archaeological and ethnographic records all over the world that it is common for people to revisit the remains of their relatives, sometimes transferring them to new resting places – and famously in Madagascar, even dancing with decomposing corpses. The customs in early medieval Europe are unusual since they focus on belongings rather than bodies. But they show how laden with meaning and emotion the possessions placed with the dead were in how people thought about life and its end.

Alison Klevnäs, Reader in the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm University and Astrid A Noterman, Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Why authoritarian fossil fuel states keep hosting climate conferences

Photo by Leonard von Bibra on Unsplash
gray high-rise building

The Conversation

November 14, 2024

For the third year in a row, the United Nations Climate Change Conference will be hosted by an authoritarian state that sells fossil fuels. This week the 29th “conference of the parties”, COP29, is being held in Baku, Azerbaijan. It follows COP28 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates last year and COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt the year before that.

It’s concerning that a succession of authoritarian and fossil fuel-rich states have been selected to host international climate negotiations. It means we must pay extra attention to political influences on the talks and beware of greenwashing by the hosts.

The domestic politics of these states also shapes global supply chains of fossil fuels and critical minerals. This in turn directly affects Australia’s trade, economy and foreign policies.

There are now more authoritarian and hybrid regimes globally than there are democracies. So some basic understanding of how authoritarian states respond to climate change matters, for Australia and the rest of the world.

What is an authoritarian state and why should we care?

Power in authoritarian states is concentrated in the hands of a single ruler or group of elites. People under authoritarian rule lack many basic human rights, and risk punishment for speaking out against the political regime. Rule of law and political institutions are weak, so abuse of power can go unchecked.

Not all authoritarian states are fossil fuel producers, although many are. Some also supply critical minerals for electric vehicles and renewable energy.

China dominates global critical minerals supply chains and electric vehicle manufacturing.

Russia remains one of the largest fossil fuels producers and exporters, despite sanctions since 2022. It is also using revenues from these exports to continue its war in Ukraine.

Most of the major oil, coal and gas producers in the Middle East and Central and Southeast Asia are non-democracies or hybrid autocracies. UAE lifted oil production after hosting COP28.

Indonesia, considered “partly free”, is the world’s largest coal exporter. Despite having signed the Paris Agreement, the Indonesian government recently approved close to one billion tonnes of coal mining. Domestic coal consumption and export is expected to rise.
What is at stake at COP29?

At COP29, countries are expected to announce stronger national climate commitments. This is essential for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C and achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century.

It is hoped more concrete steps will also be taken towards providing financial support to developing countries struggling with the energy transition.

In previous years, authoritarian states have been able to block or undermine progress at international climate negotiations. Expect to see more of this at COP29.

China’s cautious approach to phasing out coal has affected COP negotiations in the past. Even after COP28, where a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuel was agreed, coal remains crucial to China’s economy.

At COP27 in Egypt, Russian energy lobbyists were permitted to attend even after the invasion of Ukraine. They met with heads of states and energy ministers from Africa, Asia and the rest of the world.

Russia will likely use COP29 to promote its own agenda, including its nuclear export industry. Since the war began, Russia has sought to frame Western-led cooperation on climate as a form of neo-colonialism designed to undermine its economy and others like it.

The mere fact COP29 is being held in Azerbaijan may be a consequence of Russian intervention. Russia reportedly opposed COP29 being held in Bulgaria after the European Union condemned the invasion of Ukraine and imposed sanctions.

Climate politics in autocracies

Finally, evidence suggests as climate change intensifies, authoritarianism could gain legitimacy over liberal democratic norms, for several reasons.

First, authoritarian states can provide effective short-term disaster response and relief. The central authorities in these states can mobilise considerable human and material resources without many institutional checks and balances.

Second, authoritarian states can introduce large-scale green energy technologies, such as solar, wind, hydro and nuclear, using substantial government funding. This has happened in China and many other states, including Laos, Vietnam, and Morocco. In doing so, authoritarian states can portray themselves as more capable than democracies.

Finally, following the demise of fossil fuel-related industries, functioning authoritarian states can manage massive job losses and suppress social resentment in ways democratic governments do not.

Challenges lie ahead

Long-standing democracies such as the United States and Australia have been bogged down in the complex politics around climate and energy transition. This has led to scientific evidence being questioned, crackdowns on environmental activism, and restrictions on media freedom. We need to make sure addressing climate change doesn’t undermine democratic principles.

What’s more, authoritarian and fossil fuel rich states have actively funded climate denial in democratic societies. For example, Russia was found to be promoting anti-climate misinformation on social media.

As far as China goes, the global superpower is extending its geopolitical influence by helping developing countries access cheap renewable energy technologies from non-Western sources. This challenges the leading role of the US and the West in the field of international cooperation on climate change.

As COP29 gets underway, the potential for authoritarian states to shape the outcomes remains strong. Understanding how these regimes work, and what they want, is vital as they affect global cooperation on climate change.

Ellie Martus, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University and Fengshi Wu, Associate Professor in Political Science and International Relations, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

THE DAY AFTER TOMMOROW

'Figure something else out': Trump teases run for illegal 3rd term in meeting with House GOP

A NYPD officer stands in front of an image of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump outside Madison Square Garden on the day of Trump's rally, in New York, U.S., October 27, 2024. 

REUTERS/David Dee Delgado TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Carl Gibson

ALTERNET

November 13, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump is already toying with the idea of pursuing a third term in office — in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution.

MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire tweeted Wednesday that during a recent meeting with the House Republican Conference, Trump suggested that his second term in the White House may not be his last. This would contradict the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits anyone who has been elected twice from running for a third time.

"I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, 'He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out,'" Trump said.


READ MORE: 'Trump in 2028': GOP-aligned organization calls for abolition of presidential term limits

The 22nd Amendment is explicit in its imposition of term limits on U.S. presidents. When George Washington served out his second term as the first president, he expressed that it was improper for anyone to serve more than two four-year terms in the nation's highest office, and that others who served after him should follow suit.

In 1799, Connecticut Governor John Trumbull — who was military secretary during the Revolutionary War — asked Washington to run for president a third time. Washington responded that he feared if he did so, he would be "charged... with concealed ambition," and that he had "ardent wishes to pass through the vale of life in [retirement], undisturbed in the remnant of the days I have to sojourn here."

But former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt broke with the two-term tradition, and won two more terms as president in 1940 and 1944, before dying in office in 1945 just months after he was elected to his fourth term. While Roosevelt was immensely popular after guiding the nation through the Great Depression and World War II and successfully argued that America needed stable leadership to get through the war, Congress sought to prevent future presidents from remaining in office for more than two terms by passing the 22nd Amendment through both chambers in 1947.

If Trump were to seek a third term, he would have to repeal the 22nd Amendment, which requires both two-thirds of the House and Senate along with two-thirds of state legislatures. The only amendment in U.S. history to have been repealed is the 18th Amendment, which established prohibition of alcohol. And that repeal only came about with the ratification of the 21st Amendment in 1933.

READ MORE: Revealed: Trump's Project 2025 agenda aims for 'total control' of the federal government

It's unlikely that an anti-22nd Amendment repeal effort would succeed, particularly with enough time to grant the 78 year-old Trump the ability to run for a third time. The most recent 27th Amendment took 202 years to ratify after it was first proposed in 1790, which concerned pay increases for members of Congress.

Still, some Trump loyalists have posited the repeal of the 22nd Amendment. Earlier this year, writer Peter Tonguette of the American Conservative — one of the 100-plus advisory groups supporting Project 2025 — proposed that Trump should be free to run for a third term, and framed it as a pro-democracy initiative.

""If, by 2028, voters feel Trump has done a poor job, they can pick another candidate; but if they feel he has delivered on his promises, why should they be denied the freedom to choose him once more?" Tonguette argued. "As with Prohibition, it is simply a matter of finding the will to get rid of a bad idea that needlessly limits Americans’ freedom."

READ MORE: 'Essence of authoritarianism': Expert warns Project 2025 would create Trump 'autocracy'

Hey GOP! No One Voted to Cut Social Security



Let there be no doubt: Trump and the Republicans will try to cut our earned benefits. But just as a grassroots movement around the country succeeded in saving the Affordable Care Act during Trump’s first term, we can save Social Security and Medicare.

"Donald Trump ran on a promise to protect Social Security and Medicare," writes Lawson. "Based on Trump’s long record of working to cut and undermine our earned benefits, we don’t trust that promise for one second. But we plan to make him keep it."
(Photo: Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for MoveOn)

Alex Lawson
Nov 13, 2024

Common Dreams


No one voted to cut Social Security. No one voted to cut Medicare. And no one voted for higher drug prices.

Donald Trump ran on a promise to protect Social Security and Medicare. Based on Trump’s long record of working to cut and undermine our earned benefits, we don’t trust that promise for one second. But we plan to make him keep it.

There’s a good reason Trump didn’t campaign on cutting Social Security: Ninety-two percent of Americans think that’s a terrible idea.

What will Trump do once he’s actually in the White House? During his first term, he tried to cut Social Security every single year. He appointed an unqualified crony, Andrew Saul, to head the Social Security Administration. And he surrounded himself with advisors who had long records of working to cut and privatize Social Security.

Now, Trump has a new advisor, Elon Musk. He just put Musk in charge of a commission to slash $2 trillion of federal spending. That is essentially impossible without cutting Social Security, Medicare, and/or Medicaid. Indeed, incoming Vice President JD Vance has specifically said that Musk will target Social Security.

We are never going to stop fighting to protect and expand Social Security.

Musk is the wealthiest man in the world. It’s no surprise that Musk and his fellow billionaires want to cut our earned benefits rather than pay their fair share in taxes.

Trump’s top priority is to extend the tax cuts he gave the ultra-wealthy in his first term. Then, Republicans will turn around and claim that we “can’t afford” Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans in Congress have already telegraphed what those cuts could look like. The Republican Study Committee (RSC), a caucus that counts over 80 percent of House Republicans as members, released a budget proposal earlier this year that makes massive cuts to Social Security. That includes raising the retirement age to 69, and decimating benefits for the middle class.

The RSC budget would also repeal Medicare’s power to negotiate lower drug prices. That means seniors and people with disabilities would have to turn over more of their hard-earned Social Security checks to Big Pharma.

In case anyone doubted that Republicans are serious about passing these cuts into law, House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (who angrily chased me down the street last year after I confronted him about his support for Social Security cuts) just pledged to cut health care benefits through reconciliation—meaning that Republicans would only need 50 votes in the Senate.

Trump and Republicans will try to cut our earned benefits. But just as a grassroots movement of Americans around the country succeeded in saving the Affordable Care Act during Trump’s first term, we can save Social Security and Medicare.

Musk is the wealthiest man in the world. It’s no surprise that Musk and his fellow billionaires want to cut our earned benefits rather than pay their fair share in taxes.

Here’s how:Hold Every Republican Accountable: Republicans will have only a slim majority in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Every member of the House, and one-third of the Senate, is on the ballot in 2026. We will target every Republican in a competitive district with protests and billboards saying: Hands off our Social Security and Medicare!

Keep Democrats Unified: There’s nothing Republicans want more than bipartisan cover for benefit cuts. Democrats must stand united and refuse to give it to them. We are calling on every Democrat in Congress to stand strong against even one penny of cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Refuse To Go Behind Closed Doors: Republicans want to create a closed-door, fast-track commission to cut benefits without political accountability. We’ve beaten back this type of commission before, and we’re prepared to do so again. Any changes to Social Security must happen through regular Congressional order, in the light of day.

We are never going to stop fighting to protect and expand Social Security. Social Security has stood strong for nearly a century. It has survived wars, depressions, and pandemics. And with your help, it will survive Donald Trump.

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Alex Lawson
Alex Lawson is the Executive Director of Social Security Works, the convening organization of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition -- a coalition made up of over 340 national and state organizations representing over 50 million Americans.
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New GOP senate leader is a former lobbyist who has taken aim at Social Security

Like ‘clockwork,’ the GOP’s hypocritical ‘budget hawks’ are back with a vengeance: columnist

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C., 

Gage Skidmore

Jake Johnson 

 COMMON DREAMS

November 14, 2024

Senate Republicans on Wednesday elected Sen. John Thune of South Dakota—a former corporate lobbyist and close ally of Sen. Mitch McConnell—as the leader of their conference for the upcoming term, when the GOP will have a 53-seat majority.

Republican lawmakers chose Thune over Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who was favored by allies of President-elect Donald Trump.

"Senators have received angry phone calls from constituents demanding to know how their representatives plan to vote, following MAGA world's embrace of Scott," The Washington Post reported. The leadership election was conducted via secret ballot.

In a statement Wednesday, Thune said he is "extremely honored to have earned the support" of the Senate GOP conference and stressed that "this Republican team is united behind President Trump's agenda."

"Our work starts today," Thune added.

Before winning election to the Senate in 2004, Thune worked as a lobbyist for several sectors including the railroad industry. The Lever reported last year that as part of his lobbying work for the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern (DM&E) Railroad, Thune "helped the company procure a $230 million loan from the Federal Railroad Administration."

"In 2015, Thune reprised his advocacy for the rail industry, leading an effort to repeal an Obama administration regulation requiring improved, electronic braking systems on some hazmat trains," the outlet added. "The following year, he received the first-ever 'Railroad Achievement Award' presented by the Association of American Railroads, the industry's main lobbying group."

Thune is also "one of the biggest recipients of oil and gas money in Congress," the youth-led Sunrise Movement noted Wednesday following his election as leader of the incoming GOP Senate.

Over the course of his Senate career, Thune has received more than $1.16 million in campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, according to the campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.

Thune's top contributor between 2019 and 2024 was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the right-wing pro-Israel lobbying group.

"Thune has called for taking the debt limit hostage to force cuts to Social Security."

Thune will take the reins of the Senate GOP conference as the party readies another round of tax cuts for the rich and large corporations—one of Trump's top priorities. Thune is a leading advocate of repealing the estate tax, a move that would benefit a small number of wealthy Americans.

Congress is also barreling toward another potentially damaging fight over the debt ceiling, which is set to be reinstated on January 2, 2025.

Thune has previously expressed support for leveraging the debt limit—and the threat of a catastrophic default—to secure steep cuts to federal spending and possible changes to Social Security such as raising the retirement age, which would slash benefits across the board. Social Security Works, a progressive advocacy group, voiced alarm over Thune's debt ceiling stance following his election as Senate Republican leader on Wednesday.

"Thune has called for taking the debt limit hostage to force cuts to Social Security," Nancy Altman, the group's president, said in a statement.

Beware the Fascist-Clown: 

Working Class Anxiety in an Age of Climate Catastrophe

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump held a press conference from inside trash hauler at Green Bay Austin Straubel International Airport on October 30, 2024 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Much of the working class, feeling neglected and sidelined by the Democratic Party for decades, are increasingly prepared to allow Trump to twist and turn their grievances into shapes that fit a fascist agenda.

William E. ConnollyThomas Dumm
Nov 13, 2024

Common Dreams

We now live during the time of the fasci-clown. In post-election analyses, all the discussions of the appeal of his racism and patriarchy capture important things. But they may not speak starkly enough to why these sentiments run so deep and cut so broad a swath, though for different reasons, through both the white donor class and so much of the working class. Neither do they explain how and why growing segments of the populace laugh so much at Trump's fascist humor. Dressing up and clowning as a "garbage man" illustrates only one recent instance of that conjunction.

The donor class knows, and much of the working class senses, that neoliberal capitalism cannot survive in its old form for much longer. Knowing that, the donor class intends to capture as much wealth and power as it can in the time left to it, prepared to support a transition from neoliberalism to fascism if that is what it takes. Elon Musk is a perfect exemplar here, turning Twitter into a propaganda machine, becoming the fasci-clown’s Goebbels, and informally assuming the role of his economic lieutenant, preparing to impose punishing austerity in the name of a restoration of a pre-New Deal government. So much of the working class, feeling neglected and sidelined by the Democratic Party for decades, are increasingly prepared to allow Trump to twist and turn their grievances into shapes that fit a fascist agenda.

Why? Filtering into the sense of extreme entitlement of the superrich and desperation of growing segments of the working class-- sliding into those intensities in ways electoral polls do not directly capture--is a sense that the old alternatives are not working and cannot be sustained into the indefinite future. Workers, for instance, probably do not truly believe that climate wreckage is a liberal farce. Many sense that it is real, but that attempts to really reckon with it would leave them in the lurch. So they laugh at the clown's outrageous jokes, hateful comments about women, race, transgender people and immigration, and allow the fasci-clown to twist their grievances into support for his themes.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler, the fascist, malignant narcissist, and vicious humorist, summarized in two sentences the essence of his campaign to become Fuhrer:

"It belongs to the genius of a great leader to make even adversaries far removed from one another to belong to a single category, because in weak and uncertain characters the knowledge of having different enemies can only too readily lead to the beginning of doubt in their own right." And: "If he suspects they do not seem convinced by the soundness of his argument, repeat it over and over with constantly new examples."

The irony, just lurking below the rhetorical surface, is that neoliberal capitalism, in both the past and today, fosters the climate wreckage that helps to drive refugees north; and it will increasingly do so in the future.

For Hitler, writing after the massive German defeat in WWI, high inflation, and the return of hardened soldiers from battle with no jobs, Jews became the "red thread" to which he tied, through constant repetition, military defeat, social democracy, and communism. He thus condensed multiple adversaries into one enemy. For Trump, living during a time when imperial instabilities and climate wreckage create more and more refugees heading from southern to northern states, immigrants of color become the new red thread. The stagnation of the working class, the problems facing large cities, the "uppity-ness" of women of color, the snarky-ness of the liberal snowflake, and the loss of "black jobs," are all tied to the red thread of immigration. As you intensify opposition to immigration by, first, treating immigration as something insidious as such, and, second, linking it to everything else you oppose, you thereby loosen the rhetorical reins previously restraining public attacks on women, Blacks, Democrats, cities, and secularists. They are all now placed on the same line of associations, with resentments to any one magnified by those felt against others. A brilliant, cruel campaign.

The irony, just lurking below the rhetorical surface, is that neoliberal capitalism, in both the past and today, fosters the climate wreckage that helps to drive refugees north; and it will increasingly do so in the future. That is the truth that Trump and his followers must resist and shout down whenever it rears its ugly head. That is one reason racism must be intensified by the fasci-clown. This core truth must never be acknowledged: America works to produce the immigration it increasingly abhors.

But what about us? That is, what of those of us on the democratic left who have resisted Trump, supported Harris, and oppose the regime the fasci-comic seeks to impose? We participate, in at least one way, in the very condition we resist. As neoliberal capitalism morphs toward fascist capitalism during the second Trump term, we too have failed to come up with an alternative that could both work and attract droves from the working and middle classes to it.

This core truth must never be acknowledged: America works to produce the immigration it increasingly abhors.

As productive capitalism forges a future it cannot sustain in the face of growing climate wreckage, as many flirt with fascist capitalism to avoid facing this truth, nobody really believes in the alternative models of rapid growth and mastery over nature supported by classical social democracy and communism either. The danger of fascist capitalism, indeed, is tied to the failure of other familiar critical traditions to respond in a credible and sufficient way to the time of climate wreckage. This failure insinuates itself inside climate denialism and casualism today.

Such a failure encourages many to deny climate wreckage, that is, to embrace fascist tendencies. It may also encourage others to pretend that it can be resolved within either old forms of productive capitalism or one of the twentieth century alternatives to it. So, we critics, too are caught in a bind. We insist that immigration is good economically, by which we mean that it will lead to greater economic growth, when the truth is that the pursuit of that growth is at the heart of our current crisis. Is our failure connected in some subliminal sense to the growing attractions of many others to Big Lies today, to lies that growing numbers embrace without necessarily believing?

Our sense—though we cannot prove it—is that growing attractions to, and tolerances for, fascist capitalism within the working classes is tied to a larger intellectual failure to show how to evolve a political economy that curtails the future scope of climate wreckage while speaking to real grievances and anxieties of the working class writ large. Unless and until that happens it will not be that hard for fasci-clown leaders to attract the billionaire class and capture large segments of the working class. Fascist humor flourishes when no other responses to deep grievances appear credible.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


William E. Connolly


William E. Connolly is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. His most recent book is Stormy Weather: Pagan Cosmologies, Christian Times, Climate Wreckage (Fordham, 2024)

Full Bio >
Thomas Dumm
Thomas Dumm is William H. Hastie '25 Professor of Political Science at Amherst College.
Full Bio >

This Is America: Turning Slander, Plunder, Sadism Into Honor

Harris supporters react to election results at Howard University.
(Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images)

Abby Zimet
Nov 12, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

Goddamn. This is a gutting one. Amidst our grief and shock at the ascendancy of a racist, vengeful, malevolent sociopath in cognitive decline who "represents everything we should aspire not to be" - but hey at least he's not a black woman - comes the awful realization, after years of telling ourselves as a country we were better than this, that we're not. We are tired, bitter, vanquished. But now that the country has failed us, say sages tougher than us, we cannot fail each other.

It's dumbfounding, of course. With eyes (if not minds) wide open, after years of seeing the cruelty, vulgarity, bullying, incompetence and mean-spirited braggadocio, a majority of the electorate decided to bring him back. There is no ignoring the result, that ghastly map of a blood-red sea with modest, hopeful pockets of blue. He won the Electoral College, the (rare) popular vote by several million, inexplicably more Latinos, Blacks, young people that anyone had envisioned. Despite his long history of carnage and neglect, his insane clown makeup, his terrible campaign of insults, fascism, misogyny, babbling, and Harris' admirable one of real plans, swing state focus, broad coalition from Beyonce to Cheneys - none of it mattered. People just didn't like her laugh. They didn't believe she worked at McDonalds. They thought butter was too expensive. They worried their gymnastic daughter would have to compete against boys - so unfair! And she's a woman of color (who probably slept her way to power), a bridge too far. Better to go with the wolf who straight-up asserts, "I'm going to eat you." Admiring sheep: "He tells it like it is."

"Who Are We?" asks a disconsolate Robert Reich. After years of saying "America is better than Trump, I'm no longer sure," he writes. But the roots of our failures go back far further than his sordid arrival: "This darkness has always been in us." Trump, the ugly consequence of racial, social and economic changes, has given us "an unsparing view of our country in our time" - one that reflects via our politics the deep flaws of our culture, and en route gives us the grotesque likes of Musk, Scott, Cruz, Bannon, Don and RFK Jr., and vomit-inducing headlines like, "J.D. Vance Congratulates Stephen Miller On Appointment to Top White House Job." Yes, it's part of an era of global and American anti-incumbency. Still, George Conway argues, most dispiritingly it's "what Americans chose for themselves," with the only possible saving grace Trump's incompetence. "The system was never perfect," he writes, "but it inched toward its own betterment, albeit in fits and starts. But in the end, the system the Framers set up - and indeed, all constitutional regimes, however well designed - cannot protect a free people from themselves.”

As a grim result, writes Charlie Pierce, the majority of our fellow-citizens (who voted) "will get exactly what they want." They will get attacks on women, trans kids, political dissent, a free press. They'll get a vicious attempt at mass deportation and chaos for millions of families, soaring inflation and national debt, global isolation, sixth-grade invective, 200% tariffs its author will still not understand, violent vengeance against opponents and dreaded "others," pardons for rioters, he end of accountability for felons and, possibly, Social Security. "We have decided that science and learning don’t count as much as misogyny and racism," Pierce adds. "We have traded engaging in the work of self-government for entertaining ourselves with a freak show." And all for a wannabe king who will - irony alert - giddily preside over the 250th anniversary of our toppling of a monarchy. A few years ago, Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover, made a video for a song about the carnage caused by our guns; you can add to guns the symbolic ravages of our racism, imperialism, capitalism and their attendant brutality, and still, This Is America.

- YouTube

www.youtube.com


Meanwhile, notes Dem advisor Adam Parkhomenko after Monday's news Trump named Stephen Miller deputy chief of Nazi policy, "All the shit we warned everyone about is coming true, and it has not even been a week." In fact, within 24 hours of the win by a serial rapist and Jeffrey Epstein confidant, women were facing crass hate campaigns. Many echo the venom of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who sneered, "Your body, my choice. Forever." Or thug Jon Miller, who scoffed, “Women threatening sex strikes like LMAO, as if you have a say." Outside Texas State University, triumphant MAGA fans toted signs that read, "Homo Sex Is Sin" and "Types of Property: Women, Slaves, Animals, Cars, Land." Trump lawyer Mike Davis, who's proposed throwing journalists in gulags and dragging dead political opponents through the streets, darkly warned New York A.G. Letitia James, who won a $454 million judgment against Trump for fraud, against "daring to continue your lawfare. "Listen here, sweetheart," he snarled. "We're not messing around this time, and we will put your fat ass in prison."

The next obvious targets, perhaps yet more vilely, are people of color, especially young vulnerable ones. In a text campaign and hate crime spewing from some 25 states, Black students from college age to middle school have received messages claiming they'd been chosen as "house slaves" and were due to appear at "plantations." "Greetings, Samuel. You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation," read one. "Be ready at 12 sharp...Our executive slaves will come get you in a brown van. You are in Plantation Group W." The recipients in at least 10 states and D.C. ranged from students at historically Black colleges to high-schoolers in New York and Massachusetts to middle schoolers in Pennsylvania. “This is mandatory,” the message read. “Sincerely, Trump Administration." Defending their "commonsense mandate for change," Trump officials say they had nothing to do with the racist attack. But the NAACP still called them on it. "The unfortunate reality of electing a President who historically has embraced and at times encouraged hate," they charged, " is unfolding before our eyes."

More well-publicized horrors await. Trump promised a blank check for rounding up millions of immigrants, even U.S.- born children who've never been to the ravaged countries their parents fled. To facilitate this atrocity, he's appointed dead-eyed ghoul, Project 2025 architect and "devil on earth" Tom Homan as Border Czar. "Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?" Homan's asked on 60 Minutes. "Of course there is," he responds with brutal alacrity. "Families can be deported together." A gleeful prison-industrial complex sees the upcoming carnage as "an unprecedented opportunity"; their stocks are soaring in anticipation of at least $400 million in tracking, transporting and detaining millions of new victims, and greedy kingpins like Musk Bezos have joined on bended knee. The rest of us, meanwhile, grieve. Choking back tears, Jimmy Kimmel declared the election "a terrible night" for pretty much everyone, even MAGA fans who don't know it yet: "I never thought leopards would eat MY face," sobs the guy who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party. Who knew?

The night was perhaps most painful for women - "It is an awful thing, how much this country hates women" - especially Black women for whom it "affirmed the worst of what many believed about their country": That America would rather elect a racist, rapist, liar, convicted felon, "the world's worst man," than let a woman lead. Hell, they don't even trust us with our own bodies: "This is, it turns out, who we are." "Our biggest mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do," wrote Rebecca Solnit, "to think we could row this boat across the acid lake before the acid dissolved it." She cites MAGA's angry masculinity - cue ludicrous Trump-as-Rambo memes - a media that failed to explicate the climate crisis matters more than a trans girl playing softball, and a social media run by rich white men that "arose like a school of sharks" to spread hate and lies. All overseen by Dorothy Thompson's standard Nazi: "He is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature...He is inconsequent and voluble, ill-poised, insecure. He is the very prototype of the Little Man." Whose devastation we now must grapple with, and endure.

We

We are feeling our way through the sadness and horror, seeking a way forward. We are weary, hopeless, soul-scorched. Everything sucks. We need time to process. But not, experts say, too much time. In his book On Tyranny, historian Timothy Snyder warns of the Russian strategy of “internal emigration," turning away from politics or resistance in powerless despair, leaving the vulnerable among us to suffer first and worst. His mantra: “Do not obey in advance.” Do what heals or feeds you. Consider Raymond Carver's "small good thing," and do it. Here in Maine, we've done a lot of walking and talking with friends in the woods or by the ocean, usually with dogs, who these days, as all days, seem much happier than the rest of us. Community is key; we are going to need each other. Michael Moore just emerged: "Silence. Thinking. Then acting. In that order." From one sage, "Remember that living your life with purpose in a country that wants you to fade away is a radical act." Also, remember that on Nov. 26, the president-elect is due to be sentenced in a New York courtroom on 34 felony counts. What a time to be alive..

"It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” 

– Joseph Heller, Catch-22