Contra Tom Wolfe’s well-known witticism, looks like the dark night of fascism finally DID land here after all.
In America, people who committed a misdemeanor by entering the Capitol without permission are still rotting in jail in solitary confinement without ever having had a hearing. The situation is so dire and un-American that Senators Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin, both proponents of total government, protested:
Most of the 300-plus people charged with participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot have been released while they await trial, but dozens of those deemed to be dangerous, flight risks or at high risk of obstructing justice were ordered held without bond. D.C. jail officials later determined that all Capitol detainees would be placed in so-called restrictive housing — a move billed as necessary to keep the defendants safe, as well as guards and other inmates. But that means 23-hour-a-day isolation for the accused, even before their trials begin.
And such treatment doesn’t sit well with Warren or Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), two of the chamber’s fiercest critics of solitary confinement.
“Solitary confinement is a form of punishment that is cruel and psychologically damaging,” Warren said in an interview. “And we’re talking about people who haven’t been convicted of anything yet.”
Shocking, certainly, considering the source. But hey, when you’re right, you’re right. Further evidence abounds:
On Wednesday, federal agents flashing open-ended warrants conducted a 6 A.M. raid on former New York mayor and current Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to seize his electronics. The ostensible reason was that Giuliani violated a law requiring Americans who represent foreign nationals to register as foreign agents. This is a law that is enforced only against Republicans close to Trump — and Giuliani is adamant that he’s never represented foreign nationals.
The agents ostentatiously refused to seize copies of Hunter Biden’s hard drives, which Giuliani possessed, even though they were obvious electronic devices. Giuliani contends that the hard drives’ contents establish not only that Hunter and Joe Biden acted as unregistered foreign agents, but also that Joe Biden and his family took millions in bribes over the years and that Hunter Biden was engaged in child pornography. Since Giuliani still has the hard drives, perhaps he should make all the information on the drives public.
On the evidence available, what’s happening to Giuliani looks like typical fascism: an incoming regime uses unequally applied law and a complete absence of due process to purge all political opposition.
And in the perfect public-private partnership that makes fascism a different kind of socialism from communism, the tech tyrants continue to act as the federal government’s censorship arm.
At the end of the day, unless we want the dark night of fascism to become a permanent fixture in America, we’d better act to stop the Democrats from using the unequal application of our laws and the manufactured fear of COVID (a virus that more than 99% of us will have survived) to gain total power.
Problem is, there’s only one effective means of doing so at this late date—a fearful, desperate last resort which most Real Americans are understandably reluctant to embrace, and in no way guarantees anything other than horror and misery. Not condemning said reluctance, mind. But confronting certain unpleasant realities is much better than attempting to evade them. In fact, our national averting of the eyes, denial of harsh truths, and desire to postpone an inevitable reckoning is in large measure what brought us to this sorry pass in the first place.
No decent or rational person wants war, ever. Even so, just as history teaches that Communism has not, will not, and cannot work as advertised, it also offers another uncomfortable but essential lesson: those who think to avert war via disgraceful, dishonest, or self-deceptive measures often find themselves in a more protracted and terrible struggle than they might otherwise have faced.
No doubt about it, the fascists have been increasing their control for years, the black baby Jesus consolidated it, while Trump threw a wrench into their plans that Shrillary would finish it up and use it. Thus we have the bumbling fool occupying the White House while the puppet masters use the fascist forces.
There is nothing left but the lampposts for these people. I’ve had this conversation with IB, and I think it’s a ways off, but then I get reminded of how truly bad it is.
I got the cyberpunk dystopia with twice the dystopia that was advertised, and none of the nifty cool cyber mods.
That execrable Chad and his sycophant Hank The Wank are probably cheering the fact that Giuliani is “going to get his comeuppance”.
The only Republican with the Balls to have stood up against The Stolen Election and they were questioning his mental capacity like he was as Senile as Demented Chou Bai Den the Usurper ChiCom Puppet.
Asshoes.
Deplorable’s better get used to the fact that they are going to have to engage id a deadly fight sooner or later.
They want what Giuliani has so they’ll know what he has.