Scientists' Warning on Affluence

A paper published in Nature Communications notes that up to 43 percent of environmental impact is due to the top ten percent of income earners.

For over half a century, worldwide growth in affluence has continuously increased resource use and pollutant emissions far more rapidly than these have been reduced through better technology. The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions. We summarise the evidence and present possible solution approaches. Any transition towards sustainability can only be effective if far-reaching lifestyle changes complement technological advancements. However, existing societies, economies and cultures incite consumption expansion and the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits necessary societal change.

Update (June 26):  Stephen Corry reacts to the WWF message for "saving our planet", in particular the plans to "roll out the new green tech" and "stabilise the human population as low as we fairly can".

Who bears the real responsibility for doing "the damaging stuff"? After all, there are hundreds of millions of people in the world who live and die, often hungry, who are responsible for practically no pollution at all.

In other words, if you’re worried about overpopulation threatening the environment, then you’re blind to the real menace: It’s not the growing number of "have nots" in the South, but growing overconsumption by the "haves" in the North.

Corry notes that the fascist notion of "replacement theory" has been around for a long time and is more widespread than we realize.

If we really want to save the world, we have to fight against such a truly destructive message. My guess is that it’s a struggle which will never end, but like combatting bigotry, cruelty and disease, that’s no reason not to engage. Here’s the real choice: On the one side are billions of dollars, on the other, billions of lives.

No Justice, No Peace

With above 100 degrees Fahrenheit inside the Arctic Cirlce, climate change and other environmental disasters remains as urgent as ever. But there really is no separation between multiple forms of injustice. Jacqueline Patterson:

[What] drives one group to oppress drives others to recklessly extract from the earth. Being dominated and exploited serve a wealthy white few.

Thanu Yakupitiyage:

There’s a history of decoupling environmental issues and race issues. But if we don’t think about climate and climate solutions in the same vein as thinking about other solutions to injustice, we’re never going to succeed.

Eric Holthaus:

[T]he crisis of marginalised people dying from climate disasters around the world is not so different from the crisis of Black people dying from police brutality in the United States or Indigenous people in the Amazon from Covid-19. Wherever inequality persists, the web of poverty and injustice infects marginalised people, like a deadly disease. 

Robert Bullard:

[T]he Covid-19 hotspots are where the pollution is. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out why. If you have areas with the highest concentration of pollution and sick people, people who have been made sick by racism, zoning, and permitting, and you have lots of diabetes, heart disease, and kidney disease there, the virus is going to seek that out. The coronavirus is like a heat-seeking missile zeroing in on the most vulnerable. When you look at redlining and discriminatory zoning patterns that resulted in the pollution of black communities, it’s those same communities where we’ve been fighting against environmental racism for years that are now getting hit hard by Covid. The footprint for Covid is lining up with the redlining maps from the 1930s.

Henry Giroux:

[T]he spirit of revolt now gripping the U.S. and a host of other countries suggests we are witnessing more than mass protests and short-lived demonstrations. A new political horizon has opened up that points to a growing rebellion against the lethal merging of racism, class division and the punishing registers of inequality. The failed state has lost its oxygen and is on life support. We can hope that this growing rebellion will extinguish its last breath so that a radical democracy can fulfill its promises and ideals.

Update (June 25):  Behrooz Ghamari Tabrizi links U.S. imperialism to racism at home.

Racism was and is not about an attitude. Rather, it is the problem of a political order that sustains and perpetuate that attitude through a complex system of legal and economic institutions at home and around the world.

Black American will not be recognized as equal citizens so long as people of color around the world remain subjected to the brutality of imperialized nations such as the United States of America. The drones that kill the Iraqi, Yemeni, Pakistani, Somali civilians, the bombs, the fighter jets, the missiles and guns that are sold to the tyrants, they are all parts of the same system of oppression that brutalizes Black Americans. The Palestinians know the meaning of ghettoization in American cities. The immigrants who are dehumanized by ICE understand the depth of police brutality and the meaning of murder with impunity. These voices need to hear one another. Black America has given voice to a global movement.

And Richard Wolff connects racism to the "business cycle".

U.S. capitalism solved its instability problem by making cyclical downturns afflict chiefly a minority subpart of the whole working class. It positioned that minority to bear the brunt of each cycle and suffer its damages disproportionally. That minority was repeatedly drawn into and then thrown out of jobs as the cycle dictated. Any savings it might accumulate when working would be lost when unemployed. Repeated firings precluded such a minority from enjoying the benefits of job longevity (seniority, promotion, household stability, etc.). Poverty, disrupted households and families, unaffordable housing, education, and medical care would haunt such a minority. It would become capitalism’s “business cycle shock-absorber”—the last hired, first fired—across the four-to-seven year average duration of its cycles.

On the Brink of Self Destruction

Does Fuckface von Clownstick even want a second term? Amanda Marcotte speculates that Chief Justice John Roberts is almost single-handedly saving Dear Leader from his deeply unpopular postions on LGBTQ+ rights and immigration.

It is no exaggeration to say that if [Manbaby] ends up winning what promises to be another agonizingly narrow race in 2020, it's because Roberts took one for the conservative team and issued rulings that allowed Republican voters who were feeling pangs of doubt an excuse to stay on board.

A test of this theory will come soon in a case about burdensome regulations placed on abortion clinics.

If negative rulings on LGBTQ rights or immigrant rights could have awakened election-year fury, that goes double or triple for a backdoor ban on abortion. In an election year, that would do immense harm to [Orangeman's] already shaky re-election chances, not to mention those of numerous down-ticket Republicans on the ballot in November. To save both [Fuckface] and the Republican Party from themselves, the chief justice may conclude he needs to save abortion rights.

Update (June 19):  Nancy LeTourneau has a different take and quotes Neera Tanden.

[T]he Courts have been a rallying cry for the arch conservatives for decades. If they can’t win there even when they’ve packed the Courts, that is a demobilizing event. Why go out and vote for a guy who kinda embarrasses you if you don’t even get the rulings you want?

Update (June 21):  The first campaign rally since March turns out to be a low attended bust. Matt Lewis doesn't pull any punches.

[E]ven the crowd who did show up seemed to be more subdued than normal. Sure, they applauded. Sure, they cheered. But it seemed like they were going through the motions.

More than 120,000 Americans are dead on his watch, and [Fuckface von Clownstick] endangered the lives of thousands of people by deciding to hold this Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally on Saturday night, where the virus was an afterthought in his speech. The very least he could have done was not be so boring.

Update (June 22):  Heather Digby Parton thinks the lesson from his flop of a campaign rally might be sinking in.

That event was sparsely attended because this country is still in the middle of this crisis and it isn't getting much better. It seems that some of his voters know this too and decided to stay home, regardless of his exhortations to get back out there for his sake. He had hoped to spin the pandemic as being in the past and promote an economic boom with his big comeback tour. All those empty seats in that arena showed him that it's not working. Even his devoted followers aren't buying it.

Amanda Marcotte notes that advisors understand a referendum on Fuckface is a losing strategy.

Instead, the campaign would like to make the election about something else, and clearly [they] believe that "something else" can be about convincing broad swaths of white America to feel angry and fearful about the Black Lives Matter protests.

[But] racist fear-mongering, at least for the moment, isn't working for [him]. So why does he keep trying? Part of it is that he's a narcissist surrounded by yes men, who is certain that his own racist obsessions are more widespread among voters than they actually are. Part of it is that he doesn't have any other tricks in his bag. Getting more people to like him is pretty much out of the question. Campaigning on the economy, which was the original plan, is a no-go in the face of the worst unemployment since the Great Depression.

[Dear Leader] is fresh out of ideas. So we can expect he'll spend the next four months doing more of the same: Racist provocations and efforts to pump adrenaline into the culture war, in hopes that he can get white voters in middle America to hate liberals, progressives and people of color more than they hate him. So far, it seems not only to be failing but backfiring big time, making voters even sicker of this incompetent loser than they were already.

Update (June 23):  Bob Cesca argues Dear Leader always makes things worse for himself.

His deadly laziness in responding to coronavirus, his horrendously dictator-friendly foreign policy, his blindingly obvious racism and the myriad other examples of his ineptitude aside, he constantly paints himself into political corners.

The problem is that this same degree of rank incompetence and self-defeating capriciousness is also evident in his governance. In this respect, as well as too many others to list here, [Fuckface] continues to be a threat to the stability of the republic and a danger to the future of both democracy and, even more harrowingly, reality itself.

Update (June 24):  Heather Digby Parton notes Manbaby is bleeding support.

It's understandable that women, many of whom are overtaxed in this crisis with jobs, full-time child care and vulnerable elderly parents, would be specifically turned off by [Dear Leader's] self-centered obsession with his "numbers" and the single-minded focus on opening up the economy. Most people understand it isn't safe to resume normal life while a dangerous virus is stalking the population. They want serious leadership, not bluster and posturing.

[Fuckface] is the ultimate chaos agent, lurching from one catastrophe to another, unable to discipline himself in even the smallest ways. That may have worked well enough for him when we were dealing with political battles and palace intrigue, all of which was important but didn't bear directly on the everyday lives of Americans. The coronavirus crisis does and it's brought home the fact that his narcissism and emotional incontinence makes everything worse. He is a walking disaster, and that's the last man you want in charge during a real crisis.

Update (June 26):  You would think that a real leader could set aside campaigning and actually focus on the problem at hand. Heather Digby Parton says some Sun Belt governors are learning a tough lesson.

[A]ll these Republican state executives are stuck in the [Manbaby] maelstrom in which he continues to insist that the pandemic is "fading away" while they have to face the sickness and death that's crashing all around them. He is an albatross around their necks.

Update (June 29):  Amanda Marcotte was correct in predicting Chief Justice Roberts would vote to strike down the restrictive Louisiana abortion law. A Texas case from four years ago served as precedent. Justice Kavanaugh could have swung the decision had Roberts not changed his vote. Senator Collins must be proud.

Update (July 4):  Lucian Truscott notes that the Russian bounties story keeps growing.

[H]e's surrounded by people in important, powerful positions who are privy to big, important secrets, and they want him out of office. With their leaks about the Russian bounties, they have in effect put a bounty on [Dear Leader's] head. He has been wounded by the coronavirus, he's wounded by the economy, he's wounded by Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the streets and he's getting grievously wounded by this.

You know he's desperate when he starts calling a real threat to the lives of our soldiers fighting on foreign soil a "hoax." [Fuckface] is a threat to our national security. He's not a president. He's a co-conspirator with dictators who are enemies of this country. He's a traitor, and he needs to go.

Update (July 15):  Heather Digby Parton recounts what was, even for Dear Leader, a truly bizarre press conference.

Most galling of all, he took credit for saving millions of lives, dishonestly asserting again that the U.S. has the lowest mortality rate in the world. (It does not.) To him the loss of more than 136,000 Americans, with thousands more seriously ill, and families everywhere grieving, is nothing compared to the great pride we should have in our president for allegedly saving us from something worse.

Remember when [Fuckface] used to say we'd get tired of all the winning and we'd beg him to stop because we couldn't take it and he'd insist that we had to keep winning whether we liked it or not? This, apparently, is what he was talking about.  

Update (August 10):  Amanda Marcotte notes how the press loves to play up the failure of Congress to address pandemic relief when it's all for show--they only want to look like they're doing something.

If the president seriously wanted to get relief to people, he could pressure the Republican-controlled Senate into voting on the bill Democrats have already passed, with a promise to sign it. Waving pieces of paper around in front of the cameras shouldn't distract from that fact, and yet here we are.

Heather Digby Parton says Fuckface wants to play "savior"--at least until he can get past the election.

His orders are so economically destructive and the power grab so blatant that it's possible Republican senators will come back to the table and negotiate, instead of just trying to dictate terms. Their majority is at stake too.

But let's be clear about what happened here. The man who sold himself to America as the greatest dealmaker the world has ever known can't bargain his way out of a paper bag. He walks away, holds his breath until he turns blue and then lets the other side decide if they're going to let him take the country down with him.

That's the art of the tantrum, not the art of the deal. He's quite good at it. Let's just hope the Republicans in Congress still have some sense of self-preservation and are willing to work something out to save the country. Otherwise we are in for a simply disastrous fall.

Update (August 11):  Bob Cesca explains why Fuckface's shithead idea of a payroll tax "holiday" is (hopefully) political suicide.

Republicans know they can't get away with killing Social Security and Medicare outright. The political repercussions would be catastrophic. Instead, they've been practicing the "starve the beast" strategy, in which they manufacture budget shortfalls in order to pitch various cuts to the programs, including partial privatization. They pretend to feel bad about it, but they really don't. They want voters to believe they have no choice but to cut the programs, even though they have plenty of options for maintaining solvency.

Update (September 8):  Amanda Marcotte enjoys watching the Agent Orange campaign fall apart.

[W]e all need a laugh in these dark times, so don't feel the slightest bit guilty for making fun of all these rich, immoral monsters who kept writing checks to [Dear Leader], even though it was obvious he would either waste their money or steal it. [He] still needs to get a good deal closer to Biden in the polls than he is right now to get the election within stealing range. If he fails to snag a second illegitimate term in office, his own greed and incompetence will have played a role in his downfall. That will be poetic justice, and we can all take pleasure in that.

Update (September 10):  So Bob Woodward is joining a long list of people publishing books with unfavorable views of Dear Leader. The books won't change any votes, but sure, let's get the full picture of what a disgusting piece of shit he is. His lies about the novel coronavirus now appear to be essentially premeditated murder.

Woodward himself has gotten some flack for holding onto these "bombshells" to sell his book. And Fuckface ... defends Woodward?

Bob Woodward had my quotes for many months. If he thought they were so bad or dangerous, why didn’t he immediately report them in an effort to save lives? Didn’t he have an obligation to do so? No, because he knew they were good and proper answers. Calm, no panic!

Agent Orange thinks his lies and deception were the right thing to do. And he thinks it worked!

Update (September 11):  Heather Digby Parton points out the "panic" Fuckface wanted to prevent was at the stock market.

2020 Election Chaos

In what should be headline news from now until November 3, Greg Palast discusses voter suppression with Chauncey DeVega.

What I am very worried about is how Republicans could use the 12th Amendment to the Constitution to steal the 2020 election.

[I]f the Electoral College does not reach a majority, which is 270, the election then goes to the House of Representatives. How could that possibly happen? The answer is the rabidly right-wing legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida say that there is so much voter fraud and that the mail-in ballots are not to be trusted. Trust me, those states are going to do things such as misprint ballots. Many "mistakes" are going to occur in those red states.

So the result could be that Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida do not certify their electors, and Biden has lost those three states' votes. There are still not enough votes for [Fuckface], but Biden does not hit the 270 threshold in the Electoral College to be elected president.

The 2020 election now goes to the House of Representatives, where every state gets a single vote. New York, California and Illinois each get a vote. Wyoming, South Dakota and Oklahoma each get a vote. Who wins? Most state delegations are majority Republican, even though the Republicans don't control the House and have far fewer voters in America.

According to my count, 26 state delegations are majority Republican in the current Congress. Biden would have to win Pennsylvania, Michigan, and a third state like Arizona to win an Electoral College majority.

And then there are outright physical threats as voter intimidation.

But even more important than intimidation of Democratic voters are demands for proof of residence and proof of citizenship. There are other ways to keep people from voting, such as checking to see if a person has paid their alimony or court fines. Voters could be arrested. In the upcoming 2020 election there is going to be mayhem. There will be a large number of complaints about voting stations being closed two hours early, and claims that there are all these "illegal voters." Republicans are going to say that the election outcome was illegitimate. This will throw it to the House and [Dear Leader] gets re-elected.

Update (June 16):  Stop Making Sense by Tom Tomorrow.

Update (June 24):  In addition to "grievance politics" to motivate the base, Nancy LeTourneau lays out the ways Dear Leader will attempt to steal the election:  Voter Suppression, Foreign Interference, October Surprise, and if he loses, Challenge the Results. Who needs actual ideas for governing when you've got all that working for you?

Update (July 3):  Tom Rogers and Tim Wirth offer a scenario where the election could get thrown to the House of Representatives even if Biden wins the popular vote and the Electoral College.

[Fuckface has] been talking about Biden's soft on China — China wanted Biden to win so he says a national emergency; the Chinese have intervened in the election.

They keep this national emergency investigation going through December 14th. Biden, of course, challenges this in the courts and says, "hey, we won these states, I want the electors that favored me named". The Supreme Court doesn't throw the election to the Republicans as it did in 2000, instead it says, "look, there's a deadline here". If they can't be certified in these states because of this investigation going on, there's a constitutional process for this.

Update (July 21):  Kollibri terre Sonnenblume interviews Greg Palast and Bob Cesca gives his view on how the rigging will take place.

Like a petulant boy who tosses a board game across the room when he's losing, [Dear Leader] is going to hurl the election process into absolute chaos. Here's how: He'll continue to suppress voting by discouraging absentee voting, while benefiting from new and existing roadblocks to in-person voting. Then, on and after Election Day, he'll sue to try and stop absentee ballots from being counted.

Update (July 25):  Adrienne Jones details the problems with the Georgia primary while Steve Hochstadt considers what could go wrong when Fuckface loses.

Update (August 11):  In an interview with C. J. Polychroniou, Noam Chomsky warns Dear Leader's defeat can't be taken for granted.

Election tampering is a huge industry. Massive campaign funding in the last days can have a major effect, as seems to have happened in 2016.

We’ve already discussed the possibility that Republican interference with mail balloting might muddy the waters. Apart from all of these devices to undermine the limited integrity of elections, [Agent Orange] is quite capable of an ‘October surprise.’ It’s not hard to conjure up a variety of options. This is no time for letting one’s guard down, beguiled by dubious hopes.

Ja'han Jones reports on the multiple ways Republicans are trying to rig the election such as attacking the U.S. Postal Service, voter intimidation, and disinformation.

Voters don’t like [Fuckface von Clownstick], and he knows it. Faced with historically low approval in an election year, he’s doing everything he can to make sure voters don’t vote.

Update (August 13):  Dear Leader admits he has no interest in funding the Post Office.

They don't have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can't do it, I guess. Are they going to do it even if they don't have the money?

The plan is right out in the open. His re-election would be "one of the greatest frauds in history". It is stunning how the pandemic is both the ultimate reason why he shouldn't be re-elected (out of thousands of reasons!) and yet may very well have created the ideal conditions for supressing enough votes to win.

Update (August 14):  Amanda Marcotte has a warning:

This election, at the end of the day, is coming down to one single question: Will [Fuckface] be able to steal it?

It doesn't help that the U.S. Postal Service is now alerting states to make adjustments for late ballots. Marcotte is hopeful people will be prepared to do something about it.

Organizers and journalists, thankfully, have considerable resources when it comes to convincing voters that this threat is real and must be taken seriously.

Having [Dear Leader] confess to his nefarious plan on TV helps circumvent that reluctance to believe that, yes, he really is trying to steal the election.

For journalists and pundits, the most important thing is to break long-standing habits of viewing everything in electoral politics through the filter of standard horse-race analysis. That stuff just doesn't matter as much in an election where there's only one way [Fuckface] can possibly win: by cheating.

How something will "play" with voters doesn't much matter if voters can't vote. And that's what this election will come down to: Whether people get a chance to vote at all.

The only way we get back to normal is by facing this problem head on: The president is trying to steal the election, he has the means to do it, and he very well may succeed unless he's met with massive, organized resistance.

Update (September 13):  David Atkins renames Republicans the Chaos Party. 

[C]onservatives know they have lost the argument and the culture. The nation’s greatest problems, from police racism to inequality to climate change to the pandemic itself, simply do not lend themselves to conservative "solutions". Conservatism itself would have to change to adapt to the moment, and it is unwilling to do so.

The conservative response to all this is to create as much chaos as possible, with a view toward seizing power in a coup–thereby short-circuiting the consequences of failing to secure the legitimacy of popular will.

Update (October 6):  Roger Sollenberger elaborates on plans for Republican state legislators select their own Electoral College electors if doubts can be sown over the outcome of November's election. 

Protest

George Floyd died in police custody last week. Protests erupted nationwide followed by what Andrew O'Hehir calls a police riot. An autopsy requested by his family determined that the death was a homocide. An officer involved is under arrest.

Naturally, an ignorant, racist "leader" only knows how to make the situation worse.

Brittany Wong says it's not enough to not be racist--we need to be antiracist. And Sirry Alang emphasizes that whites can't be silent--words matter and actions matter.

Update (June 2):  More demonstrations as Fuckface threatens to deploy the federal military in U.S. cities and rightwing assholes egg him on. Cody Fenwick denounces the most dangerous criminals.

There’s no question that the police are committing widespread unjustified abuses of the citizenry and the press.

[M]any of the officials now decrying petit theft have stood by and clapped as the president commits his own version of unabashed robbery.

Update (June 3):  After the police attack on protesters in Washington, D.C. for a presidential photo opportunity, James Miller resigned from the Defense Science Board and blasted Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

You may not have been able to stop [Fuckface von Clownstick] from directing this appalling use of force, but you could have chosen to oppose it. Instead, you visibly supported it.

Anyone who takes the oath of office must decide where he or she will draw the line: What are the things that they will refuse to do? I must now ask: If last night’s blatant violations do not cross the line for you, what will?

Former chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Mike Mullen, says he "cannot remain silent".

It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel – including members of the National Guard – forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church.

Whatever [von Clownstick's] goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country.

Our fellow citizens are not the enemy and must never become so.

Dan Froomkin notices a changed perspective in news reports and says "it's entirely appropriate for the press to stop pretending that it's just business as usual". And Heather Digby Parton shows how this president compares poorly to his predecessors for handling chaos.

[N]one responded by whining publicly that it was all a conspiracy to damage them politically. Right or wrong, none of them used the crisis as an excuse to stage a photo-op for a campaign ad.

[Dear Leader] only knows how to put on a show, and that's all he is doing. But it's a dangerous show. He is inciting his own voters with this loose talk about "domination," and deliberately creating an environment that could lead to disaster if someone, somewhere, makes a tragic mistake. Real leaders try to calm the waters in these situations in order to reduce that risk. He is doing the opposite.

Also, Amanda Marcotte believes the strongman ploy is backfiring.

[His 2016 win] depended heavily on that margin of voters who are uncomfortable with his racism but somehow convinced themselves he was preferable to the alternative. The harder [Fuckface] makes it for those people to bury their head in the sand, the harder it will be for them to suck it up and vote for him again. His recent antics could make that very difficult indeed. He thought he could "dominate" the protesters, but at least for the moment they have the upper hand.

Update (June 5):  ACLU along with Black Lives Matter, the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed a lawsuit against the Administration for actions in Washington, D.C.  Scott Michelman:

The President’s shameless, unconstitutional, unprovoked, and frankly criminal attack on protesters because he disagreed with their views shakes the foundation of our nation's constitutional order. And when the nation's top law enforcement officer becomes complicit in the tactics of an autocrat, it chills protected speech for all of us.

Retired Marine General John Allen says the June 1 threat by Dear Leader to send in federal troops against anti-racism demonstrators "may well signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment". And even former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis is "angry and appalled" by the actions of his old boss.

[Fuckface von Clownstick] is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.

When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens — much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

Update (June 6):  Lucian Truscott claims there is "a clear sign that the military leaders are turning against [Dear Leader]" and cites a letter from the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, sent to other military leaders. The letter defends the Constitution after a "contentious" meeting with Fuckface before the photo op walk.

This document is founded on the essential principles that all men and women are born free and equal, and should be treated with respect and dignity. It also gives Americans the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. We in uniform — all branches, all components, all ranks — remain committed to our national values and principles embedded in the Constitution.

Update (June 9):  Melanie McFarland has some thoughts for "white allies".

And Amanda Marcotte doesn't see any bravery on one side of the issue.

All that tough guy posturing is a pathetic effort to conceal the fearfulness that defines conservatism.

[Fuckface] never really picks on someone his own size — ask the dozens of women who have accused him of sexual assault — and he sends his lawyers to deal with the thousands of people he has screwed over in his time. The man has likely never had a moment of true courage in his life. Any fan thrilled by his bullying ways is just exposing that they're as big a coward as he is.

Update (June 13):  Heather Digby Parton says the June 1 incident may have been a turning point.

What followed over the next few days was astonishing. One high-ranking retired military officer after another, led by former Defense Secretary Mattis, stepped up to condemn the use of the military for political purposes. Some were more pointed than others but it was clear that they were all on the same page. It's more than reasonable to assume they were speaking for the active-duty brass, who would have had to resign en masse if they wanted to make this point.

And Cody Fenwick notes Dear Leader just isn't up to the task of leadership on multiple issues.

It seems obvious, given the broad popularity of many of demands from the Black Lives Matter movement, that [Fuckface] would benefit himself by taking it seriously. A talented politician could have seized this moment, taken whatever he thinks are the best ideas that address the protesters’ concerns, and presented them as a win for all Americans. [He] surely has enough credibility with his base that he could sell them on some modest reforms. He could then be hailed as a uniter and champion of bipartisanship.

Update (June 15):  Melanie McFarland argues the protests have had a greater impact this year rather than previous years due to a "captive audience".

[B]etween the pandemic, massive unemployment, recession, quarantine separation and the rest of the hard-knock avalanche that is 2020, mainstream America was made to finally admit, en masse and out loud, that something is very wrong with the system.

More white people are being exposed to messages such as that from Trevor Noah about a "social contract" that has become meaningless.

[S]ome members of the society, namely Black people, watch time and time again how the contract that they have signed with society is not being honored by the society that has forced them to sign it with them. There is no contract if law and people in power don't uphold their end of it.

Update (June 16):  Incredibly enough, there's still debate over the removal of Confederate statues. Bob Cesca outlines the history of the "Lost Cause" and the persistance of racism since the Civil War.

One of the most dominant prongs of the Lost Cause was the characterization of Blacks as a common enemy of both northern and southern whites. Mythologists believed that if white people were fighting Black people, then white people wouldn't fight each other again. The goal of smearing African Americans as the enemy of white America involved the whole-cloth fabrication of cultural myths about African Americans, emerging at the dawn of the 20th century and beyond. Architects of the mythology felt that Black people didn't possess a cultural identity and therefore identities could be entirely invented for them by white supremacists.

All told, the Lost Cause has been one of the most successful disinformation campaigns in world history. Its themes continue to be intrinsic to the white misperception of post-Civil War racial history, including [Fuckface's] "heritage" defense of military base names, his defense of Charlottesville white supremacists, and his fetish for law enforcement violence. Likewise, his routine attacks against African-American journalists (e.g., Yamiche Alcindor of PBS and Don Lemon of CNN), athletes (e.g., former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick) and lawmakers (e.g., "Low IQ" Rep. Maxine Waters) invariably echo the stereotypes of the Lost Cause.

Update (June 17):  Dear Leader lets us know which side he's on by speaking in code:

We must build upon our heritage, not tear it down.

Sophia McClennen documents absurd racist arguments.

Update (June 18):  I don't recall reading about this before now.

On June 4, [Black Lives Matter's] Washington, D.C., chapter and five individuals filed a novel and potentially far-reaching federal lawsuit against [Attorney General Bill] Barr, [Fuckface von Clownstick], Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Army Chief of Staff General James McConville and other law enforcement officials, alleging their First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated when peaceful demonstrators were violently removed from Lafayette Square, just outside the gates of the White House, on the evening of June 1.

This make me happy.

Of all the defendants sued in the case, Barr is the only one cited in both his "individual" and "official" capacities. All the others, including [Orangeman], are being sued only in their official roles as government actors. The distinction, while technical, is important because only officials sued in their individual capacities can be held personally liable for damages caused by their actions.

Update (June 26):  The Minneapolis City Courncil has voted to disband the Police Department in favor of a Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention. Voters will decide whether to amend the city charter in November.

And in an interview with Chauncey DeVega, Cornel West talks about courage I doubt I could find.

Remember what Martin King Jr. told the marchers in Birmingham. He said, "When you come to this movement, I want you to put on your cemetery clothes, because the people who we are fighting are themselves willing to die. And if we are not willing to die, we'll never win."

Remember and draw strength from Martin King Jr. and his wisdom when he said, "I'd rather be dead than afraid."

We must come to the freedom struggle with our cemetery clothes and be coffin-ready, because these folks are willing to die. You have got to keep fighting. Don't give up. Don't sell out. Don't cave in. You've got to stay in motion. You've got to keep on pushing and fighting, no matter what. Be faithful until death, until you can't push no more, and then it's over. You pass it on to the next generation and that is what is most crucial.

Update (July 2):  Haydar Khan is concerned that the protests are at risk of being co-opted in defense of neoliberalism.

[F]ar from suffering Occupy’s flash in the pan fate, the movement and its energy, rooted in the very real concerns over police brutality, racism, and economic inequality are in danger of being repurposed.

If corporations really cared about black lives or worker lives in general, they would drop all opposition to unions and give labor a place at the bargaining table. No, the reason is that corporations wish to the shape the national discussion, redirecting attention away from broader issues of class and corporate greed.

Update (July 17):  This is rather alarming:

Demonstrators in Portland, Oregon, say federal officers driving unmarked vans have been stopping to detain people during late-night protests this week, a legally dubious move that local officials are condemning.

Dear Leader is allowing a secret police force to essentially kidnap people for protesting. Zakir Khan:

I think Portland is a test case. They want to see what they can get away with before launching into other parts of the country.

Update (July 18):  Ken Cuccinelli from the Department of Homeland Security:

This is a posture we intend to continue not just in Portland but in any of the facilities that we’re responsible for around the country.

Update (July 19):  David Atkins warns that Republicans have motivation to use the Portland actions as a model for handling the November election.

[I]t opens the possibility of a terrifying abuse of power. We could end up seeing armed private contractors hired by the RNC and affiliated conservative organizations to intimidate Democratic-leaning voters, bolstered by camouflage-wearing taxpayer-funded rifle-toting border patrol agents aggressively checking papers of every voter in line in the guise of "securing against voter fraud" on the president’s orders. This would be happening during the most tense presidential election in our lifetimes during a raging pandemic, often in lines in which voters must wait 8 to 10 hours to vote due to restricted polling places in minority communities–also a blatant suppression attempt enabled by the Supreme Court’s voiding of many of the protections of the Voting Rights Act. The likelihood that these actions would be met with immediate enraged protest would be very high. Election Day violence unheard of since the Civil Rights era could ensue, which would give [Dear Leader] an excuse to instigate further crackdowns across the country as election day continues.

Update (July 21):  Tensions are building in Portland. Michael Dorf:

The idea that there’s a threat to a federal courthouse and the federal authorities are going to swoop in and do whatever they want to do without any cooperation and coordination with state and local authorities is extraordinary outside the context of a civil war.

Juan Cole sees the expansion to other cities as part of the re-election strategy.

It now appears clear that part of that strategy is to send federal agents dressed like Iraq War troops to Democratic-run cities, on the pretext of protecting federal property, and then for them to attack and provoke Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police protesters, causing violence to escalate and using it… to scare the suburbs. The exercise also has the advantage for [Fuckface] of entrenching a new form of secret police and of turning federal agents into instruments of his authoritarianism.

David Lindorff notes the U.S. has been moving in this direction since at least 2001.

Under [the Authorization for Use of Military Force] as well as the ironically named Patriot Act passed the same year which basically codifies a whole raft of police-state measures that eviscerate most of the articles in the Bill of Rights, presidents have assumed he mantel of dictators.

[Von Clownstick], moving beyond his two predecessors and building on their own predations against Constitutionally protected freedoms, has simply moved the federal forces of authoritarian repression out into the open.

[He] has tossed out any concerns about public outrage, and, apparently fearful of being pushed out of power in this November’s election, appears to be going for broke with a full assumption of unrestrained police power.

Andrew O'Hehir sees two dangerous possibilities.

[E]ven the language we use to describe these events grows slippery — another consequence of encroaching authoritarianism, which drains the meaning out of ordinary words. These police are not real police, and the protesters in Portland (and many other places) have moved past the Black Lives Matter agenda to something much larger and more difficult to define. They are standing up against autocracy, I think we can say, while these so-called police are trying to enforce it.

What's the endgame strategy here? Is all of this "purely political," as Kate Brown said, aimed at terrifying a few white suburbanites in "battleground states" into believing that only [Agent Orange] can save them from rampaging antifa hordes who want to steal their homes for government-funded Black Marxist communes? Or is this an ingenious backdoor attempt at imposing martial law, Keystone Kops-style (since the actual military wouldn't do it), with a hopeful eye toward canceling or nullifying the election and declaring democracy on hold?

Update (July 23):  Amanda Marcotte knows the clashes between federal cops and protesters is all about the campaign photo-op.

Violence and racism may not be a winning message in this year of historic turmoil and change, but at this point, it's all [Fuckface] and his party have left.  

Update (July 25):  In Portland, 3000 protesters were dispersed by federal agents using tear gas. And in an interview with Chauncey DeVega, Ruth Ben-Ghiat discusses what fascism means in the U.S. at the present moment.

[T]o see CNN and other major media outlets finally use the word "authoritarianism" to describe [Dear Leader] and this administration means that things are really bad in America right now.

The reality is that today's authoritarianism works differently than it did in previous incarnations. Today's version of fascism does not need one-party states, for example.

One of the reasons so many people are scared is that to admit the truth about [Fuckface] and authoritarianism then means they have to do something about it. Many people do not want to take that leap.

White Americans are now discovering what people of color have long known, that we do not have a real democracy in this country.

Update (July 29):  Bob Cesca says flat out that Fuckface von Clownstick is the first fascist president.

As soon as [he] chose to unleash federal stormtroopers in reaction to protesters, deploying an army of faceless thugs into American cities armed with allegedly non-lethal weapons, the Rubicon was crossed. There's no going back until, at the very least, [Dear Leader] is ousted from power and held accountable for the unconstitutional horror show he's manifested.

Update (July 30):  There are plans for federal agents to withdraw from Portland, but with conflicting statements from Federal and local officials.

Update (August 23):  Randall Horton had the pleasure of discovering his role in the growth of a young person's activism.

After the George Floyd public execution in Minneapolis, along with the subsequent and ongoing protests across the nation and around the globe, I received an email from a young woman majoring in criminal justice whom I've the pleasure of mentoring off and on since her freshman year when she was 18 years of age. I will call her M. M began the correspondence by letting me know the past few weeks had led her to reflect deeply on the issue of race and inclusion as it pertains to the United States. M wanted me to know that, "Dr. Horton, I was a product of a broken system that failed to tell the whole truth, and without being enrolled in your first-year composition class, I easily could have stayed that way. You were the first black teacher/professor that I ever had (and to this day, the only one who has educated me on such important topics)." This short but impactful confessional made me reflect on the day I lectured on the Central Park Five case from 1990 to M's class, which none of my white students were familiar with. I remember their utter disbelief and questioning of how a system of justice could convict these five young men and have them endure a trauma from which they are still trying to recover.

I truly believe we are living a flashpoint moment. The idea of addressing systemic changes within society requires mobilization and action by young people of various cultures and ethnic groups, and yes, white people are crucial to this movement. My student was letting me know the American white mind is awakening. However, in this woke state, M added, "I recognize it should not be the job of black people in America to teach white people about systemic racism and how it has fueled the issues of police brutality and our corrupt criminal justice system." This is the reflection of an awakening mind filled with fire and passion, ready to dismantle the old power structures in search of something more equitable for us as human beings.