Three Weeks from Today

The 2022 Election is three weeks from today.  In the end, either you voted or you didn’t.  Most recently I was struck by data about the Italian election, which was reported to have a low turnout.  I checked, and the Italian “low” turnout was essentially the same as the largest turnout ever for the 2020 U.S. presidential election.  To me that’s the whole story.  We are, as a society, careless about our country’s wellbeing.

On most ballots, most offices, there are two political party candidates, and non-partisan (usually judges).   My ballot has me voting for 38 elected positions.

Once again:

Here is the portal for Information, again: Information for a Minnesota voter can be seen here (our early voting began on Sep 23).  National information here.  NBC has a Plan Your Vote site as well.

For folks who live in the same community I do: SD 47.  (The link is the local Democrat website.)

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I am Democrat.  My personal mantra is the ageless slogan of Sen. Paul Wellstone: “We All Do Better When We All Do Better.”  My personal family circle is 30 or more people (parents, siblings and families thereof).  The members are of all sorts, all rooted in families of modest means.

The other party, which historically was called Republican, and is on the ballot as such this year, is no longer traditional Republican, and basically operates under the philosophy “Them That Has, Gets“.  Many millionaires and billionaires are in this class.  People like Ivanka, Erik and Donald Jr, are among the folks “born on third base”.

But far and away the biggest issue November 8 is our future as a free democratic republic with so far a history of 235 years.  There is no issue greater than that.

The Democrats have taken on the task of representing all of us – the great diversity that is the United States of America.  This is never easy, but a great responsibility.

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Today’s R’s have a very different focus.  I thought this morning about the crew that DJT, and now his acolytes, quite certainly idolize as role models.  Russia’s Putin (Ukraine); China’s Xi Jinping; Brazils Bolsonaro; N.Koreas Kim Jong Un; Hungary’s Orban; Saudi Arabia’s bin Salman (oil), and on and on.

They are the pretenders to the old monarchies that divided the spoils amongst themselves (all of which ultimately failed – even greed has its limits.)

Authoritarianists have now united against democracy in our own country.  Over half of the “Republican” candidates for major office in the U.S. Nov. 8 have denied the fact that elections are free and fair.

The objective, all, is to rein in and strangle democracy.

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POSTNOTE:  Other recent posts:  10/13 January 6; 10/15 Life Without Parole; 10/17 Jesus.

Episode 3 of Rachel Maddow’s Ultra, on the rise of Fascism in the United States in the 1930s, is now on-line, as are the first two.  Check them out.  This is a very powerful series.

Tonight (Oct 18) on Frontline PBS: Michael Flynn’s Holy War.

Thursday, the Golden Rule Project is the focus of Citizens for Global Solutions Third Thursday.  Zoom.  All details here.  Pre-registration required.

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On August 25, 2022, I wrote a post which in part included the following, which anticipated the Rachel Maddow series.  I said this:

“Nov. 10, 1998, I wrote my Uncle and Aunt in North Dakota about an October 9-11, 1998, visit to the ancestral relatives and farm in western Germany, very near the Netherlands.

It was a standard letter, but it had an additional dimension, since I was visiting kin – Germans in Germany – in a place where the ancestors had lived for hundreds of years, including WWII.

This is what I said 24 years ago: “We don’t talk a lot about WWII, except to learn that WWII, the why’s etc., is still talked about by the common German citizen.  Even people my age – including my hosts – were very young when the war ended.  I wonder about how we in the U.S. would be if our country was taken over by a Hitler-type.  Probably we’d be no different than the Germans in the 1930s and 40s….”

Hitler and the Nazis envisioned a 1,000 year Reich.  They got about 10 years.  They could not see their ignominious end.  Lust for power has a way of overrunning common sense.  As I write, we have our current pretenders to authoritarian rule at all levels in all states.  Will we ever learn?”

Back in 1998, I don’t recall being aware of the 1930s tilt towards Fascism in the United States.  I was obviously aware of my own German ancestry, and World War II.

As the Maddow series thus far points out, and will continue to point out, as an American society we became very deeply involved in support of Nazi Germany.  In a recent previous post, I called back another recent flashback to the days of the “silver shirts” in Minnesota Fascism MN Weisman, hearkening back to the “brown shirts” in Nazi Germany, and the “black shirts” in Mussolini’s Italy.  We are not, my friends, “exceptional” in any sense of the word….

Here’s what I said anticipating this podcast on October 8 (at that point I was not yet aware of the upcoming podcast):  “…there has now been six years of experience, including near two years including Jan. 6, 2021, to learn from experience some life lessons of today’s “T” party infatuation  with authoritarianism.”

and

October 13: Monday evening Rachel Maddow presented the first two segments of her podcast on pre-WWII seditious conspiracy in the United States… It is powerful, given in context with today.  Here is the link.”