Serfdom

Greetings good citizen, history tells us nobody signs up to become a serf because it isn't a 'choice' it's an outcome that you aren't given a choice in. It's indentured slavery or DIE!

How does such a thing come to pass?

Let's ask Professor Krugman! Today's offering is 'enhanced' with the wisdom of one of the planet's few remaining great intellects.

Soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a friend of mine — an expert on international relations — made a joke: “Now that Eastern Europe is free from the alien ideology of Communism, it can return to its true historical path — fascism.” Even at the time, his quip had a real edge.

And as of 2018 it hardly seems like a joke at all. What Freedom House calls illiberalism is on the rise across Eastern Europe. This includes Poland and Hungary, both still members of the European Union, in which democracy as we normally understand it is already dead.

In both countries the ruling parties — Law and Justice in Poland, Fidesz in Hungary — have established regimes that maintain the forms of popular elections, but have destroyed the independence of the judiciary, suppressed freedom of the press, institutionalized large-scale corruption and effectively delegitimized dissent. The result seems likely to be one-party rule for the foreseeable future.

One party rule, where do you suppose that comes from? If you listen to cranks like me it happens after a 'bloodless coup' wipes out one side of the political equation via it's stranglehold on MONEY! [Morning in America anyone?] Ronnie Reagan was a TRAITOR!

The 'usurpation' of government power was also used to muzzle the resistance. Then the propaganda machine put raving maniacs on the air [for free!] and they proceeded to undermine the foundations of Democracy with their trademarked 'My way or the highway' poison.

Most didn't listen but the few that did embraced the message that cooperation was for weaklings, that REAL MEN commanded DEMANDED respect!

Once again we find our 'mimic' nature being used against us (like it has been so many times before.) We 'ape' the 'dominant ones' (who are literally pissing their pants in fear, if the get caught faking it they will be torn apart!) and the next thing you know we are destroying what we love just because that's what THEY want.

Not only do we play 'Let's Pretend' an awful lot for 'alleged adults' but we are also the unwitting participants in an unending game of 'Simon Says'.

'Fair use' be damned, I'm invoking my 'future of humanity' override!

And it could all too easily happen here. There was a time, not long ago, when people used to say that our democratic norms, our proud history of freedom, would protect us from such a slide into tyranny. In fact, some people still say that. But believing such a thing today requires willful blindness. The fact is that the Republican Party is ready, even eager, to become an American version of Law and Justice or Fidesz, exploiting its current political power to lock in permanent rule.

Just look at what has been happening at the state level.

In North Carolina, after a Democrat won the governorship, Republicans used the incumbent’s final days to pass legislation stripping the governor’s office of much of its power.

In Georgia, Republicans tried to use transparently phony concerns about access for disabled voters to close most of the polling places in a mainly black district.

See, like Preznint Pussygrabber, the 'Republican Philosophy' is one that believes it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

Does anyone else see the 'my way or the highway' in action? But Krugs is not done.

In West Virginia, Republican legislators exploited complaints about excessive spending to impeach the entire State Supreme Court and replace it with party loyalists.

And these are just the cases that have received national attention. There are surely scores if not hundreds of similar stories across the nation. What all of them reflect is the reality that the modern G.O.P. feels no allegiance to democratic ideals; it will do whatever it thinks it can get away with to entrench its power.

What about developments at the national level? That’s where things get really scary. We’re currently sitting on a knife edge. If we fall off it in the wrong direction — specifically, if Republicans retain control of both houses of Congress in November — we will become another Poland or Hungary faster than you can imagine.
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This week Axios created a bit of a stir with a scoop about a spreadsheet circulating among Republicans in Congress, listing investigations they think Democrats are likely to carry out if they take the House. The thing about the list is that every item on it — starting with Donald Trump’s tax returns — is something that obviously should be investigated, and would have been investigated under any other president. But the people circulating the document simply take it for granted that Republicans won’t address any of these issues: Party loyalty will prevail over constitutional responsibility.

Many Trump critics celebrated last week’s legal developments, taking the Manafort conviction and the Cohen guilty plea as signs that the walls may finally be closing in on the lawbreaker in chief. But I felt a sense of deepened dread as I watched the Republican reaction: Faced with undeniable evidence of Trump’s thuggishness, his party closed ranks around him more tightly than ever.

A year ago it seemed possible that there might be limits to the party’s complicity, that there would come a point where at least a few representatives or senators would say, no more. Now it’s clear that there are no limits: They’ll do whatever it takes to defend Trump and consolidate power.

This goes even for politicians who once seemed to have some principles. Senator Susan Collins of Maine was a voice of independence in the health care debate; now she sees no problem with having a president who’s an unindicted co-conspirator appoint a Supreme Court justice who believes that presidents are immune from prosecution. Senator Lindsey Graham denounced Trump in 2016, and until recently seemed to be standing up against the idea of firing the attorney general to kill the Mueller investigation; now he’s signaled that he’s O.K. with such a firing.

But why is America, the birthplace of democracy, so close to following the lead of other countries that have recently destroyed it?

Don’t tell me about “economic anxiety.” That’s not what happened in Poland, which grew steadily through the financial crisis and its aftermath. And it’s not what happened here in 2016: Study after study has found that racial resentment, not economic distress, drove Trump voters.

The point is that we’re suffering from the same disease — white nationalism run wild — that has already effectively killed democracy in some other Western nations. And we’re very, very close to the point of no return.

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Oops! Well since most links don't work here I took the 'liberty' of posting the whole article. Very Republican of me, wasn't it?

Part of my reason for doing this is Mr. K's final rhetorical question: Why is Murika following the lead of nations that are destroying their democracies?

Well, for a long time now I have been pointing to 'Morning in America' as a global conquest. Conservative governments swept the planet's democracies and planetary economics were turned upside down [as the greed is good philosophy milked the gullible for everything they were worth!]

Now we are at the 'freedom's' bitter end. The Royals will once again seize the reins of society and put the 'serfs' back to work, teaching us all once again the ultimate lesson of 'strength is power'.

The wrong people are giving the orders and the ones with the guns and badges are TOO STUPID to understand they are working FOR the criminals!

So today's 'rhetorical question: What is serfdom?

The answer is it's what happens after you lose your 'rights'...
[for those of you not paying attention, W. did that with the Patriot Act.]

Thanks for playing (ready to revolt now? Strike is off the table.)

Gegner