I took a course on international human rights law in undergrad. The professor was excellent. She told us that most international human rights regulations are essentially non-binding. It's, more or less, a global honor code and not easily enforced.
I remember being a kid and wondering what would happen if a political party in the United St…
I took a course on international human rights law in undergrad. The professor was excellent. She told us that most international human rights regulations are essentially non-binding. It's, more or less, a global honor code and not easily enforced.
I remember being a kid and wondering what would happen if a political party in the United States just refused to agree to the results of an election, and back then, it felt like a foolish enough question that I quickly forgot and moved on.
I am terrified for our future. January 6th should have been an equivalent in the public consciousness to a major terrorist attack, and yet, here we are, more than three months later, and it feels as though much of the media apparatus is petrified of centering it and holding those behind it accountable.
My hope is that convictions will bring January 6th back into the news. I'm still waiting to learn more about Capitol tours on the days before. Who authorized them? Who led them?
Who disabled a panic button in one legislator’s office? Did that really happen? I’m with you, cig, I hope convictions will keep coming. PBS had another good documentary of January 6 the other night.
When will Trump be indicted, that’s what I really want to see.
Yes, it really happened. It was in the office of my great Rep, Ayanna Pressley. On Jan 6, Congress came within inches and seconds of having multiple members assaulted, raped, tortured, murdered and lynched.
My fear is that we are past the tipping point. The gerrymandering in 2011 has given us state legislatures that do not represent the entire electorate. The unrepresentative state legislatures, together with those that are representative within their state but not representative of a national majority, are using insights from the 2020 election to pass laws that further undermine representation. The public face of the national majority is held together by two factors: the knowledge that this is not a good time to concede defeat and the hope that a miracle will intervene.
If we are hoping for a miracle in upcoming elections, we must focus our attention on voting rights. If defeat is not an option, no other issue matters. So that leaves us with a desperate challenge: how to pass a voting rights bill in the Senate.
That in turn leaves us with a desperate worry: that even if such a bill is passed, its essential provisions could be vacated by the Supreme Court. It sounds as though the commission on the Supreme Court might come along with some recommendations just at the right time. But those recommendations then have to be implemented in law, which requires running the gauntlet a second time.
By that analysis, we are down to hoping for a double miracle.
How to pass a voting rights bill in the Senate: Do not give up in advance. Support HR1/S1 For the People Act. Support organizations fighting state voter suppression bills.
17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.
The fact that this was written in 2016 and we first had Charlottesville and now have the Oath Keepers, all military, police and first responders, leading an insurrection, is truly frightening. Thanks for sharing this, Ellie. I've bookmarked it for further thought....and action.
#17 is what we were sideswiped by between 2016 & 2020. If we aren’t careful it will hit us head on when and if the MTG types gain power again. Our Republic is still at risk. Complacency is not an option.
Thank you for this list, Ellie. Some of these were a little difficult for me to understand and I will have to read it again. I will contact the US Holocaust Museum to ask about professional ethics. One item on the list was “Be as courageous as you can. If none of us are willing to die for freedom, all of us will die in unfreedom.” The second sentence gives me more courage.
Tim Snyder’s recent lecture at William and Mary parses what freedom means, what we need to do to have it, etc. For example, increased support for local investigative journalism so that on the local, community level we have a robust shared reality. He posits health care for everyone as necessary in a working democracy. And makes a good case for that. https://youtu.be/t4NFiviVWR8
I just watched this!!! Mr.Snyder in lecture is Phenomenal! I wrote down about 3 pages of notes from This! Everyone Should Listen to THIS!!! FASCINATING 😊💓
Very powerful set of ideas. Not a sound bite friendly lecture. I am going to listen to the rest in two more tranches because my brain is overwhelmed by the first 30 minutes.
Timothy Snyder’s book “On Tyranny” explains each item on this list with historical context. It’s a short easy read and well worth reading again and again.
From W. Somerset Maugham.."If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is, that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too."
I think Dr. Snyder is doing that on purpose. To give us a break to the nonense of the Orange Traffic Cone of Treason, and offer new perspectives to move people to just think about what could be vs dwelling on what is so wrong. Just Finished his book, Bloodlands....its to close to our own story of Manifest Destiny and genocide of Native Americans and Slavery. In a way, Hitler and Stalin were playing catch up to America. HCR's How the South Won and Bloodlands follow a similar pattern of oppression and domination of one group over another.
Thanks Ellie! It’s notable that this piece was published on November 28, 2016. And looking back at the 4 years that followed, eerily, we saw many of these warnings become reality.
The question is, “Now what?” Given our present situation, how do we proceed? Would Snyder’s list look the same today?
Recommend #18 to those you know who carry firearms, either in a personal or a professional capacity. In particular, "Be ready to say no."
"18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)"
Don't forget the opportunity for those Republican state legislatures to gerrymander further based on the recent census. Things are going to get worse before they get better.
Agree 100%. Have to accomplish two big things to combat the big lies.
1.Pass National Voter Protection into Law
2. Enlarge the Supreme Court
Seems simple enough, but during a pandemic, during shoot em up crisis, during a police killing unarmed black men causing riots crisis, during an opioid crisis, during an ongoing worldwide threat to democracy crisis, during a worldwide epistemological crisis....lets just hope that Russia doesn't invade Ukraine further escalating world wide anxiety. It is no wonder good Presidents age so much while serving. "Heavy wears the crown"
Yes to all this, except it's never going to happen. As for Ukraine, this seems to me a diversionary tactic to take the focus off Navalny, whether Putin invades or not. I was disappointed to hear a State Department spokesperson say there will be "consequences" if Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine. That's code for sanctions and scolding and not much more and Putin knows that. It will deter him not in the least.
It should have been a deep stain on that party’s commitment to the revered democratic process. Instead it has become their campaigning candy. What is up is down. Hard to remain convinced that right will indeed prevail unless outrage and shock converts to action for every last one of us.
Ah, but when you think of it, that honor code notion applies to so so many things. In my second career, I taught finance, and each year gave what I called my "philosophical underpinnings of finance" lecture....which basically posited that the entire financial system, global, national, local, all boiled down to trust....that we could, for example, borrow money on the basis of a belief (by a lender) that we would pay our loans back according to the terms agreed upon. ...that a U.S. Treasury rate was considered the 'risk free rate' (to which other risk premiums were added to establish rates of borrowing and lending by different entities) ONLY because the US had never defaulted on its financial obligations and that the world trusted that we would not do so in the future....That we could call our broker and put in an order to buy stock or some other financial instrument and the broker would consider the call a handshake agreement that we would pay for what we ordered. Basically, I argued, the whole system relied on the notion of a handshake and that one's word was immutable.
Then, along came the lies and cheating that created system chaos....the mortgage bubble, the smoke and mirrors that allows some to profit from heretofore unheard forms of securitization, derivatives, crypto currencies that are impossible to trace directly, and too many other manipulations and machinations to follow, and we are approaching maximum entropy. The system simply cannot keep track, so ' trust' ends up being for fools who aren't quick enough to take advantage of short term blips in whatever is being bet on. The financial system is like a global casino.
Then, into the bargain, along came DJT, serial defaulter, in his role as president of this huge country with its outsized economy, who ranted publicly that if 'we' didn't get our way in one or another international transaction, we simply would not repay US debt! Somebody, somewhere who knew something about finance got him to shut up about this, but I recall physically shuddering when I first heard him say we'll simply default.
I'm not teaching any more, but if I were I'd amend my 'trust' lecture to include the notion that trust as a principle is more than half way to being replaced by 'whatever you can get away with." And none of us should want that.
I took business administration at berzerkeley. Graduating I realized that arbitrage was a way of stealing. I had learned in my business ethics courses that wink wink you know ethics are important. I decided on graduating that I didn’t like playing with people whose mantra seemed to be: It is all good as long as you don’t get caught.
Carolyn Ryan, thank you for this perspective. LFAA can be from any discipline. You just wrote a Letter from you as an American on Finance and Democracy.
I should clarify that I do not at all want to impinge on HCR's copywrite of LFAA. I'm talking more generically about the concept of a letter from an American citizen on the topic of democracy and the letter writer's point of view from their field of expertise and experience.
I took a course on international human rights law in undergrad. The professor was excellent. She told us that most international human rights regulations are essentially non-binding. It's, more or less, a global honor code and not easily enforced.
I remember being a kid and wondering what would happen if a political party in the United States just refused to agree to the results of an election, and back then, it felt like a foolish enough question that I quickly forgot and moved on.
I am terrified for our future. January 6th should have been an equivalent in the public consciousness to a major terrorist attack, and yet, here we are, more than three months later, and it feels as though much of the media apparatus is petrified of centering it and holding those behind it accountable.
January 6th was horrifying to watch.
Amidst news of too many recent shootings, on Friday a "member of the Oath Keepers militia who was charged in connection with the riot at the Capitol pleaded guilty...." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/us/politics/oath-keeper-guilty-plea.html
My hope is that convictions will bring January 6th back into the news. I'm still waiting to learn more about Capitol tours on the days before. Who authorized them? Who led them?
Who disabled a panic button in one legislator’s office? Did that really happen? I’m with you, cig, I hope convictions will keep coming. PBS had another good documentary of January 6 the other night.
When will Trump be indicted, that’s what I really want to see.
Yes, it really happened. It was in the office of my great Rep, Ayanna Pressley. On Jan 6, Congress came within inches and seconds of having multiple members assaulted, raped, tortured, murdered and lynched.
The nightmare scenario
As Admiral McRaven said, the Republican Party is the greatest existing threat to American democracy.
I Hope McRaven runs for Texas Gov.
That would be heavenly.
Boy, I'll drink to that, TCinLA!!
My fear is that we are past the tipping point. The gerrymandering in 2011 has given us state legislatures that do not represent the entire electorate. The unrepresentative state legislatures, together with those that are representative within their state but not representative of a national majority, are using insights from the 2020 election to pass laws that further undermine representation. The public face of the national majority is held together by two factors: the knowledge that this is not a good time to concede defeat and the hope that a miracle will intervene.
If we are hoping for a miracle in upcoming elections, we must focus our attention on voting rights. If defeat is not an option, no other issue matters. So that leaves us with a desperate challenge: how to pass a voting rights bill in the Senate.
That in turn leaves us with a desperate worry: that even if such a bill is passed, its essential provisions could be vacated by the Supreme Court. It sounds as though the commission on the Supreme Court might come along with some recommendations just at the right time. But those recommendations then have to be implemented in law, which requires running the gauntlet a second time.
By that analysis, we are down to hoping for a double miracle.
How to pass a voting rights bill in the Senate: Do not give up in advance. Support HR1/S1 For the People Act. Support organizations fighting state voter suppression bills.
https://kottke.org/16/11/fighting-authoritarianism-20-lessons-from-the-20th-century#:~:text=%20Fighting%20Authoritarianism%3A%2020%20Lessons%20from%20the%2020th,the%20leaders%20of%20state%20set%20a...%20More%20
17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.
The fact that this was written in 2016 and we first had Charlottesville and now have the Oath Keepers, all military, police and first responders, leading an insurrection, is truly frightening. Thanks for sharing this, Ellie. I've bookmarked it for further thought....and action.
Yes Gina 17 was the one that really shook me too.
Jan 6th, #17 is all I thought about.
#17 is what we were sideswiped by between 2016 & 2020. If we aren’t careful it will hit us head on when and if the MTG types gain power again. Our Republic is still at risk. Complacency is not an option.
Thank you for this list, Ellie. Some of these were a little difficult for me to understand and I will have to read it again. I will contact the US Holocaust Museum to ask about professional ethics. One item on the list was “Be as courageous as you can. If none of us are willing to die for freedom, all of us will die in unfreedom.” The second sentence gives me more courage.
The whole idea is prevention. Do not give up in advance. Act now to prevent authoritarianism that would require the rest of the lessons on the list.
Tim Snyder’s recent lecture at William and Mary parses what freedom means, what we need to do to have it, etc. For example, increased support for local investigative journalism so that on the local, community level we have a robust shared reality. He posits health care for everyone as necessary in a working democracy. And makes a good case for that. https://youtu.be/t4NFiviVWR8
Thank you Lee!!!
I just watched this!!! Mr.Snyder in lecture is Phenomenal! I wrote down about 3 pages of notes from This! Everyone Should Listen to THIS!!! FASCINATING 😊💓
https://snyder.substack.com/
Very powerful set of ideas. Not a sound bite friendly lecture. I am going to listen to the rest in two more tranches because my brain is overwhelmed by the first 30 minutes.
Thank you Lee for recommending this.
Timothy Snyder’s book “On Tyranny” explains each item on this list with historical context. It’s a short easy read and well worth reading again and again.
From W. Somerset Maugham.."If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is, that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too."
Could apply to political parties too. " If the Republican Party values...."
That was my thought...
timothy snyder continues to inform us on youtube. maybe that venue would help?
Timothy Snyder also has his own Substack, but writing more about health.
I think Dr. Snyder is doing that on purpose. To give us a break to the nonense of the Orange Traffic Cone of Treason, and offer new perspectives to move people to just think about what could be vs dwelling on what is so wrong. Just Finished his book, Bloodlands....its to close to our own story of Manifest Destiny and genocide of Native Americans and Slavery. In a way, Hitler and Stalin were playing catch up to America. HCR's How the South Won and Bloodlands follow a similar pattern of oppression and domination of one group over another.
i loved his book Our Malady. just signed into his substack, thank you
thank you!! i did not know.
It's all summarized in Tim Snyder's short book "On Tyranny", which is mentioned at the bottom of Kottke's post.
Thanks Ellie! It’s notable that this piece was published on November 28, 2016. And looking back at the 4 years that followed, eerily, we saw many of these warnings become reality.
The question is, “Now what?” Given our present situation, how do we proceed? Would Snyder’s list look the same today?
Your comment-question is in response to this:
Support HR1/S1 For the People Act. Support organizations fighting state voter suppression bills.
Focus so as to prevent the manifestation of Snyder's list today. That's presumably why he was raising these points again so much over the past year.
“Email is skywriting.”
Recommend #18 to those you know who carry firearms, either in a personal or a professional capacity. In particular, "Be ready to say no."
"18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)"
Ellie, Excellent Article!! thank you
I agree. ❤️🤍💙
Exactly! Giving up is not an option.
Don't forget the opportunity for those Republican state legislatures to gerrymander further based on the recent census. Things are going to get worse before they get better.
oh dear. But I know ur right.
Agree 100%. Have to accomplish two big things to combat the big lies.
1.Pass National Voter Protection into Law
2. Enlarge the Supreme Court
Seems simple enough, but during a pandemic, during shoot em up crisis, during a police killing unarmed black men causing riots crisis, during an opioid crisis, during an ongoing worldwide threat to democracy crisis, during a worldwide epistemological crisis....lets just hope that Russia doesn't invade Ukraine further escalating world wide anxiety. It is no wonder good Presidents age so much while serving. "Heavy wears the crown"
Yes to all this, except it's never going to happen. As for Ukraine, this seems to me a diversionary tactic to take the focus off Navalny, whether Putin invades or not. I was disappointed to hear a State Department spokesperson say there will be "consequences" if Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine. That's code for sanctions and scolding and not much more and Putin knows that. It will deter him not in the least.
It should have been a deep stain on that party’s commitment to the revered democratic process. Instead it has become their campaigning candy. What is up is down. Hard to remain convinced that right will indeed prevail unless outrage and shock converts to action for every last one of us.
Ah, but when you think of it, that honor code notion applies to so so many things. In my second career, I taught finance, and each year gave what I called my "philosophical underpinnings of finance" lecture....which basically posited that the entire financial system, global, national, local, all boiled down to trust....that we could, for example, borrow money on the basis of a belief (by a lender) that we would pay our loans back according to the terms agreed upon. ...that a U.S. Treasury rate was considered the 'risk free rate' (to which other risk premiums were added to establish rates of borrowing and lending by different entities) ONLY because the US had never defaulted on its financial obligations and that the world trusted that we would not do so in the future....That we could call our broker and put in an order to buy stock or some other financial instrument and the broker would consider the call a handshake agreement that we would pay for what we ordered. Basically, I argued, the whole system relied on the notion of a handshake and that one's word was immutable.
Then, along came the lies and cheating that created system chaos....the mortgage bubble, the smoke and mirrors that allows some to profit from heretofore unheard forms of securitization, derivatives, crypto currencies that are impossible to trace directly, and too many other manipulations and machinations to follow, and we are approaching maximum entropy. The system simply cannot keep track, so ' trust' ends up being for fools who aren't quick enough to take advantage of short term blips in whatever is being bet on. The financial system is like a global casino.
Then, into the bargain, along came DJT, serial defaulter, in his role as president of this huge country with its outsized economy, who ranted publicly that if 'we' didn't get our way in one or another international transaction, we simply would not repay US debt! Somebody, somewhere who knew something about finance got him to shut up about this, but I recall physically shuddering when I first heard him say we'll simply default.
I'm not teaching any more, but if I were I'd amend my 'trust' lecture to include the notion that trust as a principle is more than half way to being replaced by 'whatever you can get away with." And none of us should want that.
I took business administration at berzerkeley. Graduating I realized that arbitrage was a way of stealing. I had learned in my business ethics courses that wink wink you know ethics are important. I decided on graduating that I didn’t like playing with people whose mantra seemed to be: It is all good as long as you don’t get caught.
So I went back to school and became a nurse. Now I don’t make money for nothing, I earn it.
thank you. as a retired Rn after 40 years, I know you earn it!
Carolyn Ryan, thank you for this perspective. LFAA can be from any discipline. You just wrote a Letter from you as an American on Finance and Democracy.
I should clarify that I do not at all want to impinge on HCR's copywrite of LFAA. I'm talking more generically about the concept of a letter from an American citizen on the topic of democracy and the letter writer's point of view from their field of expertise and experience.
How much does the Republican Party spend/purchase in ad time from media companies annually?
If media isn't reporting enough on "The Big Lie", we know why.