1810

There is a series called The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card (yes yes, I know). It’s really a bunch of short stories knitted together with a central narrative. One of the stories is about a man who feels that the galaxy needs a change. He first experiments in a giant game played across the galaxy that is essentially an MMO civilization game. He buys the account of the person who currently has the largest and most stable civilization and proceeds to make what are considered weird moves. He persecutes regional religions, enacts laws meant to incite the population, and various other actions that I don’t remember. He doesn’t do anything so bad that it causes a flat-out rebellion; he instead keeps doing these small things over time, building the internal tension. After a while, he triggers one big event that causes all the small events to explode in to major conflicts. His entire civilization destroys itself, leaving nothing behind. The reason for his small moves while still keeping the masses placated enough not to rebel was because, as he explains it, a single event is never enough to destroy an empire. You need a lot of events happening all at once to bring it down.

I’m explaining it terribly, and it was a long time ago that I read it. It feels like that’s what’s been going on since the Cold War ended. Create enough tension, pit everyone against eachother (races, religions, economic classes), remove trust in the central governing body. Get people in power that are either useless or so entrenched that it’s impossible for them to unite for a central cause. And now we get Bannon and Trump, throwing matches in to the dead leafs and underbrush that has built up over the last few decades.

OK, so I don’t think it’s that dire. In that over-reactive part of my brain, it’s how it feels. This is how you destroy a nation.

1811

IIRC, I think it was a super-detailed simulation that started out in the WW1 timeframe where someone had built Italy into a superpower. At the time he took over, the new Roman empire was super-stable and completely dominant. He took over and deliberately undermined the social cohesion by undermining trust in all the institutions the society relied on, eventually completely crashing the society. It was indeed a test-run for doing the same thing in the real world.

1812

Looks like we’re already there, based on this. Help me US Congress! You’re my only hope!

1813

I think is time to break the glass and use that piece of paper.

1814

I believe the Mormon Church got itself into hot water here in California over the proposition (8?) years ago that tried to define marriage. The state went after them but I don’t remember how that ended.

1815

I’d say the same thing about the Constitution these days.

1816

In law it’s almost the same, in practice it is more complicated due to the protections of religion and religious speech in the Constitution. Your weekend NGO can’t really fall back on freedom of religion as a judicial excuse unless it is a church.

1817

Well there is practice and there is in intent. You said they can’t really be compared. I would submit that not only can they be compared, they should be.

1818

Of course they should be. It’s far easier to abuse law in a religious NGO. There are a lot of articles about it, if you google “Should churches be tax exempt.” One of the differences is that a church does not have to apply for non-profit status – it’s automatically granted without filing paperwork. So when you compare people who are granted that status with those who intentionally seek it, you can begin to see how the waters get muddied.

1819

In a 56-43 vote, Republicans picked up three Democratic votes to pierce the minority’s hoped-for united front against Mr. Trump’s unconventional nominee: Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Mark Warner of Virginia, all of whom face re-election in 2018. Democratic-leaning independent Sen. Angus King of Maine also voted to advance Mr. Tillerson’s nomination.

Joe Manchin (West Virginia) http://www.manchin.senate.gov/public/
Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota) http://www.heitkamp.senate.gov/public/
Mark Warner (Virginia) http://www.warner.senate.gov/public/

1820

I spoke to my father tonight about everything going on. He’s so furious at Obama’s Executive Orders expanding environmental protection oversight to the oil industry that he thinks complaints today are nothing but sour grapes by liberals getting a taste of their own medicine. “No one gave a shit about me or my industry when Obama nearly drove me out of business!” to paraphrase. He’s sick of politics and just doesn’t want to hear about it any more. “What everyone wants to do is get up, go to work, and be left alone! Keep the government out of our lives!”. That’s a pretty smart guy that lives in a bubble of completely filtered news and exhaustion of politics in general, and one that isn’t going to believe anything bad is going on until it’s too late.

1821

Gotta hand it to the GOP, they did a superlative job of crafting a propaganda machine masquerading as news and commentary over the course of decades. They transformed liberal into a pejorative. Democrats are the enemy and they seek to destroy democracy and capitalism. There is no middle ground. My dad too is a so called conservative, conservative as in he only gets his news from sources that appeal to his ingrained biases and prejudices of how the world should work. He falls into the Republican camp of I got mine, fuck everyone else. My mom of course just goes along with whatever he says. What blows my mind was that she was a victim of work place sexual harassment that caused her to have a break down but yet she voted for that monster anyway. I asked why and the response was TAXES and we don’t trust Hillary. You just can’t make this shit up. They also own Kinkaid paintings.

I too went through my own ditto head days in the early to mid 90s when Rush achieved nation wide syndication. He was the juggernaut of radio and there wasn’t a market in the country where you his voice was never out of radio range. The thing with Rush is that he has the best call screeners in the world and he, at least when I listened to him, never had on dissenting guests to challenge his bullshit. It’s all about never straying from the narrative. Here’s what happens when to Rush when he is not in control.

He also had his very own TV show in the 90s and of course he never had guests on that would disagree with him. Even as a ditto head it was painful to watch and it eventually got shit canned.

1822

I’m actually impressed that Limbaugh allowed folks like that in the show. That crap never happens any more.

1823

His show was something else. I used to watch it and Wally George’s ‘Hot Seat’ back to back after school when my dad had control of the television.

I still remember some episode where Limbaugh spent 30 straight minutes replaying some 1-second clip of the Rodney King beating over and over on a small tv while ardently justifying the beating delivered unto King by the police.

1824

He was subbing for Pat Sakak (the Wheel of Fortune host) who had his own very short lived talk show.

Yes I remember Wally George. His show was on a UHF channel where you had to adjust the rabbit ear antenna for his station to come in. We would always tune in after school for the prank calls. Amazingly he is the father of Rebecca De Mornay who was in Risky Business. The prank calls were so frequent that he stopped taking calls altogether

1825

DeVos confirmed by the committee 12-11 on party line vote. RIP education in America.

1826

Fuck every single Republican voter for eternity.

1827

Well, she still has to clear the full Senate vote. While there’s little reason to be optimistic, maybe a Dem will grow a spine and filibuster. However, I guess she only needs a simple majority to be confirmed, unlike with the SCOTUS nomination.

1828

Yeah, no Senator on the Republican side is going to block the almighty Trump so we’re screwed.

1829

The hulking sleeping beast of the Dem party might be waking up.