Posts Tagged ‘prison’
on fascism, buffoonery, criminality and a pretty crappy political system
On asking myself what fascism is, considering that it’s quite topical at present, my first answer is ‘nothing much’, by which I mean, on an intellectual level. The standard fascists of the past, Mussolini and Hitler, could never be described as intellectuals, and nor could Trump, though all might be described as clever in their extremely self-regarding ways. Good old AI describes fascism as ‘a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology characterised by a dictatorial leader, a centralised, autocratic government, militarism, and suppression of opposition’. This certainly describes much of the current Trump playbook, though it says little about the psychology of the typical ‘fascist’ leader, who, it seems to me, is always noisy, extremely thin-skinned, and has huge problems with listening to voices other than his own (though of course it needn’t be an exclusively male thing, but few women have ever been given the political power that the aforementioned men have been given).
The term didn’t exist before the 20th century, but of course the character type certainly did. It was apparently born out of the first world war – think of Hitler’s war experience; but it was Mussolini in particular who was central to the term, founding the Partito Nazionale Fascista, (PNF) in the early 1920s. It involved wholesale militarisation of the state, ultra-nationalism, and was of course molto macho. With Trump the draft dodger, however, fascism has taken on a different character. Definitely not so macho (many of his fellow-travellers are women), and focussed more on bullying his own critics, as well as a collection of ‘outsiders’ and competitors, and generally seeing the world in terms of win-lose scenarios, with a brutal edge. Whether or not this can be called fascism is no doubt an open question, and it isn’t of huge interest to me. It sure isn’t what I would call humanism (I was formerly involved with the SA Humanists), or a fair, inclusive, healthy or effective approach to politics.
So, much as I’m depressed with current US politics, and have long found their politico-social system far less impressive than most United Staters seem to think it is, I can’t help but hope it can be reformed and improved, considering the power that nation wields globally.
Firstly the US presidential system is quite obviously a bad system – obvious to most people outside the US. It gives a ridiculous degree of power to one individual, with limited checks and balances. Not only the ridiculous level of immunity, and the over-reaching pardoning powers, but the power to choose any unelected person as ‘running mate’, a person who can become President if something unforeseen happens, as has occurred in the past. This is clearly not democratic. Another problem is the influence of the almighty dollar. Campaign financing is very inadequately regulated and has been rising steadily over the past 30 to 40 years. Obviously this favours the rich in a nation with a larger rich-poor gap than any other democratic nation.
This one-man rule (it has always been a man and I can’t see that changing in the foreseeable) seems unable to be stopped even by clear evidence of criminal activity (Trump was convicted on 34 counts of felony business fraud re hush money payments in 2024; was found to have sexually assaulted E Jean Carroll in two lawsuits, in which Caroll was awarded $88.3 million dollars in damages, the case being currently under appeal; was indicted on 40 felony counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents related to his 2016-2020 presidency; and of course Trump’s involvement in the violent January 6 2021 insurrection in Washington DC and subsequent fraudulent attempts to claim that the election had been won by Trump, have never received proper legal treatment from the court system, due to his re-election in 2024). It’s surely obvious that no other nation in the English-speaking world, or throughout western Europe, would have allowed such an obvious reprobate to continue to play a role in their political affairs. (I must also say that the Wikipedia articles on the above-mentioned Trump ‘activities’ are impressively detailed and damning).
So what is to be done? Is there any hope for a nation that allows such a felon to be their president twice, with no doubt the hope of evading justice by buying a third term? And the way things are going over there, he might just succeed.
I have many good, and screamingly obvious, ideas about how the US polity could be overhauled, but I’m absolutely certain none of them will be implemented. In order for that to happen, the nation needs to be far more modest about itself, and to subscribe to a philosophy of constant renewal, to match the renewal of social values recognised by most other WEIRD nations, and by some progressives within the US.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned some of these ideas before in this blog, but… first, scrap the presidential system, which is beyond repair. Giving such vast powers to one person, who doesn’t even have to subscribe to the discipline of a political party and its collectively devised platform, more or less understood by the voting public, or at least there for every voter to consider, is highly problematic. Such a system is tailor-made for wannabe dictators. Nobody in Australia, where I live, or Britain, where I was born, goes into politics hoping to be a dictator – they would have to win over their local electorate, as a member of a political party (if campaigning as an independent they would’ve had to gain a local reputation through commercial or community activity), and then, if elected, would have to impress their party colleagues vis-à-vis their ideas, their communication skills, all the factors that make for a good team captain. This isn’t to say all ‘team captains’ have been effective or anything much more than disastrous -in Australia I can think of Mark Latham for Labor, or Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott for the Liberals (aka Conservatives – yes, it’s confusing: it’s about individual liberty and small government – think Thatcher’s ‘no such thing as society’).
So if the US scrapped its much-worshipped Presidential system, what then? It already has a functioning Congressional-Parliamentary system, elected every four years (called mid-term elections). It seems to have become increasingly partisan, whereas in Australia, cross-bench numbers (independents or ‘mini-parties’), with stops and starts, have grown. In Australia, our national elections vaguely resemble the US mid-terms, in which we elect local electorate hopefuls to the parliament (or re-elect incumbents), most of whom are members of the right or left party. The leaders of those parties are chosen, and can be dumped, by their elected peers in the party. Thus we have a Prime Minister and an Opposition Leader, working in a parliament, defending their policies and attacking the policies of the opposition, as of course occurs in the US Congress. We don’t have this extra, surely unnecessary, layer of power, an individual who sits in the White House like a king in his palace, surrounded by courtiers and flunkies, appointing various unelected ‘Secretaries’ to positions of massive power and authority (Treasury, State, Defence, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Education, etc, etc, – and also members of the judiciary – all subject at least to Congressional approval). The same king also has massive immunity and pardoning powers.
What could go wrong?
Anybody who thinks this is a good, let alone great, political system has surely to be certifiably insane, or born in the USA. Propaganda, anyone?
I’ve touched on just some of the problems of the US system. There’s also a disastrous ideology of ‘individualism’, in which you’re on your own, you’ll get very little government help in terms of education, health and general welfare, leading to a massive ‘left behind’ population susceptible to obvious charlatans like Trump. Hilary Clinton once called them ‘deplorables’, an indication of the problems they face vis-à-vis the wealthy elites on both sides of the political divide. The nation seems to have no shame about having the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world (this is always arguable, as naturally the world’s vilest nations don’t come clean about their rates), and some of the most disgusting prisons.
All in all, it’s pretty depressing, and I don’t see any change on the horizon. Yes I’m happy I wasn’t born there – if so, I would surely have been marked as another deplorable, given my background. I just hope the country doesn’t infect others with its disease. We all have enough problems…
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_v._Donald_J._Trump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_prosecution_of_Donald_Trump_(election_obstruction_case)
getting wee Donny 4: the waiting game
the USA’s massive incarceration system – and the details are much worse – but the worst get rewarded
Canto: So we’re sick of wee Donny, and more importantly there’s so much that’s more valuable to write about….
Jacinta: But to be fair, and to be positive, this is about justice and reform, so that nobody like that can ever be allowed such power in the future, in a country that claims ad nauseam that it’s a paragon of nations etc etc.
Canto: Yes, reform of the political and the justice system – neither of which is likely to happen in the near future – is obviously required in the USA, and with their new, highly-regarded Attorney-General, not yet sworn in, hopefully some vital reforms can happen.
Jacinta: So the US Supreme Court has finally decided not to take up the appeal by the trumpets regarding the handing over of financial documents to the Manhattan DA. And this is another area requiring reform – endless appeals processes which not only deliberately waste time but use up the resources of the justice system for no good reason. There need to be penalties for this, and restrictions on the appeals process, which obviously favours the wealthy.
Canto: Though as to how wealthy this money-grubbing serial bankrupt is, that’s to be ascertained….
Jacinta: He seems to always have lawyers to pursue all these appeals, and they wouldn’t be stupid enough to do it gratis – or would they? I’ve never had the money to hire any lawyer, not that I’ve ever needed to. What a boring life I’ve led. Anyway, all these financial docs relating to wee Donny’s businesses for an eight-year period, 2011 to 2019, have been handed over to Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan DA, who has hired forensic tax and financial specialists and a crack lawyer, Mark Pomerantz, all of which indicates that this will be a Big Show, involving wee Donny’s wee kiddies and his long-time CFO, Allen Weiselberg, among others.
Canto: I just hope it happens soon and doesn’t drag on – justice delayed is justice denied. Pundits are talking about the ‘bad look’ of an ex-Prez perhaps being jailed, which infuriates me. World leaders are precisely those whose wrong-doings have the most profound consequences – in this case covid-19 fatalities, vulnerable kids permanently losing track of their parents, Kurds left high and dry in the Middle East, Saudi princes rewarded for murderous deeds, and the rise of hate crimes within the USA, all due to wee Donny’s soi-disant leadership. Not to mention all the victims of a fifty-year white-collar crime spree before that.
Jacinta: Well, he’s still at large, and campaigning for his trumpets in Ohio, Georgia and elsewhere. Pundits are disputing whether or not he’s a spent political force. It’s astounding. The prospective A-G is promising to get to those behind the attack on the Capitol, and the stink leads directly to wee Donny. And there’s so much else. Where did all that 2016 campaign money go? What’s now to be uncovered from the Mueller enquiry? What dodgy material is there from his time in office? Dodgy deals with Saudi Arabia, inaction on the Khashoggi murder, and of course Russia and Putin. It goes on and on. What a nation.
Canto: People are claiming that the GOP is being destroyed by the continuing presence of this wee bloke. Poor GOP. Many of them are still talking of election fraud, though the result of the election was in line with every opinion poll, left-wing, right-wing, centrist and aggregated, over four years. Wee Donny was on the nose – something to do with his nappy – within a few weeks of being elected, and he stayed that way throughout. So his 2020 loss was as predicable as the sunrise.
Jacinta: Well I draw some hope from Michael Cohen, who’s currently capitalising on his role as reformed trumpet. He claims that wee Donny hates being the defendant in court cases, because he always loses. So bring on the civil cases as well as the criminal ones. Cohen himself is suing Donny’s Disorganisation for $2 million in legal fees – proof that even bad lawyers don’t come cheap in the USA.
Canto: Haha, actually they’re legal bills, incurred during the Mueller and congressional probes. The Donny Disorganisation promised to indemnify him for those costs, according to Cohen, who’s been assisting the legal authorities on all this stuff for some time. And wee Donny’s wetting himself about it all, of course.
Jacinta: So – felony charges in Atlanta, Washington DC and New York, and civil cases all over the place, and yet we seem to be in a holding pattern, with as yet no A-G, no charges being laid, and with Donny’s supporters going crazy for him, imagining he’ll return to office on March 4, or that he’ll have a second coming in 2024. To do what?
Canto: What about the sexual allegations? Business Insider Australia did a report on this back in 2017. Apparently some 26 women have accused Donny of sexual misconduct, but the E Jean Carroll sexual assault claim seems the stickiest.
Jacinta: Great choice of words mate. According to a recent David Pakman video, and a CNN political piece, another woman, Summer Zervos, also has a defamation suit against Donny, related to sexual assault allegations. That case was put on hold recently and will be argued before the Court of Appeals. If Donny loses these cases – and the Carroll case looks the more serious – I presume it will mean he’s been caught lying, and the women have been caught truth-telling, and then they could go on to criminal proceedings. Pakman, though, is doubtful, and talks of a two-tiered justice system, which I have to say, seems to exist everywhere. Most people who get caught up in the justice system can’t afford any lawyers, let alone those who’re adept at running out the system for their clients.
Canto: Yes I don’t suppose it’s worthwhile to spend too much more time waiting on justice for someone who’s been so easily able to flout the law for so long. And yet…
Jacinta: There are so many victims, let’s not forget.
References
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/women-accused-trump-sexual-misconduct-list-2017-12?r=US&IR=T
UH-OH: Trump May Have to Answer Rape Allegations…Under Oath (David Pakman video)
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/07/politics/summer-zervos-trump-lawsuit/index.html