0106blog
Heed Hanna
A friend said she has had it with politics but too bad, because politics hasn’t had it with her, in fact, politics 2021 is just getting started, with her or without her.
Political philosopher Hanna Arendt, who is known for her analysis of the Nazis and power, is surely turning over in her grade with the direction that the national, political dialogue has taken. And the writer, George Orwell, whose tomes against totalitarianism are legendary, also is twisting and turning six feet under, most definitely.
This is how things are getting really rotten and scary and very 1984ish.
Trump tweets a post by QAnon and QAnon posts the tweet from Trump to legitimize what QAnon posted about Trump and thousands of Trumpers/QAnoners demonstrate in Washington because of what QAnon posted and Trump re-posted and QAnon re-posted, challenging the foundation of democracy with violence.
Get it?
If you don’t understand, it doesn’t really matter because it’s all hocus pocus, however, it is leading the country down the Orwellian rabbit hole from where there may be no return. The crazies have always been around but now they have a free ticket to spread their lies on a treasure trove of Internet websites and Facebook pages to millions of believers and the politicians very much understand this new weapon of theirs. And to make things even more complicated, this latest perversion of the American way is getting twisted into a debate over the constitutional guarantee of free speech.
This will certainly scare the pants off of the intelligent and wise among us. Late last month, NPR and the Ipsos data verification service, polled people if they believed in QAnon’s central fabrication that “a group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media.” A mind-numbing 17 percent said they believed it while 37 percent said they weren’t quite sure.
Wow.
So here’s a little test of my own conspiracy post to QAnon and I made absolutely certain not to include anything even remotely factual and I will submit one or many affidavits to that effect and find a lawyer to represent me who has no scruples but wants to make a buck.:
Raphael Warnock, the African American minister who defeated the multi-millionaire white woman for the Georgia Senate seat, only won because the minister has received millions of campaign contributions from China and George Sorros. The minister will now use his new-found influence to create an international surveillance bank that will immediately be able to locate every American who receives the COVID 19 vaccination through a tiny receiver that is implanted with the vaccination. Furthermore, a growing cabal of extraterrestrials, also very well heeled, has invaded the left and their stated goals include permitting abortion at any time, making any worship punishable by death, barring immigration from anywhere other than Sweden, disbanding the Supreme Court and prohibiting anyone from talking about anything that the extraterrestrials don’t want you to talk about.
Keep your Internet tuned to the QAnon and other far-right repositories of absurdity and I am certain that soon you will see my conspiracy getting all the air it needs to spread throughout the growing and armed community of white supremacist, god fearing, right wingers.
Every new technology, from the Pony Express, the telegraph, the telephone, the radio and the television have been met with Chicken Little-like fears that the sky of democracy is falling and that we will all soon be a nation of “nattering nabobs of negativism.” For those too young to remember the immortal words of former Vice President Spiro Agnew, nattering is defined as talking continuously for a long time without any particular purpose while a nabob is “a conspicuously wealthy man deriving his fortune in the east, especially in India during the 18th century with the privately held East India Company.”
Chicken Little’s time has come again with the Internet but this time the warnings from the tiny pullet may come true because the Internet beast is too colossal. There seems to be no way to control the lies that permeate the Internet like a malignancy and in fact, there is a lot of money to be made by encouraging more and more lies, because as they say, clicks mean money. And the current crop of “politicians,” led by Trump, have weaponized the misinformation as demagogues and propagandists are want to do.
We better be really careful about any quick fixes like reigning in the Internet and diluting the freedom of speech or we may leave ourselves open to even worse tyranny by politicians who want to suffocate any thoughts but their own. As Arendt said in her essay, “Truth and Politics:” “Freedom of opinion is a farce unless factual information is guaranteed and the facts themselves are not in dispute.”
So how are we to beat this latest infection? I don’t have a clue.
For those keeping score, the list of Republican elected officials on the QAnon mailing list who back the coup d’etat to overturn the electoral college votes, include 13 Senators and 77 members of the House of Representatives, including southern New Jersey’s own Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-2, who was a Democrat until he switched parties last year, out of fear of losing the seat.
Among others, the House members include such luminaries as Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) and somebody named Kat Cammack of Florida.
Here’s the full list:
Senate
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.)
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.)
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.)
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.)
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.)
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.)
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.)
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.)
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.)
House of Representatives
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.)
Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.)
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)
Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.)
Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas)
Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.)
Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas)
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)
Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas)
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.)
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas)
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.)
Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah)
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.)
Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.)
Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.)
Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.)
Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.)
Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.)
Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.)
Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.)
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.)
Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.)
Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.)
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.)
Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.)
Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.)
Rep. Fred Keller (R-Pa.)
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.)
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)
Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas)
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga)
Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.)
Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.)
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.)
Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.)
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.)
Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.)
Rep. Tracey Mann (R-Kan.)
Rep. Jacob LaTurner (R-Kan.)
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)
Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.)
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah)
Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.)
Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.)
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.)
Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas)
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio)
Rep. John Carter (R-Texas)
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.)
Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.)
Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.)
Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.)
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)
Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.)
Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.)
Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.)
Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio)
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas)
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.)
Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas)
Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.)