Another futile post to the comments page of a certain newspaper owned by Amazon:
++++++++ Big idea to think about: Nixon couldn't go full-authoritarian mode because the US still needed to be a democracy in order to galvanize the Western bloc and its allies. Now people are sick of democracy because it hasn't given them the lives they want. If there is no more Soviet bloc, how does democracy benefit the US competitively? Big data has calculated that it does not. Therefore Trump does not have to fear impeachment and can hollow out all democratic institutions (such as free speech, due process, voting rights, human rights, and legislative oversight). What he is building is not an administration of a constitutional democracy. He is building a extra-legal apparatus of fear, intimidation, corruption, violence, and propaganda, with all the powers of the executive branch and full deference from the other branches. The model, like Putin's, is czarist plain and simple. The only power Trump and Bannon lack is what all authoritarian states have lacked: power over people's ability to speak their minds freely, in defiance of persecution. Not via broadcast media to be sure, due to its vulnerability to economic coercion, but by zero-cost micro-media: conversation, coffee houses, pamphlets, songs, poetry, painting, and the internet. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Don't forget that Amazon has lost $26 billion in market value since Comey's letter was released on Oct. 25. Even the venerable Washington Post, who brought down Nixon for his crimes, will before long lose the economic wherewithal to criticize Trump meaningfully. Hence any effective criticism of Trump will have to originate from the grass roots, via spontaneous and decentralized yet focused expression on the internet. Peaceful protest art and satire organized under an identifiable flag, banner, rubric, umbrella, icon, label, or brand. With no such brand there can be no collaborative synergy. Then fear wins completely -- winner take all, the opposite of American values. +++++ www.albalux.com/g2k/pv<http://www.albalux.com/g2k/pv> http://www.oocities.org/genius-2000/Albos.html http://www.oocities.org/genius-2000/Koros.html http://www.oocities.org/genius-2000/Hybris.html http://www.oocities.org/genius-2000/Ate.html http://www.oocities.org/genius-2000/ http://www.oocities.org/genius-2000/Launch.html If anyone would like a DVD of the video and has the technological ability to post it to YouTube, please feel free to send me your address.
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