Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[Molly Hankwitz]

Felix et al

Not misreading the situation at all imho.
Trump hasn't a leg to stand on unless the newly-lined Pentagon gets behind
him. Very unlikely.
The worst thing that could continue to happen is increased national
vulnerability to hostile powers (maybe there aren't any?)
or total slowing down of covid response because of Trump's recalcitrance or
other mess.
I think he is starting to get it that he lost (according to NYTimes today,
Friday 13th)

The Republican Party on the other hand has been galvanized by Trump's
presidency and they are something to be afraid of, especially if they catch
QAnon fever and get their way on the Supreme Court with cases involving
women's rights. This is where Trump has done their  bidding while being
hung out as a teaser.
Lindsay Graham and McConnell are frightening.
There could be a Republican effort to hasten already harsh actions against
the detained and other disgusting "policies" of the TA

The Democratic Party is also quite wobbly despite cool Joe Biden.
Hence, the Dem liberals who lost accusing Squad of hurting their chances of
re-election because the Squad is "too radical"
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez continues a brilliant streak against sluggish,
neo-liberal Dems.
This is a potentially paralytic cleave to what could be an organized front.

However, recent history of Dems shows neo-liberals at fore.
Let's hope we win the Senate race in Georgia because we will have more
power.

At the moment, though, its quite uneasy yet hopeful, I would argue. Relief
set in. Biden is a more agreeable chap.
It's good to hear that overseas right-wingers are ducking more.

peace
Molly


molly hankwitz - she/her
http://bivoulab.org


On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 1:10 AM Felix Stalder  wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I must admit, amidst post-terror assault on civil liberties and covid
> cases spiraling out of control here in Austria, the US election drama
> has moved a bit lower in my attention, but not that much.
>
> >From what I understand, the numbers show that Trump lost. Period. No
> recount will change that.
>
> But, the game of the Republicans is to create so much doubt about the
> fairness of the elections (without any evidence) to make it impossible
> to certify them in time. Frivolous lawsuits are great at gumming things
> up. This would then allow the Republican dominated legislatures in swing
> states to appoint their own electors which would bring Trump the
> majority. In the mean time, the minister of defense, who previously
> refused to send in troops against mostly peaceful protestors, has been
> fired and replaced with a loyalist. Apparently, similar moves are in the
> wings for the FBI and CIA.
>
> I know, Trump is often portrayed as an incompetent child, and the
> strategy is totally outlandish, but the Republican party has shown to be
> a pretty ruthless and successful power machine playing both a short and
> a long game, and it's exactly the outlandishness of the strategy that is
> its strongest point.
>
> In the mean time, the democrats pretend all of this to be irrelevant (an
> 'embarrassment' at worst) and happily appoint a transition team full of
> corporate insiders like it's 1992.
>
> Am I totally misreading the situation?
>
> Felix
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> | || http://felix.openflows.com |
> | Open PGP | http://felix.openflows.com/pgp.txt |
> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
> #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
> #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
>
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[John Young]

It is the sergeants not the generals who are 
mostly likely to take advantage of the 
opportunity to overthrow the avaricious elites 
including their own cosseted higher-ranked 
medevially-costumed brass-studded commanders disguised by battle-dress.


Indebted students, facing the draft, show the way 
to do it, as do all those who are fed up with 
being shit on, out of work, low paid, working 
under threat of disease, had with being talked 
down to, disdained by wealthy CEOs, university 
presidents, tenure faculty, seniority oppressed 
unions, male predation, autocratic scholarly 
fictions of guy heros, hedge fund billionaires, big tech and SM hard asses.


Bumbling, lifetime government-doled Biden does 
not appear to be a survivable, trustworthy 
alternative to legendary manipulators constantly 
refreshed with new graduates of ambition, nor 
does the over-venerated presidential centralized 
monarchy and royalist privilege of courts and 
congresses in all nations who depend on 
professional killers armed with latest and most 
merciless weaponry to hold and excercise power by 
terrorizing the peasantry with hypnotic rituals, 
religion, education, entertainment, advertising, 
delusory elections or HRH-glorified appointments, 
and most of all, inescapable, pervasive spying in 
obscenely corrupt secrecy. NDAs as valuable as 
PhDs, the two combined, sauced with LLDs, are glutonous.


Sagacious resume-obese apologia for the status 
quo ranking of humans, glossed by sophisticated 
campaigns like climate change or occupy or lives 
matter, are complicitly villainous and deeply 
invested, learned, deputized to reward "us" over "them."


At 12:22 PM 11/13/2020, you wrote:

Honestly, the short answer is no.

McCorkle Terence Diamond
www.terencediamond.comÂ
646-876-1700



On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 11:41 AM John Young 
<j...@pipeline.com> wrote:
Comforting to think of a civilian political 
solution to Mr. Trump's autocracy agenda. 
Insufficient critique of how autocratically 
political are all military and law enforcement, 
internationally and domestically, ranked, 
uniformed, armed, civilian collateral harm bemedaled.


At 10:27 AM 11/13/2020, you wrote:

Hello everyone -

Dan is basically right about everything, 
especially the anxiety and horror this election 
produced and the devastating realization that 
you live in a country where almost fifty 
percent of the population is willing to support 
an openly white supremacist and fascist 
political formation. Election night was the 
most sobering and profoundly depressing political moment of my life.


From my viewpoint though, there has in fact 
been a lot of attention to the danger of a 
coup. For instance, all the political-ecology 
and leftist organizations that I follow 
repurposed themselves into anti-coup forces 
starting two months ago. This movement from 
below was paralleled by mobilizations among 
political figures, career administrators, 
lawyer types and corporates, filtering both 
down and up into the mainstream, to the point 
where a few days ago, some large unions 
declared their readiness to hold a general 
strike (gasp! this is the US!) to ensure a proper transition.


I kept up with everything through the 
organizing work of XR Chicago, and this Monday, 
when coup anxieties focused on the possibility 
that Republican legislators could present rival 
(and illegitimate) slates of Electoral College 
voters to Congress on December 14, I drilled 
down into constitutional law to see how likely 
this could be. It goes without saying that you 
have to worry. Probably everyone knows that the 
2000 election was stolen by the Republicans 
with the ginned-up "Brooks Brothers Riot" that 
stopped the recount in Florida, followed by a 
Supreme Court decision that handed the election 
to Bush, with all the consequences. Probably it 
will come out soon that the whole "Stop the 
Steal" movement flourishing just a few days ago 
was similarly ginned-up (though maybe not by 
Roger Stone himself this time). Others might 
remember that slates of rival electors were in 
fact presented by three states in 1876, leading 
to tremendous chaos, a back-room deal in 
Washington, and ultimately, the end of 
Reconstruction in the South, with even greater 
consequences that still face us today (the myth 
of the Confederate "Lost Cause" and the 
persistence of slaveholder racism now extending throughout the country).


However, my conclusion is, this Electoral 
College scenario is not going to happen for 
many reasons. Not least of which, because the 
Electoral Count Act of 1887 really clarified 
the process, and it turns out that in case of 
disagreement over the validity of the rival 
electors, either the House and the Senate would 
have to agree on which ones to support (which 
they obviously wouldn't) or the decision would 
go back to the Governors of the states (and in 
the case of the Northern swing states that are 
really 

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[lizvlx]

Hi Felix

Yeah, same same.

I cant write much more, I up too upset today with how shit is hitting
the fan here in Austria and having a kid in senior year (jeez I really 
hope she won’t have to repeat this year)

I also think democrats are taking it too lightly again. OK, white Dems.
I am not saying that I really believe that a coup has a great chance, but
it does have A chance and that is fuckin mental.

But then everything is fuckin mental in 2020, so anything is possible.
Maybe there comes the vaccine and Pelosi will miraculously understand
that she is not the person to reform the party and we will build green
cities on mars and climate change will give us all a pass and say, no
humans, just kidding.

Or, shit hits the fan.
The Austrian in me says, shit will hit fan.
Coz that’s how the world is.
The American in me says, we can do this.
A crisis is a chance.

Today I am an Austrian, I hope I will feel a bit more American tomorrow.

Liz



> On 13.11.2020, at 10:10, Felix Stalder  wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I must admit, amidst post-terror assault on civil liberties and covid
> cases spiraling out of control here in Austria, the US election drama
> has moved a bit lower in my attention, but not that much.
> 
>> From what I understand, the numbers show that Trump lost. Period. No
> recount will change that.
> 
> But, the game of the Republicans is to create so much doubt about the
> fairness of the elections (without any evidence) to make it impossible
> to certify them in time. Frivolous lawsuits are great at gumming things
> up. This would then allow the Republican dominated legislatures in swing
> states to appoint their own electors which would bring Trump the
> majority. In the mean time, the minister of defense, who previously
> refused to send in troops against mostly peaceful protestors, has been
> fired and replaced with a loyalist. Apparently, similar moves are in the
> wings for the FBI and CIA.
> 
> I know, Trump is often portrayed as an incompetent child, and the
> strategy is totally outlandish, but the Republican party has shown to be
> a pretty ruthless and successful power machine playing both a short and
> a long game, and it's exactly the outlandishness of the strategy that is
> its strongest point.
> 
> In the mean time, the democrats pretend all of this to be irrelevant (an
> 'embarrassment' at worst) and happily appoint a transition team full of
> corporate insiders like it's 1992.
> 
> Am I totally misreading the situation?
> 
> Felix
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> | || http://felix.openflows.com |
> | Open PGP | http://felix.openflows.com/pgp.txt |
> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
> #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
> #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[Kurtz, Steven]

>From my perspective there is very little to worry about regarding the 
>election. There will be no coup, and the electoral college vote will not be 
>stolen. All the generals who can speak out (because they are retired) have 
>done so, and do not support Trump, nor do they see him as the election winner. 
>Trump has not replaced anyone yet with operational command. 

The electorate sent to congress has to reflect the popular vote. Each state has 
a law that enforces this. Police, judges (at all levels), electorate members, a 
majority of congress, and state legislators would all have to agree to break 
these laws to make this theft possible. Perhaps either of these theft 
strategies are possible, but they are adjacent to impossible. 

When understanding Trump, the best way is to go directly to the lowest common 
denominator. Trump is not a complex, reflective man. What does he like to do?

1.  Loot and grift. If he were to concede the tap of funds flowing into 
legally challenge the election would stop. He has no intention of cutting this 
revenue source, since half goes to lawyers and half to his campaign.
2.  Display his power. His favorite way of doing this is to make other 
powerful people say things in public that they know are not true. An Orwellian 
autocratic favorite to be sure. He also likes to remind his party that his base 
will follow every order.  This is how he plans to stay a power player in the 
Republican party. I think a line will drawn at coup time. Thus far no 
post-election acts of violence from either side have been reported.
3.  Take revenge. That is part of the reason for the recent firings. He 
will put the knife to as many people as he can before leaving. He will also 
give pardons to people that he believes will make his enemies upset. (On the 
small up side, this may include a pardon for Snowden to get back at his “deep 
state” enemies. Trump has said this out loud.) He will also collect as much 
dirt as he can to release against his enemies (another reason for the recent 
firings).
4.  Undermine democratic institutions. His favorite is elections. He cried 
voter fraud even when he won in 2016 and has pursued this lie ever since, so 
its no surprise he is doing it when he has lost. He also does it by putting 
unqualified hacks into office and removing the competent. The former is another 
nother reason for the recent firings. This tendency is in part residue of 
Bannon’s accelerationist agenda. 

Will we see Trump run again in 2024? Yes, if he is not in jail. He has to 
escape prosecutors in NY state and in Manhattan first. Then, for four years he 
will have to resist selling state secrets. A series of actions that could make 
him the richest man in the world. I don’t know if he can resist that, and I am 
sure he is not smart enough to get away with it.


From: nettime-l-boun...@mail.kein.org  on 
behalf of Joseph Rabie 
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2020 3:39 PM
To: Keith Sanborn; nettime-l
Subject: Re:  why is it so quiet (in the US)

> I wd speculate that except for the politically appointed heads

Generally, heads appointed by Trump roll sooner rather than later.

One wonders how much genuine loyalty Republican politicians will show towards 
him, knowing that Trump’s capacity to bully and threaten them no longer depends 
on his presidential position, but on their own volition to support him, or not. 
How many are saying "good riddance", though very softly for the moment, so long 
as the possibility still exists that he can prevail against Biden...

Joe.



#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[Joseph Rabie]

> I wd speculate that except for the politically appointed heads

Generally, heads appointed by Trump roll sooner rather than later.

One wonders how much genuine loyalty Republican politicians will show towards 
him, knowing that Trump’s capacity to bully and threaten them no longer depends 
on his presidential position, but on their own volition to support him, or not. 
How many are saying "good riddance", though very softly for the moment, so long 
as the possibility still exists that he can prevail against Biden...

Joe.



#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[Lattanzi, Barbara K]

t that the Biden
>>> >/ Harris ticket has won, but that the landslide victory of Democrats did
>>> >not happen, that their majority in the House declined, and that it seems
>>> >likely they will not gain 50 seats in the Senate (to be decided by the
>>> >Georgia run-off in January).
>>> >
>>> >It seems that voters have voted against Trump, but not for the Democrats,
>>> >and that the electorate remains as bitterly divided as it has been for
>>> >the past twenty years. That is not a good thing for the country and the
>>> >stability of the political system in the world???s most militarised state,
>>> >holding the largest nuclear arsenal.
>>> >
>>> >So it is justified to be worried right now, let???s hope it is a 
>>> >???realist???
>>> >game for the post-Trump constellation.
>>> >
>>> >bests,
>>> >Eric
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >> On 13 Nov 2020, at 10:10, Felix Stalder  wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Hi everyone,
>>> >>
>>> >> I must admit, amidst post-terror assault on civil liberties and covid
>>> >> cases spiraling out of control here in Austria, the US election drama
>>> >> has moved a bit lower in my attention, but not that much.
>>> >>
>>> >>> From what I understand, the numbers show that Trump lost. Period. No
>>> >> recount will change that.
>>> >>
>>> >> But, the game of the Republicans is to create so much doubt about the
>>> >> fairness of the elections (without any evidence) to make it impossible
>>> >> to certify them in time. Frivolous lawsuits are great at gumming things
>>> >> up. This would then allow the Republican dominated legislatures in swing
>>> >> states to appoint their own electors which would bring Trump the
>>> >> majority. In the mean time, the minister of defense, who previously
>>> >> refused to send in troops against mostly peaceful protestors, has been
>>> >> fired and replaced with a loyalist. Apparently, similar moves are in the
>>> >> wings for the FBI and CIA.
>>> >>
>>> >> I know, Trump is often portrayed as an incompetent child, and the
>>> >> strategy is totally outlandish, but the Republican party has shown to be
>>> >> a pretty ruthless and successful power machine playing both a short and
>>> >> a long game, and it's exactly the outlandishness of the strategy that is
>>> >> its strongest point.
>>> >>
>>> >> In the mean time, the democrats pretend all of this to be irrelevant (an
>>> >> 'embarrassment' at worst) and happily appoint a transition team full of
>>> >> corporate insiders like it's 1992.
>>> >>
>>> >> Am I totally misreading the situation?
>>> >>
>>> >> Felix
>>> >>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> #?  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
>>> #?  ?  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
>>> #?  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
>>> #?  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
>>> #?  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
>>> #?  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
>>>
>>> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
>>> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
>>> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
>>> #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
>>> #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
>>> #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
>> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
>> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
>> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
>> #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
>> #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
>> #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
> #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
> #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
-- next part --
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 
<http://mx.kein.org/pipermail/nettime-l/attachments/20201113/4c98c140/attachment.html>

--

#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l

End of nettime-l Digest, Vol 158, Issue 12
**
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[Keith Sanborn]

Trump has given the military in the US more than adequate reasons to not go 
along with an attempted coup by their “Commander in Chief.” This, however, 
brings up the troubling prospect of their becoming a player in domestic 
politics. They have in the past played a role via the various state run 
National Guard units. Someone will correct me if I am wrong, but their 
deployment in a political context has been infrequent if not without example, 
at least as concerns the 5 now 6 main branches: Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, 
Coast Guard and now Space Force.

I wd speculate that except for the politically appointed heads, the CIA, FBI 
and NSA have little incentive to go along with a Trump coup either. Not sure 
how the Secret Service wd go but who knows?



> On Nov 13, 2020, at 12:25 PM, McCorkle T. Diamond  
> wrote:
> 
> 
> Honestly, the short answer is no.
> 
> McCorkle Terence Diamond
> www.terencediamond.com 
> 646-876-1700
> 
> 
> 
>> On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 11:41 AM John Young  wrote:
>> Comforting to think of a civilian political solution to Mr. Trump's 
>> autocracy agenda. Insufficient critique of how autocratically political are 
>> all military and law enforcement, internationally and domestically, ranked, 
>> uniformed, armed, civilian collateral harm bemedaled. 
>> 
>> At 10:27 AM 11/13/2020, you wrote:
>>> Hello everyone -
>>> 
>>> Dan is basically right about everything, especially the anxiety and horror 
>>> this election produced and the devastating realization that you live in a 
>>> country where almost fifty percent of the population is willing to support 
>>> an openly white supremacist and fascist political formation. Election night 
>>> was the most sobering and profoundly depressing political moment of my life.
>>> 
>>> From my viewpoint though, there has in fact been a lot of attention to the 
>>> danger of a coup. For instance, all the political-ecology and leftist 
>>> organizations that I follow repurposed themselves into anti-coup forces 
>>> starting two months ago. This movement from below was paralleled by 
>>> mobilizations among political figures, career administrators, lawyer types 
>>> and corporates, filtering both down and up into the mainstream, to the 
>>> point where a few days ago, some large unions declared their readiness to 
>>> hold a general strike (gasp! this is the US!) to ensure a proper transition.
>>> 
>>> I kept up with everything through the organizing work of XR Chicago, and 
>>> this Monday, when coup anxieties focused on the possibility that Republican 
>>> legislators could present rival (and illegitimate) slates of Electoral 
>>> College voters to Congress on December 14, I drilled down into 
>>> constitutional law to see how likely this could be. It goes without saying 
>>> that you have to worry. Probably everyone knows that the 2000 election was 
>>> stolen by the Republicans with the ginned-up "Brooks Brothers Riot" that 
>>> stopped the recount in Florida, followed by a Supreme Court decision that 
>>> handed the election to Bush, with all the consequences. Probably it will 
>>> come out soon that the whole "Stop the Steal" movement flourishing just a 
>>> few days ago was similarly ginned-up (though maybe not by Roger Stone 
>>> himself this time). Others might remember that slates of rival electors 
>>> were in fact presented by three states in 1876, leading to tremendous 
>>> chaos, a back-room deal in Washington, and ultimately, the end of 
>>> Reconstruction in the South, with even greater consequences that still face 
>>> us today (the myth of the Confederate "Lost Cause" and the persistence of 
>>> slaveholder racism now extending throughout the country). 
>>> 
>>> However, my conclusion is, this Electoral College scenario is not going to 
>>> happen for many reasons. Not least of which, because the Electoral Count 
>>> Act of 1887 really clarified the process, and it turns out that in case of 
>>> disagreement over the validity of the rival electors, either the House and 
>>> the Senate would have to agree on which ones to support (which they 
>>> obviously wouldn't) or the decision would go back to the Governors of the 
>>> states (and in the case of the Northern swing states that are really at 
>>> issue, those Governors are Democrats). Trump does not have the support to 
>>> overturn all that, his lawsuits are meritless and serve another purpose. 
>>> For anyone who wants to wonk out on the question, read this: 
>>> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3685392.
>>> 
>>> That does not mean the nightmare is over. The explanation of Trump's 
>>> failure to concede that has gradually consolidated over the past three days 
>>> is no longer that he is planning organized fraud or an Electoral College 
>>> coup, but instead, that he is maintaining the fury of his reality-averse 
>>> base in order to keep his hold over the Republican Party, which desperately 
>>> needs his support to win the two Senate seats that go to a 

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[McCorkle T. Diamond]

Honestly, the short answer is no.

McCorkle Terence Diamond
www.terencediamond.com
646-876-1700



On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 11:41 AM John Young  wrote:

> Comforting to think of a civilian political solution to Mr. Trump's
> autocracy agenda. Insufficient critique of how autocratically political are
> all military and law enforcement, internationally and domestically, ranked,
> uniformed, armed, civilian collateral harm bemedaled.
>
> At 10:27 AM 11/13/2020, you wrote:
>
> Hello everyone -
>
> Dan is basically right about everything, especially the anxiety and horror
> this election produced and the devastating realization that you live in a
> country where almost fifty percent of the population is willing to support
> an openly white supremacist and fascist political formation. Election night
> was the most sobering and profoundly depressing political moment of my life.
>
> From my viewpoint though, there has in fact been a lot of attention to the
> danger of a coup. For instance, all the political-ecology and leftist
> organizations that I follow repurposed themselves into anti-coup forces
> starting two months ago. This movement from below was paralleled by
> mobilizations among political figures, career administrators, lawyer types
> and corporates, filtering both down and up into the mainstream, to the
> point where a few days ago, some large unions declared their readiness to
> hold a general strike (gasp! this is the US!) to ensure a proper transition.
>
> I kept up with everything through the organizing work of XR Chicago, and
> this Monday, when coup anxieties focused on the possibility that Republican
> legislators could present rival (and illegitimate) slates of Electoral
> College voters to Congress on December 14, I drilled down into
> constitutional law to see how likely this could be. It goes without saying
> that you have to worry. Probably everyone knows that the 2000 election was
> stolen by the Republicans with the ginned-up "Brooks Brothers Riot" that
> stopped the recount in Florida, followed by a Supreme Court decision that
> handed the election to Bush, with all the consequences. Probably it will
> come out soon that the whole "Stop the Steal" movement flourishing just a
> few days ago was similarly ginned-up (though maybe not by Roger Stone
> himself this time). Others might remember that slates of rival electors
> were in fact presented by three states in 1876, leading to tremendous
> chaos, a back-room deal in Washington, and ultimately, the end of
> Reconstruction in the South, with even greater consequences that still face
> us today (the myth of the Confederate "Lost Cause" and the persistence of
> slaveholder racism now extending throughout the country).
>
> However, my conclusion is, this Electoral College scenario is not going to
> happen for many reasons. Not least of which, because the Electoral Count
> Act of 1887 really clarified the process, and it turns out that in case of
> disagreement over the validity of the rival electors, either the House and
> the Senate would have to agree on which ones to support (which they
> obviously wouldn't) or the decision would go back to the Governors of the
> states (and in the case of the Northern swing states that are really at
> issue, those Governors are Democrats). Trump does not have the support to
> overturn all that, his lawsuits are meritless and serve another purpose.
> For anyone who wants to wonk out on the question, read this:
> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3685392.
>
> That does not mean the nightmare is over. The explanation of Trump's
> failure to concede that has gradually consolidated over the past three days
> is no longer that he is planning organized fraud or an Electoral College
> coup, but instead, that he is maintaining the fury of his reality-averse
> base in order to keep his hold over the Republican Party, which desperately
> needs his support to win the two Senate seats that go to a vote in Georgia
> on January 5. Additionally Trump wants to start a new TV channel to
> maintain his grip on the party and hold himself up as a candidate for 2024.
> This thing could go on forever! Trump's defeat, or what the idiots will
> refer to as "the stolen election," could easily become a new caricature of
> the old Lost Cause, with everything that entails (basically it would be, or
> really, already is like yet another return of the Ku Klux Klan, this time
> including armed militias throughout the North). Plus, we don't know what's
> behind the firing of top military officials and what kinds of damage Trump
> is preparing to do out of sheer spite in the upcoming months, as Covid
> spirals out of control... It could go a lot of ways.
>
> Not all of them are bad though. Trump is likely to lose some popularity,
> and depending largely on that, the Dems could take those two Senate seats
> in Georgia!
>
> As for the carping on the left about Biden, I don't get it. We have a
> president who pledges to 

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[John Young]

Comforting to think of a civilian political 
solution to Mr. Trump's autocracy agenda. 
Insufficient critique of how autocratically 
political are all military and law enforcement, 
internationally and domestically, ranked, 
uniformed, armed, civilian collateral harm bemedaled.


At 10:27 AM 11/13/2020, you wrote:

Hello everyone -

Dan is basically right about everything, 
especially the anxiety and horror this election 
produced and the devastating realization that 
you live in a country where almost fifty percent 
of the population is willing to support an 
openly white supremacist and fascist political 
formation. Election night was the most sobering 
and profoundly depressing political moment of my life.


From my viewpoint though, there has in fact 
been a lot of attention to the danger of a 
coup. For instance, all the political-ecology 
and leftist organizations that I follow 
repurposed themselves into anti-coup forces 
starting two months ago. This movement from 
below was paralleled by mobilizations among 
political figures, career administrators, 
lawyer types and corporates, filtering both 
down and up into the mainstream, to the point 
where a few days ago, some large unions 
declared their readiness to hold a general 
strike (gasp! this is the US!) to ensure a proper transition.


I kept up with everything through the organizing 
work of XR Chicago, and this Monday, when coup 
anxieties focused on the possibility that 
Republican legislators could present rival (and 
illegitimate) slates of Electoral College voters 
to Congress on December 14, I drilled down into 
constitutional law to see how likely this could 
be. It goes without saying that you have to 
worry. Probably everyone knows that the 2000 
election was stolen by the Republicans with the 
ginned-up "Brooks Brothers Riot" that stopped 
the recount in Florida, followed by a Supreme 
Court decision that handed the election to Bush, 
with all the consequences. Probably it will come 
out soon that the whole "Stop the Steal" 
movement flourishing just a few days ago was 
similarly ginned-up (though maybe not by Roger 
Stone himself this time). Others might remember 
that slates of rival electors were in fact 
presented by three states in 1876, leading to 
tremendous chaos, a back-room deal in 
Washington, and ultimately, the end of 
Reconstruction in the South, with even greater 
consequences that still face us today (the myth 
of the Confederate "Lost Cause" and the 
persistence of slaveholder racism now extending throughout the country).


However, my conclusion is, this Electoral 
College scenario is not going to happen for many 
reasons. Not least of which, because the 
Electoral Count Act of 1887 really clarified the 
process, and it turns out that in case of 
disagreement over the validity of the rival 
electors, either the House and the Senate would 
have to agree on which ones to support (which 
they obviously wouldn't) or the decision would 
go back to the Governors of the states (and in 
the case of the Northern swing states that are 
really at issue, those Governors are Democrats). 
Trump does not have the support to overturn all 
that, his lawsuits are meritless and serve 
another purpose. For anyone who wants to wonk 
out on the question, read this: 
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3685392.


That does not mean the nightmare is over. The 
explanation of Trump's failure to concede that 
has gradually consolidated over the past three 
days is no longer that he is planning organized 
fraud or an Electoral College coup, but instead, 
that he is maintaining the fury of his 
reality-averse base in order to keep his hold 
over the Republican Party, which desperately 
needs his support to win the two Senate seats 
that go to a vote in Georgia on January 5. 
Additionally Trump wants to start a new TV 
channel to maintain his grip on the party and 
hold himself up as a candidate for 2024. This 
thing could go on forever! Trump's defeat, or 
what the idiots will refer to as "the stolen 
election," could easily become a new caricature 
of the old Lost Cause, with everything that 
entails (basically it would be, or really, 
already is like yet another return of the Ku 
Klux Klan, this time including armed militias 
throughout the North). Plus, we don't know 
what's behind the firing of top military 
officials and what kinds of damage Trump is 
preparing to do out of sheer spite in the 
upcoming months, as Covid spirals out of control... It could go a lot of ways.


Not all of them are bad though. Trump is likely 
to lose some popularity, and depending largely 
on that, the Dems could take those two Senate seats in Georgia!


As for the carping on the left about Biden, I 
don't get it. We have a president who pledges to 
root out "structural racism" (his exact words, 
which target every police department in the 
country) and who has already released a 

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[Dan S Wang]

Hi Nettime,

Here in the US along with millions of others I have been consumed by the
election drama for the past ten days. Every day beginning with November 3
has been its own news cycle. That Tuesday went deep into the night. And it
was a dark moment. Early returns made for the appearance of a Trump-led
tidal wave across all the swing states. Trump made his first statement
well after 2 AM East Coast time, basically declaring himself the winner
even though the counting continued. Shortly thereafter the whole mood
changed as Biden's count gained on Trump's 118k lead in the state of
Wisconsin and then dramatically overtook it. Wednesday morning dawned with
a new optimism. But I didn't sleep soundly until Saturday, the day the
states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Nevada were called for Biden, putting
him in a commanding lead for the Electoral College--that political
anachronism and relic of slave vs free state negotiations. I had a stress
rash and lost a few pounds over the week--and I was comparatively
confident compared to many of my nervous wreck friends.

As has been his way all along and now pushed into an extreme even for him,
since Election Day Trump's produced a cascade of hair raising statements
and tweets, abrupt firings across the security and defense sector that may
signal sinister intentions, and stepped up a blatantly obstructionist
intransigence in relation to the Biden transition team--complemented by
his usual inadvertently sad/hilarious acts of incompetence, ranging from
his campaigns instantly ridiculed press conference outside a random and
unappealing landscaping firm to his chief-of-staff testing positive for
COVID, followed a couple of days later by the confirmed infections of the
billionaire Uihlein couple, major donors to conservative causes, big
supporters of Trump, and noted corona-skeptics who had recently visited
the White House. 

The ten days since the election have forced yet again the crash course in
the peculiarities of US election laws, the arcana of legal scenarios, many
of them varying widely depending on which states may be involved, and the
gaming out of Trump's dwindling but still very dangerous options. Felix, I
think you've got it mostly correct. But it's still a long shot for
Trump--pulling off reversals and/or machinations regarding the electors in
at least four states, each with its own political personalities and local
agendas, all at once in the next four weeks is near impossible. Beginning
today a trickle of Republicans have said as much. If this snowballs even a
little bit, then Trump will soon be running on fumes.

Meanwhile on the left I see already lots of carping about Biden's
centrism, lots of fawning over the various constituencies that delivered
the victory--the young voters that turned out in record numbers, the
Republican defectors that cut margins in conservative hinterlands, and
especially the Black voters of Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and
Atlanta--and lots of anxiety about a coup unfolding in broad daylight as
Trump does his very best to delegitimize the counts by crying fraud and
pushing legal challenges that thus far have amounted to nothing, so
ridiculous are they. What worries me is that the left seems to be watching
all developments with neither much of a contingency plan, nor any
agreement on best strategies for countering Trump's assaults on our
democracy. As Felix noted, the loading up of Trump loyalists sets the
stage for repression and new levels of abuse. And it makes provocation the
big danger right now, particularly as Trump runs out of legal challenges.
There hasn't been much noise made about disciplined responses. New rounds
of disorder and street chaos are quite possible--all it would take is
another Kenosha shooting incident.

And on the right? This, to me, is the most unsettling thing going on
presently. Conservative media have attained a permanent state of frothy
delusion. Conservative radio probably has the deepest reach, providing
millions of listeners with talking points, exhortations from well
practiced voices, and vows to "save the country" from...well, from fraud!
election theft! tyrannical doctors! big tech companies! (Because the
latter have started--four years too late, at least--to place warnings on
Trump's outrageous lies, shut down disinformation-based right wing
Facebook groups, and declare that once out of office Trump's Twitter
account will be held to the same standards of conduct as that of any
private citizen.) Then the Trump grassroots turn to social media to find
each other, and personally reinforce for one another the stream of lies
emanating first from Trump but second from hundreds of conservative media
voices hellbent on winning the media sweepstakes to become the next Rush
Limbaugh (he of the terminal cancer--yes, Goddess, thank you).

I tell my friends, dare to look, dare to visit right wing media. Trump's
record breaking vote totals--second most only to Biden's--cannot be a
surprise to anyone that 

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[Brian Holmes]

Hello everyone -

Dan is basically right about everything, especially the anxiety and horror
this election produced and the devastating realization that you live in a
country where almost fifty percent of the population is willing to support
an openly white supremacist and fascist political formation. Election night
was the most sobering and profoundly depressing political moment of my life.

>From my viewpoint though, there has in fact been a lot of attention to the
danger of a coup. For instance, all the political-ecology and leftist
organizations that I follow repurposed themselves into anti-coup forces
starting two months ago. This movement from below was paralleled by
mobilizations among political figures, career administrators, lawyer types
and corporates, filtering both down and up into the mainstream, to the
point where a few days ago, some large unions declared their readiness to
hold a general strike (gasp! this is the US!) to ensure a proper transition.

I kept up with everything through the organizing work of XR Chicago, and
this Monday, when coup anxieties focused on the possibility that Republican
legislators could present rival (and illegitimate) slates of Electoral
College voters to Congress on December 14, I drilled down into
constitutional law to see how likely this could be. It goes without saying
that you have to worry. Probably everyone knows that the 2000 election was
stolen by the Republicans with the ginned-up "Brooks Brothers Riot" that
stopped the recount in Florida, followed by a Supreme Court decision that
handed the election to Bush, with all the consequences. Probably it will
come out soon that the whole "Stop the Steal" movement flourishing just a
few days ago was similarly ginned-up (though maybe not by Roger Stone
himself this time). Others might remember that slates of rival electors
were in fact presented by three states in 1876, leading to tremendous
chaos, a back-room deal in Washington, and ultimately, the end of
Reconstruction in the South, with even greater consequences that still face
us today (the myth of the Confederate "Lost Cause" and the persistence of
slaveholder racism now extending throughout the country).

However, my conclusion is, this Electoral College scenario is not going to
happen for many reasons. Not least of which, because the Electoral Count
Act of 1887 really clarified the process, and it turns out that in case of
disagreement over the validity of the rival electors, either the House and
the Senate would have to agree on which ones to support (which they
obviously wouldn't) or the decision would go back to the Governors of the
states (and in the case of the Northern swing states that are really at
issue, those Governors are Democrats). Trump does not have the support to
overturn all that, his lawsuits are meritless and serve another purpose.
For anyone who wants to wonk out on the question, read this:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3685392.

That does not mean the nightmare is over. The explanation of Trump's
failure to concede that has gradually consolidated over the past three days
is no longer that he is planning organized fraud or an Electoral College
coup, but instead, that he is maintaining the fury of his reality-averse
base in order to keep his hold over the Republican Party, which desperately
needs his support to win the two Senate seats that go to a vote in Georgia
on January 5. Additionally Trump wants to start a new TV channel to
maintain his grip on the party and hold himself up as a candidate for 2024.
This thing could go on forever! Trump's defeat, or what the idiots will
refer to as "the stolen election," could easily become a new caricature of
the old Lost Cause, with everything that entails (basically it would be, or
really, already is like yet another return of the Ku Klux Klan, this time
including armed militias throughout the North). Plus, we don't know what's
behind the firing of top military officials and what kinds of damage Trump
is preparing to do out of sheer spite in the upcoming months, as Covid
spirals out of control... It could go a lot of ways.

Not all of them are bad though. Trump is likely to lose some popularity,
and depending largely on that, the Dems could take those two Senate seats
in Georgia!

As for the carping on the left about Biden, I don't get it. We have a
president who pledges to root out "structural racism" (his exact words,
which target every police department in the country) and who has already
released a 300-page white paper detailing what every agency of the federal
government can do about climate change. The new administration actually has
parallel plans under development, one if they take the Senate, the other if
they don't. Plus we have a powerful progressive caucus that's basically
headed by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez now (with Bernie in the background) and
she just delivered an incredible riposte to all the quivering Dems who say
that radicalism cost them seats in the 

Please join the launch of From Opinions to Images by Ulus S. Baker, Nov. 19, 2020

[Geert Lovink]

Theory on Demand #37 Launch of
From Opinions to Images by Ulus S. Baker
Thursday, November 19, 2020
17:30–18:30 CET

Hosted via Zoom and streamed on YouTube

To join the conversation in Zoom, please send an email to gi...@metu.edu.tr 
.
You can also watch the live stream here: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E_vrnA7Ls4 

On Thursday, November 19th, GISAM , Middle East 
Technical University in Ankara and the Institute of Network Cultures host an 
online book launch of From Opinions to Images with Angela Melitopoulos, Lewis 
Johnson,  Aras Ozgün and Andreas Treske. The event is moderated by Geert Lovink 
(INC) and introduced by Prof. Dr. Kürşat Çağıltay (GISAM).

About Opinions to Images: Essays Towards a Sociology of Affects’ by Ulus S. 
Baker
Ulus Baker (1960 – 2007) was a Turkish-Cypriot sociologist, philosopher, and 
public intellectual. He was born in Ankara, Turkey in 1960. He studied 
Sociology at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, where he taught as a 
lecturer until 2004. Baker wrote prolifically in influential Turkish journals 
and made some of the first Turkish translations of various works of Gilles 
Deleuze, Antonio Negri, and other contemporary political philosophers. His 
profuse and accessible work and the novelty of the issues he enthusiastically 
introduced to Turkish-speaking intellectual circles, earned him a widely spread 
positive reputation in early age. He died in 2007 in Istanbul.

The text in this edition is edited from essays and notes Ulus Baker wrote 
between 1995 and 2002. In these essays, Baker criticizes the sociological 
research turning into an analysis of people’s opinions. He explores with an 
exciting clarity the notion of ‘opinion’ as a specific form of apprehension 
between knowledge and point of view, then looks into ‘social types’ as an 
analytical device deployed by early sociologists. He associates the form of  
‘comprehension’ the ‘social types’ postulate with Spinoza’s notion of 
‘affections’ (as a dynamic, non-linguistic form of the relation between 
entities). He finally discusses the possibilities of reintroducing this device 
for understanding our contemporary world through cinema and documentary 
filmmaking, by reinstating images in general as ‘affective thought processes’.

Baker’s first extensive translation to English provides us with a much-needed 
intervention for re-imagining social thought and visual media, at a time when 
sociology tends to be reduced to an analysis of ‘big data’, and the pedagogical 
powers of the image are reduced to data visualization and infographics.

Concurrently with the publication From Opinions to Images, a nearly 20-year-old 
lecture by Baker has been released online, titled ‘What is Opinion?’, which 
also forms the basis for the second chapter of this book and which you can view 
here: https://vimeo.com/465275260 

More information on the publication and how to freely download it: 
https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/tod37-from-opinions-to-images-essays-towards-a-sociology-of-affects/
 





#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[John Young]

Gradual sacralization and royalization of the US "presidency" 
institution and designation of the president as Commander in Chief of 
the military, poses the greated threat to US "democracy."


Currrently with the syzygy of Republican control of the three 
branches has suspended the checks and balance of the Constitution to 
limit the warmaking power of the president. He needs only to declare 
a national security emergency to justify military dominance of the citizenry.


The basis of the declaration is solely up to him as if a war is 
underway. Eventual Congressional approval of warmaking is required 
but not in an emergency.


Continuity of Government (COG) regulation allows singular military 
command by the president instantly by a notification (order) to the 
military leadership. This established to respond to a national threat 
of the ICBM type wherein there is no time to consult with 
Congressional or Supreme Court members, many of whom are dispersed or 
unreachable.


COG is regularly war-gamed as realistic training, and may be 
publicized as warning to potential enemies, but the full operation 
classified and not disclosed. A training session could be used to 
cloak a real operation underway secretly, that cloaking is a 
component of the operaton to deceive an enemy.


Mr. Trump is most certainly capable of ordering a national emergency, 
and he does not have to disclose the basis of it. That is the great 
fault of the presidency which allows autocracy to be invoked in 
secrecy to protect the nation.


All this has evolved under the creation and vast institutionalization 
of "national security" to justify the world's top military force 
supported by some 16 spy agencies and innumerable federal, state and 
municipal law enforcement offices which can be commanded in secret by 
the president under wartime conditions. Internal threats are quite 
useful for this.


To be sure, autocrats of royalty, theology, ideology and revolution 
have utilized these same measures to institute a reign of oppression 
and subjugation. The USA has presented itself as a bastion of 
opposition to autocracy, leveraging military supremacy to enforce 
takedowns of tyrants.


As with any supreme power what happens when it becomes excessively 
self-serving as empires have alway done under control of the few who 
are sacralized as uniquely qualified to rule, by deity and by 
weaponry and by law and by the best and brightest willing to sell 
their souls for kings coin and Nobel dynamite prizes. To wit, nettime and ilk.


At 04:10 AM 11/13/2020, you wrote:

Hi everyone,

I must admit, amidst post-terror assault on civil liberties and covid
cases spiraling out of control here in Austria, the US election drama
has moved a bit lower in my attention, but not that much.

>From what I understand, the numbers show that Trump lost. Period. No
recount will change that.

But, the game of the Republicans is to create so much doubt about the
fairness of the elections (without any evidence) to make it impossible
to certify them in time. Frivolous lawsuits are great at gumming things
up. This would then allow the Republican dominated legislatures in swing
states to appoint their own electors which would bring Trump the
majority. In the mean time, the minister of defense, who previously
refused to send in troops against mostly peaceful protestors, has been
fired and replaced with a loyalist. Apparently, similar moves are in the
wings for the FBI and CIA.

I know, Trump is often portrayed as an incompetent child, and the
strategy is totally outlandish, but the Republican party has shown to be
a pretty ruthless and successful power machine playing both a short and
a long game, and it's exactly the outlandishness of the strategy that is
its strongest point.

In the mean time, the democrats pretend all of this to be irrelevant (an
'embarrassment' at worst) and happily appoint a transition team full of
corporate insiders like it's 1992.

Am I totally misreading the situation?

Felix






--
| || http://felix.openflows.com |
| Open PGP | http://felix.openflows.com/pgp.txt |
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:


#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[Menno Grootveld]

Hi David,

I suppose you mean 'well-founded.' To be honest, I am surprised that it 
took so long before this story made it to the headlines. It was clear 
from the very start (from way before the elections actually took place) 
that this was going to happen.


Please read this as well:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/11/11/opinion/trumps-big-election-lie-pushes-america-toward-autocracy/

Op 13-11-20 om 11:48 schreef d.gar...@new-tactical-research.co.uk:
This recent piece in the New Yorker (below) shows that Felix's 
anxieties are well unfounded. And ably facilitated by the rise and 
rise of Don Junior the once despised prodigal son who has morphed into 
the formidable and terrifying heir apparent's fascistic rants about 
'total war', aided and abetted by the supine Republican establishment. 
Is it too alarming to imagine that US democracy is at risk of going 
from an extended midlife crisis into a terminal end game? The coming 
weeks will test the republic's constitutional arrangements as never 
before.


https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-far-could-republicans-take-trumps-claims-of-election-fraud 








On 13 Nov 2020, at 10:10, Felix Stalder  wrote:

Hi everyone,

I must admit, amidst post-terror assault on civil liberties and covid
cases spiraling out of control here in Austria, the US election drama
has moved a bit lower in my attention, but not that much.


From what I understand, the numbers show that Trump lost. Period. No

recount will change that.

But, the game of the Republicans is to create so much doubt about the
fairness of the elections (without any evidence) to make it impossible
to certify them in time. Frivolous lawsuits are great at gumming things
up. This would then allow the Republican dominated legislatures in 
swing

states to appoint their own electors which would bring Trump the
majority. In the mean time, the minister of defense, who previously
refused to send in troops against mostly peaceful protestors, has been
fired and replaced with a loyalist. Apparently, similar moves are in 
the

wings for the FBI and CIA.

I know, Trump is often portrayed as an incompetent child, and the
strategy is totally outlandish, but the Republican party has shown 
to be

a pretty ruthless and successful power machine playing both a short and
a long game, and it's exactly the outlandishness of the strategy 
that is

its strongest point.

In the mean time, the democrats pretend all of this to be irrelevant 
(an

'embarrassment' at worst) and happily appoint a transition team full of
corporate insiders like it's 1992.

Am I totally misreading the situation?

Felix






--
| || http://felix.openflows.com |
| Open PGP | http://felix.openflows.com/pgp.txt |
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#    is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:


#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#    is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#    is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[mp]

On 13/11/2020 10:07, Eric Kluitenberg wrote:
> Hi Felix, all,
> 
> The post-election situation in the US is very worrying in many respects.
> 
> The darkest scenario, a slow coup d’etat against a clear election result has 
> been suggested to me by several friends over the past few days.

Barton Gellman outlined it, more or less, in September already in The
Atlantic, for instance

"...We are accustomed to choosing electors by popular vote, but nothing
in the Constitution says it has to be that way. Article II provides that
each state shall appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature
thereof may direct.” Since the late 19th century, every state has ceded
the decision to its voters. Even so, the Supreme Court affirmed in Bush
v. Gore that a state “can take back the power to appoint electors.” How
and when a state might do so has not been tested for well over a
century"

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/

The article ends:

"...If our political institutions fail to produce a legitimate
president, and if Trump maintains the stalemate into the new year, the
chaos candidate and the commander in chief will be one and the same..."

"..This article appears in the November 2020 print edition. It was first
published online on September 23, 2020..."
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[d . garcia]

This recent piece in the New Yorker (below) shows that Felix's anxieties 
are well unfounded. And ably facilitated by the rise and rise of Don 
Junior the once despised prodigal son who has morphed into the 
formidable and terrifying heir apparent's fascistic rants about 'total 
war', aided and abetted by the supine Republican establishment. Is it 
too alarming to imagine that US democracy is at risk of going from an 
extended midlife crisis into a terminal end game? The coming weeks will 
test the republic's constitutional arrangements as never before.


https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-far-could-republicans-take-trumps-claims-of-election-fraud






On 13 Nov 2020, at 10:10, Felix Stalder  wrote:

Hi everyone,

I must admit, amidst post-terror assault on civil liberties and covid
cases spiraling out of control here in Austria, the US election drama
has moved a bit lower in my attention, but not that much.


From what I understand, the numbers show that Trump lost. Period. No

recount will change that.

But, the game of the Republicans is to create so much doubt about the
fairness of the elections (without any evidence) to make it impossible
to certify them in time. Frivolous lawsuits are great at gumming 
things
up. This would then allow the Republican dominated legislatures in 
swing

states to appoint their own electors which would bring Trump the
majority. In the mean time, the minister of defense, who previously
refused to send in troops against mostly peaceful protestors, has been
fired and replaced with a loyalist. Apparently, similar moves are in 
the

wings for the FBI and CIA.

I know, Trump is often portrayed as an incompetent child, and the
strategy is totally outlandish, but the Republican party has shown to 
be
a pretty ruthless and successful power machine playing both a short 
and
a long game, and it's exactly the outlandishness of the strategy that 
is

its strongest point.

In the mean time, the democrats pretend all of this to be irrelevant 
(an
'embarrassment' at worst) and happily appoint a transition team full 
of

corporate insiders like it's 1992.

Am I totally misreading the situation?

Felix






--
| || http://felix.openflows.com |
| Open PGP | http://felix.openflows.com/pgp.txt |
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:


#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: why is it so quiet (in the US)

[Eric Kluitenberg]

Hi Felix, all,

The post-election situation in the US is very worrying in many respects.

The darkest scenario, a slow coup d’etat against a clear election result has 
been suggested to me by several friends over the past few days.

I can’t read the local situation that well, so it would be great to hear some 
US subscribers on the list weigh in.

However, when adopting a ‘realist’ perspective on politics it seems that 
Republicans are keeping all options on the table, mostly to secure future 
positions, when a.o. more senate seats are up for election (in 2 years?).

What is significant about the election outcome is not just that the Biden / 
Harris ticket has won, but that the landslide victory of Democrats did not 
happen, that their majority in the House declined, and that it seems likely 
they will not gain 50 seats in the Senate (to be decided by the Georgia run-off 
in January).

It seems that voters have voted against Trump, but not for the Democrats, and 
that the electorate remains as bitterly divided as it has been for the past 
twenty years. That is not a good thing for the country and the stability of the 
political system in the world’s most militarised state, holding the largest 
nuclear arsenal. 

So it is justified to be worried right now, let’s hope it is a ‘realist’ game 
for the post-Trump constellation.

bests,
Eric


> On 13 Nov 2020, at 10:10, Felix Stalder  wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I must admit, amidst post-terror assault on civil liberties and covid
> cases spiraling out of control here in Austria, the US election drama
> has moved a bit lower in my attention, but not that much.
> 
>> From what I understand, the numbers show that Trump lost. Period. No
> recount will change that.
> 
> But, the game of the Republicans is to create so much doubt about the
> fairness of the elections (without any evidence) to make it impossible
> to certify them in time. Frivolous lawsuits are great at gumming things
> up. This would then allow the Republican dominated legislatures in swing
> states to appoint their own electors which would bring Trump the
> majority. In the mean time, the minister of defense, who previously
> refused to send in troops against mostly peaceful protestors, has been
> fired and replaced with a loyalist. Apparently, similar moves are in the
> wings for the FBI and CIA.
> 
> I know, Trump is often portrayed as an incompetent child, and the
> strategy is totally outlandish, but the Republican party has shown to be
> a pretty ruthless and successful power machine playing both a short and
> a long game, and it's exactly the outlandishness of the strategy that is
> its strongest point.
> 
> In the mean time, the democrats pretend all of this to be irrelevant (an
> 'embarrassment' at worst) and happily appoint a transition team full of
> corporate insiders like it's 1992.
> 
> Am I totally misreading the situation?
> 
> Felix
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> | || http://felix.openflows.com |
> | Open PGP | http://felix.openflows.com/pgp.txt |
> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
> #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
> #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

why is it so quiet (in the US)

[Felix Stalder]

Hi everyone,

I must admit, amidst post-terror assault on civil liberties and covid
cases spiraling out of control here in Austria, the US election drama
has moved a bit lower in my attention, but not that much.

>From what I understand, the numbers show that Trump lost. Period. No
recount will change that.

But, the game of the Republicans is to create so much doubt about the
fairness of the elections (without any evidence) to make it impossible
to certify them in time. Frivolous lawsuits are great at gumming things
up. This would then allow the Republican dominated legislatures in swing
states to appoint their own electors which would bring Trump the
majority. In the mean time, the minister of defense, who previously
refused to send in troops against mostly peaceful protestors, has been
fired and replaced with a loyalist. Apparently, similar moves are in the
wings for the FBI and CIA.

I know, Trump is often portrayed as an incompetent child, and the
strategy is totally outlandish, but the Republican party has shown to be
a pretty ruthless and successful power machine playing both a short and
a long game, and it's exactly the outlandishness of the strategy that is
its strongest point.

In the mean time, the democrats pretend all of this to be irrelevant (an
'embarrassment' at worst) and happily appoint a transition team full of
corporate insiders like it's 1992.

Am I totally misreading the situation?

Felix






-- 
| || http://felix.openflows.com |
| Open PGP | http://felix.openflows.com/pgp.txt |
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: