What was Antifa and was it bad?

 Who comprises the radical organization Antifa is difficult to know; they often wore hoods to conceal their identity in some of their numerous protests. They reminded me a little of Adolph Hitler’s formerly socialist street thugs (80%) the Sturmabteilung aka S.A. who got things done politically and on the streets. Antifa seems to have some kind of orientation with the Republican elements of the Spanish civil war who opposed Franco and his fascists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung

Antifa seems to attract leftists that haven’t recognition of the modern trend toward, or within corporatism- another fascist invention of the Dictator Mussolini used by Hitler to make the German economy work. Hence Antifah opposes nationalism and especially seems to hate traditional moral norms such as held by most of the American military that served in the Second World War to defeat German fascists and Japanese imperialists.

Antifa used violence to obstruct legal marches of right-leaning groups and may have organized the upgrading of black lives matter demonstrations to riots and looting- one cannot know too well. They seem to have inherited some of the S.D.S. ethos yet stop short of being Weathermen who perpetrated bombings in support of the anti-Vietnam war movement.

What is of concern about Antifa is that they were part of a virtual intifada put on by Democrats when a Republican President is in office if at all possible. Some Democrats seem unwilling to accept election results and go on about civil affairs; instead deciding not to play in the game unless they are in office- and that seems to be a move toward traditional communist one-party rule.

What is of concern about Antifa is that they were part of a virtual intifada put on by Democrats when a Republican President is in office if at all possible. Some Democrats seem unwilling to accept election results and go on about civil affairs; instead deciding not to play in the game unless they are in office- and that seems to be a move toward traditional communist one-party rule. Protracted civil disorder especially during a pandemic isn’t helpful to many economic and other social interests of ordinary people.

The freedom to write

 The freedom to write and publish is a necessary element of the genus freedom. Freedom occurs within restricted parameters that support being and continuum. If God had not set parameters for the physics of the Universe to actualize in, with fewer or more dimensions, life would not be possible as Paul Ehrenfest observed. If a nation does not have stability and continuity, research and writing may be precluded by chaos.

Obviously one could be forced to write for the communist party in order to avoid imprisonment and that writer could not be said to be free. Freedom to write that is actually free implicitly requires freedom from coercion to write what is not one’s opinion.

Why China isn't a democracy

 As I understand it, China has a one-party system and is intolerant of political pluralism and diversity of political opinions. China represses free speech, free assembly and so forth that are regarded as essential for democracy.

The Chinese communist party began as a militant, revolutionary party. Perhaps there aren’t ideal conditions for the start of democracy. The United States had a minority of philosophically minded colonists that had a financial incentive to revolt against royalty and the like that had legal class supremacy. China had a troubled start to the 20th century with revolt against royalty, civil war and a battle against Japanese invasion. The military leadership of the C.P.C. emerged victorious on the mainland and continued on to civilian leadership.

Communist theory from Marx and Lenin and on to Mao I suppose is about the dictatorship of the proletariat and one-party rule and that isn’t an ideal environment for political pluralism. The F.S.U. allowed political pluralism to develop in Russia yet it is obviously challenging for a developing political ruling class in a reforming nation to allow strong opposition parties to develop that might purge the former insiders if they were to take power. Evidently the development of Democracy in non-frontier or wilderness environments is a little more, or a lot more difficult to bring into effect.

Wealth of course does tend to trump political balances and China in letting a mixed capitalist-socialist political economy to develop may be able to disregard traditional approaches to creating or allowing one’s own political opposition or replacement class of foreign proletarian migrants that would in dynamic opposition create the tension of multi-party democracy and satisfy the masses with unsustainable, temporary prosperity (the entire world has natural resource and demographic sustainability issues).

Shrinking of time and space- not Earth, socially speaking

Generally that statement referred to the proliferation of technology that has shrunk travel times several orders of magnitude. It is a social reference rather than one of cosmology. Someone wrote an essay on the topic comparing traditional cultures to modern ones in the 1960s if I member correctly. They noted that a Russian villager circa 1800 might never travel farther than 30 miles from their home in their lifetime on foot. That was contrasted with the average modern American who travels hundreds of thousands or millions of miles.

Of course one can purchase an around the world plane ticket for a couple of weeks salary these days, and Europe is just a few hours away by air for any citizen with a passport. Distance has shrank so much that it tends to spoil modern perspectives of things. I have rode a bike every mile between Alaska and South Florida and border to border and seen cars whizzing past crossing the nation in what- a couple of days where it took me quite a bit more time.

Star Trek faster than light across the Universe is the paradigm many moderns are thinking about and looking for as they trample the ecosphere of the Earth as it is just a platform for their machines transporting their persons; they have a certain misunderstanding about where the world is located apparently and don’t value the God-given nature and qualities of the planetary environment well enough to care for it as well as good gardeners conserve that mansion’s appearance in Beverly Hills.

What Jefferson meant by; 'tyranny prevails when good men do nothing'

 He could have been referring to citizens failing to read philosophy or failing to be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. When the tyranny of worldliness and pure materialize dominated over spirit people can become enslaved to principles of evil over spirit. With the degradation of spiritual values and lack of faith a long dark eternity under ungodly imperial authority glimmers like hope of more wealth at the end of the tunnel- and it might be the fires of hell they perceive dimply.

W. Shakespeare of course mentioned much ado about nothing, and what valuable lessons one can learn from that I am not certain of. One should not make nothing of it of course. Sartre published his title ‘Being and Nothingness’ and illustrated a little of what nothingness is- fundamentally an absence I believe it was.

Of course Jefferson might have believed citizens or people should be proactive rather than complacent and satisfied with their position in life, or alternatively he may have felt that anything besides his political preferences are as good as nothing, or doing nothing useful. If he was just finding an oblique way of saying that everyone should revolt or the tyrant King George III prevails every time- maybe he was correct. Globalism is assuredly encroaching upon the U.S.A. with reverse colonization driving Americans toward being corporate lackeys without anything good to say about strong nationalism that defends boundaries, properties of rights and equal protection of the laws.

Maybe Jefferson could foresee that Amazon, Facebook and Apple would have dominant social media influence or that wealth would be too concentrated and Wall Street and the Dow would soar over 34000. I am not certain

Social change vs continuity

 The United States is and has been experiencing continuous change. Socially and demographically the present U.S.A. isn’t much like it was even twenty years ago. The question today might be more a matter of how to keep what is good about the nation intact.

The problems of political wisdom and philosophy of governance that a modern, large nation like the U.S. experiences are compounded with the rapid growth of knowledge as well as population, technology and cultural profusion of globalism within what was formerly a more unified populace. Politicians are just individuals and an individual's personal knowledge is limited. Limited personal knowledge in a complex society limits the potential for innovation and change. Because the social and infrastructure constructs that already are present are easier to understand and operate than the challenge of inventing new infrastructures that are definitely possible with if the knowledge of all the people of the nation were combined into one mind, and because the horizon of understanding everything that exists already in human knowledge is beyond personal understanding of any individual, fundamental technical progress or change outside the existing paradigms is improbable.

Some changes are good, some bad and some ugly; constant and reliable elements that allow social stability and continuity are equally as necessary as change.

Arnold Toynbee noted that one of the reasons civilizations fail is that they cannot change their basic infrastructure; once a civilization (or nation in the case of the U.S.A. is built up and established it, vested interests and culture grow around it that resist newer ways. Toynbee used the ancient Greek city-states as an example; they could not federate in the way Roman did and failed to the new power that conquered them.

Comparing Donald Trump with the fascist paradigm

Donald Trump was an independent-spirited business and media celebrity elected by popular vote who accomplished much of what he set out to do. He ran and was elected as a Republican on a neo-populist platform. President Trump’s policies were implemented through legal means and weren’t at all fascist. His inability to manage the Covid crisis better was consistent with his inability to conserve the ecosphere as each interfered with his concept of political economy and the good of the people. Donald Trump didn’t have the best ideas from my point of view and created a lack of confidence even for some of his 2016 supporters that he could manage the crisis or save Alaska from the worst sort of environmental plundering. He was hated by the left who attacked him throughout his administration in every way they legally could.

Fascism is unpopular in Europe by many because of the war and great loss of life it made, yet it did arise in Germany through the National Socialist party with Adolph Hitler as the leader sent by the Wehrmacht to take it over with his charisma. The Storm Troopers were about 80% former socialists to start with and they may have believed that Hitler would lead Germany to become a socialist Utopia. The business model of corporatism invented by Mussolini that was actualized in part before the war with the Keynesian deficit spending, autobahn construction and military spending was a key part of the fascist phenomenon.

It is easy to conflate political items especially with pejorative motivations for partisan propaganda or advantage objectives in regard to Mr. Trump, fascism and socialism. Fascism can arise with charismatic leaders from the left or right, as can imperialism. Caesar was a populist who established imperialism upon the Roman Republic that had created the eponymous fascism simply in reference to the sticks or faces that were brought out at the head of a parade in times of war when a war leader was made dictator for a year. Hitler was a charismatic populist, nationalist war veteran who believed Germany could have won the first war and were beaten by the armistice and (in Hitler's opinion) 'treacherous' Jews and others that had a revolution to remove the German aristocracy and Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Jewish Zionists of course were active in Europe then trying to find a place to establish a homeland since they had been purged from nations in Eurasia periodically for about 1800 years. Germans had experienced a revolution and Germans had helped put Lenin in power in Russia with Russia and the Soviet Union them becoming a large eastern threat. Bolshevik leadership had a large Jewish component such as Leon Bronstein aka Trotsky.

European history was complex, convoluted, unstable and troubled- there were other issues such as the rise of modern technology that made the masses dissatisfied with the concentration of wealth and royalty generally. The United States isn’t like that at all- it does have internal proletariats yet it arose without much of the baggage that afflicted Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolt_of_the_Masses

European socialists had theoretical support form Karl Marx of course and the revolutions against royalty in separate nations might have made the international as well as national politics more complex. Socialists were trans-national and people could largely identify as socialists, bourgeois, petty bourgeois or aristocratically oriented. The United States isn’t like that. Antifah and others that acerbically regard Mr. Trump as a fascist are in a European paradigm that does not relate much to American history.

The contemporary cancel culture from my point of view is part of a process of formerly unempowered political elements flexing their political muscles. They tend to hate successful, chauvinistic businessmen and politicians. It is very dangerous for any Democrat male politician that might be a potential presidential candidate these days- they tend to be taken down in some way or other. They hate Donald Trump with a passion.

Donald Trump hasn’t the speaking charisma of Hitler or Barrack Obama and tends to be a little caustic sounding like a bad, condescending raven sometimes. Yet he does at least nominally represent the interests of American citizens first, rather than the international or whatever the we are the worlders are called. The core of the United States from the 1950s and 60’s economy were real people too as was their legacy under such withering attack these days.

Donald Trump is a flawed individual and there are racists that support him though they are not the majority of the Republican party or of people that voted for him in 2020.