Let the record show it was nothing less than treason. All persons who engaged in such should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and banned from holding any public office in the United States for the full length of their lives. That. Is. Justice.
My daughter registered as a Republican many years ago. She moved out and married, also years ago, but somehow a copy of “Imprimis” from Hillsdale College still shows up in my mailbox. Today, the issue is a seven page article titled “The January 6 Insurrection Hoax”. The contrast with the above post is mind-boggling. It’s hard to believe we live on the same planet.
That article is chilling. Designed to convince people that what they saw with their own eyes was a mirage. And I thought one of the 10 commandments was "Thou shalt not lie".
Hillsdale College, Michigan?! I have good friends who are graduates. We need to contact graduates and donors. This is how Hitlers rise. My niece has already been brainwashed at Notre Dame (and she is not even Catholic) by the lectures of Federalist Society priests and professors and Supreme Court Justices. Institutions of HIGHER learning? No, they are the lowest rung, riling up and enlisting brown shirts for their fascist crusades. I am not exaggerating. Their propaganda works on all those young "open" minds.
Yes, Hillsdale Michigan. This Imprimis publication has been far-right for years, but this article really blew me away. Such a blatant twisting of events, and it claims that Democrats talking about “preserving our democracy” are actually trying to preserve their own oligarchy.
Hillsdale College, little bitty school in a little bitty place in the southern Michigan countryside, a VERY conservative area of the country. Outsized influence in conservative circles. Used to go through there when l lived in southern Michigan.
It seems to me that several defining characteristics of conservatism in its current form are greed, fear, and anger.
You put your finger on a truth that I have been wrestling with…how could I have been so naïve about my country’s history? Now that I’m awake and my hair’s on fire, it’s my friends and neighbors who don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to believe evil in the USA is possible. It’s not the America they “know.” ❤️🤍💙
Did you happen to see the documentary on MSNBC "The Civil War"? It was co-produced by Brad Pitt and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.? It certainly left out quite a bit that we now know but what saddened me was the interviews with school children who STILL don't have a clue about the atrocities of the CW. There were several teachers earnestly trying to lead discussions about it and many of these children (yes, white) simply spouted what their parents had told them for years.
Heard of, but didn't watch it. This is so sad to read. Parents are the most powerful transmitters of information. I believed a few things that turned out to be not true - BECAUSE my father (in my case) said so. This is part of the reason why I strongly support improving public schools. The "truth" is a good place to start!
Your statements about insurrection and coup d’état are painfully accurate. I’ve had such…not mental, but emotional resistance to calling a thing a thing in regards to the events of January 6th. For me, an insurrection put it squarely on the actions of the MAGAites who already had demonstrated their ignorant behavior in other venues for all to see. To label it a coup d’état involves the admission of our own ignorance to accept the involvement of those we have elected to serve us and of the military, judicial, and legislative forces they controlled to pull it off—a hair’s breadth from succeeding completely. It’s the old, peculiar self esteem of Americans to always believe “hey, we are doing great, all’s well, not an obstacle in sight too big to overcome, well-racism cannot be that bad, you know-politicians will be politicians, save for a rainy day just in case it has the audacity to present itself….and on and on. In other words, always a wink and a nod, turn away just enough to not notice the underbelly of capitalism and the media too much. Ignorance is bliss in a way. Until the rose colored lenses severely scratch and we confront the shit storm. And wonder if we have prepared our gens coming up behind us with the fortitude and wherewithal to propel us from this dark and into the Light that is intended for the human species.
Love has no opposite.
And thank you TC and other writers and orators that are clarifying the narrative. No one ever said that the rose colored glasses have to break or serve ignorance before we willingly take them off.
Reading your comments on JFK with which I completely agree, I here an echo of the '80s and the Governor of CA who became President. Looking back and reviewing the reality puts the Great Communicator in a much different light. Unfortunately we aren't likely to have the luxury of 40 or 60 years to review the current situation and the balance of today's posting will hopefully serve as the really, truly, it's time to wake up, the coffee's burning call.
On a separate but related topic, the book is excellent and even though I think the Introduction said it all, I'm going to read the whole thing because the details are fascinating. It's the only history book I've ever read that included what could be excerpts from Jane's Fighting Planes. Thanks.
I honestly didn't have the energy or stamina to even read this newsletter, much less post a comment, until now. I don't know about you guys, but I am feeling battered. But after a Facebook post by someone who I thought I knew and shared values with, I am more discouraged, but trying to pick myself up again to comment. This story about the lies really is the crux of the matter and it continues today. We see every day the lies that the Rethuglicans spout.....millions of them...and it is impossible to try and counter them. That is what is making our job so very difficult. The post I mentioned was a picture of an African-American man, holding a child with the commentary that there are thousands of illegals pouring across the border again. And this man (it was claimed) was giving this child a joint to smoke (not in the picture). Well, all the "piling on" was just unbelievable, even after someone noted that the original post from the NextDoor app had been pulled down. People don't want to hear the truth. They just want to pass along the lies because it fits their worldview.
Countering lies is exhausting and perhaps fruitless - like trying to sweep the beach of sand. Government regulation of FB would be a start, along with removing the word "News" from "Fox News". That you are trying to re-educate friends on Facebook is admirable. At this point many are, I believe, "brainwashed." (Why do I keep thinking of The Manchurian Candidate when I hear their "news" clips, and how does one counter that?)
I think we are in our current political climate because we have not held people accountable for serious offenses against our country like the leaders in the Civil War. In other countries people like Lee, Jefferson Davis, etc. would have been tried and jailed at the very least; instead there are statues honoring them, though some of the statues are being removed. Nixon was pardoned. Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld never suffered any repercussions from the Iraq war and basically throwing the Middle East into more violent turmoil based on LIES. How many thousands of people, not just Americans, have died because of those lies like WMD’s? Now, law breaking and corruption get exposed, and the politicians just shrug their shoulders and say, “Who cares? It doesn’t matter.” These R politicians aren’t willing to conduct any oversight of their own folks, but then they conduct hearings on situations like Ben Ghazi for political advantage. It is hard to characterize America as a country of laws with behavior like this, which is incentivized by millions of dollars of dark money. It’s long past time for the Dem’s to play hardball.
I have always believed that the election of W was in effect a "judicial coup d'etat" but for real what happened on January 6 (and all that took place BEFORE that date was preparation for a coup. And the preparation continues in all kinds of ways in state legislatures controlled by gop legislators. And if there is a gop governor in place all the shenanigans is being signed and passed into law. In Michigan the legislature is trying all kinds of tricks to thwart the voters of the state. The worst thing they're doing is using a law (where did this thing come from?) that allows a petition drive to collect signatures, ostensibly to allow the voters to decide on a question ONLY the law allows the legislature to short circuit that effort - if the petitioners collect the required number of signatures and they are confirmed signatures, then the legislature can take up the matter THEMSELVES without the petition going to the voters, and either pass it or block it themselves AND THE GOVERNOR HAS NO VETO!! How's that for shenanigans? There was a group working hard to raise the minimum wage in the state from $7.50 an hour to close to $15. They gathered the thousands of signatures required. The signatures were vetted. The gop led legislature took the petition and reworked the initiative, then passed it. The result - the minimum wage died on the floor of the legislature AND then it was too late to bring it to the voters. This of course means the method of getting to a coup doesn't take all that long. You just have to have a group of people who no longer even believe in anything but their right to hold office against the will of the voters. And that's what we have in every state in the United States right now - wherever the gop is controlling the legislative agenda. I would like to see more fire coming from the democratic party, who seem to believe they can finesse they way through this situation. Read Wilmington 1893. It lays out just how these things can be done and nary a thing can the citizen do to stop what they're doing. There is a national campaign going on funded by arms of The Heritage Foundation. Go to their website and those of other right wing organizations. You can get a flavor of what they are working on to keep office and end democracy.
This may sound crude, but I think those seditionists can be identified by their brown noses - and it's not what we usually name, but is actually dirt they cannot see themselves, but is there for the rest of us to acknowledge. This struck me right between the eyes: “It was what we wanted to see in him that gave him his power.”
I think they've told the Big Lie so many times, it has become "what (they) wanted to see" and so it has become an alternative universe for them. They and those who follow them, ALL have been blinded by the dirt they wear right in front of us.
"And three of those guys actually met Hitler in person, as young “heroes” Der Fuhrer wished to honor for their efforts. They had a lot of nose-rubbing ahead of them."
My nose rubbing involves reflecting on time spent in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the lies I have been spoon fed about why I was there and what we were supposed to be achieving. What's really awful is how long it takes our species to learn and improve. I'm 50 and I am just now maturing but I am a drop in a bucket and I see millions upon millions of young military age individuals coming behind who are just as susceptible to shitty, toxic politics as I was.
Let the record show it was nothing less than treason. All persons who engaged in such should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and banned from holding any public office in the United States for the full length of their lives. That. Is. Justice.
My daughter registered as a Republican many years ago. She moved out and married, also years ago, but somehow a copy of “Imprimis” from Hillsdale College still shows up in my mailbox. Today, the issue is a seven page article titled “The January 6 Insurrection Hoax”. The contrast with the above post is mind-boggling. It’s hard to believe we live on the same planet.
I just posted this on facebook (for all my Hillsdale grad friends) with the article:
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/january-6-insurrection-hoax/
"January 6th was NOT A HOAX. It was CLEARLY a nearly successful COUP d'ETAT!
A PLANNED, VIOLENT and DEADLY ATTEMPT TO END OUR DEMOCRACY.
PLEASE, MY ALUMNI AND $$$ HILLSDALE COLLEGE DONOR FRIENDS: SPEAK UP NOW.
STOP FUNDING FASCISM.
[And stop the indoctrination of students into a Brown Shirt Army. Institute of Higher Learning or Propaganda Machine?]"
That article is chilling. Designed to convince people that what they saw with their own eyes was a mirage. And I thought one of the 10 commandments was "Thou shalt not lie".
Thanks for posting the link. I keep wondering how many people read and actually believe this convoluted nonsense.
Hillsdale College, Michigan?! I have good friends who are graduates. We need to contact graduates and donors. This is how Hitlers rise. My niece has already been brainwashed at Notre Dame (and she is not even Catholic) by the lectures of Federalist Society priests and professors and Supreme Court Justices. Institutions of HIGHER learning? No, they are the lowest rung, riling up and enlisting brown shirts for their fascist crusades. I am not exaggerating. Their propaganda works on all those young "open" minds.
Yes, Hillsdale Michigan. This Imprimis publication has been far-right for years, but this article really blew me away. Such a blatant twisting of events, and it claims that Democrats talking about “preserving our democracy” are actually trying to preserve their own oligarchy.
Hillsdale prides itself on being the incubator of "conservative intelligentsia" (there's an oxymoron!)
Hillsdale College, little bitty school in a little bitty place in the southern Michigan countryside, a VERY conservative area of the country. Outsized influence in conservative circles. Used to go through there when l lived in southern Michigan.
It seems to me that several defining characteristics of conservatism in its current form are greed, fear, and anger.
So near and yet so far, geographically and politically, from Ann Arbor, where I attended the University of Michigan in the late 60s, graduating in 71.
Yes.
You put your finger on a truth that I have been wrestling with…how could I have been so naïve about my country’s history? Now that I’m awake and my hair’s on fire, it’s my friends and neighbors who don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to believe evil in the USA is possible. It’s not the America they “know.” ❤️🤍💙
That's exactly it. For too many, ignorance IS bliss.
Your Tonkin Gulf story should be included in every high school history class, TC.
Did you happen to see the documentary on MSNBC "The Civil War"? It was co-produced by Brad Pitt and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.? It certainly left out quite a bit that we now know but what saddened me was the interviews with school children who STILL don't have a clue about the atrocities of the CW. There were several teachers earnestly trying to lead discussions about it and many of these children (yes, white) simply spouted what their parents had told them for years.
Heard of, but didn't watch it. This is so sad to read. Parents are the most powerful transmitters of information. I believed a few things that turned out to be not true - BECAUSE my father (in my case) said so. This is part of the reason why I strongly support improving public schools. The "truth" is a good place to start!
Hell of a thing to read at 2 am.
Hell of a thing to read at any hour.
You got that right
Or 4:00am.
Your statements about insurrection and coup d’état are painfully accurate. I’ve had such…not mental, but emotional resistance to calling a thing a thing in regards to the events of January 6th. For me, an insurrection put it squarely on the actions of the MAGAites who already had demonstrated their ignorant behavior in other venues for all to see. To label it a coup d’état involves the admission of our own ignorance to accept the involvement of those we have elected to serve us and of the military, judicial, and legislative forces they controlled to pull it off—a hair’s breadth from succeeding completely. It’s the old, peculiar self esteem of Americans to always believe “hey, we are doing great, all’s well, not an obstacle in sight too big to overcome, well-racism cannot be that bad, you know-politicians will be politicians, save for a rainy day just in case it has the audacity to present itself….and on and on. In other words, always a wink and a nod, turn away just enough to not notice the underbelly of capitalism and the media too much. Ignorance is bliss in a way. Until the rose colored lenses severely scratch and we confront the shit storm. And wonder if we have prepared our gens coming up behind us with the fortitude and wherewithal to propel us from this dark and into the Light that is intended for the human species.
Love has no opposite.
And thank you TC and other writers and orators that are clarifying the narrative. No one ever said that the rose colored glasses have to break or serve ignorance before we willingly take them off.
United. 🙋🏻🙋🏼🙋🏽🙋🏾🙋🏿
Powerful stuff. Thanks, even though it makes my brain fried and my heart weep.
Reading your comments on JFK with which I completely agree, I here an echo of the '80s and the Governor of CA who became President. Looking back and reviewing the reality puts the Great Communicator in a much different light. Unfortunately we aren't likely to have the luxury of 40 or 60 years to review the current situation and the balance of today's posting will hopefully serve as the really, truly, it's time to wake up, the coffee's burning call.
On a separate but related topic, the book is excellent and even though I think the Introduction said it all, I'm going to read the whole thing because the details are fascinating. It's the only history book I've ever read that included what could be excerpts from Jane's Fighting Planes. Thanks.
A lot of the readership are "airplane nerds" and the author must establish their "bonafides." :-)
TC, can you give a list of books you have written? They all sound fascinating but I have no idea the titles or your name. Many thanks
You can find them here, among all the "you may also likes" Amazon sticks in.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=thomas+mckelvey+cleaver&i=stripbooks&crid=3DMM1JA03NCI3&sprefix=thomas+mckelvey%2Cstripbooks%2C379&ref=nb_sb_ss_c_2_15_ts-doa-p
Bought three. Now to find time to read them.
I'm curious - which ones?
Frozen Chosen, Tonkin Yacht Club, and Bridgebusters.
Thank you sir!
"One put his finger on it: 'It was what we wanted to see in him that gave him his power.'” That right there, TC. Thanks.
Good morning Lynell! That statement literally gave me a chill when I read it...
Morning, Alexander. Indeed, how to ignore the authoritarian wannabes while at the same time not ignoring them to our peril makes a "sticky wicket."
I honestly didn't have the energy or stamina to even read this newsletter, much less post a comment, until now. I don't know about you guys, but I am feeling battered. But after a Facebook post by someone who I thought I knew and shared values with, I am more discouraged, but trying to pick myself up again to comment. This story about the lies really is the crux of the matter and it continues today. We see every day the lies that the Rethuglicans spout.....millions of them...and it is impossible to try and counter them. That is what is making our job so very difficult. The post I mentioned was a picture of an African-American man, holding a child with the commentary that there are thousands of illegals pouring across the border again. And this man (it was claimed) was giving this child a joint to smoke (not in the picture). Well, all the "piling on" was just unbelievable, even after someone noted that the original post from the NextDoor app had been pulled down. People don't want to hear the truth. They just want to pass along the lies because it fits their worldview.
Countering lies is exhausting and perhaps fruitless - like trying to sweep the beach of sand. Government regulation of FB would be a start, along with removing the word "News" from "Fox News". That you are trying to re-educate friends on Facebook is admirable. At this point many are, I believe, "brainwashed." (Why do I keep thinking of The Manchurian Candidate when I hear their "news" clips, and how does one counter that?)
I think we are in our current political climate because we have not held people accountable for serious offenses against our country like the leaders in the Civil War. In other countries people like Lee, Jefferson Davis, etc. would have been tried and jailed at the very least; instead there are statues honoring them, though some of the statues are being removed. Nixon was pardoned. Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld never suffered any repercussions from the Iraq war and basically throwing the Middle East into more violent turmoil based on LIES. How many thousands of people, not just Americans, have died because of those lies like WMD’s? Now, law breaking and corruption get exposed, and the politicians just shrug their shoulders and say, “Who cares? It doesn’t matter.” These R politicians aren’t willing to conduct any oversight of their own folks, but then they conduct hearings on situations like Ben Ghazi for political advantage. It is hard to characterize America as a country of laws with behavior like this, which is incentivized by millions of dollars of dark money. It’s long past time for the Dem’s to play hardball.
I have always believed that the election of W was in effect a "judicial coup d'etat" but for real what happened on January 6 (and all that took place BEFORE that date was preparation for a coup. And the preparation continues in all kinds of ways in state legislatures controlled by gop legislators. And if there is a gop governor in place all the shenanigans is being signed and passed into law. In Michigan the legislature is trying all kinds of tricks to thwart the voters of the state. The worst thing they're doing is using a law (where did this thing come from?) that allows a petition drive to collect signatures, ostensibly to allow the voters to decide on a question ONLY the law allows the legislature to short circuit that effort - if the petitioners collect the required number of signatures and they are confirmed signatures, then the legislature can take up the matter THEMSELVES without the petition going to the voters, and either pass it or block it themselves AND THE GOVERNOR HAS NO VETO!! How's that for shenanigans? There was a group working hard to raise the minimum wage in the state from $7.50 an hour to close to $15. They gathered the thousands of signatures required. The signatures were vetted. The gop led legislature took the petition and reworked the initiative, then passed it. The result - the minimum wage died on the floor of the legislature AND then it was too late to bring it to the voters. This of course means the method of getting to a coup doesn't take all that long. You just have to have a group of people who no longer even believe in anything but their right to hold office against the will of the voters. And that's what we have in every state in the United States right now - wherever the gop is controlling the legislative agenda. I would like to see more fire coming from the democratic party, who seem to believe they can finesse they way through this situation. Read Wilmington 1893. It lays out just how these things can be done and nary a thing can the citizen do to stop what they're doing. There is a national campaign going on funded by arms of The Heritage Foundation. Go to their website and those of other right wing organizations. You can get a flavor of what they are working on to keep office and end democracy.
I live in Wilmington. The correct date of the coup/ riot destroying the elected government at the time is 1898.
This may sound crude, but I think those seditionists can be identified by their brown noses - and it's not what we usually name, but is actually dirt they cannot see themselves, but is there for the rest of us to acknowledge. This struck me right between the eyes: “It was what we wanted to see in him that gave him his power.”
I think they've told the Big Lie so many times, it has become "what (they) wanted to see" and so it has become an alternative universe for them. They and those who follow them, ALL have been blinded by the dirt they wear right in front of us.
Not crude at all Ellen. Accurate.
"And three of those guys actually met Hitler in person, as young “heroes” Der Fuhrer wished to honor for their efforts. They had a lot of nose-rubbing ahead of them."
My nose rubbing involves reflecting on time spent in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the lies I have been spoon fed about why I was there and what we were supposed to be achieving. What's really awful is how long it takes our species to learn and improve. I'm 50 and I am just now maturing but I am a drop in a bucket and I see millions upon millions of young military age individuals coming behind who are just as susceptible to shitty, toxic politics as I was.
There's a long, long line of us. Young guys who trust our elders as they pervert our idealism.
Thank you for this TC.
In 2018, we heard about the coup d'etat coming from Holly Near:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW7CwCpcKkA