Justice isn’t a passive ideal—it’s a living force that must be demanded, protected, and reimagined. This category explores the evolving face of justice in an age of inequality, state violence, legal corruption, and social awakening. From racial and economic justice to indigenous rights, reparations, and reform, these posts track the long arc of struggle—illuminating where it’s bent, where it’s broken, and where it’s rising again. Mythic frameworks, archetypal reckonings, and real-world resistance all meet here.
Certainty, Circulation, and Minds That Cannot Change
The week after a big public contest, everyone is more certain than they were the week before. Thus, winners are certain they were right, and losers are certain they were robbed. Moreover, certainty can feel like strength. However, I’ve come to think it’s closer to a blood clot in the mind.
The Light Poleof Certainty
Mind and Time: “Conviction lets us finish the book and hold the line. But when doubt is foreclosed instead of answered, the mind seals itself shut.”
Indeed, certainty does have a good side inside the mind. Conviction lets a person finish the book, keep a promise, or hold a line when holding it is costly. As a result, integrity calls for a line I will not cross.
The Shadow Poleof Certainty
Mind Vampires: Conviction lets us finish the book and hold the line. But when doubt is foreclosed instead of answered, the mind seals itself shut.
The shadow version appears when doubt is foreclosed rather than answered. Consequently, a person’s mind becomes self-sealing. It takes in only what confirms it, discards the rest, and looks for institutions that will outlive its owner’s doubt, so that being wrong becomes structurally impossible.
Two figures from Isaac Asimov’s Robots novels show how this concept works.
Dr. Levular Mandamus is the closed loop. He is the true believer. Once he commits to the plan, everything he meets becomes confirmation. His arteries have hardened: nothing new gets in, and nothing stale gets out.
Kelden Amadiro is the vampire. To carry out his darkest desires, Amadiro needs other people’s ideas, loyalty, and energy. He doesn’t seal himself off. He lives off other people’s circulation, and he uses believers like Mandamus to do the work.
They need each other. The extractor needs a sealed believer’s mind to act, and the believer needs someone to supply the cause. Both are dependent on external sources of supply or what Carl Jung would have called psychic energy. Each type of individual seems unable or perhaps choose not to cultivate their own inner psychic energy inside their own minds. Thus, to exist in the human world, they must scavenge it from some other place, namely other conscious humans who are capable of generating and maintaining inner psychic energy.
Think plant vs predator but upon the invisible Field of Mind.
What the Body KnowsThat the Mind Forgets
Mind Loops: “Mandamus, the closed loop. Everything he meets becomes confirmation. Nothing new gets in, and nothing stale gets out.”
In my notes on Jung, I once wrote that ideas are the blood of the mind. That’s my own margin-shorthand, not a quotation, but I trust it.
Drain the blood from a body and it dies. Trap the blood in a loop, clogged and unable to move throughout the body, and you get a stroke or a heart attack. Two deaths, one system: exsanguination and blockage. I believe that the same is true for the human mind.
Health in both the body system and mind system is a two-way flow. Exchange happens at the smallest scale, one to one, and the blood has to return to the lungs to be re-oxygenated. Ideas have to return to the inner chamber, to solitude and reflection, or they circulate stale.
A sealed mind has stopped that return. An extracting mind has stopped its own circulation and borrows someone else’s.
So after any election, any argument, or any moment when I feel very sure, I ask myself: where does my circulation return? Where do my ideas come back to the inner chamber to be tested, and what would it take for me to change my mind? Can collective human systems of governance become closed systems or vampire collectives?
P.S. — A Current Exampleof Mind Loops
“Drain the blood and the body dies. Trap it in a loop and it dies a different way. Health is two-way flow. Ideas have to return to the inner chamber, or they circulate stale.”
Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner
I’d planned to end there, but this week’s news offered an example from the party many readers would assume is exempt from the pattern.
The headline that caught my attention was Hakeem met with Jared to discuss ways to compromise. It turns out that this meeting did happen, but it happened in n August. The New York Times reported that House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Jared Kushner. Jeffries confirmed it, saying that Kushner requested the meeting, and they discussed the affordability crisis.
After this week’s election, as Democrats won the House, Jeffries said on Morning Joe that voters want results rather than “getting even,” and progressives pushed back. Many of them, and many voters like me, want investigations, impeachments, prosecutions and accountability, not just pretty words.
Mandamus or Not
I’m not claiming Jeffries is Mandamus, not at all. Russell Vought or Stephen Miller strike me much more Mandamus-like than Jeffries. However, what he said deserves real scrutiny, about how affordability won the election.
Also, given his huge majority in the House of Representatives, will he act like Mike Johnson but for left leaning issues. It was Mike Johnson’s utter abdication to govern his majority Republican congress that lead to the Blue Wave.
How to Lead a Super Majority in the House with Integrity
But might Jeffries now do the same with his majority Blue Congress given his ties to corporate funding?
AI Overviewof Funding Linked to Jeffries and Democrats
• AIPAC and Pro-Israel PACs: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and aligned donor networks have contributed heavily to Hakeem Jeffries, routing over $427,000 to $1 million+ through PACs and earmarked individual donations across recent election cycles. Critics and progressive groups argue these contributions influence his stance on foreign aid and legislation regarding Israel, while supporters emphasize broad bipartisan backing for the alliance. • Tech and Defense Corporations: Investigative reports by Sludge note that Jeffries' fundraising has drawn significant support from tech and defense executives, including leadership at Anduril (CEO Brian Schimpf and COO Matthew Grimm gave $144,300) and Palantir (government affairs head Mehdi Allhassani contributed $44,300). • Wall Street and Financial Sector: His donor roster includes major Wall Street and investment executives from firms such as Bain Capital, D.E. Shaw, and Renaissance Technologies, as well as cryptocurrency advocacy interests. • Dark Money and Allied Groups: Allies have utilized external vehicles such as the nonprofit All for America and its associated super PAC, which funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into political spending and issue-advocacy ads (alongside groups like House Majority Forward) to support Democratic candidates without disclosing all underlying corporate or individual donors. • Epstein Solicitation Archive: Released congressional records indicated that a firm representing Jeffries sent a funding solicitation to financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2013 during an early phase of his congressional career.
His super majority allows him not to pursue the hard, messy, and difficult work of reclaiming accountability for the American people and our system of democracy. And it is accountability that is duly needed now for all the corruption, lies, and dark deals we have lived through over the past two years. Not to mention the dark descent of ICE and the illegal wars, among many other things Trump & Co. have been up to.
Real Time Live Updates of House of Representatives 2026 MidtermsLive Updates of Senate Results for 2026 MidtermsReal Time Live Updates for Governors Midterms 2026
Accountability Check of Trump Corruption Won the Midterms
Moreover, it is accountability of rampant corruption that really won the midterm election for Democrats—the power is so that Congress and States can put a Big Check on Corruption.
So the questionremains: Is the certainty conviction that normal politics still works as a healthy Light-Pole Conviction that is guiding a healthy democratic system in America or do we have rather a Sealed Loop of Certainty that is running our democracy, one that has closed the collective thinking of both parties in America, one that is padded by billionaires who are playing both sides of America’s political system?
In conclusion, I’ll ask one last question: How much of America’s systems of government are closed-loop circulations of thoughts, deeds, and action fed by corporate money, corporations who often fund both sides of politics to maintain control over the entire system?
I don’t know the answer. It’s the question I’d want a reader to follow the money to find.
Where does my circulation return? And whose circulation feeds the powers we trust? I don’t know the answer. It’s the question I’d want you to follow to the end.”
Several people who are making a lot of sense to me on this issue:
readsludge.com – The Money Behind Hakeem Jeffries – SludgeNov 4, 2026 — With the Democrats’ sweeping midterm victory, Hakeem Jeffries is preparing to lead House Democrats’ promised investigations of the…
Futurism – Hakeem Jeffries Is Bankrolled by the Most Controversial Tech …Sign up to see the future, today His donor list includes controversial figures like Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf and his COO Matthew …
House.gov – Hakeem Jeffries solicited funding from Epstein in 2013Nov 18, 2025 — It has been revealed that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) solicited funding from disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Facebook ·The 50501 Movement – Hakeem Jeffries’ ties to AIPAC and potential Speaker of the …Nov 4, 2026 — Any politician that is taking in AIPAC money should be voted out their judgment is clouded and they are compromised. Hakeem Jeffries…
TikTok · NBCNews – During an address early Wednesday, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries …Nov 4, 2026 — Hakeem Jeffries has received over $1.5 million from AIPAC-linked groups, combining direct PAC contributions and earmarked individual…0:18
Facebook · I’ve Had It Podcast – WOW… Hakeem Jeffries’ AIPAC Money EXPOSED as Schumer …Hakeem Jeffries recently received AIPAC PAC’s largest ever earmarked contribution to his joint fundraising committee. Today, he ca…7:36
The New Republic – Hegseth Expands National Guard in D.C. Amid Arrest Over “Finger Gun”Nov 5, 2026 — “Hakeem Jeffries has longstanding political and financial ties to corporate interests and influential pro-Israel lobbying organization…
Punchbowl News – Hakeem Jeffries’ allies get in the dark-money game, Sep 10, 2026 — All for America also gives corporations and individuals a way to support Jeffries without their donations becoming public; non-pro…
Archetypal Animationfor Certainty & Mind
The Returning Current: 03:10 – Stability: Slow ambient piano and soft strings begin with one sustained tone. Sparse, open harmonies gather warmth through the middle scenes; a low drone and gently dissonant string intervals create tension near the end. No solos, percussion, or vocals. Resolve on a quiet, spacious chord.
Two of the archetypal products are symbols from this blog and two are products from an earlier post exploring the multilayered web of how billionaires and Multinational Corporations trap us in a system that benefits the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. But, even here, we do have the power of choice!
Bring a little light to every drive with this inspirational car air freshener, featuring the message “Light… is Mind” alongside a glowing figure reaching toward the sky. The artwork carries a reflective, mystical atmosphere—warm autumn leaves and woodland textures on one side, with a moonlit black-cat scene on the other—making it a thoughtful companion for quiet commutes, late-night drives, and moments of reflection. Choose from three fragrance moods: crisp Pine with balsam fir, apple, and green herbs; richly nostalgic New…
A small, luminous reminder to keep moving toward the light. This teardrop-shaped necklace features a vivid design of a raised figure beneath a glowing flame, with deep purple, red, and golden tones that feel both mystical and hopeful. The glossy front catches the light beautifully, while the silver-tone zinc alloy chain and secure lobster clasp make it easy to wear every day. It speaks to anyone drawn to resilience, inner strength, spiritual symbolism, and the quiet power of finding brightness…
Less than two years. A growing bill. Who pays—and who profits?
By D. Mann | Sapience: The Moment Is Now
Archetypal Animation for The Bill Comes Due
Political accountability requires all of us to achieve. Political accountability is often cloaked in a complicated, ever changing landscape of lies, truth, and everything in-between. Political accountability is vast for it includes the macro verse, which is made of millions of micro verses. Let’s dive into the micro verse and telescope out.
I.Fly & Machine
Political Accountability & the Hidden Costs of AI Data Centers
I paid $10,000 to insulate my home.
Why? Dominion Energy representatives came to us with a recommendation for insulation, explaining the need in connection with rising energy demands from data centers. I took that information seriously enough to spend a substantial amount of money trying to manage my household energy costs.
That is my experience. The larger energy-cost story requires its own accounting, and the evidence matters. A $10,000 expenditure from my household addressed an energy problem others described as part of a larger technological transformation; in other words, data centers and the extraordinary costs associated with building and powering them.
I am not claiming that data centers alone caused my insulation expense, or that this one household bill proves a national pattern. I am asking a more fundamental question:
When a major technological transformation creates costs for ordinary people, who is responsible for paying them?This is a major question to be answered fairly, factually and justly to hold the government and system with in the required frame works of political accountability… something all civil societies must strive for and protect fiercely to survive.
And this question deserves more than a reassuring sales pitch. It deserves an accounting.
Technology companies are racing to expand artificial intelligence. The infrastructure behind that expansion requires electricity, water, land, transmission lines, substations, and new power-generation capacity. The benefits may be substantial. So may the costs—and the allocation of those costs is a matter of public policy, not technological destiny.
A 2024 report from Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission examined the state’s rapidly growing data-center industry. It warned that additional generation and transmission infrastructure could increase electricity costs for customers beyond the data centers themselves. The report estimated that a typical Dominion Energy residential customer could face an additional $14 to $37 per month in generation- and transmission-related costs by 2040, expressed in constant dollars. It also described the financial risks if utilities built infrastructure for projected demand that never materialized (Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission [JLARC], 2024).
A June 2026 working paper from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology examined data-center development and electricity prices across the United States. The study by Meeks et al. (2026) finds that data-center entry between 2010 and 2024 increased average residential electricity prices by 2.1%, with effects varying by utility ownership and customer class. This is a research estimate, not a calculation of every household’s bill or proof that every price increase comes from data centers. This finding prompts the public to examine how expansion costs are distributed.
The question is not whether we should have technology. We must decide whether those who profit from its expansion should bear an unfair share of its costs.
My $10,000 is one household’s story. Millions of micro verses make up the macro verse.
II. The Political AccountabilityLedger: What Has Changed, and Who Bears the Cost?
Ledgers & Ballots
Donald Trump returned to the presidency on January 20, 2025. As the 2026 midterm elections approach, Americans have had nearly two years to experience the consequences of his administration’s decisions, a track record lacking the remotest illusions of political accountability.
A ledger should split what can be measured from what must be debated. It should distinguish a policy from its effects, which must be examined thoroughly.
Consider the cost of living.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index rose 3.7% over the twelve months through September 2026. Prices rose 0.6% in September alone, while gasoline prices rose 9.1% that month and accounted for more than half of the monthly increase in the overall index (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 2026).
Those figures describe what happened to prices; they do not, by themselves, explain every cause. But they matter to a family deciding whether it can afford groceries, transportation, heating, a medical bill, or a home repair.
Tariffs are another part of the ledger. Customs collects tariffs from importers at the border. Businesses absorb the resulting costs, pass them on to consumers, or spread them across the supply chain. The final burden depends on the product, market conditions, and business decisions.
The Tax Policy Center estimated that tariffs announced by the Trump administration through December 4, 2025, would impose an average burden of about $920 per tax unit in calendar year 2026. Its analysis also found that the estimated burden would be proportionally greater for households in the lowest income quintile than for those in the highest quintile (Tax Policy Center, 2026).
This is a model-based estimate, not a bill received by every household. It should be read according to its assumptions and the tariff policies included in the analysis. But it illustrates the kind of question a public ledger should ask: when the government adopts a policy that raises costs, who bears those costs, and who receives the intended benefit?
A serious ledger must ask the same questions about tax policy, health care, housing, wages, public services, energy, and environmental protections. It should measure actual outcomes against promises, rather than treating a political slogan as evidence that a policy worked.
And it should ask what happens when households are told to become more efficient, more resilient, and more adaptable while the systems around them are redesigned to serve interests over which they have little control.
III.The Wealth Ledger: Money Is Not the Same as a Mandate
Money Is Not A Mandate
Money has always played a role in American politics. The scale of political spending deserves particular attention when a small number of extraordinarily wealthy individuals can finance campaigns and organizations capable of shaping the national conversation.
Estimates say 100 men, which is an extraordinarily tiny fraction of top donors—such as the top 100 individual contributors or billionaire families—provide a massive share of funding to super PACs and outside spending groups comes from campaign finance data tracked by OpenSecrets using Federal Election Commission (FEC) records. [1] This in itself implies an utter lack of political accountability.
On October 23, 2026, The Washington Post reported that the 50 largest individual political donors had contributed a combined $2.77 billion during the 2026 midterm election cycle. Elon Musk was the largest individual donor, with $446 million in contributions, much of it directed toward Republican-aligned political efforts. The report also documented major contributions from wealthy donors with interests in technology, finance, and cryptocurrency (Ence Morse et al., 2026).
The Federal Election Commission’s October 2026 summary offers a broader picture. From January 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026, congressional candidates reported approximately $2.8 billion in receipts; political action committees reported $8.3 billion raised and $6.5 billion spent. Independent expenditures reported during the period totaled $643.4 million (Federal Election Commission [FEC], 2026).
Treat these as distinct categories and avoid adding them as if they were unique dollars. They do, however, reveal the scale of the political-finance system, ripe for the picking of corrupted hands.
The report demonstrates that these contributions do not prove every donor received a policy in exchange. Political spending does not, by itself, establish a quid pro quo. Nor should we pretend that every wealthy donor supports the same agenda.
But campaign contributions are only one part of the story. The other part is the growing dependence of the United States on private companies whose owners control critical infrastructure.
IV. Political Accountability: Elon Musk, Starlink & Who’s in Control
Elon Has Satillites!
Elon Musk’s companies have substantial federal business. SpaceX and its satellite services support government operations, national-security activities, and military communications. Starlink is not simply another consumer internet service when military forces and allied governments depend on it in the field.
Is this political accountability? Is this how to run a free and fair democracy?
That dependence became painfully visible in Ukraine.
Reuters reported on October 20, 2026, that The Wall Street Journal had reported a slowdown of Starlink’s military-grade service used by Ukraine, disrupting battlefield communications and military operations. Reuters could not independently verify the report at that point. By October 24, Reuters reported that Ukraine’s Starlink and Starshield services were operating at normal speeds again after more than a week of restrictions. Ukrainian officials said the restrictions had hampered military activities, including drone interception and frontline communications. Responsibility for the restrictions remained disputed in public statements (Reuters, 2026a, 2026b).
On October 24, Reuters also reported that both the Biden and Trump administrations had repeatedly asked SpaceX to activate or disable Starlink services in different regions to advance U.S. foreign-policy objectives. Six former senior U.S. officials described requests involving Ukraine, Iran, Yemen, and Lebanon. The report illustrates that governments have relied on SpaceX not merely as a vendor, but as a company capable of making consequential decisions about access to a communications network (Reuters, 2026c).
We cannot determine the answer to this question by looking at campaign contributions alone.
Who is actually in control when a government becomes dependent on infrastructure that a private individual can restrict, redirect, or make unavailable? Political accountability seems to slip below the event horizon of mega billionaires, sometimes trillionaires, such as Musk.
The issue is not whether a business owner should have opinions or participate in politics. The issue is whether the public has adequate safeguards when government functions, national security, and international commitments become entangled with the decisions of an extraordinarily wealthy private individual.
A government contract is not evidence of corruption by itself. A service restriction cannot show that the owner dictates every government decision. But when the same individual has enormous political spending capacity who donated to one party combined with control over critical infrastructure which governments and allied forces rely, the potential conflict between private discretion and public responsibility deserves serious scrutiny.
Such scrutiny is called: political accountability.
The government may be the customer. The institution responsible for protecting the public interest may also bear that duty. But what happens when the customer cannot easily replace the supplier?
That is not merely a business question. It is a question of democratic sovereignty.
The public deserves to know what safeguards exist, what alternatives are available, what happens when a private provider’s interests diverge from national policy, and whether the United States has become too dependent on a handful of private actors to act freely.
The question is not whether Musk alone controls America. The evidence does not establish that. The question is whether critical public functions have become so entangled with private power that meaningful government independence is at risk.
These are serious questions citizens are asking right now! They are wondering how in the heck is political accountability achieved in a billionaire welfare state?
As they wonder, they are connecting the dots.
The actions and political positions of Elon Musk have increasingly drawn scrutiny from political scientists, historians, and media critics who argue that his methods and rhetoric align with a techno-fascist, authoritarian trajectory. [1]
Critics point to specific actions, particularly before and after Donald Trump’s re-election, as evidence of a push toward a highly centralist, corporate-controlled government structure that minimizes democratic guardrails.
Most Recent Musk Interference
Musk is actively suppressing a 4 hour documentary about him from being showed at theaters. More than x, have refused to show it after getting a call from Musk.
Musk is also actively suppressing media on the Medias Touch’s book: WTF America?!: The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy
Musk is suppressing Ukrainian access to Starlink, resulting in Ukrainian civilian deaths.
🏛️ Consolidation of Government Power (DOGE)
Mass Purges of Civil Servants: Through his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk slashed the ranks of federal employees. Critics describe this as an attempt to hollow out the administrative state and replace independent civil servants with loyalists. [1, 2]
Automation of Governance: Musk implemented automated systems and AI chatbots, such as Grok, to determine agency cuts and streamline government operations. Sociologists have characterized this application of technical rationality to human society as fundamentally totalitarian. [1]
Centralized Employee Surveillance: He utilized digital mechanisms to demand direct weekly accountability reports from the entire federal workforce, creating a top-down surveillance culture within public institutions. [1]
Targeting Regulators: Musk used his position to aggressively target, defend, or shut down regulatory agencies that challenged his corporate operations or government authority. [1]
📢 Weaponization of Social Media & Digital Information
Amplification of Far-Right Rhetoric: Since purchasing X (formerly Twitter), Musk has frequently elevated far-right, nationalist, and nativist content. This includes boosting the “Great Replacement” theory and generating racially coded fear regarding non-Western immigrants.
Suppression of Critics and Researchers: Musk filed high-profile lawsuits against research groups and legal organizations that tracked the rise of hate speech and misinformation on X, a tactic critics call an authoritarian suppression of oversight.
Direct Election Interference: Utilizing his reach of over 200 million followers, Musk regularly pushed debunked election conspiracy theories and misinformation that traveled significantly further than official fact-checks. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
👑 Oligarchic Influence & Global Authoritarian Alliances
Unprecedented Private Diplomacy: Acting as a private citizen with immense state access, Musk has conducted independent diplomacy with foreign leaders. He has actively aligned himself with and supported far-right political parties globally, such as Germany’s AfD.
Praise for Strongman Politics: Musk has publicly praised authoritarian governance models, notably celebrating El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele for mass incarceration crackdowns, and advocating for similar severe measures in the U.S.
Corporate “Bossism”: Historians note that Musk’s leadership style is rooted in a corporate philosophy of absolute executive authority (“bossism”), where labor unions are strictly rejected and workers are subjected to unilateral directives. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
🧬 Ideological Influences
Scholars trace Musk’s philosophy to Technocracy—an authoritarian 20th-century movement (championed by his grandfather, Joshua Haldeman) that advocated for replacing elected officials and political parties with scientific and engineering elites. This ideology prioritizes a highly stratified, corporate-run state over traditional democratic processes. [1, 2]
Please tell me that Technocracy is not how Trump and friends are claiming political accountability!
V. When Infrastructure & Politics Collide
When Infrastructure & Politics Collide
Artificial intelligence offers real possibilities: scientific discovery, medical research, accessibility, education, and tools that help people think and create. I know the value of working with AI firsthand. I use it to explore ideas, challenge assumptions, and develop my writing.
But the benefits of a technology do not excuse the behavior of the people who control its infrastructure. Nor do they make its costs disappear. And honestly exploring and debating these costs is a critical part of political accountability.
A data center is not merely a symbol of innovation. It is a physical facility with a demand for electricity, cooling, water, land, and grid capacity. When demand grows faster than infrastructure can accommodate it, someone must pay for new capacity. Policy choice stems from utility regulation, contracts, market design, and government decisions.
Virginia is home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of data centers. The state’s own legislative audit commission has identified the financial risks that rapid expansion can create for utilities and their customers. MIT’s research shows electricity prices differ based on utility ownership and the method used to allocate infrastructure costs (JLARC, 2024; Meeks et al., 2026).
The question is not whether data centers should exist. It is whether the public can see and understand the terms on which they operate.
If an industry receives the benefits of rapid expansion while local communities absorb a disproportionate share of its electricity costs, water demand, noise, land use, and infrastructure burdens, the public deserves an accounting. If companies pay the full costs they create, that should be demonstrable too.
The goal is not to punish innovation. It is to prevent a familiar economic arrangement: privatize the gains, distribute the costs, and describe the result as inevitable.
And this is where the wealth ledger meets the household ledger. The people and companies with the greatest financial resources may also have extraordinary access to policymakers. Ordinary households generally do not have lobbyists negotiating their electricity bills or campaign committees amplifying their concerns.
That imbalance does not prove corruption in every case. It does make transparency, independent oversight, and enforceable rules essential.
The question is not whether technology should advance. It is whether democratic society gets a meaningful say in the terms of that advance. This is the basic building blocks of political accountability.
VI. The Ballot Must Match the Voter’s Choice
Ledgers & Ballots
A ledger of democratic and political accountability must include the voting process itself.
On October 23, 2026, the Associated Press reported that voters in Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas had described touchscreen voting difficulties in which the selection displayed on a machine did not match the candidate they intended to choose. Some voters said the machine appeared to select a Republican candidate when they intended to select a Democrat. In the cases described, voters were able to correct their selections before casting their ballots. Election officials attributed the reported problems to factors such as accidental touches or screen miscalibration and said they had not observed an unusual increase in complaints (Associated Press, 2026).
The equipment matters. The AP report identified Election Systems & Software’s ExpressVote devices among the machines involved. We should not attribute these reports to Liberty Vote, formerly Dominion Voting Systems, without equipment-specific evidence.
But the concern about election security extends beyond those touchscreen complaints.
On October 19, ProPublica reported that political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security had asked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to secretly obtain a voting machine, examine it, and attempt to hack it. Two former administration officials cited in the investigation said the appointees wanted findings delivered to the White House. Career staff reportedly feared the effort would undermine confidence in election results. The request was eventually abandoned, according to the report (Mannix & Bock Clark, 2026).
This was a reported request to obtain and hack a voting machine—not proof that a Dominion machine was seized, successfully hacked, or used to alter votes. The reporting also does not establish that the purpose was to change the outcome of an election.
But the reported attempt to bypass ordinary security practices raises serious questions about the political use of federal election-security capabilities.
The concern is especially troubling when an administration publicly questions election integrity while the agency responsible for protecting election infrastructure is being weakened and professional staff are raising alarms about political interference.
These are distinct issues, but both reinforce the same democratic principle: election technology must be subject to independent testing, transparent procedures, documented complaints, and credible oversight—not political manipulation or public-relations management.
When a voter sees a selection that does not match the voter’s intention, the voter should stop before casting the ballot, alert a poll worker, and follow the official correction procedure. Election officials should record recurring problems, preserve relevant evidence, inspect affected equipment, and make their findings public.
When federal officials seek unusual access to voting equipment, the public deserves to know what was requested, who authorized it, what safeguards were applied, and whether independent oversight was maintained.
While an allegation alone does not prove a conspiracy, a reported attempt to circumvent safeguards should never be ignored.
Election integrity requires both a fair investigation and evidence strong enough to support its conclusions. Another essential and basic building block of political accountability.
VII. Democratic Countermoves: South Korea’s Warning
Learn from South Korea
America is not the only democracy to face a crisis over executive power and political accountability.
On December 3, 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law amid a political confrontation with the opposition-controlled National Assembly. Military and police forces moved toward the Assembly, but lawmakers managed to convene. The Assembly voted to demand that martial law be lifted, and the order was withdrawn after roughly six hours. On April 4, 2025, South Korea’s Constitutional Court unanimously upheld Yoon’s impeachment and removed him from office (Yonhap News Agency, 2025).
This was not simply a story of public protest. It was a story of citizens, elected representatives, and constitutional institutions acting at a moment when democratic procedures were under pressure.
The comparison with the United States has limits. South Korea has a different constitutional structure, political history, and set of institutions. Its experience cannot be copied wholesale into American circumstances.
But the principle travels: democratic safeguards work only when people are willing and able to use them. Public attention, lawful collective action, legislative independence, courts that apply constitutional limits, and officials who follow the law can all matter when executive power is tested.
Democracy is not self-enforcing. It depends on people who refuse to treat the erosion of safeguards as someone else’s problem. It depends on us to demand political accountability!
VIII. January 3, 2027: The Election Is Not the End of the Story
November 3 to January 3 — Possible Plays and Countermoves
An election can be won at the ballot box and still face a struggle over whether its results will be honored.
As the November 2026 midterms approach, former federal judge J. Michael Luttig has warned of a possible constitutional crisis on January 3, 2027, when the new Congress convenes. His scenario is that House Speaker Mike Johnson could remove current House Clerk Kevin McCumber before the new Congress organizes, appoint a temporary replacement, and have that person omit duly elected Democratic members from the roll of members-elect (Luttig, 2026).
This is a warning about a hypothetical scenario, not evidence that the removal has happened or that Johnson has publicly announced such a plan. The legal questions are contested, and Luttig argues that any attempt to exclude duly certified representatives could face immediate court challenges.
The underlying concern is serious. The clerk’s roll is central to the organization of the House. If duly elected representatives were deliberately omitted for partisan reasons, the dispute would go beyond ordinary parliamentary procedure. It would raise a fundamental question about whether political power can override the choices voters have made.
Luttig argues that the federal courts—and ultimately the Supreme Court—would determine whether such an exclusion was lawful. Any real attempt to prevent certified members-elect from participating would require immediate legal scrutiny and a transparent public record.
The possibility deserves attention before a crisis begins, not after the public has lost time to respond.
South Korea’s 2024 martial-law crisis offers a different but relevant lesson. Citizens mobilized, legislators acted, and constitutional institutions became the means through which the crisis was challenged. The United States has a different constitutional structure, and no foreign example can tell Americans exactly what to do. But the underlying lesson is clear: democratic safeguards need people willing to defend them.
If an actual attempt were made to prevent duly elected representatives from taking their lawful seats, the response should begin with public documentation, legal action, demands for transparency, and coordinated nonviolent civic pressure. Citizens should support lawful challenges by affected representatives, seek clear public statements from election officials and constitutional authorities, and insist that certified election results be respected.
If those avenues were obstructed or ignored, two forms of peaceful collective action would deserve serious public discussion: large-scale demonstrations and/or concomitantly a coordinated general strike. These are reasonable actions the people can take to demand political accountability.
A general strike is a consequential measure, not a slogan. It would require broad participation, careful organization, clear demands, attention to workers’ legal rights and economic vulnerabilities, and a commitment to nonviolence. Mass demonstrations likewise require planning to protect participants, maintain public safety, and keep the focus on the constitutional issue at hand.
Neither should be an automatic response to a hypothetical scenario. The trigger would be an actual, documented attempt to subvert the lawful seating of elected representatives—and the objective would be to restore constitutional government, not to replace one form of partisan domination with another.
The point of preparation is not to predict that the worst will happen. It is to make clear, before a crisis begins, that the public will not quietly accept the disenfranchisement of its own vote.
An election is not fully protected until the winners can take their lawful seats. Democracy requires not only the right to choose representatives, but the right to have that choice respected, as stated in the Constitution.
IX. A Field Guide to Political Accountability: Interference & Countermoves
Field Guide to Interference | Now Is the Time for Political Accountability
The following table is not a claim that every tactic listed is being used in every election or that every troubling event is deliberate. It is a practical guide to recognizing documented forms of interference, identifying warning signs, and responding with evidence rather than panic.
View this as a Field Guide to political accountability:
Possible interference tactic or constitutional threat
What the public should look for
Countermove
False voting information
Messages giving the wrong election date, polling place, eligibility rules, or voting method
Verify details with the official state or local election office. Save and report deceptive messages; do not amplify them as fact.
Voter intimidation or threats
Threats of physical or financial harm, coercion, or efforts to frighten eligible voters away from the polls
Prioritize safety. Document what happened when safe to do so and report suspected violations to election officials or law enforcement.
Touchscreen or ballot-marking errors
A selection appears differently from the voter’s intention, particularly if the problem repeats
Stop before casting the ballot. Notify a poll worker, request help following the official correction procedure, and ask that the incident be documented. Review any printed ballot or record carefully.
Cyberattacks or phishing
Suspicious messages targeting election workers, candidates, campaigns, or people with access to voter data
Avoid suspicious links and attachments. Use strong, unique passwords and multifactor authentication where available. Report suspected compromise to the responsible security team and authorities.
Politicization of election-security agencies
Requests to obtain or test voting equipment outside established procedures; attempts to conceal findings from manufacturers or independent election authorities; political pressure on cybersecurity staff
Demand an independent review, preserve written records and communications, ask which safeguards governed the work, and publish findings that can be independently assessed.
Opaque campaign financing
Large contributions, complex funding routes, or spending that makes it difficult to identify who is supporting a political message
Check FEC filings and state campaign-finance disclosures. Trace the funding where records permit; distinguish documented financial connections from assumptions about motive.
Misleading or manipulated media
Edited clips, fabricated quotes, deceptive images, or AI-generated audio and video presented as authentic
Find the original recording or document, compare independent reporting, check the date and context, and do not share material whose authenticity remains uncertain.
Pressure on election workers or officials
Threats, harassment, demands to ignore lawful procedures, or attempts to interfere with routine administration
Preserve evidence, support nonpartisan election workers, report threats, and insist that officials follow established procedures and the law.
Attempts to obstruct lawful participation or counting
Unlawful barriers to voting, improper challenges, interference with ballot handling, or demands to disregard valid results without evidence
Seek written explanations, preserve records, contact election-protection or legal organizations, and use lawful administrative and judicial processes.
Excluding duly elected representatives from the House’s opening roll
An attempt to replace the House clerk and omit members-elect whose election credentials have been properly certified by their states
Seek immediate judicial relief; demand public explanations and legal opinions; mobilize peaceful demonstrations; prepare coordinated civic action if an actual, documented effort to subvert lawful results proceeds.
A constitutional crisis that resists ordinary remedies
Continued refusal to comply with court orders or lawful election procedures; obstruction of duly elected representatives after documented efforts at legal resolution
Build broad, nonviolent coalitions around a specific constitutional demand. Consider escalating peaceful demonstrations and, if justified and carefully organized, a coordinated general strike, while protecting workers’ rights and vulnerable participants.
Unsupported claims of widespread fraud
Sweeping allegations offered without verifiable records, clear methods, or independently testable evidence
Ask what evidence would prove or disprove the claim. Consult election records, audits, court findings, and credible investigations before accepting or repeating it.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s election-crime guidance and federal cybersecurity advisories provide a basis for recognizing threats such as voter intimidation, ballot tampering, campaign-finance violations, phishing, and efforts to prevent eligible citizens from voting. The appropriate response depends on the specific incident and the evidence available.
These are not imaginary risks. Nor does the existence of a known tactic prove that a particular person or organization has used it in a particular case.
That distinction is the foundation of an effective countermove: document what happened, preserve evidence, report through the appropriate channel, and demand a transparent investigation. Do not confuse vigilance with certainty before the evidence is in.
X. The Ledger of Political Accountability Is Also a Test of Attention
This Is A Test of Human Attention | Now Is the Time for Political Accountability
The cost of living, data-center infrastructure, campaign finance, election administration, and democratic safeguards may look like separate subjects. They are connected by a common question:
Who has the power to make decisions that affect other people, and who has the power to hold the decision-makers accountable? And how can political accountability be held if no one is paying attention?
When a household pays more for electricity, the immediate experience is a monthly bill. Behind it may be fuel prices, utility investments, regulatory decisions, infrastructure demand, and the way costs are assigned among customers.
When a billionaire spends hundreds of millions of dollars on politics, the immediate fact is a campaign-finance filing. Behind it may be a network of policy interests, political priorities, business incentives, and competing ideas about the public good. Those connections deserve investigation, but they must be established rather than assumed.
When a voter sees a touchscreen selection that does not match the voter’s intention, the immediate problem is a discrepancy. The response should be a documented correction and a credible inquiry into why it occurred—not an automatic leap to conspiracy, and not an automatic dismissal.
When a president attempts to exercise extraordinary power, the test is whether citizens, legislators, courts, and public servants can uphold the constitutional limits that make democratic government possible.
The ledger is not complete when we list what things cost. It is complete only when we examine who made the decisions, what evidence supports those decisions, who received the benefits, who carried the burdens, and what remedies remain available.
This is why attention matters. A public that reacts to every alarming claim without checking evidence can be manipulated. A public that dismisses every warning because it cannot yet prove a larger scheme can also be manipulated. Both reactions surrender the work of judgment.
Sapient attention requires something harder: notice, investigate, evaluate, and choose a response proportionate to the evidence. This is how we get and safeguard political accountability!
XI. Political Accountability: What We Owe One Another
What We Owe One Another in a Civil Society | Now Is the Time for Political Accountability
I sometimes feel that, to people who accumulate extraordinary wealth and political power, ordinary citizens are little more than flies: noisy, inconvenient, easily dismissed. We are expected to adapt to decisions made elsewhere, pay what we are charged, and accept assurances that the system is working as intended.
But citizens are not insects. Our homes are not expendable units in somebody else’s growth model. Our communities are not empty spaces awaiting development. Our attention, labor, money, and consent are not resources that powerful people are entitled to extract without accountability.
This is not an argument against wealth, technology, enterprise, or ambition. It is an argument against a system in which the ability to pay can become the ability to dictate, while the people who bear the consequences have too little influence over the decisions.
A democratic society should be able to pursue innovation without making ordinary households the default shock absorbers. It should be able to finance elections without allowing concentrated money to drown out public scrutiny. It should be able to investigate voting problems without exaggerating the evidence or suppressing legitimate questions. It should be able to challenge executive power without treating constitutional limits as optional.
The countermeasures are not mysterious. They require transparent records, independent oversight, enforceable rules, reliable election procedures, public participation, investigative reporting, and citizens willing to examine evidence even when it complicates a preferred story.
They also require something less technical and more demanding: the willingness to look beyond the immediate transaction.
A $10,000 insulation bill can be just a household expense. It can also be the beginning of a larger inquiry into energy demand, public infrastructure, corporate incentives, and the distribution of costs. The bill alone does not prove the whole story. It gives us a reason to ask better questions—and to follow the answers wherever the evidence leads.
The macro verse is made of millions of micro verses. A democracy that cannot hear those individual accounts risks losing sight of the people it exists to serve.
As the November 2026 midterms approach, the public has an opportunity to examine the ledger: compare promises with outcomes, follow the money, question the allocation of costs, protect the right to vote, and demand evidence from those who wield power.
The task is not to believe every allegation. It is not to trust every official explanation without question. It is to build a public record strong enough to distinguish fact from spin, error from deliberate interference, and accountability from performance.
That is how a society keeps its attention.
That is how citizens reclaim their place in decisions that shape their lives.
And that is where the choice between Fate and Destiny begins: not in pretending that we control everything, but in refusing to surrender the choices that remain ours to make.
The bill comes due somewhere. The question is whether those who collect the profits will ever be required to pay their fair share.
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Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite
Modern Moral Lessonon How Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
History does not repeat because people fail to learn moral lessons. But the old adage of Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, will this one repeats quite often throughout history in so many different ways.
It repeats because power erodes perception.
Caligula’s reign demonstrates a crucial truth that is often misunderstood: absolute power does not merely corrupt ethics—it destroys reality testing. Once a ruler is no longer constrained by consequence, contradiction, or accountability, other human beings cease to register as fully real. They become props, symbols, or game pieces in a private psychological theater.
Shared reality becomes unmoored from the common laws, rules, and safeguards we all agree upon to live in a safe and civil society. When some among us can ride through time without accountability… they do in a sense become mad gods unmoored by the shared rules of a civil society.
Caligula’s cruelty was not random. It was performative. Executions, humiliations, sexual transgressions, and public desecrations were not simply acts of violence—they were experiments. Each act tested the same question: Will they still obey?
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | Coercive Auction of Stolen Property So Caligula Could Restore the State’s Bankrupted Funds
They did.
Rome’s greatest failure was not Caligula’s madness, but the system’s inability—or refusal—to extract corruption once it became undeniable. Senators, priests, generals, and bureaucrats recognized the danger. Yet obedience persisted. Even when elite families were targeted, even when norms collapsed, even when fear replaced law, the machinery of empire continued to function.
That is the true warning.
The Modern Parallel to Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
Modern civilization does not crown emperors. It manufactures immunity.
Extreme concentrations of wealth and influence now produce a condition structurally similar to imperial absolutism: insulation from consequence, privatized reality, and social systems trained to preserve stability at all costs. Courts, corporations, political parties, media ecosystems, and financial institutions often function less as safeguards than as buffers—absorbing shocks without correcting root corruption.
Recent, well-documented elite exploitation scandals reveal this pattern with disturbing clarity. The details vary, but the structure is consistent: • Transgression escalates under conditions of immunity • Complicity spreads through silence and shared risk • Blackmail becomes a stabilizing force • Institutions protect continuity over truth
The issue is not individual depravity alone. History is full of cruel individuals. The danger emerges when systems reward obedience over integrity, and when power is so insulated that even grotesque violations fail to trigger removal.
This is where Caligula becomes contemporary.
Not because modern elites are emperors—but because the psychology of unchecked power has not changed. Extreme wealth produces boredom. Boredom seeks intensity. Intensity erodes empathy. Empathy loss enables dehumanization. Dehumanization demands silence. Silence becomes loyalty.
Alan Watts warned—echoing Buddhist psychology—that the unchecked pursuit of pleasure does not lead to joy, but to the Naraka world: a psychological hell defined not by punishment, but by endless appetite without meaning. Sensation must escalate because nothing satisfies. Others cease to exist except as stimuli.
Caligula reached that place early.
Modern systems risk normalizing it.
The question is no longer whether ruthless rulers will emerge.
The question is whether civilizations can still recognize corruption before obedience replaces humanity.
Briefing Doc: Caligula & How Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
The Principate of Gaius Caligula: Power, Excess, and the Stoic Response
Executive Summary
The reign of Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, famously known as Caligula (r. AD 37–41), represents a pivotal and tumultuous era in the early Roman Empire. Initially greeted with universal jubilation as the son of the beloved general Germanicus, Caligula’s four-year tenure rapidly transitioned from a “Golden Age” of prosperity to a period defined by extreme self-indulgence, fiscal crisis, and alleged madness. Key themes of his reign include the expansion of unconstrained imperial power, a strained relationship with the Roman Senate, and a move toward divine autocracy.
This briefing document synthesizes historical accounts of Caligula’s rise and fall, his ambitious construction projects, his controversial provincial policies, and the contemporary philosophical response led by Seneca the Younger. Ultimately, Caligula’s assassination in AD 41 by the Praetorian Guard marked the end of the first direct male line of the Julii Caesares and served as a catalyst for Seneca’s Stoic meditations on the destructive nature of unrestrained anger and power.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | Born to the Purple: Origin of Little Boot
I. Early Life and the Rise to Power
Lineage and the “Little Boot”
Born in AD 12 to Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder, Gaius was a member of the prestigious Julio-Claudian dynasty, descended from Augustus and Mark Antony.
• The Mascotte: As a child, he accompanied his father on Germanic campaigns. His mother dressed him in a miniature soldier’s outfit, including heavy army boots (caligae). The troops affectionately nicknamed him “Caligula” (meaning “little boot”), a name he reportedly grew to dislike.
• Family Tragedy: Following Germanicus’s death in AD 19, his family became embroiled in a bitter feud with Emperor Tiberius. Caligula’s mother and brothers were eventually exiled and died in prison, leaving Caligula as the sole male survivor of his immediate family.
Survival on Capri
In AD 31, Caligula was summoned to Capri to live with the aging, paranoid Tiberius.
• Dissimulation: To survive, Caligula masked his resentment behind an obsequious manner. Observers noted that there was never “a better slave or a worse master.”
• Accession: Upon Tiberius’s death in AD 37 (which some rumors suggest Caligula hastened with the help of the Praetorian prefect Macro), Caligula was proclaimed emperor at age 24.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | The New Hope (37AD): A Brief Golden Age
II. The Early Reign: The “Golden Age”
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | New Sun Cult and Seven Months of Joy
Caligula’s first seven months were characterized by widespread popularity and community-spirited reform.
• Public Generosity: He distributed massive gratitude payments to the Praetorian Guard, city troops, and ordinary citizens.
• Legal Reforms: He restored the right of popular assemblies to elect magistrates, lifted censorship, and published accounts of public funds.
• Filial Piety: He interred the ashes of his mother and brothers in the Mausoleum of Augustus and granted extraordinary honors to his sisters, particularly Julia Drusilla.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | Turning Point: Sickness and Grief
III. The Transition to Tyranny
Historians, including Philo and Suetonius, point to a serious illness in late AD 37 as a turning point in Caligula’s character.
Cruelty and Purges
• Elimination of Rivals: Following his recovery, Caligula ordered the forced suicide of Tiberius Gemellus (his adopted son and heir) and Macro (the prefect who secured his throne).
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite| Death of Heirs of Caligula
• Hostility toward the Senate: He openly humiliated the senatorial class, forcing them to run miles beside his chariot or stripping them of ancestral honors.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | Break with Senate: Transition from Princeps to Autocrate (39 AD)
• The Incitatus Affair: In a gesture of contempt for the consulship, he reportedly proposed making his favorite racehorse, Incitatus, a consul.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | The Horse and the Bridge & Incitatus the Consul
Claims of Divinity
Caligula sought to transcend the traditional role of princeps to become a living god.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | Living God: Madness or Monarchy
• Impersonations: He reportedly appeared in public costumed as Hercules, Mercury, Venus, and Apollo.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | Caligula Dressed Up as Gods such as Hercules, Mercury, Venus
• The Imperial Cult: He established a temple to his own genius on the Palatine and attempted to have a colossal statue of himself as Zeus installed in the Temple of Jerusalem, a move that sparked intense Jewish resistance.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | Desecration of Jewish Temple
• Sun-God Imagery: Provincial coinage and inscriptions occasionally hailed him as the “New Sun” (Neos Helios).
| Neos Helios | New SunAbsolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern EliteNeos Helios | New Sun
IV. Public Works and Economic Crisis
Caligula’s reign was marked by grandiose and often wasteful expenditures that exhausted the state treasury.
Major Construction Projects
Project
Description
Aqueducts
Began construction of the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus to meet Rome’s water needs.
Bridge at Baiae
A temporary two-mile floating bridge of ships across the Bay of Baiae, earth-paved for a ceremonial crossing.
Nemi Ships
Two massive, elaborate floating palaces with marble floors and plumbing.
Vatican Obelisk
Transported an Egyptian obelisk on a purpose-built ship using 120,000 modi of lentils as ballast.
Fiscal Desperation and Taxation
By AD 39, the treasury (amassing 2.7 billion sesterces under Tiberius) was depleted. Caligula responded with:
• New Taxes: Levies on lawsuits, weddings, and a notorious tax on the earnings of prostitutes.
• Confiscations: Falsely accusing wealthy citizens of treason to seize their estates.
• Auctions: Forcing nobles to bid exorbitant prices for his sisters’ jewellery and palace furnishings at public auctions.
V. Provincial and Military Affairs
Caligula’s military record was largely viewed as ignominious by contemporary historians, though modern interpretations are more nuanced.
• Mauretania: He annexed the client kingdom after executing its ruler, Ptolemy, leading to a local uprising.
• Britannia: He planned an invasion that famously resulted in his troops being ordered to collect seashells as “spoils of the sea,” though some suggest this was a training exercise or a misunderstanding of the term musculi (siege engines).
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | Roman Soldiers Collecting Seashells
• Germany: He conducted operations along the Rhine, though ancient sources dismiss these as poorly prepared or fabricated for glory.
VI. The Philosophical Response: Seneca the Younger
The philosopher Seneca witnessed Caligula’s reign from the Senate and used the experience to inform his Stoic writings, particularly On Anger (De Ira).
Anger as “Madness”
Seneca defined anger as a temporary madness and a “misevaluation” of worthless things. He cited Caligula as the ultimate negative exemplar:
Ira — Wrath, rage or fury. A passion as a kind of madness.
• The Monster: Seneca consistently depicted Caligula as a “cruel tyrant” and a “monster” whose unrestrained wrath endangered the state.
Caligula’s Ira vs Seneca’s Stoicism
• The Sadistic Host: Seneca recounts Caligula executing a man’s son and immediately inviting the grieving father to dinner, forcing him to act joyfully under threat of death.
Cruel Dinner Party | Caligula’s Executes Elite’s Son Then Forces Him to Drink Wine and Smile at a Dinner Party the Same Night
• Envy of Intellect: Caligula reportedly wanted Seneca killed because he envied his oratorical success, dismissing Seneca’s style as “sand without lime.”
Caligula Wanted Seneca Dead
Stoic Remedies
Seneca argued that spiritual health requires the complete rejection of anger. He advocated for:
• Mutual Leniency: A social contract based on the acknowledgment that all humans are fallible.
• Introspection: Daily reviews of one’s ethical choices to maintain the sovereignty of reason.
VII. Assassination and Aftermath — the Fate of Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
On January 24, AD 41, Caligula’s reign ended violently.
• The Conspiracy: A small group of Praetorian tribunes, led by Cassius Chaerea, accosted the Emperor in a narrow corridor beneath the palace. Chaerea was motivated by personal insults—Caligula often mocked his voice and gave him ribald watchwords like “Priapus.”
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite | Caligula was Ambush by His Own Guardsmen
• The Murder: Caligula was stabbed 30 times. His wife, Caesonia, and daughter, Julia Drusilla, were also murdered shortly thereafter.
Caligula Was Stabbed 30 Times
• Succession: While some senators hoped to restore the Republic, the Praetorian Guard spontaneously chose Caligula’s uncle, Claudius, as the next emperor.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite| Claudius Chosen by Army to Rule
VIII. Key Historical Quotes | Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
• On Absolute Power: “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.” (Attributed to Caligula in literary tradition)
• On the Roman People: “Would the Roman people have but one neck!” (Attributed to Caligula)
• On Caligula’s Nature: “I am nursing a viper in Rome’s bosom.” (Tiberius, regarding the young Caligula)
• On Anger: “Your anger is a kind of madness, because you set a high price on worthless things.” (Seneca the Younger, De Ira)
• On Caligula’s Divinity: “I have existed from the morning of the world, and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night.” (Malcolm McDowell’s cinematic depiction)
Caligula: Political Case Study of How Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely: From Caligula to the Modern Elite
The Architecture of Absolute Power: A Case Study on the Erosion of Constitutional Norms under Caligula
1. Introduction: The Fragility of the Augustan Principate
The Roman Principate, as architected by Augustus, functioned as a masterclass in political theater. Its foundation rested on the primus inter pares (“first among equals”) model—a calculated facade designed to wrap absolute autocratic power in the comforting imagery of Republican tradition. By maintaining the illusion that the Senate and the Roman people remained the ultimate repositories of authority, Augustus achieved a durable stability. However, this system contained a fatal structural vulnerability: it relied entirely upon the “personal responsibility and self-restraint” of a single executive rather than fixed legal constraints.
Caligula’s reign (AD 37–41) was not merely a descent into personal madness; it was a structural stress test that exposed the total collapse of Roman republican checks and balances. When the executive decided to strip away the Augustan mask, the institutional framework proved incapable of resistance. This trajectory toward unconstrained authority was accelerated by the immense political capital of his father, Germanicus; the popular general’s legacy provided the initial momentum for a transition that would eventually render the Senate obsolete and the military the sole arbiter of the state.
2. The Accession: Consensus as a Tool for Legal Consolidation
The transition of power in AD 37 represented a radical departure from the gradual accumulation of authority seen under Augustus. While previous rulers maintained a show of reluctance, the twenty-five-year-old Gaius was granted the full spectrum of imperial authority—the lex de imperio—in a single legislative act. This immediate consolidation effectively neutralized the Senate’s ability to negotiate or impose future constraints.
The Mechanics of Early Accession
Legal Action
Stated Intent (Public Relations)
Structural Impact (Autocratic Shift)
Annulment of Tiberius’s Will
Claimed Tiberius was of unsound mind to name the minor Gemellus as co-heir.
Removed the internal dynastic check of a co-heir, consolidating sole authority.
Doubling of Praetorian Bonuses
A gesture of filial respect to fulfill and exceed Tiberius’s final wishes.
Shifted military loyalty from the state to the person of the Emperor.
Immediate Grant of Powers
A response to the “consensus of the three orders” (Senate, Equites, People).
Stripped the Senate of future leverage by granting absolute power without a probationary period.
The Senate’s ecstatic reception and immediate ratification of these powers were driven by a desperate desire for a “Golden Age” following the reclusive Tiberius. By surrendering their authority so completely in a moment of popular euphoria, the aristocratic class effectively disarmed themselves. This paved the way for administrative reforms that initially suggested a civic renewal but soon pivoted toward unconstrained authority.
3. The Dismantling of Countervailing Powers: Senate and Law
To centralize power, Gaius recognized the need to diminish the Senate as a deliberative body. He pivoted to a strategy of psychological warfare to neutralize the aristocratic class. A primary weapon was the “Weaponization of Memory.” Although he initially made a public show of burning Tiberius’s secret records to signal a restoration of legal security, he later revealed he had preserved the files. He used these archives as a form of ancient “kompromat,” confronting senators with their past servility and the names of the delatores (informers) who had betrayed their peers. This converted the archival state into a psychological weapon, ensuring total senatorial paralysis.
Even the most infamous anecdotes of the reign, such as the supposed promotion of his horse Incitatus to the consulship, must be viewed through a strategic lens. This was not insanity, but a darkly humorous insult intended to ridicule the highest aristocratic ambitions. By suggesting a beast was fit for the office, Gaius signaled that the consulship, and the elite who craved it, were fundamentally meaningless. This systemic humiliation was even applied to his own family; the “Plot of the Three Daggers” involving his sisters Agrippina and Livilla and his brother-in-law Lepidus demonstrated that even the domus Caesaris offered no countervailing safety.
Methods of Senatorial Humiliation:
• The Archival State: Reviving maiestas (treason) investigations based on “destroyed” records to ensure compliance.
• Forced Suicides: Systematically removing elder statesmen like Marcus Junius Silanus to eliminate traditionalist voices.
• Physical Degradation: Requiring consular-rank senators to run for miles alongside the imperial chariot or serve at the imperial table as common slaves.
• Erasure of Lineage: Stripping members of ancient families of inherited honors to ensure the Emperor remained the sole source of dignity.
This degradation of political status served a pragmatic purpose: it broke the elite’s spirit before Gaius turned toward predatory methods of funding the state.
4. Predatory Fiscal Policy and the Exhaustion of the Treasury
In a centralized system, financial solvency is the bedrock of political stability. Gaius inherited a surplus of 2.7 billion sesterces, but his extravagant spending—notably on the two-mile floating bridge at Baiae—precipitated a financial crisis by AD 39. To address the deficit, the Emperor transitioned from a benefactor to a predator, utilizing the legal system for resource extraction.
Mechanisms of State Confiscation:
• New Tax Impositions: Following the abolition of the ducentesima (0.5% sales tax), Gaius introduced predatory levies on taverns, artisans, weddings, and a notorious tax on prostitutes’ earnings.
• The Militarization of Revenue: Deploying the Praetorian Guard as tax collectors, a move that fundamentally changed the military’s relationship with the civilian population and signaled a shift toward military autocracy.
• Seizure of Wills: Setting aside the wills of centurions and wealthy citizens who failed to name the Emperor as a primary beneficiary, labeling them “ungrateful.”
• The Lugdunum Auctions: Gaius personally acted as auctioneer in Gaul. While the first auction (of his sisters’ property) was predatory, the second (of palace furnishings) saw him adopt the persona of a benevolent princeps, using his status to maximize revenue through “voluntary” high bids from the elite.
This unconstrained resource extraction was mirrored in the Emperor’s demand for spiritual authority, positioning himself as the ultimate arbiter of Roman life.
5. The Imperial Cult: Divinity as the Ultimate Autocratic Tool
Gaius recognized a strategic difference between the traditional “veneration of the genius” (the Emperor’s guiding spirit) and the demand for recognition as a living god. By claiming divinity, he sought to place his actions beyond human law and pietas (traditional duty). While scholars debate if his deity impersonations—Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus—were “theatrical fancy-dress” or “private pantomime,” their impact was consistent: they shattered the traditional religious consensus.
This demand for divinity sparked a major geopolitical crisis in Judaea and Alexandria. The decree to install a statue of himself in the Jerusalem Temple transformed a local religious issue into a “blasphemy” that risked the stability of the grain supply, as Jewish producers threatened to abandon their harvests in protest. Philo’s account of the “Embassy to Gaius” highlights the hostile nature of this court; at the Gardens of Maecenas, the Emperor ignored the delegates’ petitions to inspect buildings and mock their faith, treating serious diplomacy as a farce. Ultimately, these claims of divinity alienated the very security apparatus tasked with his safety.
6. Institutional Failure and the “Assassination Check”
The tragedy of the Roman constitutional erosion was that the system provided no legal “exit ramp” for a failing executive. When impeachment mechanisms are absent, violence becomes a constitutional necessity. On January 24, 41, this structural failure reached its conclusion in the cryptoporticus of the Palatine Hill.
The conspiracy was led by the Praetorian tribune Cassius Chaerea. While historical accounts credit him with noble Republican idealism, his primary motivation was a response to Caligula’s routine personal insults. By giving Chaerea watchwords like “Venus” or “Priapus” (referring to his voice), the Emperor had systematically sought to emasculate his own security apparatus. This tactical error proved fatal.
Post-Assassination Systemic Failures:
1. Senate’s Futile Restoration: The Senate attempted to restore the Republic, but their lack of a cohesive military plan rendered their deliberations irrelevant.
2. Praetorian Arbitrage: The Guard “spontaneously” discovered Claudius and proclaimed him Emperor, reaffirming that the military was the true arbiter of power.
3. The New Reality: The transition proved that the state was no longer a partnership between the Senate and the Princeps, but a military autocracy.
7. Contemporary Critique: The Insights of Seneca and Philo
The historical narrative of Caligula is shaped by contemporary accounts that used stories of “insanity” as a tool of political culture to explain poor government.
Seneca the Younger, in On Anger (De Ira), utilized Gaius as a “monster” and a “wisdom-less exemplar” to argue that without Stoic self-control, absolute power is a destructive madness. To Seneca, Caligula was the embodiment of the “high cost of unrestrained wrath.”
Philo of Alexandria, in his Embassy to Gaius, documented the farcical nature of the imperial court, portraying a narcissistic ruler who viewed his subjects with “especial suspicion.” Together, these accounts established the “mad emperor” archetype, serving as a warning to future generations about the volatility of centralized authority.
8. Conclusion: Risks of Centralized Authority in Volatile Systems
The transition from Augustus to Caligula demonstrates that without formal institutional checks, the stability of the state is entirely hostage to the psychological health of the executive. When the “self-restraint” of the ruler vanishes, the state itself is placed at risk.
Strategic Takeaways:
1. The Illusion of Restoration: Early “community-spirited” gestures—such as the abolition of the ducentesima—can mask the systematic dismantling of legal norms.
2. The Weaponization of Humiliation: Demeaning elite institutions ensures temporary compliance but guarantees long-term conspiracy. Humiliating one’s own security officers with watchwords like “Priapus” is a strategic blunder that invites regicide.
3. The Military as Final Arbiter: Once the Praetorians are used as “forceful” tax collectors, the revenue stream is militarized, and the Guard becomes the master of the state.
Ultimately, the reign of Gaius stands as a testament to the “high cost of unrestrained wrath” and the fragility of a constitution that exists only in the shadow of a single man’s will.
Caligula: Governance Ethics Whitepaper
The Stoic Advisor: Navigating High-Risk Leadership Through Senecan Ethics
1. The Volatility Landscape: Lessons from the Caligulan Principate
In the theater of executive governance, the transition from a “Golden Age” to institutional collapse can occur with terrifying speed. Our audit of the Caligulan era reveals the “Fiendish Flip”—a catastrophic pivot where a leader moves from perceived benevolence to arbitrary terror. Caligula’s accession was initially hailed by contemporaries like Philo as a return to fairness and community spirit. However, following his recovery from illness in AD 37, the environment devolved into a nightmare of unpredictable cruelty. For the modern advisor, recognizing this shift is not merely a historical exercise; it is the primary prerequisite for ethical survival. When a leader’s disposition becomes sadistic and extravagant, the advisor must transition from policy guidance to high-stakes psychological containment.
The specific behavioral triggers of high-risk leadership identify the moment when the “rule of law” is discarded for the “rule of whim.” When the illusion of the leader as primus inter pares (first among equals) fails, rational institutional planning becomes impossible.
Markers of Institutional Instability
• Financial Excess: The reckless squandering of an inherited fortune—specifically the 2.7 billion sesterces amassed by Tiberius—within a single year. This rapid depletion of the treasury necessitates subsequent reliance on the confiscation of private estates and the imposition of petty taxes to fund grandiose, wasteful projects.
• Contempt for the Elite: The systematic humiliation of institutional stakeholders. This is exemplified by Caligula forcing senior senators to run for miles alongside his chariot while he laughed at them, or threatening to elevate his horse, Incitatus, to the consulship to mock the dignity of the office.
• The Claim to Divinity: The total abandonment of mortal limits. When a leader demands worship as a living god, dressing as Mercury or Apollo, they terminate any possibility of bilateral negotiation, effectively replacing professional counsel with theological sycophancy.
These markers signal a total collapse of professional boundaries. When a leader views himself as a deity and the law as an inconvenient suggestion, the environment is defined by arbitrary terror rather than governance. Seneca’s career illustrates how an advisor can maintain a moral center and physical safety during such a collapse through calculated distance.
2. The Advisor’s Paradox: Seneca’s Dual Role as Philosopher and Courtier
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger represents the ultimate archetype of the elite advisor operating under threat. Trained by the School of the Sextii—a rigorous hybrid of Stoicism and Pythagoreanism—Seneca was fundamentally an advocate for reason. However, his survival during the “nightmare of the Caligula years” required him to master the art of the courtier. He narrowly escaped execution when his oratorical brilliance provoked Caligula’s envy, surviving only by projecting an image of such terminal ill health that the emperor assumed nature would soon do the executioner’s work.
Survival in a volatile environment demands that the advisor utilize strategic maneuvers that protect the mission while preserving the self.
Strategic Action
Ethical/Survival Outcome
Dissimulation
Adopting the “no better slave” status while at Capri; masking resentment for the destruction of his family to avoid summary execution.
The Practice of Patience
Enduring eight years of exile on Corsica under Claudius without surrendering to despair, refining philosophy as a tool for endurance.
The Use of Consolation
Authoring works for Helvia and Polybius to navigate political grief and utilize flattery as a lever for his eventual recall to Rome.
Strategic Withdrawal
Attempting to retire in AD 62 and 64 when Nero’s stability failed, recognizing that influence has a terminal expiration date.
Seneca’s leadership reached its zenith during the Quinquennium Neronis—the first five years of Nero’s reign. Partnering with the Praetorian prefect Burrus, Seneca maintained institutional stability by drafting accession speeches that promised a return to legal procedure. However, the Chief Ethicist must recognize that influence is a perishable commodity; the death of Burrus in AD 62 broke Seneca’s power, proving that an advisor requires a tactical partner to survive a leader’s deteriorating psyche. This loss of external control forces a retreat into internal psychotechnologies.
3. Stoic Psychotechnology: Anger Management and the Sovereignty of Reason
For the high-stakes professional, internal self-control is the only reliable defense against a leader’s volatility. Seneca’s De Ira (On Anger) serves as a manual for maintaining professional equilibrium, defining anger as “a kind of madness.” Seneca warns that once rage takes control, it is like “jumping off a cliff”; reason is discarded, and the capacity for virtuous action is lost.
To prevent this descent, the advisor must master the concept of “Misevaluation.” Seneca argues that we rage because we overvalue worthless things. He proposes a “Vastness Stratagem” to expand the mental scale, which we distill into a demanding three-step cognitive audit:
1. Isolate the Trigger: Identify the minor incident, such as a perceived insult to dignity or a professional slight.
2. Apply the Vastness Stratagem: Juxtapose the incident against the immeasurably vast—global climate shifts, collapsing stars, or the sweep of centuries.
3. Evaluate Significance: Realize that the “injury” to one’s pride is hollow when viewed from a cosmic distance. The advisor must learn to draw further back and laugh.
This audit must be supported by “nightly reviews”—tranquil, daily meditations on ethical choices. This practice, termed “care of the self” by Foucault, is a mandatory defensive hygiene for the advisor. It creates a “sovereign space” within the mind that an erratic leader cannot touch. By mastering internal governance, the advisor secures the clarity required to attempt external steerage through the strategic application of mercy.
4. Clemency as a Political Lever: The Ethics of Mercy in High-Stakes Governance
In De Clementia (On Clemency), Seneca utilizes flattery as a sophisticated pedagogical trap. Written as immediate damage control following Nero’s murder of his rival Britannicus, the work was designed to halt the cycle of bloodshed that typically follows state-sponsored violence. Clemency is not portrayed as “kindness,” but as a calculated political lever used to avoid the “arbitrary terror” that eventually led to Caligula’s thirty stab wounds.
The advisor must propose a “Pact of Mutual Leniency” based on three core principles:
1. Universal Fallibility: Accepting that we are “wicked people living among wicked people.”
2. Shared Sin: Recognizing that all are “sinners all, yet all deserving of clemency.”
3. The Social Contract: Understanding that peace is only possible through a mutual agreement to forgive human error.
Seneca’s use of flattery in this context was a pedagogical tool—he praised Nero for virtues the ruler did not yet possess to “trap” him into acting better. By modeling the “Stoic path of virtue,” Seneca attempted to show the ruler a version of himself that was “good, generous, and fair,” hoping the leader would grow into the image provided. However, even the most skilled advisor must prepare for the moment when influence fails.
5. Final Synthesis: The Framework for Ethical Survival
The “Senecan Framework” for professional conduct under risk requires a paradoxical blend of intellectual distance, strategic dissimulation, and rigorous internal inventory. When institutional governance collapses, the only remaining sovereignty is the mind of the advisor.
Professional Conduct Checklist for Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
• Draw Further Back and Laugh: Utilize the vastness stratagem to ensure that immediate setbacks or insults do not trigger a loss of reason.
• Prioritize Persistence over Martyrdom: Maintain patience and survival for the sake of the mission. As Seneca noted, “I wanted to avoid the impression that all I could do for loyalty was die.”
• Maintain the ‘Imago Suae Vitae’: Strive to preserve a consistent moral and ethical profile—the “image of one’s life”—that remains untouched by the leader’s volatility.
The legacy of Seneca’s death—the forced suicide in AD 65 where he remained calm, dictated his last words, and died in a warm bath—must be framed as a strategic victory. By maintaining Stoic composure while being suffocated by the steam of the bath, the advisor denied the tyrant the satisfaction of a broken spirit. The enduring value of Stoic self-governance lies here: when institutional governance fails and the “30 stabs” of inevitable betrayal arrive, the advisor remains the master of the only territory that truly matters: the self.
RESOURCES & CITATIONS for Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
• Wikipedia: Caligula. (Details on the 2.7 billion sesterces from Tiberius, the “Golden Age,” the shift to tyranny, and the assassination).
• Wikipedia: Seneca the Younger. (Stoic training, role as advisor to Nero, the Quinquennium Neronis, his wealth, and his death).
• Lit Hub: Did Seneca Write a Treatise on Anger. (Analysis of De Ira, the “vastness stratagem,” the “pact of mutual leniency,” and Foucault’s “care of the self”).
• The Little Boot: The Rise and Ruin of Caligula. (Chronology of Caligula’s life, the “Fiendish Flip,” the senators running by the chariot, and the 30 stabs).
Stephen Miller’s War on Democracy is the muscle behind Russell Vought’s Project 2025 and the Billionaire/Epstein Class greed to get more profit and add more gold to their already heaping piles of gold locked up inside their mansions.
When we examine how democracy is being dismantled in plain sight, the role of Stephen Miller cannot be overstated. A central architect of the MAGA block’s assault on truth, governance and civil society, Miller is steering policies that resemble decapitation of institutional safeguards, rule of law and human rights.
Stephen Miller’s War on Democracy
The Blueprint
Quotas and raids Miller directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to carry out a minimum of 3,000 arrests per day — a massive escalation from earlier targets. Axios+3Newsweek+3Forbes+3 He explicitly pressed ICE to carry out raids at places like the parking lots of Home Depot and 7‑Eleven, targeting informal work sites of immigrant day-laborers. The Independent+2The Daily Beast+2 The effect is chaotic, sweeping and arbitrary — legal and undocumented persons both face the dragnet in what can only be described as helter-skelter.
Brutality and callousness Reports reveal a demoralised ICE leadership, fearful of internal e-mail and message monitoring, and under heavy pressure from the White House via Miller to achieve ever-higher numbers. The Independent+1 These policies echo the darkest impulses of state violence — deploying quotas, forcing enforcement agents into mass operations rather than case-by-case due-process.
Democracy under assault Miller is not acting alone. His ally, Russell Vought, is reshaping federal bureaucracy via the Project 2025 agenda, which threatens separation of powers, the independence of agencies and checks and balances. Democracy Now!+2American Civil Liberties Union+2 The raids, quotas and bureaucratic decapitation serve a larger vision: dismantle the rule-bound state and replace it with an executive-driven, majoritarian apparatus accountable to an insurgent loyalist base.
The irony of the base losing everything Meanwhile, the very MAGA followers who cheered the dismantling of “pork government spending” are losing the pillars of social support they depended on — healthcare, rural hospitals, infrastructure, emergency agencies, social security. The “cuts” go into servicing the billionaire class and consolidating power, while those who pledged loyalty lose their safety net. Miller and Vought are key instruments in this re-allocation of power away from democratic public institutions and toward oligarchic rule.
Stephen Miller’s War on Democracy
Why This Matters
When enforcement quotas replace discretion, when law becomes spectacle, when bureaucracy is hollowed out — democracy doesn’t just weaken, it dies.
Miller’s raids create fear and chaos in blue-states and cities where immigrants live; the strategy sows political polarisation, erodes local autonomy, and fuels authoritarian tactics.
Vought’s budget and bureaucracy overhaul steals the tools of accountability and oversight. Together they are the dual heads of the decapitation: Miller hits the people, Vought hits the system.
The spectacle of tyranny is dressed up in patriotism, law-and-order rhetoric, and “we’re taking back control” talk — but the control goes right into the pockets of power, not the public.
Stephen Miller’s War on Democracy
The Takeaway
Don’t be fooled by the bombast. This is not just immigration policy, nor just budget cuts. This is the targeted destruction of democratic reality: of institutions, rights, norms and the story of self-governing people. Miller is a tool of hate, and Vought is the kingpin of dismantling — they are dismantlers in the truest sense: erasing the pillars of freedom while their base bleeds out. It’s time to wake up.
Stephen Miller’s War on Democracy
Why America is Lost
This is why America is already lost… and may not ever be coming back. Our culture is very, very ill. This video does a very good job telling why.
Stephen Miller’s War on Democracy: Archetypal Animation
That’s all that stands between us and a future where democracy remains a living, breathing reality — or one where it becomes a hollow shell, ruled by those who’ve mastered the art of manipulation. Forty days is not much time, yet it’s enough to decide whether “We the People” still means anything, or whether those words become a historical relic, muttered in classrooms and campaign speeches but stripped of their power in practice.
This isn’t melodrama. It’s math.
Last year, over 90 million Americans didn’t vote. Ninety million voices silent while decisions about their lives, freedoms, bodies, wages, and futures were made without them. That silence wasn’t accidental — it was engineered. And in the next 40 days, the same forces that fed that silence are working overtime to do it again.
The question is: will we let them?
Democracy on the Brink: How Authoritarians Win Before a Single Ballot Is Cast
We often imagine authoritarianism arriving like a thunderclap — jackboots in the streets, constitutions burned, leaders seized in the night. But in reality, it arrives more quietly. It seeps in like a fog, softening resistance, numbing outrage, dulling the will to act. And it does this long before a single ballot is cast.
Democracy on the Brink: Authoritarian T-shirt — Wear It to Your Next March | The Quip Collection
There’s a playbook — one that’s been used over and over, from the fall of ancient republics to the rise of modern strongmen. And every tactic in that playbook is aimed not at armies or institutions, but at your mind.
Distraction: Flood the public square with endless scandals and meaningless controversies until people tune out. The more chaotic the noise, the harder it is to focus on what truly matters.
Division: Pit neighbor against neighbor, turn every difference into a battlefield, and fracture the collective power that democracy depends on.
Despair: Feed the narrative that nothing changes, that power always wins, that your vote is just a drop in the ocean. A hopeless citizen is a silent citizen.
Disinformation: Twist reality itself until truth becomes a matter of opinion. Once shared facts disappear, democracy — which depends on them — dissolves too.
These are not side effects of our political dysfunction; they are the strategy. And they’re devastatingly effective. As I argue in Sapience: The Moment Is Now, authoritarianism doesn’t just conquer governments — it colonizes consciousness. It shapes how we perceive reality, how we relate to one another, and how we decide whether to act at all.
The Most Powerful Weapon Authoritarians Use: Your Inaction (Apathy In Action)
If this sounds grim, that’s because it is. But there’s also hope buried in this truth — because it reveals the most powerful weapon authoritarians have is not violence or propaganda. It’s your inaction.
Democracy on the Brink: Distracted and Sad Super Hero | August 2023 Blog
The 90 million people who stayed home last election weren’t lazy. They were conditioned. Conditioned by decades of messaging designed to convince them that their voice didn’t matter, that “the system” was too corrupt to fix, that politics was something best avoided. And this conditioning starts young.
We are raised in a culture that equates obedience with virtue, that trains us to outsource our agency to systems and experts, that markets passivity as peace. Advertising tells us to consume instead of create. Political rhetoric tells us to hope instead of build. And a 24-hour outrage economy tells us to scroll instead of speak.
Democracy on the Brink: Obey
This is psychological warfare — and it’s working.
But here’s the paradox: inaction is exactly what makes the system seem unchangeable. The less we participate, the more power consolidates. The more power consolidates, the more hopeless participation feels. It’s a feedback loop — one we have the power to break, if we choose.
What We Can Still Do — Right Now to Help Democracy on the Brink
Here’s the good news: this story isn’t over. Forty days is enough time to change its ending.
Democracy on the Brink: VOTE Lawn Sign | The Quip CollectionAnd the Update Sign Based on Hurricane Trump’s Whims [Find it at The Quip Collection, Reckoning Line, Resistance]
History isn’t written by those who watch — it’s written by those who show up. And showing up is simpler, more powerful, and more contagious than most people realize.
Here’s how:
Vote — and help three others do the same. Make sure you’re registered, make a plan, and then go beyond yourself. Text friends. Talk to neighbors. Offer a ride. Turn voting from an individual act into a communal one.
Counter disinformation. Lies spread fastest when they go unchallenged. Don’t let them. Speak up in conversations. Share credible sources. Correct falsehoods gently but firmly. Truth still matters — but only if we defend it.
Interrupt apathy. Change how you talk about politics. Don’t focus only on candidates — focus on what’s at stake: democracy, freedom, dignity, future. Remind people that the point isn’t perfection; it’s progress.
Be visible. Yard signs, protest flags, social posts, conversations at the grocery store — they all matter. Visibility signals to others that they’re not alone. That’s why I created my latest sign reminding people that 90 million didn’t vote last year. It’s not just a statistic — it’s a rallying cry.
And if you need tools, check out the Sapient Survival Guide. It’s built to help ordinary people navigate the psychological battlefield we’re all living in — and to remind you that resistance isn’t just about politics. It’s about reclaiming your agency.
Also, right here, part of the Sapience Shop, is The Reckoning Line. Here you will find clothing, decals, yard signs, face masks, protest flags and posters, plus a whole lot more to make your voice heard. And every voice activated, inspires another who is staying silent to stand up, speak up, and rise against this authoritarian take over.
The Reckoning Line
The Reckoning Line
Where silence breaks, truth sharpens, and courage takes its place.
This collection stands at the edge of illusion and awareness—a space for those who see through the chaos and choose to respond with clarity and conviction. Whether through bold statements, symbolic designs, or quiet defiance, each piece is a marker on the line we must all walk when the moment calls us to reckon—with ourselves, with history, with the future.
Every democracy reaches a moment like this — a moment when the future narrows to a single, urgent choice: surrender to fear and fatigue, or stand up and participate.
Ours has arrived.
We are not powerless. We are not voiceless. But we are at risk of believing we are — and that belief is the most dangerous weapon in the authoritarian arsenal. The antidote isn’t grand gestures or perfect solutions. It’s small, consistent acts of defiance. It’s refusing to be silenced. It’s daring to believe that collective action still matters.
Carl Jung wrote that the “shadow” — the darker impulses in ourselves and society — must be faced and integrated, not ignored. That’s what democracy demands of us now: to face the shadow of manipulation, apathy, and fear, and transform it into purpose.
Democracy on the Brink: The Devil Definitely Believes that He Is God | From Sept. 2023 blog
We have 40 days. Forty days to prove that democracy is not a relic of the past, but a living promise to the future. Forty days to reject the fog and see clearly. Forty days to stand up, speak out, and show up.
The future is still ours to write — but only if we write it together.
📚 Explore & Act
Read:Sapience: The Moment Is Now — for a deeper dive into the psychological and historical roots of our current crisis.
Equip:Sapient Survival Guide — tools and insights to stay grounded and active in the age of manipulation.
Signal: Check out the “90 Million Didn’t Vote” yard sign and resistance gear — because sometimes, the simplest act of visibility sparks a conversation that changes everything.
Wait, There Is More
After all the whining, sniviling, and downright lying MAGA did about the 2020 election, cumulating in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, what if it turns out that MAGA stoled the 2024 election… that Trump did not win and that Kamala should be our President today?
Does this sound far fetched?
Listen… and learn.
Democracy on the Brink — Nathan Taylor, Executive Director of Public Engagement for Election Truth Alliance, joins us to discuss discrepancies in the 2024 election and how to bolster election integrity Election Truth Alliance Website: https://electiontruthalliance.org/2024-us-election-analysis/
Democracy on the Brink: Listen to X (who Elon call his minime) tell Tucker how Elon Musk used Star Link (which he calls SpaceX… ‘casue when your name is X, everything is called X, right?) to Do Whatever They Want to Help Trump Win the 2024 Election… “They’ll never know…” … evil laughs….
Democracy on the Brink: Why I Might Be Too Late
Why it might be too late for America to not collapse:
Ex-Republican Exposes DARK FORCE Behind Trump Support | The Weekend Show
It is the 4th of July 2024! The United States of America has withstood so many moments of greatness, disaster, conflict, trauma, war and peace. Through it all, for 248 years, Americans of all makes and models, Americans great and small, rich or poor, immigrant or native (and most modern Americans are by far immigrants… it is ignorance to argue otherwise) have managed to come together and stand together when the times of required us to act as one body to achieve our destiny.
But this July 4th, Americans stand divided. Americans are more fractured than ever, perhaps more divided than Americans were on April 11, 1861. This is the day before the Civil War began. Evidently, the division that plunged Americans in the the bloody Civil War did not end on April 9, 1865. It rages on today.
Today, we face a stark choice: Biden or Trump. To vote for a third candidate is to shrink from your duty to make a hard choice. It is a cop out. It is playing the game of chicken when America needs you to play the game of defending democracy for the future.
Is the choice easy?
No, of course not. When the stakes are high, when is a choice that matters ever easy?
Biden is old, but he is wise. Trump is old, and he is pig-ignorant.
Biden is frail, but he tells the truth. Trump is vigorous but lies like the Devil.
Biden fumbled the debate, but his is good. Trump fumbled too, and he is evil.
What is evil?
I talk about it in my book available on Amazon titled: Sapience: The Moment Is Now.
Sapience: The Moment Is Now (available on Amazon!)
Evil is Live spelled backwards. When a human being ignores too much of reality, humans are capable of creating conditions that do not support life. In other words, the make a livable world un livable. That is evil, pure and simple.
What is ignorance?
I also talk extensively about this in my book on Amazon. Ignorance is ignoring certain parts of reality so that you can know more about one thing or another. We all must learn to ignore the world in order to know certain parts of the world. This is how we gain knowledge. But too much ignoring leads straight to foolish ignor-ance. This is where we are with the Cult of Trump and MAGA.
So, why MIGA?
If you shorten Making Ignorance Great Again, and you get MIGA. I got this idea while swimming and created it on my iPad. Basically, I took the A in MAGA crack it in half to get the lopsided I (the broken piece of A that is going to fall over because every opposite thing needs its other half to stand strong). I added an orange with a MIGA hat on top in homage to Orange Jesus.
Thank you Liz Cheney for revealing in your book that is what MAGA followers call Trump.
In short, this is what it seems to me what MAGA is bent on doing… making up fiends and foes out of common, ordinary people living in America who happen to have different ideas, lifestyles, color of skin, political or religious beliefs, or anything else they want to make a big fuss about. To do this, the very first thing that must be done is to divide Americans into “us” and “them”. Then, once the division is made, the “us” group gets to go around screaming, shouting, and raging about reality not being how or what they want it to be. It’s so easy to rage.
It’s hard to do the work to really understand the complexities of nature, much less a huge, complicate country like the USA. So, just forget about trying to understand all nuances, complexity, or differences… just cut reality in half, throw away or get rid of the part you don’t like, and plough ahead with half a head and a lopsided mind. In other words, ignore complexity. This is how you get MIGA out of MAGA.
MIGA… Making Ignorance Great Again! See the MIGA Collection now available on my Etsy store: The Quip Collection.
How Would A No Labels Presidential Candidate Change the Outcome in 2024?
This blog focus on the idea that the non-profit organization called No Labels plans to put a third party candidate into the 2024 Presidential Campaign. While I agree with Ryan Clancy’s idea of creating more choice for American voters, it is an extremely, short-sighted, ill-conceived, and premature idea to try to do this year.
While 60,000 voters think a third party candidate can win, so far no third party candidate has ever come close to getting a toe hold into the White House. There are so many more MAGA voters inspired by cooky myths, lies, and the very scary Seven Mountain Mandate men, of whom Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are examples of women leaning heavily into “Let’s Do Medieval Again!“
The Stakes
This year, more than any year in American history, the stakes are higher than most people care to believe or admit or reckon with. Having Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West already running on third party tickets is concerning. So now, we want more choice and add a No Labels ticket too?! Really, this year, when King Kong and his MAGA base is coming to rip down democracy and replace it with the Christian Alt Right Stary-Eyed, Let’s Have Kings Again, The Seven Mountains Mandate men?!
Who are The Seven Montains Mandate men and women? Think Handmaids Tale.
It is not: “Oh the guy I voted for didn’t do the one thing I really wanted him to do, so I’m not voting for him again.”
This is an ignorant, short-sighted, and extremely selfish opinion. Running a country of 331+ million people democratically is not done by waving magic wands and fixing this problem instantly, then this problem, then that problem, and so on and so forth…
Do you live in reality people who give this as a reason for not voting for Joe? MAGA voters are a whole different story. They are a battering ram. They want to destroy democracy and rebuild America as a Totalitarian Christian Nationalist Country. Do you, ordinary voters unhappy with Joe want to live in a Christian Nationalist State run by one of the stupidest men on the planet… the Orange Baby?
Bradley Onishi is a former Christian nationalist who's now a professor of religion and the author of Preparing for War, a critique of the movement and its impact on American democracy.
BRAD ONISHI: I think it has. Christian nationalism is having a moment. It's having a moment in ways that it's requiring those who adhere to its principles and ideologies to respond to it. Folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and others have talked about the ways that Christian nationalism not only informs their understanding of politics, but how they identify explicitly as Christian nationalists. And so we are at a point in American politics where Christian nationalism is something that many people are discussing.
GROSS: Are there many people in Congress who are affiliated with Christian nationalism?
ONISHI: I think it's fair to say that, yes. One of the things that's true about our Congress is that it is disproportionately Christian. Now, there are many different types of Christian people in our Congress from various denominations. However, if we look at the GOP and we look at the tenets of the party's policies and its approach to the upcoming elections, we find core Christian nationalist ideals in that platform. And we find many, many, many members of Congress from the GOP who support those principles. So from outgoing Speaker Kevin McCarthy to current speaker Mike Johnson, all the way to senators and other members of the House, there are many folks who I would describe as Christian nationalists in the United States Congress.
GROSS: What are some of the fundamental principles of Christian nationalism? Like, how would you define Christian nationalism?
ONISHI: I think in very simple terms, Christian nationalism is the idea that Christian people should be privileged in the United States in some way - economically, socially, politically - and that that influence and that privilege is a result of the country being founded by and for Christians. Christian nationalism is not the idea that others can't be here - that if you're a Muslim or an atheist, that you have to leave. It's also not the idea that only Christians can be part of the government. However, for most Christian nationalists, there is a core belief that the story of the United States is one where it has been elected by God to play an exceptional role in human history, and as being chosen by God, it's the duty of Christian people to carry out his will on Earth.
So Christian nationalists take an approach to their Christianity that says it should have an undue influence on our government, on our economics, on our culture, and that it is by dint of our history, the religious faith that is meant to be privileged in our public square. With that said, there are different kinds of Christian nationalists and different ways that people manifest their understanding of the term. But when it comes down to it, if we all sit down as Americans at a table and there are people from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different faiths, and someone who is a Christian says, just by being at this table, I should have a special place, well, to me, that's Christian nationalism because you're saying that somehow this country is yours in a way that it is not for everyone else. And to me, therein lies the problem.
Go to Fresh Air to listen or read the rest of this interview. It is really, really important!
And this is really creepy:
GROSS: An extreme group of Christian nationalists is the New Apostolic Reformation, and they advocate the Seven Mountain Mandate, which is that Christian nationalists or Christians should lead government, family, religion, business, education, media, arts and entertainment, and that they - all of these sectors should reflect the kingdom of God. And I think I mentioned all seven there. So what does that mean to reflect the kingdom of God in family, religion, business, education, media, arts and entertainment, and the government?
ONISHI: The Seven Mountains mandate is a particular form of understanding human society that says that Christian people are not called to persuade their neighbors to practice the Christian faith, to demonstrate to their fellow Americans that the Christian faith is the faith of love and truth. The Seven Mountains Mandate is, as my colleague Matthew Taylor says, a mandate to colonize the Earth for God. The seven domains as you listed them - arts and leisure and the economy and the government, the family - are seen as mountains of conquest. The goal is not dialogue with neighbors who may be Muslim or atheist or Hindu. The goal is not to simply reflect the character of Christ on earth by way of living a life that upholds his glory and his teachings. The goal is to have absolute authority and power over every facet of human society.
And so we can see here what I take to be a very dangerous approach to practicing Christianity in the public square. It is not one that recognizes democracy or dialogue, pluralism as sacred values. The goal is power. The goal is conquest. And so when one hears about a politician or a leader or anyone in influence, especially as part of our government, who adheres to the Seven Mountains Mandate, that should set alarm bells off immediately.
Democracy Is Not: “Joe’s too old, Joe’s too square, Joe’s too this or that...” This is just as stupid, impatience, ignorant reason to not vote for a known and vetted winner: Joe Biden.
There was a time in the not so distant past when age was considered a plus and must for a ruler. Wisdom takes time to ripen and mature inside of people. And it does not come to everyone who ages… look at the overly large, orange, baby King Kong with his revved up mad as hell MAGA base.
Do you think they are worried about the Orange Giant being too old… his less than 4 years younger than Biden!! Anyone giving this as a reason not to vote for Joe is suffering from ageism and is pretty ignorant about how a government governing 331+ million people really works! It takes a lot of people to make it work… good people who are appointed to their positions in a timely fashion and have the expertise and experience to do their jobs. Trump had the most vacancies in top, critical positions of any former President. Some key positions were never appointed under the Orange Giant.
Democracy Is Not: “I’m mad a Joe for aiding Israel.” Modern nation-states are messy… alliances are messy… the world is messy and hard and cruel… that is why nations make alliances, and when Israel was attacked by HAMAS in one of the bloodiest, most gruesome slaughters of innocent people of this century, of course US comforts and supports Israel. There is so much going on behind the scenes that you and I never hear about. The death of any innocent person is intolerable. And Joe and his cabinet are doing their damn best to push for resolution, ceasefire, peace. But, tell me, anyone threatening not to vote for Joe because he can’t wave his wand and make this bloodshed stop… DO YOU REALLY THINK THE ORANGE GIANT (the man to put in place the Muslim Ban days after taking office)…. DO YOU REALLY THINK he is a better option?! I was mad at Obama for not doing more to stop the slaughter of Syrians being bombed by Russia as they aided their ugly ally Bashar al-Assad.
Take A Minute, Learn Something… Maybe Something New
Do Americans really understand democracy? Do Americans really cherish it? Do American comprehend what is at stake this year?
No Labels Debate
It is a choice. Listen to this debate and listen to Fresh Air if you are truly concerned about making an informed, intelligent choice.
The centrist group No Labels is planning to host a bipartisan nominating convention in 2024. This is leading some people to speculate that they may promote a third-party candidate that better reflects the perspective of middle-of-the-line voters who don’t favor President Biden’s re-election bid or Donald Trump receiving the Republican nomination.
Those who say it will help Trump argue the group doesn’t have enough influence to make lasting tangible change and worry that promoting a third-party unity ticket will give an unpopular candidate like Trump a lower threshold for votes that would’ve gone to Biden.
Those who disagree say voters who are discontented with both major parties but particularly opposed to Trump, might turn out in support of the third-party candidate, indirectly reducing Trump's chances.
With this context, we debate the question: “How Would A No Labels Presidential Candidate Change the Outcome in 2024?"
Rahna Epting argues that the No Labels Party does not have a path to win the presidency. Ryan Clancy argues a No Labels unity presidential ticket has a viable path to win the White House in 2024. Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates.
Open to Debate:How Would a No Labels Presidential Candidate Change the Outcome in 2024?
Feature Archetypal Animation
Music: Mickey Mouse Operation | Little People — [11] Fisticuffs At Dawn 1:02
Putin is a serial murderer responsible for decades of death. In case you have not been keeping count, this is a partial list of his history of mass murder.
And others who should be added to his warrant for arrest include: Trump and his MAGA zombies (failure to past funding to Ukraine), Kim Jong Un (supplying missiles to Russia), Xi Jinping (supporting and supplying Russia with weapons of war), Iran (supplying missiles to Russia), and any Putin sympathizers.
Just Another Da with My Boys! |Music: YMCA — Villiage People
The Russian apartment bombings
These were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing more than 300, injuring more than 1,000, and spreading a wave of fear across the country.
About 300000 people have been killed during two wars in Chechnya over the past decade, a senior official in the province’s Moscow-backed government said.— Al Jazeera
Human rights organizations accused Russian forces of engaging in indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force whenever they encountered resistance, resulting in numerous civilian deaths. (According to Human Rights Watch, Russian artillery and rocket attacks killed at least 267 civilians during the December 1995 raid by the Chechens on the city of Gudermes.[46]) Throughout the span of the first Chechen war, Russian forces have been accused by Human Rights organizations of starting a brutal war with total disregard for humanitarian law, causing tens of thousands of unnecessary civilian casualties among the Chechen population. The main strategy in the Russian war effort had been to use heavy artillery and air strikes leading to numerous indiscriminate attacks on civilians. This has led to Western and Chechen sources calling the Russian strategy deliberate terror bombing on parts of Russia.[65] According to Human Rights Watch, the campaign was "unparalleled in the area since World War II for its scope and destructiveness, followed by months of indiscriminate and targeted fire against civilians".[66] Due to ethnic Chechens in Grozny seeking refuge among their respective teips in the surrounding villages of the countryside, a high proportion of initial civilian casualties were inflicted against ethnic Russians who were unable to find viable escape routes. The villages were also attacked from the first weeks of the conflict (Russian cluster bombs, for example, killed at least 55 civilians during the 3 January 1995 Shali cluster bomb attack).
Russian soldiers often prevented civilians from evacuating areas of imminent danger and prevented humanitarian organizations from assisting civilians in need. It was widely alleged that Russian troops, especially those belonging to the Internal Troops (MVD), committed numerous and in part systematic acts of torture and summary executions on Chechen civilians; they were often linked to zachistka ("cleansing" raids on town districts and villages suspected of harboring boyeviki – militants). Humanitarian and aid groups chronicled persistent patterns of Russian soldiers killing, raping and looting civilians at random, often in disregard of their nationality. Chechen fighters took hostages on a massive scale, kidnapped or killed Chechens considered to be collaborators and mistreated civilian captives and federal prisoners of war (especially pilots). Russian federal forces kidnapped hostages for ransom and used human shields for cover during the fighting and movement of troops (for example, a group of surrounded Russian troops took approximately 500 civilian hostages at Grozny's 9th Municipal Hospital).[67]
The violations committed by members of the Russian forces were usually tolerated by their superiors and were not punished even when investigated (the story of Vladimir Glebov serving as an example of such policy). Television and newspaper accounts widely reported largely uncensored images of the carnage to the Russian public. The Russian media coverage partially precipitated a loss of public confidence in the government and a steep decline in President Yeltsin's popularity. Chechnya was one of the heaviest burdens on Yeltsin's 1996 presidential election campaign. The protracted war in Chechnya, especially many reports of extreme violence against civilians, ignited fear and contempt of Russia among other ethnic groups in the federation. One of the most notable war crimes committed by the Russian army is the Samashki massacre, in which it is estimated that up to 300 civilians died during the attack.[68] Russian forces conducted an operation of zachistka, house-by-house searches throughout the entire village. Federal soldiers deliberately and arbitrarily attacked civilians and civilian dwellings in Samashki by shooting residents and burning houses with flame-throwers. They wantonly opened fire or threw grenades into basements where residents, mostly women, elderly persons and children, had been hiding.[69] Russian troops intentionally burned many bodies, either by throwing the bodies into burning houses or by setting them on fire.[70] A Chechen surgeon, Khassan Baiev, treated wounded in Samashki immediately after the operation and described the scene in his book:[71]
The Second Chechen War saw a new wave of war crimes and violation of international humanitarian law. Both sides have been criticised by international organizations of violating the Geneva Conventions. However, a report by Human Rights Watch states that without minimizing the abuses committed by Chechen fighters, the main reason for civilian suffering in the Second Chechen War came as a result of the abuses committed by the Russian forces on the civilian population.[94] According to Amnesty International, Chechen civilians have been purposely targeted by Russian forces, in apparent disregard of humanitarian law. The situation has been described by Amnesty International as a Russian campaign to punish an entire ethnic group, on the pretext of "fighting crime and terrorism".[95] Russian forces have throughout the campaign ignored to follow their Geneva convention obligations, and has taken little responsibility of protecting the civilian population.[94] Amnesty International stated in their 2001 report that Chechen civilians, including medical personnel, have been the target of military attacks by Russian forces, and hundreds of Chechen civilians and prisoners of war are extrajudicially executed.[96]
According to human rights activists, Russian troops systematically committed the following crimes in Chechnya: the destruction of cities and villages, not justified by military necessity; shelling and bombardment of unprotected settlements; summary extrajudicial executions and killings of civilians; torture, ill-treatment and infringement of human dignity; serious bodily harm intentionally inflicted on persons not directly participating in hostilities; deliberate strikes against the civilian population, civilian and medical vehicles; illegal detentions of the civilian population and enforced disappearances; looting and destruction of civilian and public property; extortion; taking hostages for ransom; corpse trade.[97][98][99] There were also rapes,[100][101][102] which, along with women, were committed against men.[103][104][105][106][107][108] According to the Minister of Health of Ichkeria, Umar Khanbiev, Russian forces committed organ harvesting and organ trade during the conflict.[109]
Russian forces have since the beginning of the conflict indiscriminately and disproportionately bombed and shelled civilian objects, resulting in heavy civilian casualties. In one such occasion in October 1999, ten powerful hypersonic missiles fell without warning and targeted the city's only maternity hospital, post office, mosque, and a crowded market.[110][111][112][113] Most of the casualties occurred at the central market, and the attack is estimated to have killed over 100 instantly and injuring up to 400 others. Similar incidents include the Baku–Rostov highway bombing where the Russian Air Force perpetrated repeated rocket attacks on a large convoy of refugees trying to enter Ingushetia through a supposed "safe exit".[114][115] This was repeated in December 1999 when Russian soldiers opened fire on a refugee convoy marked with white flags.[116]
The 1999–2000 siege and bombardments of Grozny caused between 5,000[117] and 8,000[118] civilians to perish. The Russian army issued an ultimatum during the Grozny-siege urging Chechens to leave the city or be destroyed without mercy.[119] Around 300 people were killed while trying to escape in October 1999 and subsequently buried in a mass grave.[120] The bombing of Grozny included banned Buratino thermobaric and fuel-air bombs, igniting the air of civilians hiding in basements.[121][122] There were also reports of the use of chemical weapons, banned according to Geneva law.[123] The Russian president Putin vowed that the military would not stop bombing Grozny until Russian troops quote 'fulfilled their task to the end.' In 2003, the United Nations called Grozny the most destroyed city on Earth.[124]
Another occasion of indiscriminate and perhaps deliberate bombardment is the bombing of Katyr-Yurt which occurred on 4–6 February 2000. The village of Katyr Yurt was far from the war's front line, and jam-packed with refugees. It was untouched on the morning of 4 February when Russian aircraft, helicopters, fuel-air bombs and Grad missiles pulverised the village. After the bombing the Russian army allowed buses in, and allowed a white-flag refugee convoy to leave after which they bombed that as well.[125] Banned Thermobaric weapons were fired on the village of Katyr-Yurt. Hundreds of civilians died as a result of the Russian bombardment and the following sweep after.[126][127] Thermobaric weapons have been used by the Russian army on several occasions according to Human Rights Watch.[128]
Syria
6,950 civilians dead
The Syrian regime was responsible for 201,055 of these deaths, with the victims including 22,981 children and 11,976 women, while Russian forces killed 6,950 civilians, including 2,048 children and 977 women.Mar 15, 2023 -- ReliefWeb
Ukraine
500,000+ killed since Putin invaded
Casualties in the Russo-Ukrainian War included six deaths during the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, 14,200–14,400 military and civilian deaths during the war in Donbas, and up to 500,000 estimated casualties during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. -- Wiki
The second year of war dragged on through Ukraine slowly and with little mercy. The first year of the war was a story of the resilience of people amid conflict that has turned into one of perseverance as the conflict has stagnated, with no end in sight.
Bohdan Semenukha and his mother, Viktoria, walk frequently through the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, just a few blocks from the new apartment where they moved after fleeing Kharkiv, in the country’s northeast, in January 2023. | Claire Harbage/NPR
Never Again
Music: Jupiter & Jaguar — Blond:ish | Welcome to the Present & Chants of Native Earth | Shamanic Moon (Native American Drums) | From February 24, 2022 | “Never Again” the World Once Said“
Alexei Navalny
‘It’s a torture regime’: the last days of Alexei Navalny
Each morning at 5am, Alexei Navalny was roused with the words “Wake up!” as the Russian national anthem played on the prison loudspeakers. It was always dark in the polar night above the Arctic Circle, and the temperature outside could fall below -30C (-22F). The convict would have a sheepskin coat and an ushanka hat to keep warm in a prison colony better known by its nickname: the Polar Wolf.
To read whole article, go to The Guardian for full article by Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer
Full List of Putin Critics Who Have Died in Mysterious Circumstances
For over two decades, President Vladimir Putin has squeezed dissent in Russia. Critics, journalists, and defectors have faced dire consequences after opposing him. From poisonings to shootings, mysterious falls from windows, and even plane crashes, there is a long trail of silenced voices.
Alexei Navalny, whose death in prison is as yet unexplained, had previously fallen ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow in 2020 after being poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent. Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who defected and was a prominent Putin critic, was murdered with polonium-210 in London in 2016. -- Newsweek
Previous Blogs Dedicated to Ukraine & Vanquishing HATE
Feature Archetypal Animation from last year’s blog marking the first anniversary of Russia’s full scale invasion — February 24, 2023 — Ukraine | “Never Again” the World Once Said“
February 24, 2023 | “Never Again” the World Once Said““You Want It Darker? We Kill the Flame!” — Leonard Cohen | Leonard Cohen is telling us exactly what WE need to do in this moment of Ruthless Barbarity, the darkness Putin has plunged the world into once again, WE KILL THE FLAME... We (the Good People of Earth who honor life and respect freedom) WE kill the flame of EVIL Putin lit in 2014 and dramatically escalated last year! We don’t have a tomorrow to do this if we want OUR World Back. | | February 24, 2023 | “Never Again” the World Once Said““Look Mom! I’m A Monkey for Putin!” | Music: Wizard of the Hood (Collector’s Edition) | Violent J — Shiny Diamonds | Putin should be careful as Xi Jinping may very well turn Putin into his Flying Monkey! | February 24, 2023 | “Never Again” the World Once Said” | And HE is still Putin’s Pigeon… he has simply pulled the entire Republican Narc Bubble into his Pigeon Hole with him | SHAME ON YOU MAGA Republicans who are leaving Ukraine blowing in the disgusting breathe of the Putin fiend.From March 2023Feature Archetypal Animation marking Russia’s full scale invasion into Ukraine — February 24, 2022 — Ukraine Letters
My friend, Susan Katz Miller, wrote this wonderful book about embracing two religions in one family. She tells in this blog (that I am re-blogging) about a book reading she recently did about her book by the same name: Being Both and reflects on this precarious moment the world faces.
I can’t wrapped my head around the hate Hamas has been cultivating and growing for 16 years since rising to power in Gaza, and many more before this. The hostile brutality of their murder rampage on 10/7 cannot be let go without serious, significant consequences. I would murder them myself if I could.
NYT: Israel Shares Raw Footage of the Oct. 7 Attacks The Israeli military showed the compilation to foreign reporters on a day when Israel continued to bombard Gaza with heavy airstrikes.
‘It was animal slaughter’: Israeli festival survivor describes horror
And then the suffering of the people of Gaza, the 2.2 million people being used by Hamas as human collateral, disposal pawns in their Hate War to incite millions of people watching as they point their fingers and cry like the little, frighten men that they really are how brutal Israel is being to them.
Buildings destroyed after Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah | ABC News
Narratives are funny things, especially when used to evoke and manipulate millions into emotional responses such as rage and fury. What I have heard in the days and weeks since the barbarous butchery Hamas unleashed on 1,400 innocent human beings, is an Israeli man who feels guilty and helpless because he cannot rescue his kidnapped wife and daughters. And I have heard of a Palestinian man who feels guilty and helpless because he cannot protect or even find clean water for his wife and two sons.
What kind of beings have we become when we can murder women, children, and babies. One cannot take any side and claim blamelessness of sin. And yet to bath one’s mind in hate and to teach one’s children and countrymen to hate, this is some human beings excel in doing. And no one is going to win in the end. No one is blameless, and no one deserves to be deprived of basic human rights, especially the right to live and life for being Jewish, Palestinian, Christian, Muslim, or for being black or brown, red or white.
I pray for peace, for understanding, for justice, for a kinder and more compassionate world where all human life is precious and celebrated. Where children learn how to grow and cultivate tolerance, cooperation, and compassion. We seem so very far away for such a world–War in the Middle East, War in Ukraine, threats and insults from dictators and terrorists tempting, baiting, provoking the rest of the world to be their very worst selves… because a world like that… bullies, villains, thefts, and monsters win.
Life is fragile. It can end in an instant. Don’t waste it hating others because you really just hate yourself if that is all you can do.
Hate is a suicide pact. Hate never ends peacefully with a perfect world. Hate is not Heaven.
Preface to Calculating Hate from the Perspective of 2026
In 2023, when I first wrote Calculating Hate: It’s In Their Eyes, I was trying to understand something visible but difficult to name. It was there in the coldness of political speech, in the ease with which some people stripped others of dignity, and in the frightening normality of public cruelty. In 2026, that question has only become more urgent.
Hate rarely begins as open violence. It begins as calculation.
Throughout history, ruthless rulers have understood this. They study grievance. They locate fear. They identify old wounds, old humiliations, old tribal loyalties, and then they turn them into political fuel. They do not create hatred from nothing. They cultivate what already exists—resentment, insecurity, fear of change, fear of loss—and then give it permission, language, and targets.
That was part of Donald Trump’s political genius and danger. To win again in 2024, he did not need to persuade the whole country. He needed to deepen fracture, intensify fear, and turn alienation into loyalty. He tapped into what I call Trump’s Ignis Fatuus—the false light that appears to guide but instead leads people deeper into the swamp. It promises restoration, greatness, belonging, strength, and protection. But it feeds on anger, grievance, humiliation, and division. It burns brightest when people feel disoriented and afraid.
The old architecture of American racial power still matters. The murder of Emmett Till remains one of the clearest examples. His white accusers and killers lived inside a social order that protected them. Their whiteness itself was sufficient entry into the circle of impunity.
That circle has changed.
Today, whiteness alone is no longer enough. The elite circle has narrowed and hardened. Increasingly, entry requires ideological loyalty, political obedience, wealth, and willingness to look away. Under Trumpism, the test is not merely racial identity. It is whether one accepts the degradation of others as necessary, normal, or profitable. It is whether one will ignore the humanity of immigrants, political opponents, the poor, the vulnerable, and even democratic institutions themselves.
Trump did something historically significant: he divided white America against itself.
He did not simply intensify racial division between white and nonwhite Americans. He turned citizenship into a loyalty test. He separated those willing to submit to grievance politics from those unwilling to surrender democratic norms. That fracture matters. It reveals that authoritarian movements are not merely about race. They are about hierarchy, obedience, and the concentration of power.
And once a political movement learns how to criminalize one group, it rarely stops there.
History shows the sequence clearly. First come immigrants. Then dissidents. Then journalists. Then educators. Then political opponents. Once the machinery of dehumanization is normalized, the category of “enemy” expands.
That is why the current moment feels so dangerous. What many now call the Epstein class is not merely scandal or spectacle. It reveals something darker about elite moral decay. The playgrounds of the ultra-rich—private islands, private compounds, private networks of access and immunity—expose a culture where ordinary human beings become objects, instruments, entertainment, and disposable bodies.
And this is not reducible to one party.
That is the harder truth.
The rot runs through both major political camps, through finance, media, celebrity, corporate power, and oligarchic privilege. The defining credential is not ideology. It is access. It is wealth. It is insulation from consequence. It is the belief that rules exist for other people.
Jeffrey Epstein understood this with predatory precision. He built environments where wealth, boredom, appetite, immunity, and moral vacancy converged. He understood that extreme privilege often produces not wisdom but numbness. And numbness, left unchecked, can become cruelty.
That same psychological and moral architecture sits at the center of my book, Sapience: The Moment Is Now.
In that world, humanity pushes past the climate cliff. Nation-states fracture. Corporate states rise. Power concentrates in the hands of super-rich CEOs and their loyal enforcers—the Uppers—people rewarded not for conscience but for obedience.
At first glance, their worlds look dazzling.
But beneath the spectacle lies something deadened.
Their playgrounds are not places of joy. They are theaters of psychic collapse—constructed by people consumed by boredom, domination, self-hatred, estrangement from life, and the inability to feel what ordinary human beings still can: empathy, grief, wonder, love, responsibility.
That is what makes hate so dangerous.
It does not merely destroy its victims.
It hollows out the souls of those who wield it.
And that may be the deepest warning of 2026.
America is not only confronting political extremism. It is confronting a spiritual and psychological crisis—a struggle over whether human beings will continue to recognize one another as human.
The eyes still tell the story.
The question is whether enough of us are willing to look.
Introduction to Calculating Hate form 2023
On April 25, 2023, Carolyn Bryant Donham died in Westlake, Louisiana. She was 88 years old.
Sixty-eight years earlier, as a 21 year old girl, she accused the black teenager Emmett Tilll of whistling at her, grabbing her hand, and asking for a date. All of this except maybe the whistle (which could have been someone else, even someone white) was a lie, but her husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam took it upon themselves to mete out justice, Jim Crow justice, justice laced with hate and loathing.
With Carolyn in the car, Roy and Milam broke into Emmett’s uncle’s house, kidnapped him, then beat, shot, and lynched Emmett beyond recognition. They threw his broken body into the Tallahatchie River where it would not be found for days.
The year was 1955. Because of the bravery of Emmett Till’s mother who insisted on an open casket funeral, the lynching of Emmett Till in Mississippi ignited the spark for the Civil Rights Movement, which would crash across America trying to washout hate.
But hate is a mighty sticky thing. It clings to craggy rocks inside the mind that are full of grievances, grumbles, and grudges. White people cling to hate in order to feel important,in command, and confident about their place in the world. Having seizing power centuries earlier, White people have created tremendous systems of inequality and injustice. And now, White people cling to these corrupted systems for dear life!
They do so because they don’t know if they really can stand on their own two feet. They really don’t know if they can make it in the world where everyone has equal rights, equal opportunities, and true equity. White people are afraid of their own incompetence, ineptitude, and inadequacy. I am White. I know.
I also know hiding behind a wall of seething hate makes people feel powerful for a minute, but that feeling is fleeting. And hate is a very heavy thing. Hate drags people down into Pits of Ignorance. These are very deep, very dark, and very nightmarish place inside every human being, except we are too scared to look.
Calculating Hate: Notes for Book
But that’s the cure! Looking!! That is the only way to vanquish the haunting ghost of hate. Looking and confronting your own Pit of Hate, is the only way not to be controlled by hate. A person has to face it, to own it, and eat it. It is part of being a conscious being.
If you are human, you are processing all sorts of awful feelings and emotions that are in direct competition for your conscious attention. The only way not to get sucked in to one hole or another is to keep both opposites, both sides of yourself, within your gaze of conscious awareness.
Justice is a very important element in digesting consciousness and growing a stronger psychological-spiritual body over time.
Calculating Hate: This undated photo shows Emmett Louis Till, who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in the Mississippi Delta in August 1955 after witnesses claimed he whistled at a white woman working in a store. ( File / AP Photo ) | Photo from The Take Away, May 1, 2023
No, there won’t. They last person involved in his murder has died.
This is the woman responsible for telling the lie that got Emmett Till killed.
I only learned about Carolyn Bryant Donham’s death yesterday (about a week after she died). I was wrestling with a section in my book about hate. I heard about her death on the Take Away while taking a break trying to do a refresh of my muddled mind.
Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry was speaking with with Timothy B. Tyson who is the author of The Blood of Emmett Till and senior research scholar at Duke University. She was also speaking with Keith Beauchamp who is an award-winning filmmaker behind the documentary “The Untold Story of Emmett Till” and producer of the movie “Till” about what Bryant’s death means in the quest for justice in Emmett Till’s murder.
Side note: I am so disappointed with NPR for cancelling this show. We are living through times of unprecedented violence, ignorance, and hate. To survive such times, we need diverse voices. Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry through this show provides such a voice. It is a significant lost on the landscape of sanity, truth, and recovery from the fatal infection of hate.
Calculating Hate: This 1955 file photo shows Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of making improper advances before he was lynched. (Gene Herrick, File/AP Photo) | Photo from The Take Away, May 1, 2023
Calculating Hate:The Take Away — Emmett Till
Melissa Harris-Perry recounts the events of that fateful day in 1955.
On August 28th, 1955, two adult white men, Roy Bryant and JW Milam, kidnapped 14-year-old Emmett Till at gunpoint from his uncle's home in Money, Mississippi. It was the middle of the night. Bryant and Milam beat and shot Emmett. They used barbed wire to tie a cotton jean fan to his neck, and they threw him into the river. When Mamie Till-Mobley received her son's remains, the child was disfigured beyond recognition.
She made a choice so vulnerable and courageous; it altered the course of history. At her insistence, for five days, Emmett's mutilated body lay in an open casket. More than 50,000 people visited the Southside Chicago Church where he lay and millions more saw the shocking photos of the brutalized Boy in Jet Magazine. All bore witness to the stomach-churning realities of Bryant and Milam's racist violence.
"When people saw what had happened to my son, men stood up who had never stood up before. People became vocal who had never vocalized before. Emmett's death was the opening of the Civil Rights Movement. He was the sacrificial lamb of the movement." -- Mamie Till-Mobley
Melissa Harris-Perry: Her steel-spined courage launched a movement for justice, but Mamie Till-Mobley never received even a modicum of accountability for the murder of her son. In 1955, an all-white Mississippi jury refused to convict the killers, and in 1956, Look Magazine paid the men $4,000 to print their confession to the murder. Throughout it all, there was a third co-conspirator, Carolyn Bryant now Carolyn Bryant Donham. It was Mrs. Bryant who told her husband and brother-in-law that Emmett Till whistled at her. It was Mrs. Bryant who told the 1955 Mississippi jury that Emmett physically accosted and sexually propositioned her.
It was Mrs. Bryant, who during the trial, brought her own young sons to the courthouse, dressed in their Sunday best. It's Mrs. Carolyn Bryant captured in a Black and white photo who stands with her head thrown back in laughter, embracing her husband Roy at the end of that farce of a trial. It's a photo that still haunts my dreams and my waking. Late last week, Carolyn Bryant now Carolyn Bryant Donham died at the age of 88 while in hospice care. Joining me now is Tim Tyson, senior research scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and author of The Blood of Emmett Till. Tim, welcome to The Takeaway.
You can read or listen to the entire interview here.
Calculating Hate:My Take Away of The Take Away
I zeroed in on a point in their conversation about how jovial and happy the defendants were when a white jury found Roy and Milam Not Guilty.
Several months after their acquittal, the two men with the help of their defense attorney sold their story to Look Magazine where they admit their guilt. They get even more recognition and celebration by vast swaths of the White Community bathing in racism and hate.
I had to find a picture of these jubilant hate-filled white people. I did. It is very jarring. They are so young, so jubilant, so ignorant (and happy of it). What is even more jarring is that Carol’s sister-in-law, Juanita, looked a lot like me when I was that age.
With that recognition, I immediately realized that if had I grown up in a community infused with hate and racism, I could have easily been that girl smiling so brightly in the courtroom knowing they had all just gotten away with murder.
This recognition of how easily I could have been her is frightening. It elicits a deep and profound feeling of disgust and self-loathing inside myself. I want to condemn her and them, but I know I need to be honest about my own ignorance and hate.
So how do I do that?
The first step is recognizing that hate lives inside of me. It lies in wait like a sleeping dog ready to jump up and bite anything that threatens me, rejects me, injures me, makes me feel bad about myself, threatens my family, threatens my livelihood, threatens my beliefs.
Hate lives inside all of us. If you are a human being who thinks, you are creating hate. It is a natural byproduct of thinking, just like pooping and peeing are natural byproducts of eating. We all produce it just by being human and thinking.
Thinking is division. Thinking is cutting the world up into smaller and smaller pieces to understand it, predicate it, and make it feel safer for us to exist. But when you split the world into pieces in an effort to control it, you always get opposites. We name these opposites Good and Bad, or you might know them as Us and Other (the Evil Other).
So, I recognized myself in the picture of Carolyn and her sister-in-law laughing in court. And then, I found this picture of Carolyn. This picture captures her hate. I see it in the rigid tilt of her head, the stiffness of her shoulders, the hardness of her face, and mostly, I see it in her coldpinpoint, hard eyes.
Calculating Hate: Woman whose accusation led to the lynching of Emmett Till has died at 88, coroner says | Image from CNN report on Carol’s death — You see the hate in her eyes clearly in this photo
When a person is calculating hate, their eyes narrow like slits. The pupils grow smaller and hard like bowling balls. Their glare hardens like ice picks. They are calculating how to kill you.
This the glare I see in this picture. It glare people recognize all over the world. When you see this glare, you should run!
Another source about Carolyn and the murder of Emmet Till is accounted by American Experience: Getting Away With Murder.
It turns out that Roy, Carolyn, J. W. Milam, and Juanita were poor, really poor!
American Experience recounts:
Carolyn Bryant, the daughter of a plantation manager and a nurse, hailed from Indianola, Mississippi, the nucleus of the segregationist and supremacist white Citizens' Councils. A high school dropout, she won two beauty contests and married Roy Bryant, an ex-soldier.
The couple ran a small grocery, Bryant's Grocery & Meat Market, that sold provisions to black sharecroppers and their children. The store was located at one end of the main street in the tiny town of Money, the heart of the cotton-growing Mississippi Delta. They had two sons and lived in two small rooms in the back of the store.
To earn extra cash, Roy worked as a trucker with his half-brother J. W. Milam, an imposing man of six-feet-two inches, weighing 235 pounds. Milam prided himself on knowing how to "handle" blacks. He had served in World War II and received combat medals.
On the evening of August 24, 1955, Emmett Till went with his cousins and some friends to Bryant's Grocery for refreshments after picking cotton in the hot sun. The boys went into the store one or two at a time to buy soda pop or bubble gum. Emmett walked in and bought two cents' worth of bubble gum. Though exactly what happened next is unconfirmed. She stormed out of the store. The kids outside said she was going to get a pistol. Frightened, Emmett and his group left. -- American Experience
Their collective act of violent hate made them popular! In fact, it made them celebrities for a minute.
Calculating Hate:Carolyn Bryant, Chicago Defender | Photo from American Experience — Getting Away with Murder — The hate is not there yet, in her head, it is a latent potential waiting to jump out…
Some reporters talked about Roy and Carolyn's "handsome looks" and J. W.'s tall stature and big cigars. They even alluded to Carolyn as "Roy Bryant's most attractive wife" and a "crossroads Marilyn Monroe." -- American Experience: Getting Away With Murder.
She is pretty in this photo. The hate is not in her eyes. She looks soft and like a doll, which how women had to look back then. Even though women had won the right to vote several decades earlier, misogyny still ruled and ran rampant just like racism. Carolyn knew being pretty was her only asset.
During the trial, the families arrived with their sons dressed in their Sunday best, Roy and J.W. in starched white shirts while their wives donned cotton dresses. Many whites in the surrounding counties showed up to watch the show. They brought their children, picnic baskets and ice cream cones. Meanwhile, African American spectators were relegated to the back and looked on in fear.
Carolyn testified under oath, but outside the presence of the jury, that Emmett said "ugly remarks" to her before whistling. -- American Experience: Getting Away With Murder.
Making up her lie about Emmett Till lifted Carolyn above her station in life, which was a pretty poor station with very few prospects, despite being pretty.
She hadn’t even graduated from high school. Her biggest accomplishments up til this time was winning two beauty contests and marrying Roy, then popping out two babies all before turning 21.
But suddenly, she was popular! Really popular! Hate had made her Great! She was getting noticed and being showered with so much love by others harboring and clinging on to hate, which was most White people in the South just like her.
Now, fast-forward to May 3, 2023. Have we changed very much since this horrible crime?
Calculating Hate: Archetypal Animation from January 2022 blog | When Do We Get To Use Violence? They hate is clearly in Bannon’s eyes as well as loathing…
Calculating Hate:Hate Is Popular
Calculating Hate: Young protestors during the Birmingham Campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, May 1963. The movement, which called for the integration of African Americans, was organized by Martin Luther King Jr. and Fred Shuttlesworth amongst others. (Photo by Frank Rockstroh/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | From 1A; May 2, 2023
Emmett Till’s death ignited the Civil Rights Movement. And a little less than 10 years after his brutal murder, it would be written into law through the civil rights act of 1964.
But not before a lot of pain and suffering occurred as recalled in this interview on 1A.
“Hate was popular,” Jeff Drew tells Jen White in an interview about The Birmingham movement, 60 years later produced by 1A. “What we were trying to do and continue to try to do is bring awareness that everyone is important. Every human being is important.”
On May 2, 1963, hundreds of school-age kids in Birmingham, Alabama, woke up with a plan.
Through coded messages broadcast by local radio DJs, they were given the signal to leave the classroom and meet at the park for a peaceful protest against segregation in the city.
“My mother said, ‘I’m sending you to school, don’t get in any trouble’,” said Janice Kelsey, who was a 16-year-old high school student in Birmingham at the time. “I was going to school. I just wasn’t going to stay.”
Jeff Drew also participated in the Children’s March. His parents were involved in the Birmingham movement for civil rights and hosted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in their home.
“You cannot imagine the joy of being on one of those buses on your way to jail,” said Drew. “We were nearly dying to participate.”
Janice Kelsey and Jeff Drew joined us at the Carver Theater in Birmingham last month for a community conversation on the fight for civil rights then and now. Their actions as students in the spring of 1963 brought national attention—and a new momentum—to the civil rights movement, support for which had been waning as more adults were jailed and reluctant to be arrested.
Civil rights leaders, including James Bevel, recruited young people to participate in a peaceful demonstration on May 2, 1963 in what became known as the Children’s Crusade. Hundreds of kids were arrested by police for parading without a permit. Images of police dogs and firehoses being used on students in the city highlighted the injustices in Birmingham and prompted President John F. Kennedy to express support for federal civil rights legislation.
On our trip to Birmingham, we also spoke to the next generation of activists. Ashley M. Jones is a Birmingham native and the Poet Laureate of Alabama. At 32 years old, Jones is the state’s youngest-ever poet laureate and the first person of color to hold the position. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin also joined us to talk about how the city’s past informs his role today.
This conversation was recorded in April as part of our Remaking America collaboration with six public radio stations around the country, including WBHM. Remaking America is funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
And, 59 years after the Civil Rights Act, White Americans are still rolling in raging pools of hate. Hate is still immensely popular, so popular, people are making tons of money selling it to all the grumpy people holding onto grudges and hurts and who need to take a daily swim in their pool of hate to feel better about themselves!
We have lots of new celebrities helping to spread and celebrate hate. Here are three who have recently been in the news. But there are tons more! We are literally being drown them.
Calculating Hate: The Donald, The Rupert, The Tuckered-out Carlson — Drawing by me
America has a huge problem with hate. We love it so much we want to tear our country in two again. The Civil War really did not end on April 9, 1865. It lives inside the minds of people who are swimming in their private pools of hate.
But, we don’t have to worry… collective hate is running rampant all over the world.
Hate remains really popular everywhere!
Calculating Hate:Collective Hate
So, let’s tackle Collective Hate.
Calculating Hate: Hitler, Putin, Ruthless Rulers… Epstein Class
We all know what it is. Collective Hate is when one group of people dreams about crushing another group of people because it makes them feel powerful (for a minute, this kind of power is fleeting too).
When a group of people full of hate actually act on their hate-filled fantasies, they act like fanatical freaks. That’s because they are… because they have drained the humanity from their being, leaving nothing but a husk that looks human but acts like raging monster crushing, killing, stealing everything from the people they hate.
Collective hate is visceral. It is so toxic it drives the people infected by it mad. Mad humans infected by hate will do the most vicious, brutal, savage things like Roy and Milam did to Emmett Till. Mad, hate-filled humans act in barbaric, fiendish, heinous, hideous ways. It’s an epidemic on Earth right now.
Let’s delve into how hate wraps around a person’s heart and mind to steadily squeeze the humanity out of them.
Calculating Hate:Carolyn Bryant’s Story (or More Aptly Her Great Disappointment)
Now, there is no way I can possibly know what Carolyn was thinking or feeling that terrible day, but let’s suppose, she was feeling a little bit sorry for herself and unhappy about her life. She was a beautiful woman. She knew she was a beautiful woman.
If only things had gone a little bit different 90 years earlier, which is when the Civil War ended (April 9, 1865), she would probably, no: most certainly, she would be living a completely different life right now! (Hate always happens in the Now)
Why instead of being the daughter of a plantation manager and a nurse from Indianola, Mississippi, Carolyn Bryant might instead be a beautiful, beguiling Southern belle like Miss Scarlett O’Hara! But, if only for one tiny, little glitch, that snatched her wonderful, beautiful life away like Gone With the Wind!
Of course the wind that blew her dream life away was that the Confederate lost the Civil War.
Scarlett O’Hara’s best lines (Gone with the Wind)
Because of this glitch, she was condemned to run a small grocery, Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market, selling provisions to black sharecroppers and their children. She took turns with her sister-in-law, Juanita, watching their children and tending the store while their husband’s drove trucks to make extra money because they were all very poor.
The store was located at one end of the main street in the tiny town of Money, the heart of the cotton-growing Mississippi Delta. And also right next to Indianola, Mississippi, which was the nucleus of the segregationist and supremacist white Citizens' Councils.
Carolyn was a high school dropout, she won two beauty contests and married Roy Bryant, an ex-soldier. They had two sons and lived in two small rooms in the back of the store.
-- American Experience: Getting Away With Murder
This was not the life she was supposed to live. She was sure of that! And this made her mad, and more than a little bit grumpy as well as resentful.
These feelings are the perfect ingredients for hate to take root and grow. Combine her personal grievances with the steady drum beat of the Southern Segregationist and White Supremacists constantly spreading their toxic thinking far and wide and polluting the collective swimming pool of human connections that everyone needs to survive, Carolyn Bryant was the perfect instrument of hate.
She bought into the thinking that White people are suppose to give the orders and be in control. She bought into the feeling of being deeply wronged that White people couldn’t stack the social decks in their favor they way they used to do. She bought into the fantasy of yearning for and bringing back the old way of life in the deep South.
Carolyn Bryant was the perfect poster girl for Southern Hate.
Calculating Hate:Crash Course on Cognitive Dissonance
Segregationist and White Supremacists use cracks between reality and people’s dreams/fantasies to break social bonds. One of the things they work hard to increase in the hearts and minds of hurting humans is cognitive dissonance.
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things.[1] According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent.[1][2] The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.[1][2][3]
Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to sit with those seemingly opposite things that all seem true. Festinger argued that some people would inevitably resolve the dissonance by blindly believing whatever they wanted to believe.[4] -- Wikipedia: Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance in Politics
Cognitive dissonance theory might suggest that since votes are an expression of preference or beliefs, even the act of voting might cause someone to defend the actions of the candidate for whom they voted,[72][self-published source?] and if the decision was close then the effects of cognitive dissonance should be greater.
This effect was studied over the 6 presidential elections of the United States between 1972 and 1996,[73] and it was found that the opinion differential between the candidates changed more before and after the election than the opinion differential of non-voters. In addition, elections where the voter had a favorable attitude toward both candidates, making the choice more difficult, had the opinion differential of the candidates change more dramatically than those who only had a favorable opinion of one candidate. What wasn't studied were the cognitive dissonance effects in cases where the person had unfavorable attitudes toward both candidates. The 2016 U.S. election held historically high unfavorable ratings for both candidates.[74]
After the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won, supporters of former President Donald Trumpquestioned the results, citing voter fraud. This continued even after such claims were dismissed by numerous state and federal judges, election officials, governors, and government agencies as false.[75] This was described as an example of Trump supporters suffering cognitive dissonance.[76]
Cognitive Dissonance in Self-perception Theory
In Self-perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena (1967), the social psychologist Daryl Bem proposed the self-perception theory whereby people do not think much about their attitudes, even when engaged in a conflict with another person. The Theory of Self-perception proposes that people develop attitudes by observing their own behaviour, and concludes that their attitudes caused the behaviour observed by self-perception; especially true when internal cues either are ambiguous or weak. Therefore, the person is in the same position as an observer who must rely upon external cues to infer their inner state of mind. Self-perception theory proposes that people adopt attitudes without access to their states of mood and cognition.[81]
As such, the experimental subjects of the Festinger and Carlsmith study (Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance, 1959) inferred their mental attitudes from their own behaviour. When the subject-participants were asked: "Did you find the task interesting?", the participants decided that they must have found the task interesting, because that is what they told the questioner. Their replies suggested that the participants who were paid twenty dollars had an external incentive to adopt that positive attitude, and likely perceived the twenty dollars as the reason for saying the task was interesting, rather than saying the task actually was interesting.[82][81]
The theory of self-perception (Bem) and the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger) make identical predictions, but only the theory of cognitive dissonance predicts the presence of unpleasant arousal, of psychological distress, which were verified in laboratory experiments.[83][84]
In The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: A Current Perspective[85] (Aronson, Berkowitz, 1969), Elliot Aronson linked cognitive dissonance to the self-concept: That mental stress arises when the conflicts among cognitions threatens the person's positive self-image. This reinterpretation of the original Festinger and Carlsmith study, using the induced-compliance paradigm, proposed that the dissonance was between the cognitions "I am an honest person." and "I lied about finding the task interesting."[85]
The study Cognitive Dissonance: Private Ratiocination or Public Spectacle?[86] (Tedeschi, Schlenker, etc. 1971) reported that maintaining cognitive consistency, rather than protecting a private self-concept, is how a person protects their public self-image.[86]Moreover, the results reported in the study I'm No Longer Torn After Choice: How Explicit Choices Implicitly Shape Preferences of Odors (2010) contradict such an explanation, by showing the occurrence of revaluation of material items, after the person chose and decided, even after having forgotten the choice.[87]
There’s a lot more to cognitive dissonance, but I digress and I am sure you see how this is a very handy tool in sowing fields and polluting rivers full of hate.
Now let’s get back to hate mongers and how they used cognitive dissonance to grow huge toxic waste pits of fetid, stinking hate. That is because hate is a natural malodorous waste product of thinking. A normal healthy human being is supposed to poop it out, not eat it. But that is what hate mongers know how to do. They know how to make people eat their own shit.
Calculating Hate: Here’s How Hitler Did It — Hitler’s Ignis Fatuus
Let’s define Ignis Fatuus so you know what I’m talking about:
Ignis Fatuus is a mid 16th century word. It originate from modern Latin speakers amd literally means ‘foolish fire’ (because of its erratic movement). It has evolved to mean: something deceptive or deluding.
This definition and images come from Oxford Languages Dictionary. I kind of like Foolish Fire! And I think men like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Putin (some of the biggest killers) like it too! It's like possessing the power of Dark Magic, knowing how to get people to believe Foolish Pipe Dreams... stuff men like Hitler can say, knowing he will never, ever deliver on the promises he is making to the masses. They are illusions, delusions, nightmares cloaked by glitter and sickening charm.
So back to Hitler’s ignis fatuus. He was part of a great body of people who just suffered a huge lost. This big lost was due partly to a style of self-inflated vanity, stubbornness, snobbishness, and stupidity corrupting the German hierarchy, which led to a massive miscalculation that lost the war.
All Quiet on the Western Front | Official Teaser | Netflix
The war Germany lost was WWI. And they were punished by the victors, and rightly so, but like Carolyn Bryant and lots of White people who used to make lots of money using slave labor, some of the German people were sore losers.
Among these sore losers was Hitler.
Let me be very clear, not everyone who experiences trauma or crisis ends up becoming a sore loser. In fact, the vast majority of people do not, many even grow stronger and get even better at accepting and assimilating reality.
But there is also a percentage who don’t grow or can’t grow. This is who I am talking about here, Germans who could not accept and assimilate that they were wrong, they lost, they needed to change.
Among this group of sore losers is Hitler: a roguish, impish, and deceitfully deluded man as well as brash and brazen. He captivates just enough sore losers to gain some traction. One he got a little power, he leveraged it to get more.
Then, many more Germans flocked to him like some new, exciting lover. Not all, of course, many Germans were afraid and for good reason.
Hitler understood all this, and manipulate everyone to leverage even more power. One way he galvanized public support was creating a good foil/a scape goat. Hitler attacked the Jews and mongrels. He was going to make the world pure again.
This fantasy was the cornerstone of his convoluted ignis fatuss and the disaffected Germans fell for it–hook, line, and sinker.
Adolf Hitler came to power with the goal of establishing a new racial order in Europe dominated by the German “master race. -- United State Holocaust Memorial Museum -- 9/20/19
Adolf Hitler and the Nazis believed that the world was divided into distinct races. According to the Nazis, each race had its own traits. These ... -- Nazi Racism | Holocaust Encyclopedia -- 12/15/22
Hitler’s Plans for the World if He Won
Adolf Hitler Speech in 1935
Calculating Hate:Stalin’s Ignis Fatuus
Stalin’s ignis fatuus is similar, but he rode to power on the back of Lenin and the Russian Revolution, a wave that was sweeping across the world. It was a backlash to rapid industrialization and the ridiculous amount of power and wealth landing up in the hands of a very few; the rich, evil capitalists! See a pattern here?
Stalin carefully calculated his chances to take control of this great wave. When his chance came, he took it with tremendous ruthlessness–killing every rival in his party without mercy.
His passion for control mutated him into one of the world’s biggest control freaks. Russia still suffers to this very day from the devastation Stalin wrought. He is the very reason why Putin now controls Russia. Putin is imitating Stalin to a tee. Putin is pushing his foolish vision of a Great Russia once again on his poor, demoralized, broken, diminished people. They are so because Stalin killed so freaken many enlightened, differently thinking Russians.
Stalin's “revolution from above” sought to build socialism by means of forced collectivization and industrialization, programs that entailed tremendous human ... -- Library of Congress
Starting in the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin launched a series of five-year plans intended to transform the Soviet Union from a peasant society into an industrial ... -- History Channel
Terrifying Story Of Joseph Stalin’s Rise to Power
A Day in The Life of a Dictator: Joseph Stalin
"Once he decided to attain absolute power, he would never relinquish it," observes Alexandre Allilouiev, nephew of Joseph Stalin. "He was a monster." In order to achieve his goals, Stalin set about re-imaging the vast empire in his own image, which included the extermination of all those who dared oppose or refused to adhere to his ideology. The film follows the activities of Stalin on November 24, 1938 - a crucial day that set in motion the end of his Great Purge. -- A Day in the Life of a Dictator: Joseph Stalin
He believes he's been chosen by providence to create the ideal socialist, communists society. To do this, he must destroy everything to recreate it. He puts into action a scientific, systematic plan to purge unwanted peoples of Russia. - A Day in the Life of a Dictator: Joseph Stalin
Calculating Hate:Pol Pot’s Ignis Fatuus
Another brutal killer who cloaked his ugly shit under the same auspices of the Russian Revolution, the backlash to a rapidly changing, globalized world. Lots of people longed to go back to the old ways, the old life, the idealized past. And, this is what Pol Pot sold bundled up with with a lot of hate.
The Khmer Rouge, organized by Pol Pot in the Cambodian jungle in the 1960s, advocated a radical Communist revolution that would wipe out Western influences in Cambodia and set up a solely agrarian society. -- History Channel -- Jan 7
Pol Pot wished to create a state focused on their rural idyll, with all citizens pledging loyalty in a way which prohibited all ... -- Holocaust Memorial Day Trust
Pol Pot's objective was to construct a classless, communal and self-sufficient Kampuchea, unspoiled by foreign influences, intellectualism and ... -- Alpha History -- 9/12/20
In 1960, a small group of Cambodians, led by Saloth Sar (later known as Pol Pot) and Nuon Chea, secretly formed the Communist Party of Kampuchea. -- United State Holocaust Memorial Museum
The party's aim was to establish a classless communist state based on a rural agrarian economy and a complete rejection of the free market and ... -- Al Jazeera -- 2/3/12
World’s Most Murderous Dictator Pol Pot
Calculating Hate:Mao Zedong’s Ignis Fatuus
Moa Zedong also rode the Red Wave. He also sold an idealized, backwards looking China who would vanquish all the evil Capitalists and live happily ever after! Xi Jinping is riding on the back of Mao now.
Mao and his communist supporters had been fighting against what they claimed was a corrupt and decadent Nationalist government in China since the 1920s. Despite massive U.S. support for the Nationalist regime, Mao’s forces were victorious in 1949 and drove the Nationalist government onto the island of Taiwan. In September, with cannons firing salutes and ceremonial flags waving, Mao announced the victory of communism in China and vowed to establish the constitutional and governmental framework to protect the “people’s revolution.” -- Mao Zedong outlines the new Chinese government
Cultural Revolution: Mao believed that this would ultimately create a new society where there was no gap between urban and rural, laborers and intellectuals. What are some of the ... -- University of Washington
Communism, Capitalism, and Democracy in China: Mao wanted to eliminate capitalism and its emphasis on property rights, profits, and free-market competition. He followed the ideas of Karl Marx, who envisioned ... -- Constitutional Rights Foundation
Moa Zedong was willing to kill to make his dream a reality. He was willing to kill lots of people, and he did.
Why Mao Zedong Was The Most Brutal Tyrant
Calculating Hate:Putin’s Ignis Fatuus
Let’s play a different game with Putin! Let’s pretend he had an ideal childhood and experienced lots of love growing up and was surrounded by peace-loving, Earth-loving Russians. Perhaps the descendants of people Stalin was trying to kill but missed. This Putin is a happy, pot-smoking hippy!
Young Putin | 1967 Peace Rally on the Red Square
Yes! Before Putin was a KGB agent and mass murder, he was a happy, happy hippy!
What nice eyes this young, happy, hippy Putin has!
If only we could have this Putin back!
But sadly yes, this is a deepfake. It is made with AI. I saw an interview with the man who is making AI deep fakes, but he’s hiding, so I can’t share it.
Calculating Hate:Collective Hate
Collective Hate rises from inside each and every individual. It is the collective accounting of grievances and wrongsevery civilizations harbors, especially if they have been around for a long time. All civilizations go up and go down; the stock market goes up and down; all people’s lives go up and down; all living beings experience ups and downs… that is called being alive.
Hate attempts to grab hold of only one side of the wave. Haters only want to exist on the up part of the wave (the up and up, we’re going up, we’re on the rise).
But in order to do this, reality must be split into Good and Evil. Hate mongers step into the Good Fairy Bubble and spew the Evil they have cut off from themselves on everyone else.
They know the ordinary man and women are afraid of their own shadows. Of course they know this because most modern societies and civilizations teach people to be afraid of their own shadows!
Hate-filled fear mongers tap into this pervasive fear and anxiety that plagues pretty much ever human living in a civilization. They tell people how unfair the world is treating them. They get them really good and frighten about all the things coming to ‘get them like the boogeyman‘, and then tell them that the Evil Others did this to them. Then they tell them that they better fight like Hell to keep their lives the way they want it and get their fair share.
Really, what hate-filled fear mongers are really doing is getting people to eat their own shit. If there are people who don’t do as they are told, and if the hate-filled fear monger has power, the disobedient people are killed.
“Do as you are told or else!” — the hate-filled fear monger cries
This is a tale as old as time, which for human beings living in civilizations is about 5,000 years that when all this hate and fear and more hate and more fear really started to grow. You’ll have to read my book on why this is so.
But in the meantime, do we really want to live a world ruled by Shitty Ideas and Foolish Fires?!
I found this song entirely by accident. I love putting together ugly images with beautiful music. And this one matched better than I could ever have intended!
Lyrics by Musixmatch
You always do this stuff We’ll never be enough You were floating in the life We were floating in the life It’s in your eyes [Hate lives in the eyes]
You think that’s not fun, the day is done With no other feelings Just why are your eyes not shining in lights? [Hate shuts down life… the shining lights of life] There’s more than one meaning Just get what you want, but again you got numb, [Greed feds Hate] It’s because of freaking illusion [Hate grows in Foolish Fantasies, delusions, and illusions] That life is not fiction, the sense in the description of love, [Life is wiggly… it goes up and down… fiction tries to make life all up all the time… that’s a lie] It’s an awful conclusion [No one likes to admit they have to poop and pee, but it is true — the origins of Shame another great catalyst of Hate]
You could always turn it back [Yes, turning back is always such a great idea! Look where we are as a world in the year 2023! It’s so Great!! Let’s do more turning backwards!] Get another heart attack [Let’s see… there is the Putin heart attack, Xi Jinping heart attack, Trump heart attack… should I go on?!!!] We roll! We’ll find ourselves in love
Oh fuck… [Yep… we are pretty much fucked as a species due to our propensity to engage in Foolish Fantasies]
