Prof. Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: ‘Lesssons from the Twentieth Century’ (2017) recently came my way. By design, it’s a brief presentation of twenty lessons that Snyder has discerned after a long career as a historian, with significant study and research on twentieth-century European history. It’s a small, inviting pamphlet addressing a big, unwelcome subject. We’ve…
Tyranny
Authoritarianism, Bigotry, Coronavirus, Corporate Welfare, Disinformation, Economy, Elections, Herrenvolk, Militarized Policing, Parodies, Propaganda, Protests, Public Health, Trump, Trumpism, Tyranny
The Juice Media: A Message from the White House (Pandemic, Autocracy, Corporate Cronyism, and Disenfranchisement)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Authoritarianism, Books, Coronavirus, History, Libertarians, Liberty, Public Health, Reasoning, Rhetoric, Russia, Tyranny, Walworth County
An Example of Bottomless Ignorance in Walworth County
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Some residents of Walworth County, Wisconsin object to public health measures to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. So hysterical is their opposition that one reads Opponents say county’s coronavirus safeguards are ‘like Russia’: Confronted by a raucous crowd of opponents fearing government intrusion, Walworth County Board members have backed away from a measure…
Authoritarianism, Trump, Tyranny, Unfit
War Zone
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America, Foreign Affairs, Trump, Trump-Russia, Tyranny
The Friend of America’s Enemies
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America, Authoritarianism, Trump, Trump-Russia, Tyranny
‘America Used to Stand Up to Dictators’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Alt-Right, America, History, Tyranny
‘When 20,000 American Nazis Descended Upon New York City’
by JOHN ADAMS • • 3 Comments
America has faced movements dark before, not only from abroad, but sometimes from within. It’s worth reminding ourselves, today, that in little over six years’ time after Nazis gathered in Madison Square Garden, the United States – through countless, painful losses and sacrifices – rightly destroyed the very nation that inspired those gathered in 1939.…
Alt-Right, Bigotry, Politics, Russia, Trump, Trump-Russia, Tyranny
Their Friends Are America’s Enemies
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It’s not easy to stand up to Vladimir Putin, just ask Alexei @Navalny – a look at life in Russia’s opposition pic.twitter.com/FhUNDB963u — The Guardian (@guardian) October 10, 2017 It’s no surprise, truly, that white nationalists who returned to Charlottesville chanted three main slogans: ‘You will not replace us,’ ‘Russia is our friend,’ and ‘the South will…
America, Authoritarianism, Enforcement, Law, Liberty, Military, Tyranny
Gingrich’s Defense of a Self-Pardoning Administration: From Bad (12.19) to Much Worse (12.21)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
On the Diane Rehm Show of 12.19.16, former Speaker of the House Gingrich offered that a Trump Administration could simply pardon its own advisors to remove those advisors’ unlawful conflicts of interest: I think in the case of the president, he has a broad ability to organize the White House the way he wants to. He…
Authoritarianism, Crime, Foreign Affairs, Trump, Tyranny
Someone the President-Elect Admires
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, overseer of a contentious and bloody crackdown on drug dealers and users, boasted on Monday about having personally killed criminal suspects when he was mayor of Davao City. “In Davao, I used to do it personally — just to show to the guys that if I can do it,…
Freedom of Speech, Tyranny
‘A Long Ride Toward a New China’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Looking for inspiration? Chinese blogger Zhang Shihe, writing under the pseudonym ‘Tiger Temple,’ defies an oppressive state to report on the hardships and corruption of rural life in China. It’s an understatement to say that he goes to extraordinary lengths – quite literally – to tell others’ stories and reveal injustices done to them. There…
Tyranny
Communists fabricated documents against Walesa
by JOHN ADAMS •
Of course they did. In the run of their atrocities, this was a day’s light work: Polish investigators say communist authorities fabricated documents that suggested Lech Walesa was a communist collaborator, to try to stop the Solidarity founder being awarded Nobel Peace Prize. It says everything one would ever need to know that even the…