Do you think Congress has the will or the might to stop the chainsaw wielding maniac?
I hope so, but I fear they may not.
Unfortunately a law passed at the behest of previous Peronist presidents allows this kind of thing to pass if one chamber of Congress gives it the go ahead, which goes to show that you should always consider that the powers you are asking for yourself will be eventually wielded by your opponents.
Quite so. Can’t help but get the feeling that such measures are put in at best thinking that “once we fix this immediate need, we’ll give up this tool” (Narrator: they will not); or at worst that the tables will never flip or that if they do the “other side” won’t be able or willing to use the tools themselves (Narrator: they will and with great enthusiasm).
I mean, come on, by this time in history lawmakers can’t be such fools to think “of course, nobody will use this tool for anything except the good and virtuous things it’s meant for”. …right? 
Yet we still wind up with the phenomenon of “Show me exactly where in the LAW and Constitution it says I must, or must not, do this or preserve that, and just who is empowered to make me?” and then the only answer is a weak “But… but… it’s just not the way it’s supposed to be done!”
Yeah, people are remarkably dense about that.
A perennial favorite here is the idea that we need a law to stop the media from lying, do they lie? yes, and how!, specially when it favours the right.
Is it a good idea to legally prevent them from doing so? HELL NO.
Who defines what is a lie and what is the truth?
The judiciary here is 75% made of Clarence Thomas wannabes, and still the left periodically makes noise about laws to “force the media to tell the truth” seemingly not realizing that it would be turned against them so fast that they would be in jail before they had time to complain about the corrupt judiciary.
So when does he make the color blue illegal?
Or mandate that everyone wear their underpants on the outside of their clothing?
He already wants drivers to be able to crash into each other with uninsured cars. He sounds like he’s a few cards short of a full pack.
Oh that’s been obvious for a while now, to the eternal shame of those who voted for him
Another thing about the right wing loonies is that they don’t understand insurance, and that it is beneficial for society, businesses and the individual alike, hence their opposition to universal coverage, unemployment benefits, and the like. But to include car insurance in their rants? That is a new level of stupid to me.
My commiserations again, Frodo, it looks from the outside like it will have to become much worse before it starts to get better again. And the saddest thing is that such events are never taken as a warning sign by the others, like us, who will be heading in the same direction if we don’t do something about it.
Fascism Watch, Day 12, part 2 (is one of those days…)
I forgot to list one of the more important parts of the Decree from Hell: It designates as “Essential” a whole of occupations (Teachers, for example) severely limiting their right to strike.
In other news the government announces it’s going to send the bill for the cost of the security operative during yesterday demonstration to the organizations that promoted it… The right to peacefully assemble was last seen crying in the bathroom, I’m informed.
Meanwhile the president retweets a comic showing him putting a protester that bangs a pot (traditional way of expressing disgust with the government, funnily originating on the right side of the political spectrum) in jail…
No, those voters are missing those cards also- or maybe a full suit or more likely all cards over a nine. Remember, half the population has an IQ of 100 or less. That is who Right Wing Populists pander to. As said “You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons .”
Didn’t take long to do all of those… things. So if Trump is dictator for a day, no worries. Who needs elections?
I believe the U.S. institutional inertia is stronger than ours, but yes, it may not take Trump 12 days but he’ll try things like these and he’ll have about four years to do it…
I thought this might be good news. Until this “In interviews with conservative voters in the key state of Pennsylvania, the Guardian’s Chris Stein found more than a handful of former Trump voters who expressed growing alarm at the former president’s increasingly authoritarian rhetoric.”
MORE than a handful! That’s not so reassuring.
Fascism watch day 17:
In a new “omnibus” bill, sent to congress this time, the president asks for basically all congressional power to be delegated to him for a period of 2 years, extensible to 4 years…
The bill also requests:
- That any “demonstration” to be registered with the government 48 hours before it takes place, and defines “demonstration” as “any meeting of more than 2 persons in a public space”
- Transfers the retirement " Sustainability Guarantee Fund" (kind of a state managed mutual fund, used to pay what you’d call Social Security) to the general state treasury, meaning that probably all that I’ve paid for years for retirement is going to be used to pay the Debt…
- Dissolves the INADI (anti-discrimination institute)
- Dissolves several state organisms for the arts and culture
- Changes the way we elect representatives from proportional representation to single member districts (this one I kinda like but, knowing my countrymen, the districts are going to be gerrymandered so fast and so hard that Eldrigde Gerry himself will come back from the dead and renounce any claim on the name, gerrymandering will be called “argentinization” from then on)
Do you expect congress to be completely supine on this, or is this either a cover (You can’t blame me for not fixing it, because they stopped me) or a bargaining position (they reject, he counteroffers with the 2/3 or so he really wants and they cave at that point)?
Because option 2 or 3 is bad enough, but if congress just caves…
Well, yeah, that’s instant single party perpetual rule and likely de facto autocracy.
Frankly, I don’t know, I expected congress to roll over as it usually does when the right is in the executive, BUT, this may be too much, this should be too much…
It’s difficult to say if this is a bargaining tactic, it doesn’t seem to be the way such things are done (usually behind closed doors by talking with all the involved and giving them something in exchange, colloquially known as “rosca”)
Seriously, if this is every vaguely likely to pass, I’d guess they go after your ability to communicate freely (since in person becomes illegal per the above) online, so if you haven’t already, it may be time to look into a VPN or other option to secure your ability to communicate.
Which is a terror to have to type. I’m sure you’re also taking all other possible precautions, but I’ll repeat, stay as safe as you can be and still be true to yourself.
Another thing that terrifies me: this isn’t even in the news as far as major media is concerned. I did a quick check on CNN, not even on ‘World’ page, much less the front page. No, too concerned with a Korean actor who is dead of probable suicide due to a drug investigation!
The once powerful CGT (Confederacion general del trabajo, General Confederation of Labour) the biggest Trade Union federation has declared a general strike on January 24, which is encouraging (why not sooner though? were the notoriously corrupt union bosses trying to get something for themselves?).
Let’s hope they decide to a) Actually fight for their members and the general working population and b) succeed. Both things that haven’t come to pass in a long time.
How is that even possible?
There’s a clerk in a store, and a customer. Another customer comes in. They had to have applied for a permit two days ago?
There’s a busdriver. Driver can only take one passenger at a time? And no more than two can wait for the bus?
Two parents can’t walk out the door with their child, adult or otherwise?
– the only thing that can possibly mean is ‘we’re reserving the right to arrest anybody who walks out their door.’
Ding ding ding!!!
It’s the
We can arrest anyone at any time for any reason and charge them with anti-government behavior.
law. Every good dictatorship has one.