Wednesday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Good morning Deplorables, it’s hump day.

2020 Is Tumbling Toward 1917

Via The American Conservative

We think we’re safe from revolution. We’re wrong—it’s already in the works.

hen the Russian Revolution toppled the czar and put the Bolsheviks into power, the civilized countries of western Europe had good reason to tell themselves it could never happen to them. Russia was a barbaric country with a lopsided social structure, masses of peasants and no middle class to speak of. Their political system was a relic of the past, a time when street revolutions still happened. The rest of Europe was more modern, with constitutions and parliaments and labor unions. Any political conflict could work itself out through those proper channels.

Then came the German revolution of 1918-19, and civilized Europe had to recalibrate its sense of what was possible. Street unrest led to the forced abdication of the kaiser, the proclamation of a republic, a soviet government in Munich, and a near-miss of one in Berlin, only prevented by a timely blow to Rosa Luxemburg’s head. The uprising did not fulfill all its proponents’ hopes, in terms of ushering in a new socialist dawn, but it decisively refuted the idea that modern conditions had made revolution obsolete.

The Sixties left Americans feeling equally sure that a revolution could never happen here. An entire generation went into open rebellion, urban unrest exploded, tanks rolled through the streets of Los Angeles and Detroit, periodic bombings made many worry that the counterculture’s Lenin might be out there waiting for his moment—and yet we survived the nightmare unscathed. Americans concluded that our prosperity, or the flexibility of our political system, or maybe just the forward march of civilization, had transformed street rebellion from a genuine threat into a safe pastime for earnest young idealists.

But are we really so safe? In June, the great Russian literature professor Gary Saul Morson told The Wall Street Journal that America was starting to feel eerily familiar. “It’s astonishingly like late 19th-, early 20th-century Russia, when basically the entire educated class felt you simply had to be against the regime or some sort of revolutionary,” he said. Even the moderate Kadet Party could not bring itself to condemn terrorism against the czar, any more than a modern Democrat could condemn Black Lives Matter: “A famous line from one of the liberal leaders put it this way: ‘Condemn terrorism? That would be the moral death of the party.’”

Today, the Resistance is already signaling that they won’t accept a Trump victory in November any more than they accepted one in 2016. After the last election, they attempted a soft coup by means of the Russiagate scandal and impeachment. What kind of coup will come next? By looking at the Russian precedent, we can evaluate the risk that this country might enact our own distinctively American version of 1917—and how close we have come to it already.

Read the entire article HERE.

Texas Grand Jury Indicts Netflix For Child Porn Depicted In ‘Cuties’ Film

Via The Federalist

A grand jury in Tyler County, Texas indicted Netflix, Inc. for “knowingly” distributing the graphic and “lewd” film “Cuties” on its streaming platform.

Texas State Representative for District 6 Matt Schaefer announced the indictment, tweeting a picture of the official document Tuesday.

“Netflix, Inc. indicted by grand jury in Tyler Co., Tx for promoting material in Cuties film which depicts lewd exhibition of pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 yrs of age which appeals to the prurient interest in sex #Cuties #txlege,” he wrote.

The film, which depicts hypersexualization of young girls, is about a traditionally raised 11-year-old Senegalese girl’s journey to fit in with a “free-spirited dance crew.” The film contains scenes with nudity, twerking, child pornography, and sexually suggestive content.

According to the document, the indictment charges Netflix with “knowingly promoting visual material which depicts the lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 years of age at the time the visual material was created, which appeals to the prurient interest in sex and has no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

The indictment focuses on Netflix Co-CEOs Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. and Theodore Anthony Sarandos Jr.’s “issuing, selling, promoting, delivering, distributing, disseminating, transmitting, publishing, exhibiting, or advertising” the film on Netflix despite its graphic content

“The promotion of said film was authorized or recklessly tolerated by a high managerial agent of Netflix, Inc., namely, Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. or Theodore Anthony Sarandos Jr., acting on behalf of Netflix Inc. and within the scope of the agent’s office or employment at Netflix, Inc.,” the indictment states.

Read the entire article HERE.

The Post-Pandemic ‘New Normal’ Looks Awfully Authoritarian

Via Reason

We’re told that life is never getting back to normal, so we need to suck it up and accept a world of mask-wearing, economic disruption, and social distancing. It’s a denatured echo of the warnings we’ve heard before that government responses to COVID-19 are pushing the world toward authoritarianism—but dressed up as if that’s a good thing.

That’s unfortunate, given that less-intrusive responses to the pandemic are proving at least as effective as heavy-handed ones. And that’s before we even discuss the inherent value of the freedom that looks destined to be pushed aside by public health concerns and by disingenuous government officials.

“As 2020 slides into and probably infects 2021, try to take heart in one discomfiting fact: Things are most likely never going ‘back to normal,'” wrote CNN International Security Editor Nick Paton Walsh last week. In his piece he discusses the likely permanency of mask mandates, telecommuting, reduced physical contact, and similar changes to life.

Some of the alterations Walsh mentions may be matters of personal choice, but a good many of them are imposed by “politicians who pretend that ‘normal’ is just around the corner,” as Babson College’s Thomas Davenport says in the article.

We’re supposed to accept our newly constrained lives as “the new normal”—in a phrasing that’s already very tired, indeed.

Actually, repeated references to a “new normal” aren’t just tired; they’re ominous.

“As the need for an extension of quarantine into the summer or beyond seems likelier, the new normal will certainly include unanticipated trade-offs,” Andy Wang warned in May in the Harvard International Review. “The central irony of the crisis may be that the very methods that liberal democracies are currently using to effectively fight the virus are the same tactics that authoritarian leaders use to dominate their people. While the world is not sinking into authoritarianism, a post-quarantine world could be less democratic than its previous iteration; the tools that have been temporarily deployed in the fight against a once-in-a-lifetime disease may become permanent.”

These authoritarian tools may become permanent because government officials are rarely punished for doing something, even if the something is awful and counterproductive. It’s leaving things alone to be worked out by individuals according to their own priorities and preferences for which politicians get called out.

In addition, people who go into government tend to be the sort who naturally gravitate toward using power. And crises are excellent excuses for accumulating unprecedented authority and using it in novel ways.

Read the entire article HERE.

DA files charges against Allentown elections judge who darkened dots on ballots in Pa. House race

Via The Morning Call

Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin on Monday announced charges against an elections judge in Allentown’s 3rd Ward who was accused of tampering with ballots during the Democratic primary race for state representative between Enid Santiago and Peter Schweyer.

Everett “Erika” Bickford was charged with two election code violations: insertion and alteration of entries in documents, and prying into ballots, both misdemeanors.

During an interview with detectives, Bickford said she did not alter any ballots or change the voter’s choices, but admitted darkening some bubbles they chose, Martin said in a news release. She estimated that she darkened voters’ bubbles about 30 times, Martin said. Bickford also said she “trimmed” ballots’ jagged edges so the machine would accept them.

Bickford was not charged with altering or changing votes to favor either Schweyer or Santiago, who were vying for the Democratic nomination for the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s 22nd District.

Detectives examined all of the ballots cast at the 3rd Ward polling place and found no evidence of erasure marks, whiteout, or any other indications of a double vote in any of the races listed on the ballot, Martin said. They also found no spoiled, or discarded, ballots.

Santiago has maintained that Bickford “stole the election” on behalf of Schweyer, whom Bickford supports. Schweyer defeated Santiago by just 55 votes, or 1.26 percentage points. In the 3rd Ward, however, Santiago received 95 votes to Schweyer’s 52. Of the 85 ballots cast at the Lehigh Valley Government Center, the 3rd Ward polling place Bickford oversaw, Schweyer received 22 votes to Santiago’s 63.

Bickford, 69, said Monday afternoon that she will not resign as an elections judge and would plead not guilty because she acted with good intentions and did nothing immoral.

Read the entire article HERE.

Media Criticizes Trump For Downplaying Virus Threat By Not Dying

Via The Babylon Bee

WASHINGTON, D.C—President Donald Trump is once again under fire from the media for recklessly downplaying the danger of COVID by refusing to die. As the president begins to show signs of recovery, many worry that this sends the wrong message about the seriousness of the global pandemic.

“Every hour that he lives is another hour that the severity of this virus is undermined!” said reporter Sara Grace Major for CNN. “Why won’t he just DIE and show the American people how deadly this virus truly is?”

“Mr. President, are you sure you don’t need to lie down indefinitely or go on a ventilator?” asked another distraught journalist. “Maybe even say goodbye to your loved ones?!”

“Honestly, I feel terrific. Tremendous, really. I was never afraid of this virus before, but now I am even more not afraid. It’s sad, really. I was told this virus would be one tough cookie,“ Trump said to the press. “In fact, I’ve never felt better.”

“His defiance is going to get people killed. Dying like he’s supposed to would be the most patriotic thing he could do,” complained CNN correspondent Adam Pelot. “If he lives, how will the people be able to trust science?”

At publishing time, members of the press had begun pulling their own hair out as they watched the “incredibly strong and healthy” president go for a jog around the White House grounds.

Check out all of the Bee’s takes on politics and culture HERE.

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