Senator Amy Klobuchar is one of the top Democrats in the Senate. She could be fighting to protect democracy against fascists. She could be working on a new, better vision for Americans. But instead…
We should be getting ahead of it, just not in the particular way that Klobuchar wants it handled, at least not in the circumstances we currently find ourselves in.
Look, we literally have fascists in charge and they will abuse her proposed legislation as a tool to silence real criticism. She’s suggesting handing them the proverbial keys to shut down real satire speaking real truth to power. These are already lawless fascists, but they love to hide behind the idea of law, and laws like this that they can abuse to shut down dissent are their favorite kind.
Maybe a law like this could fly if we weren’t in a cold civil war, but right now it’s foolhardy because the people with the most power aren’t reasonable people and will abuse this to silence criticism.
Well first we have to disabuse ourselves of the notion that “law” is going to save us in the circumstances where the lawless have taken hold of every lever of power in government.
While we shouldn’t be descending into outright anarchy, it’s obvious the law isn’t going to save us and even Gavin Newsom is only doing something half-hearted. He’s not going balls-to-the-wall and saying “look we literally have fascists in charge, it’s time to do the unsavory to take the power back and hold them accountable, and that means ignoring the law as much as they do.” He’s proposing doing what the other side is doing but only if they actually do it. Unfortunately, to win against the lawless, you must become lawless yourself. Taking the high road has done nothing but get us deeper and deeper into this mess, and we’re past the point of no return. The time to handle this was by putting war criminals like Bush and Cheney in the Hague, or even further back, Ronald Reagan and Oliver North being taken to trial for Iran Contra. We no longer have the option of just trusting the law to sort things out. The other options we haven’t aren’t easy, but the most non-violent of them is a national strike, and a national strike will require groups to have first built parallel systems to support one another during a strike. Nobody is out here building parallel systems or getting organized to fight this in the only ways we can. I don’t know what to tell you about what else we can do, I’m not some master tactician in a crumbling society on the verge of outright civil war, but pretending that we can trust in the law when the lawless are in charge is foolish and naive.
We should be getting ahead of it, just not in the particular way that Klobuchar wants it handled, at least not in the circumstances we currently find ourselves in.
Look, we literally have fascists in charge and they will abuse her proposed legislation as a tool to silence real criticism. She’s suggesting handing them the proverbial keys to shut down real satire speaking real truth to power. These are already lawless fascists, but they love to hide behind the idea of law, and laws like this that they can abuse to shut down dissent are their favorite kind.
Maybe a law like this could fly if we weren’t in a cold civil war, but right now it’s foolhardy because the people with the most power aren’t reasonable people and will abuse this to silence criticism.
Wouldn’t this just stop deep fake satire? What does banning deep fakes do to completely ban satire?
Well what do we do then?
Well first we have to disabuse ourselves of the notion that “law” is going to save us in the circumstances where the lawless have taken hold of every lever of power in government.
While we shouldn’t be descending into outright anarchy, it’s obvious the law isn’t going to save us and even Gavin Newsom is only doing something half-hearted. He’s not going balls-to-the-wall and saying “look we literally have fascists in charge, it’s time to do the unsavory to take the power back and hold them accountable, and that means ignoring the law as much as they do.” He’s proposing doing what the other side is doing but only if they actually do it. Unfortunately, to win against the lawless, you must become lawless yourself. Taking the high road has done nothing but get us deeper and deeper into this mess, and we’re past the point of no return. The time to handle this was by putting war criminals like Bush and Cheney in the Hague, or even further back, Ronald Reagan and Oliver North being taken to trial for Iran Contra. We no longer have the option of just trusting the law to sort things out. The other options we haven’t aren’t easy, but the most non-violent of them is a national strike, and a national strike will require groups to have first built parallel systems to support one another during a strike. Nobody is out here building parallel systems or getting organized to fight this in the only ways we can. I don’t know what to tell you about what else we can do, I’m not some master tactician in a crumbling society on the verge of outright civil war, but pretending that we can trust in the law when the lawless are in charge is foolish and naive.