Re: Ted Rall Subscription Service (fwd)

[robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

 > From: Noelle <noelle>
 > Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2020 07:52:22 -0700 (PDT)
 >
 > un village francais?

I think his President Harris scenario is the most likely of these.  But, I
too am not optimistic.  This may be our retirement.  (Not that I was
expecting a wonderful retirement since we all know the global climate
crisis is coming like a giant tidalwave.)

 >  > From: Ted<http://www.send.mailchimpapp.com/~tedrall.aol.com>
 >  > Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2020 14:45:27 +0000
 >  > 
 >  > Vichy/ Free France and Lead up
 >  > 
 >  > Not long ago, there was a country whose people were suffering a devastating 
 >  > moral, political and economic crisis. Before the crash they were certain of 
 >  > their place in the world; theirs was, even in the opinion of their 
 >  > adversaries, an exceptionally prosperous, powerful and politically vibrant 
 >  > civilization whose culture had disproportionate influence around the planet.
 >  > 
 >  > Then everything collapsed. Just like that, seemingly out of nowhere, they 
 >  > were laid low, lost, no hope in sight.
 >  > 
 >  > No one was sure why. But there was no shortage of scapegoats. The left 
 >  > blamed the right, the right blamed the left, and everyone wondered whether 
 >  > it was simply a meta case of nothing good lasts forever.
 >  > 
 >  > Before the collapse this nation had been a military and economic colossus, a 
 >  > superpower possessing one of the world’s biggest navies (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=c36ed2a63e&e=c3adcc1cdb)
 >  > and one of its strongest armies. It controlled a 
 >  > vast empire. What had happened was unthinkable. Yet there it was.
 >  > 
 >  > This was France in 1940. In just six weeks, Germany—itself defeated and 
 >  > humiliated by France 20 years earlier—had invaded and subjugated this 
 >  > proudest of peoples. How, the French asked themselves, could they have been 
 >  > so unprepared? Why had their much-vaunted democracy, first in the West, 
 >  > failed?
 >  > 
 >  > In their time of need this desperate people turned to the leadership of a 
 >  > revered father figure, an elder statesman. His advanced age and halting 
 >  > manner worried some. (He was probably (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=8d7944c695&e=c3adcc1cdb)
 >  > suffering from Alzheimer’s.) The leader “is 
 >  > good for three or four hours a day... but when he is tired, especially in 
 >  > the evening, you can get him to sign what you want without him realizing,” 
 >  > one of his ministers said at the time.
 >  > 
 >  > The old man’s politics included unwholesome dalliances with reactionaries. 
 >  > But he had a long record of service to the nation. His patriotism was 
 >  > unquestioned. He claimed not to have sought power; he had stepped up, he 
 >  > reassured the people, to protect and guide them through a terrible time. “
 >  > I make France,” Marshal Philippe Pétain told (v) the French after 
 >  > ordering the army to surrender, “the gift of my person.”
 >  > 
 >  > France should have returned that gift.
 >  > 
 >  > Some wondered whether, at age 84, Pétain was too old to understand that he 
 >  > was being used. Playing on his name, critics called him “maréchal péteux�>  > ��—senile. The Marshal had certainly lost a lot of sharpness since World 
 >  > War I when he led the miraculous victory at the Battle of Verdun—“on les 
 >  > aura!” (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=6906c6d9e6&e=c3adcc1cdb)
 >  > he had cried to his dispirited troops, deliberately 
 >  > echoing Joan of Arc—that many believed to have turned the tide (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=bd13c1dd24&e=c3adcc1cdb)
 >  > of what had felt like a doomed war.
 >  > 
 >  > It is more likely that the Hero of Verdun, a vain and reactionary man who 
 >  > had always been stubbornly resistant to suggestions he might be on a wrong 
 >  > course, felt vindicated by the catastrophe. In his view, and he was hardly 
 >  > alone, louche liberalism had led France to a sorry fate. It was his fate to 
 >  > salvage the mess and keep the Germans at bay—and his opportunity to create 
 >  > a cult of personality under a pathetic sub-dictatorship.
 >  > 
 >  > As the rot of his brain proceeded, Pétain became apathetic and withdrawn, 
 >  > leaving the outright fascists in his puppet administration to collaborate 
 >  > with the Nazis enthusiastically. His government protected no one. It 
 >  > deported tens of thousands of Jews to Nazi death camps, tortured and shot 
 >  > members of the communist-led Resistance and turned over so much cash and 
 >  > food to the Reich that France soon had the highest hunger rate (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=a091d31b64&e=c3adcc1cdb)
 >  > in occupied Europe. Today Pétain’s name is 
 >  > synonymous with weakness and treason.
 >  > 
 >  > If the polls hold up and Trumpian legal challenges to mail-in ballots don’
 >  > t trigger a 12th Amendment scenario (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=41147f4ed3&e=c3adcc1cdb)
 >  > , polls indicate that desperate Americans are about 
 >  > to turn to a father figure with visibly diminished mental capacity to lead 
 >  > them out of a deep crisis whose causes and nature they have not yet 
 >  > internalized.
 >  > 
 >  > While it is undeniable that Donald Trump’s initial non-response to the 
 >  > COVID-19 pandemic and his bizarre refusal to embrace basic medical protocols 
 >  > increased the economic costs and killed more patients, the fundamental 
 >  > causes of the crisis were structural: predatory corporate capitalism that 
 >  > long predated his presidency, a for-profit healthcare system without a 
 >  > socials safety net, poor diet and obesity, staggering disparity of wealth, 
 >  > previous administrations’ outsourcing the manufacture of vital supplies 
 >  > such as masks, too much power vested in local and state governments.
 >  > 
 >  > I do not expect President Joe Biden to sell us out to foreign enemies. He 
 >  > will not fill his cabinet with proto-fascists, as did Pétain. Like Pétain, 
 >  > however, he has neither the vigor nor the vision nor  the political 
 >  > orientation required to get us through the coronavirus crisis or to correct 
 >  > the systemic flaws that made a terrible problem unnecessarily worse. When he 
 >  > was called upon to defend Anita Hill and block the confirmation of Clarence 
 >  > Thomas to the Supreme Court but enabled him instead, when he ought to have 
 >  > taken a stand for African-American men systemically condemned to draconian 
 >  > prison terms but joined the racist jail-them-all crowd, when he had doubts 
 >  > about the Obama Administration’s decisions to destroy Libya and Syria and 
 >  > remained silent—whenever he was required to stand tall and speak up—
 >  > Biden failed the test of leadership. And that was when he was a more lucid, 
 >  > younger man.
 >  > 
 >  > Not unlike Pétain, Biden seems unable to work more than a few hours a day (
 >  > https://rall.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=317c94f76a09aa357140ea82c&id=0fcc918586&e=c3adcc1cdb) .
 >  > 
 >  > If Biden wins, only three things can save us from this crisis. If he dies or 
 >  > is incapacitated and President Kamala Harris turns out to listen to better 
 >  > angels she didn’t reveal as DA, we may have a shot at recovery. If Biden’
 >  > s cabinet turns out to be a remarkably collection of Best and Brightest and 
 >  > he serves as their figurehead, we could muddle through. If the American 
 >  > people rise up and overthrow this corrupt and moribund government and 
 >  > replace it with one that serves our needs, and we somehow manage to avoid 
 >  > the despotism that often follows revolution, we might emerge better than 
 >  > ever.
 >  > 
 >  > I am not optimistic.