Author Archives: cleek

Not A Coincidence

“Breaking History: A White House Memoir” hit book shelves on Aug. 23. Two weeks later, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, which raises money for two Trump PACs, paid retailer Books-A-Million $131,000 for “collateral:books,” according to a campaign filing made Saturday with the Federal Election Commission.

On Sept. 11, four days after that bulk purchase, Kushner’s book appeared for the first time on the New York Times best sellers list.

On Sept. 22, Save America purchased another $27,000 worth of books. “Breaking History” spent five weeks on the best-seller list before falling off.

Sunny Day Real Estate

At the Orange Peel in Asheville NC.

A show I never thought would happen. Not only did they postpone it after the singer's voice went out, two weeks ago, they have pretty much been on hiatus for the last dozen years or so. I've heard interviews where members loathed other members. Two of the original members went on to play with the Foo Fighters for a while. there were solo records. Seemed like SDRE was done.

But, things came together and three of the original four members, with two new members, went on tour.

SDRE's first album takes me right back to a very specific place and time. When I hear it I almost feel like they only existed in the mid 90s, in my green Hynudai Excel, sitting in Mt Hope cemetery, on Sunday afternoons, Rochester NY. Being 24. The other albums are all very good. But that first album ... it's golden.

Show was originally scheduled for two weeks ago, so Mrs and I planned a whole vacation around it. Asheville is a fun town and friends of ours own a BnB there. So, we did it up right. And the day of the show, last day of our trip, we got an email that the singer had lost his voice so they had to reschedule.

Two weeks later, another road trip and another night at the BnB, it all worked out. Mrs skipped. Like most people, she'd never heard of them and wasn't up for the four hour drive then standing for four hours in one spot, in a loud crowded club, listening to music she didn't know.

They've only put out one new song in the last 14 years, so everything they played was a classic. Loud as hell. Tight. And they seemed very appreciative of the fact that so many people came out to see them. Which was nice.

The Appleseed Cast opened. I'd never heard them and happily, they were amazing- noisy in a great way.

Cathedral Bells opened for them. They were fun.

So, all in all it was worth the 500 miles.

This is how fascism comes to America

This was written in May 2016. I didn't believe it, then.

This phenomenon has arisen in other democratic and quasi-democratic countries over the past century, and it has generally been called “fascism.” Fascist movements, too, had no coherent ideology, no clear set of prescriptions for what ailed society. “National socialism” was a bundle of contradictions, united chiefly by what, and who, it opposed; fascism in Italy was anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-Marxist, anti-capitalist and anti-clerical. Successful fascism was not about policies but about the strongman, the leader (Il Duce, Der Führer), in whom could be entrusted the fate of the nation. Whatever the problem, he could fix it. Whatever the threat, internal or external, he could vanquish it, and it was unnecessary for him to explain how. Today, there is Putinism, which also has nothing to do with belief or policy but is about the tough man who single-handedly defends his people against all threats, foreign and domestic.

To understand how such movements take over a democracy, one only has to watch the Republican Party today. These movements play on all the fears, vanities, ambitions and insecurities that make up the human psyche. In democracies, at least for politicians, the only thing that matters is what the voters say they want — vox populi vox Dei. A mass political movement is thus a powerful and, to those who would oppose it, frightening weapon. When controlled and directed by a single leader, it can be aimed at whomever the leader chooses. If someone criticizes or opposes the leader, it doesn’t matter how popular or admired that person has been. He might be a famous war hero, but if the leader derides and ridicules his heroism, the followers laugh and jeer. He might be the highest-ranking elected guardian of the party’s most cherished principles. But if he hesitates to support the leader, he faces political death.

...
This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac “tapping into” popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him.

Good Times 'a Coming!

If the words "Christian Nationalism" don't already make you wince, they should.

The Bible is just a prop for Donald Trump, and, like autocrats throughout history, he uses religion and religious leaders to consolidate the support of enraptured followers. It doesn’t really matter whether Trump himself is a Christian nationalist, since he is a salvific figure to Christian nationalists, one who can achieve their long-sought goals by crushing the “godless left” and giving them more power. One of the leading contenders to be Trump’s successor, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, is abusing his current office to engage in fascistic crackdowns on migrants, public education, and LGBTQ kids while making direct Christian nationalist appeals.

In recent political speeches, DeSantis has been using a verse from Ephesians 6 (“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes”), but with a notable substitution: instead of “the devil’s,” he has said “the left’s.” The meaning is not lost on evangelical audiences, who are well familiar with the actual words of the verse.