Pussy hats: To be used as headwear, only. Ramon Dompor <\/p>\n
It's another compilation of letters to the editor! Here are some of our favorites from this week's e-mail bag:<\/p>\n
Nihilism is a belief that conditions in social and political organizations are so bad that total destruction is desirable for its own sake. Period. Nothing is better than something, especially if the something is our democracy. It was also the specific program of a 19th century Russian party advocating revolutionary reform, terrorism and assassination. <\/p>\n
America, my dear sweet and beloved country, meet Nihilism. It has arrived at your door. It is filling your halls of government and it has brought with it a sledge hammer. <\/p>\n
As they settle in, our nihilists are not just moving the furniture around to get comfortable. Or repainting. No, they are going directly to destruction. Unbelievably, they are at work destroying our government. They are already busy ripping it apart and with such a frenzy and glee and all the while screaming at us to just shut up. <\/p>\n
This is because nihilists dont much care what we think. They dont think about much except destroying things. Whether it is getting rid of clean air or a working state department or pesky regulations or accepting people who arent the same as they are. <\/p>\n
If one is a nihilist and has the power, it is not hard to tear down a democracy, no matter how strong and stable, and this is because the functioning of a democracy depends upon trust and men of good will. The nihilists figured that out. Use the system against itself and what ever you do, do it fast. Keep people off balance, stunned. <\/p>\n
I have a witness. Hannah Arendt, a German-Jewish philosopher forced out of Germany in 1933, came out of the horror of the destruction of her own country with a warning of how it began. She said many in Germany during the fall of the Weimar Republic were trapped by their own ideasthe new paradigm of authoritarianism that hit them was so fast and so disorienting that they simply could not see it for what it was, let along confront it. <\/p>\n
That odd sense of disbelief and disorientation you are feeling now is what I am talking about. It creates anxiety and an inability to know what to do. And that is what our new administration is counting onthe shocked and fearful deference of all to a suddenly unrecognizable governmentone of lies, evasion and moral rot. <\/p>\n
You feel this disorientation when Kellyanne makes up her new absurdity for the day and it becomes the truth. Bowling Green Massacre, anyone? Or when she describes the gaping wounds inflicted on her by media. Or when you uneasily notice how happy the autocrats around the world look. If Putins smile were any larger, it would split his face in two. <\/p>\n
You feel this disbelief and disorientation when they dismissively drag people off planes for the crime of being Muslim, or for being from one of the seven banned nations, whose citizens collectively account for zero U.S. terrorist deaths in our country since 1975. You get tired of Spicer lying. Get over it, people, he says, our ban only affected 106 people. How about 60,000 to 100,000 instead? Buried in lies. Buried in lies. <\/p>\n
Perhaps you felt it when you heard they replaced the non-partisan board in charge of Voice of America with two twentysomething boys, one a right wing blogger <\/p>\n
Or when they give the career diplomats and management professionalsthose who do our passports, return abducted children, evacuate American citizens in emergencies, and who process Freedom of Information requeststhe non-choice of resigning effective the next day, or be relieved of duty. And when you see the undersecretary of state for international security, en route to Europe, told to turn around and resign. <\/p>\n
They like to dismantle the structures and agreements of our government in ways that are cruel and dismissive, even inhumane, techniques used to make the recipient feel less than human, of not being worthy of being treated with dignity or compassion. <\/p>\n
And if you point this out, they say dont be so dramatic. Youre being hysterical. They say you are not seeing what you see, and that words have different meanings than what you thought, and that the media should shut its mouth. And if that doesnt work, they have one more alternative fact for you. I am stronger than you are now, so what you think doesnt matter anymore. <\/p>\n
Thats what dictatorships say. Not our country. Not until now. <\/p>\n
A Navy special ops Seal died the other day. Civilians, including children, died too because nihilists dont bother to pay that much attention. The nihilists went to dinner. And dinner was more important. Jared was there. For his military expertise? For the foie gras? You decide. Then they lied about their responsibility. Obama did it. <\/p>\n
Notice how the original troika of Trump, Bannon and Flynn, the madman, the white supremacist, and the conspiracy blogger, worked together, as Bannon took a full seat on the National Security Council, setting himself above the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of National Intelligence. As they fired the Attorney General for refusing to back the immigration order, endangering the independence of the Department of Justice. Look at their anger and attacks against their own people, meaning us. Pay attention to their abrupt and sloppy implementation of their own flawed executive orders, their Gestapo type round-ups. <\/p>\n
Watch their facades begin to slip as they struggle to destroy the separate powers protections of our government. Flynn is the first to leave. Kellyannes smile has definitely gone to fangs, and the Congressional leadership is looking more like the mindless zombies theyve become as they march lock step through our halls of government. <\/p>\n
They are not your friends. <\/p>\n
Nihilism does have a second act unless you throw it back into the pit it came from. That is the one in which the white supremacists, the neo-Nazis, the fascists, the Putin-type dictators, and the demagogues cobble together a gulag out of the rubble of our country when they are finished with their coup. <\/p>\n
No, Im not being hysterical. Im really pretty calm. Considering they are destroying my country. We are the majority. And yes, I suggest we resist. <\/p>\n
Rebecca Robins Sodikoff Bainbridge Island, WA <\/p>\n
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Read the rest here:<\/p>\n
Reader E-Mailbag: Pussy Hats vs Asshats, How to Save Obamacare, Nihilism in the White House - TheStranger.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pussy hats: To be used as headwear, only. Ramon Dompor It's another compilation of letters to the editor! Here are some of our favorites from this week's e-mail bag: Nihilism is a belief that conditions in social and political organizations are so bad that total destruction is desirable for its own sake. Period Continue reading