Revolution if Clinton Wins?

“Some Donald Trump Voters Warn of Revolution if Hillary Clinton Wins”
Ashley Parker and Nick Carasaniti, New York Times, 2016-10-27
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/politics/donald-trump-voters.html

Those threatening "revolution" if Donald Trump loses the Presidential Election don't really know the U.S. Constitution.

As to the elections being "rigged" consider

"Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections...of its own Members..."

- U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 5

This means that the outgoing House and Senate get to judge the elections to keep themselves in office or to judge the fairness of the election of their replacements.  If the Clinton "landslide" many are predicting comes true, wouldn't many members of Congress be out of office?  Do you really think there are so many Republican members of Congress who believe the elections are "rigged" that they would nullify the election of their successors?  Given the number of congressional Republicans disavowing Trump, I seriously doubt they would nullify the election of their replacements.

As to having a "revolution" consider

"The Congress shall have the power "To provide for calling forth the Militia to ...  suppress Insurrections..."

U.S Constitution, Article I, Section 8

Whatever the result of the election, would not most members of Congress, Republican or Democrat, be repulsed by an insurrection in support of a defeated Presidential candidate?

A cap on exec pay!

Shareholders to have say in exec pay.  See "Swiss Voters Move to Restrict Pay of Executives", Raphael Minder, New York Times, 2013-03-04.

Hm!  Arguments have been that the responsibility of corporate management is to give value to shareholders and all else is unnecessary, including shareholders having a competitive list of directors to choose from.

Then why do so many executives take value out of the company without shareholders' approval.

Will the Swiss vote be an exception to shareholder apathy or the start of an economic revolution?

The second American Revolution has started, and it ain't pretty

The Republican Party has become a revolutionary party, one that tolerates no opposition.

Consider that if a Republican politician doesn't follow party doctrine then he or she is is sidelined as soon as possible.  Why do you think there are so many ex-Republicans?  See Jim Ramstad's praise of Wellstone, "Remembering Paul Wellstone", Star Tribune 2012-10-19.

Consider that Republicans keep insisting that their solutions will solve certain problems even when experts point out historic facts that show similar policies have not worked in the past.

Consider that Republicans' stated goal at the start of Obama's presidency was to ensure he did not have a second term.  Some commentators think this is barely concealed racism.  This may be true, but it is also an effective smokescreen.  Their true motive may be to destroy the Democratic Party and to become the only party.

Consider the Republican claims of voter fraud. Are not voter ID requirements a thinly disguised attempt to reduce the number of Democratic voters?

Consider that the Republicans may have already started a civil war.  As they give more power to corporations, are they transforming our government from "by the people" to "by the corporations"?  Once corporations were tools of the people to be dissolved when their purpose was fulfilled.  Now people seem to be the tools of corporations to be discarded when no longer economically useful.

See "The Great Unraveling" by Paul Krugman.  He saw this revolution in 2003!

Consider that the Republicans call themselves "conservatives" but they are nowhere near being classical conservatives as defined by Edmund Burke in the Eighteenth Century.  In fact, many of the so-called liberals in the Democratic Party may be closer to the Burkian model of Conservative than the Republicans.  For more details, see "Why Voters Should Turn From the Pseudoconservative Party of the Great Recession, Part I", Louis M. Guenin, Huffington Post, 2012-10-24.  It is quite an indictment of the hodgepodge of conflicting ideas of the Republican Party.  Watch for Part II in the Huffington Post tomorrow (2012-10-25).

A couple of reads for the Independence Day (Fourth of July)

OK, I know it's a bit late in the day to recommend some reading for the Fourth of July, but any day is really a good day to pass these along.

"Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights", Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, 2007

This is mostly about cases that have been brought to court against the Federal or other governments and generally prevailed in one way or another.  These are all from the George W. Bush Presidency's "War on Terrorism".

The other is "Whose Freedom? The Battle over America's Most Important Idea" by George Lakoff.  I haven't started it yet, but all the hype about our "freedoms" has often struck me as insincere.  There are the definite illegal intrusions by government into the private lives of individuals.  The "freedom" meant in too much of the hype is the freedom for corporations to do what they damn well please without regard to the effects on people.  I shall see over the next week or so.

Libya: Damned if you do and damned if you don't

There are many voices being raised in the U.S. that the U.S. should enforce a no-fly zone over Libya to reduce Gaddafi's advantage over the opposition.

One of these is Nicholas Kristof, "The Case for a No-Fly Zone Over Libya", New York Times, 2011-03-09.

On the other hand, they are those who give many arguments for the long-term consequences of  unilateral action, "Kicking the Intervention Habit", Richard Falk, Al-Jazeera, 2010-03-10.

Count me as one of the sympathizers of a no-fly zone, yet I really hesitate because of the long-term damage to U.S. prestige and influence.  What right does a country thousands of miles away have to determine military action that is not threatening its own shores?  What arrogance to think that the U.S. military is the only one capable of acting?

Wouldn't the European Union be a more appropriate actor than the U.S.?  Don't France, Germany, and the U.K. have sufficient capability to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya?  Even then, it will be interpreted by many in the Arab world as another example of colonialism.

If any no-fly zone were to be enforced, it would have to come from an Arab country.  Is it in the interest of the current governments of Tunisia and Egypt to do so?  They are the ones who had to deal with the thousands of refugees fleeing Libya.  Is not Egypt getting over $50 billion per year in military aid?  Is that going into paper airplanes?

I think the only course of action for the U.S. is to have very private talks with the Egyptians as to what the latter can and should do.

Maybe there is one other thing the U.S. can do.  If the embargo on Libya is rewritten to exempt the opposition government, then by all means ship arms, food, and other supplies into Benghazi and other safe ports.  If the U.S. could supply Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan with disastrous effects on Soviet forces, could and should it supply them to the opposition in Libya, either directly or through a surrogate?

Is Gaddafi a paper tiger?

There have been many reports about Gaddafi's loyalists making attacks in several locations, but many seem to have been repulsed.  Has he executed so many who refused to obey his orders that he is greatly understaffed?  Are many who still nominally support him making themselves scarce so they can avoid doing his bidding or avoid execution?

We don't know.  When it is all over will we find only a bunker like Hitler's?

Revolution or restoration?

The actions of the Iranian opposition have been called a "Green Revolution", but is it really a revolution? Is it more a call to restore the ideals of the 1979 revolution that have been corrupted by the power grab of certain parts of the Iranian elite?

For one view, see "After the Crackdown: Iran's Opposition Down but Hardly Out", Scott Macleod, Time Magazine, 2009-06-30

Is Iraq interfering in Iran's internal affairs?

Authoritarian regimes tend to blame the problems of their own creation on outsiders meddling in internal affairs. Even would-be authoritarians like Sen. Joe McCarthy see meddlers in every cubicle. So it is no surprise that many in the Iranian government are spending so much energy blaming everybody but themselves for the dissatisfaction in Iran.

What surprised me was that one "outside" "meddler" is either unnoticed or seen as a mediator in the conflict in Iran. Who is this "outside meddler"? The Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani of Najaf, Iraq.

Apparently he has more respect among Shi'a muslims than either Rafsanjani or Khameni. Iranian politicians have gone to Najaf to consult with him. Interestingly, he refused to see Ahmadejani. See "Iran's Rafsanjani and Iraq's Al-Sistani", Patterico's Pontifications, 2009-06-22.

I was led to this site from a transcript of "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program on CNN, 2006-09-28.

He had an interview with Robert Baer, a former CIA agent, who thinks there has been a military coup by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard with the connivance of Ahmadinejad, a former officer of the Guard. However, Zakaria followed the interview with his own musings on the influence of Al-Sistani in Iran.

I then looked up Al-Sistani and found Patterico's Pontifications. He in turn referenced "Regime Change Iran: Movement Seeks to Eliminate 'Supreme Leader' Position", Threats Watch, Steve Schippert, 2009-06-21. Schippert quotes Al-Sistani,

"I am a servant of all Iraqis, there is no difference between a Sunni, a Shiite or a Kurd or a Christian," and that Islam can exist within a democracy without theological conflict. You will never hear such words slip past the lips of Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei. Ever.

Sorry, the quotes are exact from the site.

I recommend reading the full text to get a better idea of all the complexities of this situation. As Patterico implies, we may be seeing a "slow-motion regime change".

Did the Iranian government win the battle only to lose the war?

We lived in Stockholm, Sweden from 1970 to 1974. In our last year I remember seeing a demonstration of a couple hundred or more Iranians demonstrating against the Shah. The Shah did not abdicate until 1979. Iranians in Iran demonstrated this month in the thousands against the Iranian government. The government turned out in force and stopped the massive demonstrations. Did the government succeed or fail? Indications are that they may have failed; will it be weeks or years before the current government falls?

The streets of Tehran are calm and commutes take 15 minutes where they used to take 45. But business is way down, some shopkeepers report by more than half. People are afraid to go out. But they remember what they saw and will not forget.

“'People are depressed, and they feel they have been lied to, robbed of their right and now are being insulted,' said Nassim, a 56-year-old hairdresser. 'It is not just a lie; it’s a huge one. And it doesn’t end; they keep on insulting people’s intelligence with more lies on TV.'”
- "In Tehran, a Mood of Melancholy Descends", Nazila Fathi, New York Times,

"Instead, hard-liners around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opted for schism, a historic error. The Iran of yesterday is gone, the Iran of tomorrow not yet born."
- "Iran's Second Sex", Roger Cohen, New York Times, 2009-06-27.

If you haven't done so already, read Roger Cohen's reports from Tehran for the last several days.

Worrying about the past

I've been slowly reading a library discard, "Ten Crises in Civilization" by Stanton A. Coblentz. It really should be "... in Western Civilization" because Asia had many crises such as Mongol invasions.

Currently I am finishing the chapter on the Dutch revolt against King Philip of Spain in the 1500s. King Philip was almost single-handedly promoting the Inquisition against any hint of Protestantism or any other signs of independence in the Netherlands. His forces were killing machines, executing people by the dozens or annihilating large portions of towns - men, women, and children.

I was reading this in bed and I couldn't relax when I turned the lights out. The enormity of it kept rolling around in my head.

I drew two interesting conclusions from it when I was more lucid.

Many would say that the suppression was religiously inspired. Wasn't it more a brutal exercise of power? King Philip may have accepted visits from Dutch authorities asking him to honor ancient privileges, but he would turn around and tax more heavily or issue a more restrictive decree.

The other conclusion was the irony of the Dutch gaining freedom from a foreign empire. In the next centuries, they created their own empire: New Amsterdam, South America, South Africa, India, Indonesia, and more.