PolitiSage Weekend | March 4, 2023
Turkey earthquake ... Targeting Girls in Iran with Porn and Poison ... The Roots of Trumpism and the Birth of a Crisis Cult ... The MLB Kills the Shift ... A Brilliant Banned Book and ... Petrichor!
In This Edition
American Democracy: The Roots of Trumpism, Part I: The Birth of a Crisis Cult … Human Rights: Porn and Poisonings for Girls in Iran … Human Rights: The Türkiye-Syria Earthquake, One Month On … Wonders: A New Chamber is Discovered in the Great Pyramid at Giza … Sports: The MLB Kills the Shift … Banned Book of the Week: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison … Postscript: Petrichor
American Democracy
What you’re looking at is what anthropologists call a Crisis Cult. Dr. Rupert Chapman explains what it is and how we got here—from the collapse of the agricultural system and schools in the South to the devastation of industry in the North—and how that history plays into MAGA culture and student-debt peonage now.
Electoral rights in America dodged an exploding bullet this week as the Supreme Court sidelined Moore v. Harper, the stronger of several cases aimed at allowing state legislatures to all but hand election victories to their favorite candidates by arrogating electoral powers to themselves, thereby gutting electoral statutes. However, conservative justices signalled some support for less virulent versions. https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/3/2/23622717/supreme-court-moore-harper-anti-democracy-case-elections?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=entry&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
DeSantis and others boycotted CPAC over groping allegations against one of its leadership, leaving Donald Trump and Nikki Haley the halogen lights. https://people.com/politics/many-republicans-skip-top-gop-conference-amid-organizers-groping-allegations/
Trump is not entitled to immunity over civil suits over January 6th according to the DOJ. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/02/trump-immunity-capitol-attack-justice-department?CMP=share_btn_fb
Human Rights:
Porn and Poisonings for Girls in Iran
Photo: Adobe Stock. PolitiSage will not publish photos of Iranian protests as they can, with facial recognition technology, be used to identify, arrest, detain, torture, and kill protestors.
Days ago, the Ayatollah Khomenei announced he would pardon or reduce the sentences of “tens of thousands” of protestors—but no one believes him. The Iranian foreign minister yesterday denied allegations of torture—and nobody believes him, either. Thus far, more than 20,000 protestors have been arrested, and few have been released. Allegations—and physical evidence—of torture are all over the Internet. More than 550 protestors have been killed, and four people have been publicly executed.
In recent weeks, protests have quieted, but recently-released Iranian journalist Keyvan Samimi says the spring will bring renewed action and that Iranians won’t accept less than regime change. Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed late Shah of Iran, agrees, but says the country is at a “do-or-die moment.” There is a movement among some factions within Iran to bypass the so-called “moderates”— former President Khatami, for example—and demand Pahlavi’s return to the country until a democratic state can be formed.
Yet there is a new development that may push protests into high gear again. In recent weeks, the regime has forced school girls to watch porn to dissuade them from joining the protest movement. And in some 58 schools, more than 1,000 school girls have been subjected to “revenge poisonings”—in what is being called an act of biological terrorism—and one of them died. Iranian parents see this as an attempt to threaten their daughters into removing themselves from school altogether. The money is now on Keyvan Samimi: there will be more protests. And given the natures of Khomeini, the Basij, and the Revolutionary Guard, there will be more blood.
Read more at
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/14/1156115697/iran-amnesty-protests-arrests-khamenei
https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-journalist-samimi-protests/32298277.html
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/02/iranian-media-reports-hundreds-schoolgirls-poisoned
Earthquake: Türkiye and Syria One Month On
On the ground in Türkiye and Syria, a wide swath of rubble on the surface betrays the shape of the fault beneath. There, two tectonic plates lurched past each other, generating a 7.8 earthquake that tore the world above to pieces. More than 250,000 apartments were destroyed, and now the count of the dead, which will continue to rise far, far into the future, has reached to 45,000 in Türkiye and 6,000 in Syria, where most of the affected were already desperate refugees.
As emergency personnel began to arrive—delayed by roads made virtually impassable by fissures and ruined infrastructure for as far as the eye could see—questions were already being raised about Erdogan’s response. Despite immediately blaming contractors — who could legally skirt construction codes by making “contributions” — Erdogan couldn’t wiggle out of the fact that, according to the BBC, the country’s earthquake emergency fund had less than $5.00 in it. Where did the money go?
The United States has pledged $85 million in relief funds, complemented by other donations from all over the world. That’s the bright side, which is dulled by two very dark shadows:
One is that Greece sent troops to its border to make sure refugees, who may number more than a million by spring, can’t cross. The Greek government’s cryptic comment was, “The mass movement of millions of people is not a solution,” adding that emergency aid should be sent to Türkiye and Syria “before this happens.” It may be too late for that now.
The second is that Erdogan has declared that elections slated for May 14 will go ahead as planned — despite the fact that it may be virtually impossible for anyone in the stricken areas to find a place to vote or that election infrastructure there can even function by then. Having arrested journalists exposing the truth about the destruction and suffering in the area, Erdogan has insulated himself from much criticism. It is reported that in unaffected areas, Erdogan’s ruling party has lost precious little support. Rushing elections in a national crisis may ensure his reelection before the millions who were spared realize just how bad things really are.
Read more:
Tens of thousands have been charged and sentenced for “insulting” Erdogan. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/23/turkish-journalist-arrested-on-charge-of-insulting-erdogan
Turkist journalist Ali Mir Koçer arrested for reporting on the earthquake in Turkey. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64759377
Turkish election to proceed in May. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkish-elections-be-held-may-14-erdogan-2023-01-22/
Wonders: New Chamber Discovered in the Great Pyramid
The Cheops, the Great Pyramid of Egypt, seems to have an endless cache of wonders with which to thrill us. Using ground-penetrating radar and ultrasonic testing devices, scientists from the ScanPyramids project, along with researchers from Japan and France, who used a rain of particles from ancient supernovas, discovered a corridor inside the Great Pyramid. It’s 30 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 6 feet high, and sports a triangular gabled ceiling. It lies just above the Robber’s Tunnel (dug by thieves!)—the tunnel used by every tourist who enters the pyramid today. The purpose of the secret chamber is unknown—but what Egyptologists do know is that these corridors, though they appear to go nowhere, often lead to new discoveries. Surprise us again, O Great Isoceles!
Read more:
Cosmic Rays Reveal a Hidden Tunnel. https://www.inverse.com/science/cosmic-rays-great-pyramid
Egypt reveals newly discovered 9-meter long chamber inside Great Pyramid. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/egypt-reveals-newly-discovered-9-meter-long-chamber-inside-great-pyramid
Sports: The MLB Changes the Rules
In Other Sports News
The NBA’s Ja Morant to sit out next two games after Instagram Live gun video. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/35782987/nba-investigating-ja-morant-displays-gun-instagram-video
Could the NFL combine be on its way out? https://www.espn.com/nfl/draft2023/story/_/id/35768242/nfl-scouting-combine-future-really-end-indianapolis-coaches-execs-react
NHL trade deadline winners and losers. https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/35777788/nhl-trade-deadline-winners-losers-2023
Banned Book of the Week
More attempts to ban books in the United States have been made since the beginning of 2022 than in any period in the history of America. Consider this fighting back: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, one of the most oft-banned books in this country.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtly and grace.
In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
Here, Morrison’s writing is “so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry” (The New York Times).
Postscript
As promised [s] …
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