We were sitting next to a "Let's Go Brandon" Trumper at a small town parade

 

By Hal Brown

My partner and I went to one of our favorite towns, Aurora, Oregon to watch their summer festival parade and have lunch at our favorite pub. It happens to be  next to a small pot store:

Aurora is a town which is on the National Historic Register and is known for it's many antique shops all in old homes which are clustered together in the center of town. It's population is 1,133 in 336 households. Read more here.

Politically the Aurora leans conservative unlike where we live in a decidely liberal Portland suburb so we never bring up politics when we meet people there. (More about politics in Aurora.)

We managed to snag a perfect parking spot on the street along the parade route just before it was closed to traffic. 

Across the street from our car was a shady spot at the end of a driveway where a man and woman were already sitting. We had folding chairs in the car and asked if we could sit with them. They said we could and they moved their own chairs so we'd have more room.

The plastic hat was handed out by fire fighters in the parade.
I wore it just for the photo.

It turned out that this was the end of the driveway to their house. 

I sat next to the man and we chatted throughout the parade. 

He told me that he lived around the country but 10 years ago settled in Aurora. I learned that he was a Vietnam War veteran and grew up on a farm, and had a number of blue colar type jobs through his life. He asked what we did and I told him I'd been a therapist and my partner was a nurse. He said that one of his daughters was also a therapist. It occurred to me afterwards that I could have lied and told him we'd worked in jobs that didn't label us as being most probably liberal. I eventually did tell him I'd been a reserve police officer for 20 years since this usually gives me some conservative creds.

We engaged in friendly chit-chat throughout the parade. 

Sitting next to the man having already revealed I'd been a therapist I decided I'd throw into the conversation something that wouldn't lead him to think I was a flaming liberal. I told him that I'd watched many other local parades since I'd helped direct traffic at them when I was a reserve police officer before moving to Oregon.

I was much younger then. Mason, Michigan parade.

During the entire conversation I didn't know for sure what the man's political view was until we were leaving and I saw his "Let's Go Brandon" cap (top of page). If you don't know what this means click here. I consider this hat and flags and banners saying this to be far more objectionable than any of the MAGA hats and pro-Trump flags because people expressing this sentiment are saying f**k Joe Biden. 

Trump enabled the Jan. 6th attack on the Capital. He's been the poster boy for gutter politics hurling vulgar insults like a schoolyard bully. No wonder people feel comfortable with this slogan.

I couldn't find the exact cap among the many for sale on Amazon. This is the closest one which I found.

On the same Amazon search I found this:

It's a good thing wasn't wearing it. A more ambiguous message is on this cap if "let's go" is shorthand for the f-word rather than meant to cheer him on.

I could have worn one of these:

Update: Just found this...

This parade really did celebrate traditional small town values and old fashion pre-fascist patriotism from the days when displaying an American flag didn't suggest you might believe in the MAGA America First agenda. Click images below to enlarge them.

There's some new MAGA merch more to my liking:

You can find these items on Amazon.

You may be able to convince Trump cultists mermaids aren't real, but de-programming them from believing Trump is innocent of crimes is far more difficult

 

By Hal Brown

Thom Hartmann wrorte 

How to de-program Fox News watchers on the Trump Indictment

I have admired Thom Hartmann (Wiki profile), who like me is a MIchigan State University graduate and a resident of Portland Oregon, ever since I got a car with Sirius radio and listened to his radio show. I rarely if ever disagree with him. In addtion to his radio show Thom writes for Raw Story + (where this article also appears) and Salon. He has his own blog The Hartmann Report and for a fee you can subscribe to podcasts.

Today, however, I think he is being unrealistic.

In his blog column he explains how to de-program Fox News watchers on the Trump indictment. I assume he means all the consumers of Trump supporting media. Aside from my understanding from a friend who regularly checks in with Fox News the station is barely covering news of the the legal jeopardy Trump is in. I won't tune in to Fox News on TV but do sometimes look at their website which, as you can see below, has no stories about the indictments.

This being noted, obviously whatever is being reported about the Trump indictments is bascially that they are bogus, politically motivated, and anything that Trump did was justifed because it was free speech. Meanwhile as their website shows they engage in a combination of what-aboutism (Joe and Hunter Biden stories) without mentining Trump's legal troubles, and distraction (the death of some kid, NASCAR, and the Lady Gaga story for example).

Thom lays out the reasons why what Trump did wasn't free speech was in furterance of a criminal conspiarcy to overturn an election and then writes as if addressing believers in the Trump claims in bold:

As you can see, this wasn’t an exercise in free speech: it was a planned, organized, carefully executed conspiracy to defraud Biden voters in those seven states out of their right to have their votes counted.

Thom cocludes his essay (his bold):

The media outlets who gloss over Trump’s lies do so because it’s profitable for them: when, for example, Fox “News” stopped supporting Trump’s lies for a few weeks they lost a large chunk of their audience to another TV network that was willing to parrot his lies. Which is why they’re now back to supporting his lies and are again making money.

The politicians who approve of or repeat Trump’s lies do so because they see it as their path to fame and power: they want you to believe those lies and then vote for them.

And the billionaires who push Trump and his lies through their publications, think-tanks, and media outlets do so because they believe if he’s re-elected, they’ll get even more tax breaks and that Trump will continue his efforts to gut the IRS and EPA, which they hate.

The simple reality, dear Trump-lover, is that you’ve been suckered.

Now might be a good time to change the channel…

There's one phrase that leaps out at me: "simple reality," and in that  phrase the modifier "simple" is what I want to briefly address.

It is anything but simple to alter beliefs that are deeply held and supported by family members, friends, and an enomroious group not just composed of talking heads on TV but actual people if you attend Trump rallies.

How could all of these people be wrong? How could so many people you love, like, or are aquanted with be suckers?

It's easy enough to laugh at being suckered and accept it when you go to the county fair and pay 25¢ to see the real mermaid and see the mermaid was a woman with an phony fish tail. (See image above)

When you build an entire belief system around someone like Trump and worship him as a diety, as does a group that makes you feel like you belong (aka, a cult), and realize you've been lied to and bought the liie like a fool, it is far, far, more difficult to admit you've been suckered.

The usual way that people who have been in an actual cult are de-programmed, whether they were in the Moonies or Scientology, or dombday cults like Jonestown, the Branch Davidians (Waco), or Heaven's Gate if you can get them before they kill themselves, is to first remove them pyhsically from the cult. Then with expert de-programmers, ideally with parents and family if they had good relationsips with them, the psychological work can begin. 

How does one de-program members of the Trump cult? Using the de-programming model the first steps would be to remove them from the influence of the pro-Trump propaganda. This would entail not allowing them to use pro-Trump media and not associate with other members of the Trump cult. 

Unfortunately legal education, reason, and logic will rarely be enough. Punitive measures like prison might work, time will tell whether any of imprisioned Jan. 6th insurrectionist will realize they were suckered. 

Our legal system won't allow the kind of Clockwork Orange de-programming where instead of having their eyelids clamped open while watching violent images and getting electric shocks they are forced to watch MSNBC while being rewarded with their favorite sweet treats.

Addendum: I went to the Ringling Circus sideshow at Madison Square Garden,  which was in the basement, twice as a child. I re,meber my father buying a ring from the giant for a quarter who handed it to me (a thrill). It could fit around my 10 year old wrist.  

They didn't have a mermaid. All of the people featured what were disparagingly called "freaks" although, like the Fat Man, Giant, and World's Skinnest Man were just at the extreme end of physical development. Some had a phsycial condition like the Bearded Lady. Others like Tattooed Lady might have done things to make themselves look unusual.

Here's an article about nine famous freak show attractions. 

I never did see Tom Thumb although he and his wife Lavina by chance made their home in Middleboro, MA,. where I lived between living in Michigan and Oregon. There's a appropriately very small Tom Thumb museum than and the house theye lived in is preserved.

Some people made thier living because of a rare genetic condition, perhaps the most famous being the conjoined twins Chang and Eng.

Carnival sideshows like you might go to at a county fair often had a mixture between real people doing intersting thinks like the sword swallower and the snake handling lady and obvious fakes. Many, though not all, featured a "real" mermaid, either a living version or a preserved mermaid corpse.

 

I never did see Tom Thumb although he was, for a time, part of the Ringling Circus show. He and his wife Lavina by chance made their home in Middleboro, MA, where I lived between living in Michigan and Oregon. There's a appropriately very small Tom Thumb museum there and the house they lived in is preserved. The public library has large portraits of them in their reading room.

Trump loyalists who broke the law should fear the sword of Lady Justice

By Hal Brown

View this blog story on single page here.

Yesterday I used an image of Lady Justice as part of my illustration for my blog (link here):

Today I read this (and put it on that blog as an update):

It was on Raw Story as an exclusive (subscripton required) story.

Giuliani’s ‘donkey show’: How fake electors and coercion allegations may doom ‘America’s mayor’

Here's an excerpt:

Giuliani’s promotion of a debunked conspiracy theory about two election workers falsely accused of mishandling Fulton County ballots also implicates him in an infamous phone call from Trump to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — also a focal point of Willis’ investigation. During the phone call, Trump tried to pressure the state’s chief election officer into flipping the election in the former president’s favor.

“He’s in the thick of it,” Kevin O’Brien, a former federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York with experience trying public corruption cases, told Raw Story. “I don’t know how his lawyers are going to argue to get him off the hook if the day comes when they tell him he’s a target and he’s going to be indicted. What is their response to all this evidence? I don’t know, except to say he was confused, or he was impaired.

Without going into more details  here, it lays out all of his involvement in illegal scheming and why Guiliani is at more risk of facing prison than I thought he was. This leads me to reassess the chances he may flip. If it gets through his thick skull that he could  be the star inmate at not just some country-club federal prison from which Trump or another GOP president could rescue him, but as a guest of the Georgia Department of Corrections, he could decide to cut a deal.

I decided to write about how the end result of all of the cases where Trump and his associates may be guilty verdicts resulting in prison sentences and how this is represented by the sword carried by Lady Justice.

In searching about the history of Lady Justice I learned that this representation is very old.

I found this on a website about symbolism:

Not only didn't I know that almost all high courts in the world featured some form of Lady Justice as a symbol, but that the history of this figure goes back to ancient times:

For Greeks, there was Themis, the Greek goddess of justice, law, order, and good counsel. Themis uses the scales of justice to always remain balanced and pragmatic. However, Themis literally translates to divine law and order, instead of human ordinance.

Meanwhile, Ancient Egyptians had Ma’at of the Old Kingdom, who represented order and justice carried with her a sword and the Feather of Truth. Egyptians believed that this feather (usually depicted as an ostrich feather) would be weighed against the heart of the soul of the deceased to determine whether or not he or she could pass through the afterlife.

However, the modern concept of Lady Justice is most similar to the Roman goddess Justitia. Justitia has become the ultimate symbol of justice in Western civilization. But she is not the Roman counterpart of Themis. Instead, Justitia’s Greek counterpart is Dike, who is Themis’ daughter.

In Roman art, Justitia is often depicted with the sword and scales alongside her sister Prudentia who holds a mirror and a snake.

...

The symbolism of the blindfold and scales is simple to understand, as is the sword which is the subject of this blog. Here's how the wesbite decribes what the sword represents:

In ancient times, a guilty verdict was executed with a literal swing of the sword on the neck of the accused. The symbolism is thus used to convey the idea that justice, when enforced, should be swift and with finality.

Swords likewise symbolize authority and respect, denoting that justice stands by its every ruling and decision. However, notice that Lady Justice’s sword is unsheathed, meaning justice is always transparent and is never just an implement of fear. 

The double-edged blade of Lady Justice’s sword signifies that rulings can always go either way, depending on the circumstance and evidence presented by both parties. 

...

Most readers of this blog have never seen the inside of a prison or a jail. I have. As a therapist I consulted with two sheriff's departments when they wanted assessments of inmates who they thought might be suicidal, and because I worked with corrections officers who needed counseling and was friends with the stress officer at a nearby state prison I was able to tour that facility several times. I was also a reserve police officer and when we arrested people we brought them to the county jail.

I have gone through the secure entryways and experienced being locked inside. Of course I knew I would get out in a short time, but I also could easily imagine what it was like for inmates who couldn't.

No matter their status in life they had to comply with prison rules. Their bosses were corrections officers. 

Even if Trump went to prison he would have to do what corrections officers told him to do.  He's used to servants and sycophants. While there were some who worked in the White House in high positions who ignored his orders (see "Mueller report shows Trump aides routinely ignored his orders on crucial matters"), at Mar-a-Lago when he tells a servant to jump they don't even ask "how high" before complying with his every wish. They already know how high to jump.

They would be gone if he went to prison.

Trump may be in pathological denial about this being a possible eventuality, although the closest I've seen to there being a fissure in his denial is that he's saying he'd keep running for president if he's in prison. 

His underlings should understand that the only way they can avoid this fate if Jack Smith, Fani Willis, or Alvin Bragg has the goods on them is to flip on the man they once served. Even then, cutting a deal might only get them a lesser sentence.

The man in the background of illustration I put together for this blog carries a flag that says he'd die for Trump. While I doubt this is true, would he willingly join those who already are in prison for what they did on Jan. 6th? How many of those insurrectionists would have done what they did if they knew it would end them up behind bars?

--------------------------------------------

Thank you for reading my blog. If you like what I write I'd appreciate it if you share the link https://www.halbrown.org/ on social media. I just started using Threads (you need Instagram and must use a smartphone to access it) where my user name is @halmbrown. I am on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/halmbrown/  On Twitter I am  here: https://twitter.com/HalMBrown and on Facebook I am here: https://www.facebook.com/HalMartinBrown. On Mastadon this is my address: https://masto.ai/@Hal_Brown .

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