Author: Philo

human

Money Talks

While contemporary threats to American democracy stem directly from religious belief, the political threat stem less from abstract ideology alone than from greed disguised and enabled by ideology. The conservative movement—heavily influenced by corporations and wealthy elites—uses money as a weapon to consolidate power, undermine democratic institutions, and reshape society into a corporatocracy. While profit is the true motivation, ideology is the mechanism that makes this pursuit politically viable and publicly acceptable.

There are two forms of monetary power: implicit and explicit. Implicit power operates through cultural, religious, and moral ideologies—particularly Christian fundamentalism, the Protestant work ethic, manifest destiny, patriotism, and nationalism—which justify inequality, blame the poor for their circumstances, and rationalize wealth as moral superiority. These beliefs shape policy indirectly by influencing lawmakers and public opinion while masking greed as virtue. Explicit power, by contrast, involves direct economic coercion: defunding social programs, education, healthcare, and states or institutions that oppose conservative agendas; privatizing public goods; and using the military, police, and legal mechanisms to enforce compliance.

The role of money in politics after Citizens United effectively allows corporations and billionaires to buy government influence, hollow out democratic accountability, and marginalize ordinary citizens. The Trump administration is a culmination of these trends—enabled by corporate wealth, driven by ideology rather than policy, and sustained through nationalism, religious fervor, and the creation of internal enemies.

The defunding public institutions serves a strategic purpose: an uneducated, indebted, and economically insecure population is easier to manipulate and more profitable as consumers. Debt, especially consumer credit, becomes a key tool for maintaining control, allowing corporations to extract wealth while preserving the illusion of prosperity and opportunity. Tax cuts and “trickle-down economics” are portrayed as smokescreens for corporate subsidies that exacerbate inequality while shifting blame onto government inefficiency.

The conservative movement represents a legal but deeply corrosive takeover of democratic governance. By using money to shape laws, ideology to shape belief, and power to suppress dissent, corporations and their political allies undermine the foundational ideals of liberty, equality, and self-governance. The result is a society governed not for the public good, but for profit—where pointing out this reality is increasingly marginalized or criminalized.

A Spade is a Spade

Donald Trump’s election in 2016 represents not an isolated political anomaly but the culmination of a decades-long ideological shift within the American conservative movement toward authoritarianism and fascist tendencies. Contemporary political division in the United States is fundamentally ideological rather than policy-based, making rational discourse increasingly impossible. Ideological beliefs are emotionally driven, resistant to evidence, and reinforced by misinformation, which undermines critical thinking and democratic debate.

The origins of modern conservative ideology can be traced toearlier intellectual and political strategists that have deliberately cultivated fear, ignorance, and tribalism to consolidate power. Today, social media a critical tool in amplifying propaganda, polarizing the public, and creating perceived enemies, while dismissing science, facts, and expertise as elitist.  Capitalism and Christianity form the ideological foundation of the conservative movement, enabling leaders to frame opposition as personal attacks and to portray themselves as a persecuted minority.

Fearmongering and victimization rhetoric have normalized political violence, culminating in the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack.  The unprecedented attack is part of a broader historical pattern of conservative-backed violence in American history. The ultimate goals of the movement are the dismantling of constitutional democracy in favor of a corporatocratic, Christian-influenced system and the suppression of opposition through legal manipulation, propaganda, and electoral distortions such as gerrymandering.

The United States’ drift toward fascism did not begin with Trump but has been unfolding for decades, particularly since the Reagan era. If the conservative movement succeeds in hollowing out government institutions the likely replacement is fascism, a reality the nation must confront openly.

America The Religious

The backbone of the current fascist movement (and it is a fascist movement) is not Donald Trump and the Republican goons that supposedly support him. They are nothing but minions feeding on the corpse of justice and all that is good. Their beady little eyes cannot see the harm that they do because they are blinded by grift and greed. They will say anything in order to suck bile from the corpse that they have killed.

No, the backbone of the movement to kill the American dream is The Heritage Foundation and their organized and thought-out plan to spread their sickness and disease. Their project stands alone as the engine that moves the blind machine. Their suicide pack with their god is all that matters to them. They are not ignorant of what they do just as the priests and preachers who have and continue to rape the innocent are not ignorant.

The heritage of The Heritage Foundation is that of poisonous swill and bald-faced lies; it is that of hopeful death and illegitimate claims all with smiling, stupid faces filled with fear and joy all at the same time. We cannot save ourselves from these demons of death without thoughtful decisions and there will always be those that prefer ease and comfort over the inevitable ethical fight. But as they say:

Illegitimi non carborundum

The Values of the Damned

It is easy to think of ways to fight and administration wrought with corruption, defined by greed, and blinded by a twisted ideology. but in reading history it is also clear that such fights are the subject-matter of humanity.

It is clear that the fight needed is to be addressed personally and not politically. It is obvious that the horrors of history, of human-brough destruction, evil, greed, and violence are simply symptoms, including the current horror story in the USA.

The cause of our killing the world and ourselves is our own values.

If what we value is consumption and ease and only those empty things then we can only be happy with the current world we live in. If we look at Donald Trump and his cohorts and followers and we think that the offer an answer to our desires then our desires are just as twisted and wrong as the world we live in.

If we want to defeat Donald Trump; if we want to change history then we must start with changing our values.

One Question

Trump is a fascist. Let’s be honest. Let’s be straightforward. Let’s not mince words. Trump and those who follow in his footsteps, turn the other cheek, act like sycophants, allow his insanity, support his lies and debaucheries are simply soldiers of fascism. They are cowards. They are ignorant if not stupid.

They do not make up the majority in any way, shape or form. They are not to be reasoned with for they lack the very thing that could save them. They are those infamous that look for easy answers and revenge. Their problems are other’s problems. They are not at fault.

Politics will not save the rest of us from these people and conversation is impossible. And so what? What now? There is only one question left to ask:

What kind of a world do you want to live in?!”

Fight

Fight! Do what you can to fight the siren of empty societies led by even more empty-headed morons and malicious malcontents. Fight the ever-ending push towards more, towards ease, towards all those concepts and things that suck life from you.

We all know what these ideas and things are. We believe them without reason. We hold them in our hands. As our brains rot we call the rot progress. Truth dies, but so do we. Both, slowly but certainly.

Fight! Don’t lose hope among the helpless. It has always been this way. There have always been those who cannot think for themselves. There have always been those who are lost and call themselves found. There have always been the delusional, the diluted, the satisfied. They are the tribe.

But there have always been the warriors of the world. They have often been quiet and secluded. They have often been looked over but they are the giants upon which the world rests.

Uncomfortable Truths

Uncomfortable truths are more times than not just truths.

-If one is a capitalist in today’s world, then that person is morally unconscionable.

-If one turns a blind eye to evil and wrong-doing, then one is the problem and the cause of our destruction.

-Conventional economics is a form of brain damage- David Suzuki

-If someone defends an economy over all else then that person is a liar and a psychopath.

-Progress at any cost is not progress at all but a blind, slow, torturous and un-needed death.

-Consumption as a way of life is not life at all but death of all things.

-If the answer is always more then the question is rhetorical, meaningless and dangerously misleading.

-Human beings do not have technological, social, cultural or political problems. We have ethical problems.

Why?

Why do Americans support an obviously fascist regime such as Donald Trump’s Republicans? This question is one that is asked more and more both by Americans and to me as an American in Europe.

“The Answer is complex.” I answer. “It is important to remember that American can be defined in large part by the drive for profit, personal benefit, and fear. There are no safety nets in America and America is in large part a theocratic society. Religion and money. One makes empty promises and the other gives false hope. And so what is left is fear because deep down Americans know that what they believe, whether it is religious or social, is not, in fact, true.”

“Add to that,” I continue, “Americans want to be, they strive to be independent in the true sense of the word. The American story is based upon rough and ready independence. But the fact is that such independence is and always has been a fantasy. So why do any Americans support Donald Trump? Because he offers easy answers based on empty promises, false hope and fantasy.”

Donald Trump and his minions are cheap. Truth is expensive.

Normal

Over a beer; at a bar or in a living room, we’ve had those conversations where the word “normal” comes up. Inevitably someone exclaims: “What is ‘normal’ anyway?!” Usually, it is a dead-end comment. Other platitudes follow. Such as “I know ‘normal’ when I see it…”

In today’s America ‘normal’ is no longer a platitude because what is going on in America today is not normal. No matter what the Trump sycophants may espouse. Donald Trump’s America is not ‘normal’ in the sense that normality implies a healthy and happy society.

A normal society is not led by those who undermine the good that normal societies offer. A normal society is not one in which the military is turned upon the citizens of that society, or where massive percentages of wealth go only to a minutia of people. A normal society is not militarized, fanatical, driven by greed and narcissism.

If it is actually true that we can “know ‘normal'” when we “see it” then it must be obvious that Donald Trump’s America is far from.

A Discussion

A discussion with a friend ensued about regulations. He complained that regulations were nothing but a bureaucratic way to suck profit from his business, that they made no sense, that they made doing business impossible. He then proudly announced that he was of a capitalistic mindset. He saw no other possibility.

His claims rolled around in my head as I purposely tried to gather the gist of his statements. I thought of a world without regulations. I considered the arguments that I had heard about regulations, especially about governmental regulations, and how they impeded the march towards free-market capitalism. I thought of history.

I thought of how regulations played a part in ending the civil war in America, child-labor, environmental catastrophes that were argued necessary by profiteers since the industrial age. I also thought of how the lack of regulations had led to the stock market crash in the 1920’s, the dustbowl conditions of the 1930’s, the unquestioned, unconscionable nuclear testing (well over 300 tests), and the uses of nuclear weapons of the 1940’s and 1950’s.

I thought of the ongoing environmental horrors of corporations and societies in the name of non-impeded profit. I thought of the ongoing torture of animals everywhere. Of Wallstreet, of banks and other oligarchical institutions, suburban sprawl, over population, and now un-regulated research in AI.

I thought of all of this and one question came to mind.

“What kind of a world do you want your children, others, and yourself to live in?”