Blackcap Blog

Published at 08:45 on 31 March 2023

It matters because it breaks the precedent that presidents and ex-presidents are above the law.

It does not matter because of the seriousness of the charges. The particular charges of the indictment are still not known, but all sources claim they have to do with a fraudulent payment of hush money to keep Stormy Daniels silent about an affair she had five or more years ago now. An affair is really not a major political scandal (despite how much Republicans wish it was when Clinton was caught having one).

But the precedent is now broken. That having been done so, it becomes more likely that indictments might be filed over inciting the January 6th putsch and/or the attempted corrupting of the vote tabulating process in Georgia. Both of those, by contrast, are truly serious charges; they relate to acts that are direct attacks on democracy.

If other, more serious charges are not fired, it will be as Judge Luttig has said: a great disservice to democracy and to the rule of law.

And there is still a lot of moral rot in the system. I may have been wrong about Trump not being indicted for anything, but I am not wrong about that general observation. That there still is, is evidenced by a more serious indictment being a sufficiently unsure thing that Luttig is openly worrying that it might not happen. Luttig is a lifelong conservative. It is not personally convenient for him to come to the conclusions he has. It is much more convenient for a conservative to conclude that our existing institutions, representing the wisdom of tested experience, are functioning relatively well.

And Luttig is hardly the only conservative running around saying how alarming Trumpism is. There are enough of them, in fact, that a special term has arisen to refer to such individuals: never-Trump conservatives. It has long been a key insight of mine that when there is a significant group of individuals asserting something they are ideologically inconvenienced by, that something is almost certainly a relevant political fact that should be paid serious attention to.

Published at 17:40 on 30 March 2023

Trump was indicted today.

And I am very happy to be wrong. It means the disgusting precedent that the president is above the law is looking more and more like a has-been of a precedent. It means the danger of a transition to fascism is distinctly less than it was just this morning.

Nobody won USD $100 out of it, by the way, because nobody took me up on my offer. Which, of course, is now void now that the outcome is no longer in doubt.

Now we get to see a number of other questions be answered:

1. Now that the precedent has been broken, will there be other indictments?
2. Will the indictment get rescinded somehow? (I am not a legal expert, and I do not even know if this is possible, but if it is, it would not be a surprise if it happens. American Führerprincip may not go quietly into that good night.)
3. Will he be convicted? If he is acquitted, will it happen because anyone in his situation would have been acquitted, or will it happen because he’s an ex-president and is therefore getting special treatment?

This is a precedent-setting moment, but there were really two options here:

1. Set the precedent that presidents and ex-presidents are not, in fact, above the law, and that what Trump did was wrong and deserves to be punished, or
2. Set the precedent that nothing Trump did (up to and including his coup attempt) was, in fact, wrong. In this case, it all becomes just standard political tactics, to be applied as needed from now on.

Published at 20:45 on 27 March 2023

There are basically two types of Republicans left these days:

1. Those who worship Trump and who will not vote for anyone else.
2. Those willing to hold their noses and vote for Trump.

That’s it. There are effectively no other types of Republican. The ones who couldn’t stand Trump have, basically to a last person, left the party.

Therefore, if by some miracle DeSantis wins the primary, Trump will yell “Rigged!” and the Type 1 Republicans will either cast write-in, independent, or third-party votes for Trump, or sit at home and sulk on Election Day. Either action dooms the Republicans, who cannot afford to lose any votes.

So if DeSantis wins the primary, the Republicans lose the general. Guaranteed.

While if Trump wins, the odds are still against them (Trump has high negatives), but still not as dismal as if DeSantis wins. To reiterate, Trump managed to win once already, and he could do it again.

Published at 09:46 on 25 March 2023

You can find a lot of pundits arguing that DeSantis is even more dangerous than Trump, such as this one, this one, and this one. While it is clear that DeSantis has authoritarian, fascistic tendencies, and is more intellectually mature, and thus better able to strategize, than Trump, in one important aspect he falls far short of Trump. It is my contention that this aspect is a limiting factor that makes DeSantis less of a threat.

That aspect is capitalism. Specifically, the authoritarianism of capitalism, the contradiction between that authoritarian and the value of liberty professed by post-Enlightenment liberalism, Trump’s possession of capitalist status, and DeSantis’ lack of it.

Any capitalist democracy is in fact a weird amalgamation of public democracy and private fascism. The latter is not just socialist hyperbole; the model for the authoritarian fascist state was in fact the capitalist corporation. Mussolini called his system the corporate state for a reason.

But this presents a contradiction: could not workers use the democracy and openness of liberal society to advocate for post-capitalist economic systems that dispense with the arbitrary authority of the capitalist boss? And in fact this is not merely theoretical: every capitalist democracy, with the notable exception of the USA, has had a strong social democratic/democratic socialist party, that got where it is precisely by arguing based on this contradiction.

The solution is to indoctrinate people, starting in early childhood, as to the virtuousness and indispensability of the capitalist boss, whose authority must be held to be an unquestionable good. Instead of being a threat to liberty, it is held to be an expression of liberty; the capitalist must have the liberty to use his wealth to manipulate as many other individuals as possible.

Only the capitalist gets this special treatment. When a politician tries to coerce others, it is generally considered (and rightly so) to be oppression, not liberty.

It is into this value system that Donald Trump stepped. He actually wasn’t all that big a capitalist or that great at the capitalist game, but his media image was that he was; one can say that in politics, appearance Trumps substance. Perhaps even more critically, his media image is a celebration of the authority of the capitalist. Just ask yourself what the most famous two-word phrase from his role as the star of The Apprentice was if you have any doubts about my assertion.

By contrast, Ron DeSantis is an individual who has not spent so much as a single day of his adult life as the owner or manager of a business. He hasn’t even held a private sector job! He went from law school to a career in the military to a career as a politician. It might have been possible for him to avoid this problem if he had an acting career as a capitalist somewhere on his résumé, but alas for him he does not.

So when DeSantis acts authoritarian, or proposes doing so on the campaign trail, he is just a politician promising authoritarianism competing against a businessman promising same. He’s going to lose that contest.

Trump, by contrast, just might win it all again. He did once already, after all. Therefore Trump, and not DeSantis, is the more dangerous one.

Published at 09:04 on 22 March 2023

In the least surprising news since the Sun rising on time, Trump wasn’t indicted yesterday. This is for the simple reason that he will not be indicted. The system acts to protect the most powerful, even when those most powerful threaten the system itself. It is that rotten and corrupted.

I mean, really now, I am supposed to believe that a relatively minor hush money payment to a porn star is an indictable offense for someone whom the system refuses to indict for a fucking coup attempt? How is that the least bit plausible?

Get it straight. Trump was not indicted for the events of January 6th, he won’t be indicted for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, and he won’t be indicted for anything else.

I am sorry that it greatly inconveniences some of you to believe the state of democratic decline in the USA is as severe as I have written it is here, time and time again, but all the best available evidence is thoroughly consistent with my thesis.

The old Republic has basically already died at this point. It is merely that the corpse has not started bloating and stinking yet, so many can still be in denial about it.

P.S. Nobody took me up on my USD $100 offer. That alone should serve as evidence that even though many won’t openly admit I am right, in the depths of their heart they know I probably am. Money talks, bullshit walks.

Published at 09:48 on 18 March 2023

I feel like making a little easy money. As such, I will bet the first taker USD $100 (CAD $137 if you prefer to wager in Canadian funds) that Trump will not be indicted in the next 14 days (i.e. by 9:00 AM Pacific time, 1 April 2023). Any takers? This is an honest offer. Comment on this post if interested.

Published at 08:16 on 10 March 2023

By which I mean, either the government of Ukraine, or the some of the governments of its Western allies, were involved in some fashion in blowing up the pipeline. The involvement might be as direct as agents on the staff payolls of one or more governments doing the job themselves, or as indirect as knowing about a plot by some non-government group and deciding to sit on that knowledge and let it happen. Or just about anything in between.

Firstly, this makes a lot more sense that Russia blowing up its own pipeline, a piece of infrastructure important to its largest economic sector, and part of the ties between Russia and Western Europe that complicate the ability of the latter to confront the former.

Secondly, the invasion of Ukraine provides a motive.

Thirdly, we have Seymour Hersh’s claims. Now, Hersh is not a reliable source, many of his past claims have gone nowhere, and his particular story has some major holes in it. But that merely means that if Hersh claims something, it is not necessarily true. It says nothing about it being definitively false. And in fact, some of Hersh’s previous claims have turned out to be true. When Hersh’s claims came out, my reaction was not to believe them, but not to completely disbelieve them either, and to be alert for future evidence that might corroborate or refute them.

Fourthly, such evidence is now starting to emerge. Now, the story in the Post is still just someone speaking off the record, but the fact the Post thought it newsworthy indicates it comes from a reliable source in a position to know. This is especially the case given how the existence of this story conflicts with the Post’s (and my own) bias in favour of the Ukranian side in this conflict.

The takeaway is still rather vague, however. Revisit the leading paragraph: it simply means that Ukraine or some of its Western allies were involved in some way. It says nothing about the details of the involvement. As reliable as the Post judged their source, there is no way to know how much of the details that source accurately knows. Secrets within government organizations are shared on a strictly need to know basis, and if this source did not need to know many details, he could be in the dark (or even have been fed misinformation) about them.

More details, however, are likely to continue leaking out. This is how actual government conspiracies work: they don’t stay secret for long. The world that conspiracy kooks live in, where all-powerful governments prevent all leaks of consequence, the kook and his friends somehow know it all, and those all-powerful governments at the same time sit on their hands and do nothing to stop the kooks from running their mouths off, simply does not exist.

And the reaction of Ukraine and its supporters to this newfound knowledge also fits the pattern perfectly. Note that the truth is leaking out. Note also how it is rapidly getting buried by other stories. It is not considered important enough to be given feature coverage. (If equivalent evidence in favour of Russia being behind it all had come out, you had better believe we would all be hearing about it nonstop.) This is the way bias works in our media.

None of this means that Russia is in the right and Ukraine deserved to get invaded. The world is not composed solely of angels and devils; a refutation of Ukraine’s angel status does not prove it a devil. The world is a messy place where all actors are a mix of good and evil in various degrees. (If you think Russia does not support terrorism, think again.)

It is still far better for the world if Russia loses this war. As such, I still support helping Ukraine so as to maximize the chance of Russia losing. I would have rather have Russia lose to a Ukraine that does not back ecologically-destructive acts of terrorism than to have it lose to one that does, but I would also rather have Russia lose than win.

Published at 20:08 on 1 March 2023

Well, now, isn’t this interesting. An official investigation has concluded… basically what was obvious five years ago.

As for the supposed discrepancy between that study and earlier ones that “concluded” otherwise… they didn’t! All they said is that the syndrome could have been caused by hostile action. They didn’t say they were caused by hostile action. Exactly zero evidence was presented for the contention that hostile action was the cause.
Finding such evidence was the purpose of the new study, and when they looked, (surprise, surprise) there was none to be found.

It all goes to show just how deranged US politics is when it comes to Cuba, which is all in all a relatively garden variety third world dictatorship (the USA has propped up worse ones). It’s just one that humiliated the US empire a few times, and the Establishment still hasn’t gotten over it.

Published at 10:49 on 20 February 2023

It seems to have been an amateur science project.

Why is this not a surprise?

Published at 10:46 on 20 February 2023

… and it is not a viable political strategy. For those unfamiliar with this three-letter acronym, I am talking about oppositional defiant disorder.

Of course, any instance of behaviour classified as “a disorder” is subject to abuse by power structures, particularly one characterized as “arguing and defiance toward parents and other authority figures.”

The way to distinguish healthy skepticism of authority from pathological behaviour towards same is, I think, best epitomized by the old anarchist slogan: “Question authority.”

One is being advised to question authority. Not to reject outright, but merely to question. The answer to a question can be in the affirmative as well as the negative. It is entirely possible to question authority and come away with the conclusion that authority figures are being at least partially correct about something.

Consider the COVID-19 pandemic. Heading into it, there was already a large body of evidence and work by researchers in infectious diseases all pointing to the conclusion that a pandemic of some new disease was all but inevitable. Governments had long been planning for such a pandemic, and those plans had long advocated restrictions that would amount to a huge overnight change in daily life.

It was, in fact, obvious that COVID-19 was a pandemic before the authorities admitted it was so. In the earliest stages of the pandemic, questioning authority led me to conclude… that the pandemic was real and authority figures were refusing to acknowledge it was going on! It was also obvious that there would be various restrictions and disruptions to everyday life coming soon, once the crisis became too big to ignore.

Did it stop being a pandemic when the authorities bent to the inevitable? Having ODD leads one to one answer. Having an intelligent and healthy skepticism of authority leads one to quite another.