Rachel Maddow on the incipient fascism of the Republican majority in Michigan's lege

The inflammatory language in the subject line is mine, not Maddow's.  

The link below leads to an article on the situation in Michigan and to a video clip of Rachel Maddow's 16-minute segment on the Republican abuse of the "immediate effect" clause in Michigan's state constitution.  

Maddow is concerned with the death of democracy at the local level and the attempt to deny the minority party voting rights in the legislature.   

The Republicans there have, among many other acts of legislative depravity, have empowered an appointed manager to take over the finances of *any* government entity and shut it down if the Gov. deems it is necessary to deal with the fiscal crisis.  Oddly enough, many of those entities serve African-American communities. 

The "immediate effect" clause in the Michigan constitution is there to deal with real live diasters, such as a flood or massive fires.  It takes a 2/3rd majority in both houses for such legislation to go through.  The Republicans do not have a 2/3rds majority in the house of representatives, but the Republican chair in the house has been gaveling through legislation on voice votes and the like as if they did have a 2/3rds majority.  And they have refused Democrats' request for roll call votes.  (The Democrats have been voting as a bloc against most of the Draconian legislation)

The Democrats are suing the state Republican Party and have obtained an injunction against the enforcement of many of the laws, but the Republicans are appealing to the state Supreme Court.  

To me the Republicans are not merely engaged in unfair partisan political warfare and destroying democracy at the local level.  It seems damn close refusing the rule of law altogether.  They are employing illegal procedures to impose laws that should not have immediate legal effect.  Their actions suggest they will also go to any length to resist undoing any of those laws, now or in the future.  They want to govern by fiat. Smells like fascist team spirit to me.  

R.  

http://www.politicususa.com/rachel-maddow-eviscerates-michigan-republicans-for-circumventing-democracy/ 

 

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Philip K. Dick opus

I just checked out from the library a 995 page set of excerpts from the posthumous work of Philip K Dick.  It is a boiled-down version of the work he called *Exegesis* which runs to NINE. THOUSAND. PAGES.  In fact the name of this edited tome is *Exegesis*.  

Dick was friends with Tim Powers, Ursula LeGuin,  and Philip Jose Farmer and corresponded with them regularly.  Some of the editors include Simon Critchley, professor at the New School for Social Research, Steve Erickson, author of nine *really* thick sci fi novels, Jeffrey Kripal, professor of religion and philosophy at Rice University, and Gabriel Mckee, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and author of *The Gospel According to Science Fiction*.  The last has several works dealing with Philip K. Dick.  (Another of the editors has a blog called "Totally Dick."  Interestingly, the editors remark that there was discussion amongst some of PKD's friends to start a new religion based on the writings of PKD--after all, L. Ron Hubbard had done so.  *That* discussion contributed to the delay in getting any of PKD's work published, as his heirs were wanting to protect his name from being associated too much with "high weirdness"   The interest by serious academicians in PKD's work overcame that reluctance.  Oh, Tim Powers evidently had the mansucripts for a time and sucessfully hid them from people who wanted to capitalize on them in some unscrupulous way.  

I have always felt (not without a certain anxiety) a mental kinship with Philip K. Dick.   Some modern physicists are said to no longer ask, "Is this idea too crazy to be true?" but rather, "Is this idea crazy *enough* to be true?"   In that spirit I have concluded with some relief and a tiny, tiny  regret that I am probably not crazy enough to feel a *full* mental kinship with Philip K. Dick. (But then, would I *know*?--see that's a Dickian question).   

Up until 1974, Dick had written realistic fiction or fairly realistic science fiction.   (The first work of his I had ever read was a fascinating alternate history called *Man in the High Castle* based on the "what if" premise of the Axis powers having won the second world war)  But in February of 1974 a beam of pinkish light from...Somewhere struck Dick in the forehead and he had a series of visions.  One of them was that his young son had a life threatening inguinal hernia (I misremembered that as a tumor) that was at the time completely asymptomatic.   Dick panicked and insisted on taking the child to a hospital where the diagnosis was ultimately confirmed and successfully dealt with.  Shortly afterwards, in pain from a dental operation, PKD answered the door to a delivery from a pharmacy.  The delivery person was an incredibly beautiful young woman, wearing a golden fish symbol around her neck...stalling for time to keep her there, he asked her about the necklace.  She told him that it was an ancient symbol of Christianity.  He became transfixed by the symbol and then had a sort of revelation.  Ancient Rome, the Evil Empire  was still here and now...It had not gone away, it was simply hidden away in the Everydayness of Life in the U.S.  But there was continued resistance by a secret sect of ancient Gnostic Christians, who still existed also, and who also had anticipated the basic tenets of Marxism...At the End of Time, the Gnostic Christians and Somebody (God? Jesus? the Vast Living Intelligence System (VALIS)? is going to defeat the Evil Empire and Everybody Will Live Happily Ever After...Anyway PKD later checked and found the pharmacy had no record of such an employee.  

While PKD was grappling with his "revelations" he would communicate his passing insights with others.  At one point he called up Tim Powers and left a message to the effect that he had discovered he had the power to forgive sins.  Powers called him back the next day and asked him who he had forgiven.  "Nobody," said PKD.  "I forgave the cat and went to bed." 

Now, PKD had been an extensive drug user until he became totally horrified with what become of some of his friends in the grip of drugs.  He gave it all up.  But he, and others, often speculated as to whether he  a) had some kind of brain damage from chronic drug use, or b) had temporal lobe epilepsy  or c)  had manic-depressive illness or some other form of mental illness.  However, he, his editors and other interested parties conclude that none of the possible explanations is totally adequate to his case.  

The rest of Dick's work, including his sci fi novels and Exegesis itself was an effort by him to understand and explicate his "revelations" and put them into some kind of final form.   He never finished.  He was still writing when he died in 1982.  

I have always sensed this but I read in one of the footnotes that PKD's cosmology has much in common with Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne's process philosophy--although he developed his thought in isolation from theirs and later became aware of the affinity.   Where PKD differs is that PKD believes that human beings and the cosmos are much more subjected to deterministic influences.  

I don't think I can actually read and understand this book in the six weeks that I can have it--to the extent that it is understandable.  PKD gives the impression of honestly trying very hard not to be cryptic, but he winds up generating more crypticity (if that's a word) as he goes along.  I am eventually going to have to buy the book ($40!).  Maybe I can get it cheaper on ebay or ABE books in a few months.  It is frequently boring and repetitious, yet the gestalt of if is gripping, fascinating and keeps a body coming back.  

P.S. In his novel VALIS, the protagnist receives coded messages from VALIS in the songs of a pop singer that he hears on the radio.  The pop singer in question is believed to be, or be modeled on, Linda Ronstandt.  

 

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