{"id":52013,"date":"2021-10-20T17:14:33","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T21:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=52013"},"modified":"2021-10-20T17:14:33","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T21:14:33","slug":"organized-depravity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=52013","title":{"rendered":"“…organized depravity”"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I doubt whether from the beginning of the world until now, a community, nominally civilized, has been so fully under the domination of systematic and organized depravity…the most atrocious organization that the civilized part of the world has ever known.”<\/em><\/p>\n

When I read this statement by United States Attorney General Amos T. Akerman — our first AG who headed the newly created Department of Justice — I had an odd reaction: I shook my head a couple of times, to free my brain from thinking this quoted response to our immediate world was produced a few days ago.<\/p>\n

I’ve frequently had this reaction while reading Ron Chernow’s biography, Grant,<\/em> and especially while reading the chapters covering Reconstruction and the rise and horrors of the Ku Klux Klan, which is the organization Akerman was referring to.<\/p>\n

If you like to think what we’re living through now is radically different from what has gone before in our history, read Grant. <\/em><\/p>\n

You avant garde-ists might also consider dipping into Anthony Trollope, especially his second of The Palliser series, Phineas Finn<\/em>. So much of his barely fictional descriptions of Parliament’s workings…well, again I must shake my head.<\/p>\n

Things have changed, sure. But some things have changed only in public face, while the inner workings 0f racism and violence and voting suppression remain the same.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I doubt whether from the beginning of the world until now, a community, nominally civilized, has been so fully under the domination of systematic and organized depravity…the most atrocious organization that the civilized part of the world has ever known.” … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5929,5800,1175,2902,1265],"tags":[7818,1979,7819,124,1795,7820,7784,3241,7817],"class_list":["post-52013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-fascism","category-racism","category-the-facts-of-life","category-trump-stuff","category-voting-rights","tag-amos-t-akerman","tag-anthony-trollope","tag-attorney-general-of-the-united-states","tag-department-of-justice","tag-ku-klux-klan","tag-philneas-finn","tag-ron-chernow","tag-the-pallisers","tag-us-grant"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t