THE DAILY TELEGIRAFFE
In the rearview mirror.
How We Resist an Authoritarian Takeover
"What Is Authoritarianism and Autocratic Rule?
An authoritarian system of governance, which Project 2025 threatens to impose, includes:"
• Highly concentrated centralized power.
• Severely limited individual rights and freedoms.
• Repressive state control and violence targeted at specific population groups.
• Purging of dissent and ending political pluralism.
• Weakened separation of powers.
• Full central control and manipulation of administrative institutions, staffed with partisans and weaponized for
political purposes.
An authoritarian system is autocratic when unrestrained power is held by a single individual, such as the president, elevated by a cult of personality. An autocratic president:
• Personally controls the administrative branch and neutralizes or removes congressional and judicial oversight.
• Uses the federal bureaucracy as an instrument of personal will.
• Acts free from any checks and balances.
Modern autocratic rulers come to power through elections. Autocrats consolidate their power by:
• Claiming they embody the will of a unified people.
• Maintaining the shell of democratic institutions, but hollowing them out from within.
• Using existing laws to gradually dismantle the foundations of democratic structures.
• Undermining future elections to remain in office indefinitely.
Without democratic, accountable institutions to implement our policies and enforce our rights, we cannot build the just society we envision.
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"My name’s Donovan. Irish. Both sides, mother and father. I’m Irish, you’re German.
But what makes us both Americans? Just one thing. One, one, one. The rule book.
We call it the Constitution and we agree to the rules. And that’s what makes us Americans.
It’s all that makes us Americans, so don’t tell me there’s no rule book and don’t nod at me like that, you son of a bitch.”
---- Tom Hanks, “Bridge of Spies” (2015)
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NEW YORK - "Hamlet" was chosen as the greatest poem of the millenium in the New York Times Magazine millenium review!
LONDON (Reuters) - William Shakespeare was picked as Britain's "Man of the Millennium" by a poll of BBC radio listeners!
ENJOY . . . Chosen as the greatest poem of the millenium, Hamlet endures.
ENJOY . . . Who is the "Greatest Fictional Character in World Literature and Legend" - - one guess.
With the Austen lover's link.
ENJOY . . . Back issues of our features, indexed by subject on the front page, and on current feature pages.
ENJOY . . . Programme notes from the NFT's Branagh Retrospective, now added off of the Hamlet page.
ENJOY . . . Gertrude and Claudius, a book by John Updike, explores the new King and Queen.
ENJOY . . .
Shakespeare in Less Than 10 Minutes Review of a video of restorations of the
earliest surviving silent Shakespeare films
from 1899-1911.
ENJOY . . . Director Michael Almereyda's film "collage" of a knit-hatted Ethan Hawke as a Gen-X slacker. Our review of his Hamlet is here.
Almereyda does Denmark as a corporate prison.
From the New York Times: Two Fortinbrases and the Ghosts of Hamlets Past. Added: The New York Post museson performing Hamlet.
ENJOY . . . Glimpses of genius. In praise of HAMLET: Kenneth Branagh's film version captures the soul of Hamlet.
Also find on the Hamlet Page an interview with Kenneth Branagh
and an account of the London benefit screening of Hamlet, at which Branagh appeared.
ENJOY . . . The New York Times review of "Discovering Hamlet" a short film which documents Branagh's
early take
on the stage role under the direction of Sir Derek Jacobi.
ENJOY . . . Kenneth Branagh's interview at his NFT Retrospective, as conducted by the Guardian newspaper.
Complete text, and complete
Questions and Answers now available.
ENJOY . . . The films "
Onegin" and
"The End of the Affair" open with reviews, interviews, and photographs.
Fiennes has been
searching for Pushkin's anti-hero Eugene Oneginfor some time.
USING THE DAILY TELEGIRAFFE
 FRONT PAGE |
SHAKESPEARE in PERFORMANCE |
THE HAMLET PAGE |
links/LINKS |
What's Up: STAGE |
What's Up: BOOKS |
What's Up: MUSIC |
What's Up: FILM |
Fictional Characters |
What's Up: |
Today's Special |
Sure We |
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