American Fascism

“There’s not a smoking gun, there’s a smoking saw.” By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (12/4/18) Reasonable observers and analysts concluded weeks ago that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the gruesome killing of Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi. Though it took them far longer than most, a small group of Republicans finally fell in line with this widespread consensus after a secretive briefing by CIA chief Gina Haspel on Tuesday, admitting that all the available evidence suggests MBS orchestrated the murder that has sparked international outrage and brought America’s longstanding military relationship with the brutal kingdom under sharp scrutiny. “There’s not a…

  The Daily / The New York Times (11/27/18) As large groups of Central American migrants approach the U.S. border, the Trump administration is making it more difficult for them to apply for asylum. Is the president undermining the original concept of asylum, or is he restoring it? On today’s episode: Caitlin Dickerson, who covers immigration for The New York Times. Background reading: The temporary closing of a border crossing in Southern California became a confrontation between Central American migrants trying to enter the United States and the American and Mexican governments trying to hold them back. The discord stems, in part,…

  “Hell is truth seen too late.” — Thomas Hobbes, 1651. ***** By A.C. Thompson ProPublica (11/21/18) One of the eight members or associates of a violent California white supremacist group arrested on federal riot charges has pleaded guilty to assaulting protesters and others at a political rally in Huntington Beach, California, in 2017. Tyler Laube, 22, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in central California to a single count of conspiracy to violate the federal riots act over his role in a March 25, 2017, attack on protesters and others, including a journalist, at a Make America…

  Frontline / ProPublica (11/20/18) In the wake of the deadly anti-Semitic attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, FRONTLINE and ProPublica present a new investigation into white supremacist groups in America – in particular, a neo-Nazi group, Atomwaffen Division, that has actively recruited inside the U.S. military. Continuing FRONTLINE and ProPublica’s reporting on violent white supremacists in the U.S. (which has helped lead to multiple arrests), this joint investigation shows the group’s terrorist objectives and how it gained strength after the 2017 Charlottesville rally. [Watch the first documentary in this series, August 2018’s Documenting Hate: Charlottesville, online.] Link to 54-Minute Video…

“Ever since Plato and Aristotle wrote on the topic, political theorists have known that democracy cannot flourish on soil poisoned by inequality…the resentments bred by such divisions are tempting targets for demagogues…Dramatic inequality poses a mortal danger to the shared reality required for a healthy liberal democracy…[such] inequality breeds delusions that mask reality, undermining the possibility of joint deliberation to solve society’s divisions. (pp.76-77) ***** “Under conditions of stark economic inequality, when the benefits of liberal education, and the exposure to diverse cultures and norms are available only to the wealthy few, liberal tolerance can be smoothly represented as elite…

“At some point a great country has to have a great animating principle. And somewhere along the line we mistook materialism for our great animating principle. We’re gonna make so much money, have so many successes – and that isn’t enough, as we know, as human beings. So the way that philosophy or spiritual life got out of our animating principle is interesting. I think [nothing will change] until the country says: ‘Actually, we do believe in a big, moral and ethical principle.’” — Novelist George Saunders, ‘A lot of my extended family are Trump supporters’   *****   “They…

  By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (10/29/18) As Brazilian women, the LGBTQ community, workers, and people of color reacted with horror to the election of fascist Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency on Sunday after a campaign dripping in bigotry and militarism, Western corporate interests and the business press could hardly contain their glee over the victory of the hard-right former paratrooper who has promised to further pry open Brazilian markets to foreign investment, slash corporate taxes, and privatize the nation’s public services. While highlighting Bolsonaro’s “homophobic, racist, and misogynist statements,” the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) gushed that his win over Workers’ Party candidate Fernando Haddad “could…

  By Josh Healey Common Dreams (10/29/18) CD editor’s note: A version of the following was first composed as a post to Facebook on Saturday, October 27, 2018, in the immediate wake of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It has been slightly updated and edited for publication here today. I went to synagogue last night. Because it was Friday night, which meant it was Shabbat, which meant my 2-year-old son Ezra was juiced to go to what he calls the “puppet show with funny songs!” Once a month on Friday nights, our local synagogue Kehilla here…

  [Editor’s Note: This is an excellent article on how right wing fear-mongering dog whistling brings out the rabid attack dogs. — Mark L. Taylor] By Stephen Singular Who.What.Why. (10/27/18) As the pipe bombs started arriving at the addresses of prominent Americans during the week of October 22, setting off panic in the streets of New York and beyond, I couldn’t help thinking that all of this was so… predictable. For more than three decades, I’d been writing about terrorism and terrorists and was often struck by how the people who actually carried out the violence were usually taking their…

  By Mischa Haider The Guardian (10/22/18) Attacking transgender people – especially transgender women – has become a favorite strategy for authoritarians, and Trump is no exception. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is attempting to narrow gender identity to the one assigned at birth – thereby denying transgender people their place in society. This is a deliberate attempt to deploy tried and tested transphobic messaging to rile up his voter base ahead of the midterm elections. Trump wants to rally conservatives while engaging in attacking a marginalized group that it is still socially acceptable to…

  The government announced its plan to withdraw from a court settlement that requires youth shelters to meet minimum safety standards. By Angelina Chapin The HuffPost (10/2/18) Over the past two weeks, hundreds of migrant children have been sent to a tent city in Tornillo, Texas, according to The New York Times, in what experts are calling a humanitarian crisis of the U.S. government’s own making. Although the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) claims the tent camp is a necessary response to filled shelters, experts say that overcrowding is a result of the Trump administration’s recent decision to more thoroughly scrutinize…

  Fresh Air / WHYY (8/27/18) ‘Atlantic’ journalist Anne Applebaum says the changes taking place in Poland — including a rise of conspiracy theories and attacks on the free press — mirror similar shifts happening in the U.S. Link to 48-Minute Audio

  By Dick Lehr The Conversation (8/15/18) Spike Lee’s powerful new film, “BlacKkKlansman,” tells the true story of Ron Stallworth, an African-American police officer who infiltrates a local branch the Ku Klux Klan in 1979. That same year, I also signed up to join the Klan. And at a secret meeting I even met the Grand Wizard himself, David Duke, the same Klan leader featured in Lee’s film. I was a rookie Klansman at the time, and I’d been recruited to join the cause. Sort of. Like Stallworth, I wasn’t a true believer and had a very different agenda from…

  Democracy Now! (9/26/18) White House senior adviser Stephen Miller is the mastermind behind many of the Trump administration’s widely condemned immigration policies, including family separation, the Muslim ban and slashing the number of refugees admitted to the United States. Now he’s behind a proposal that will make it harder for immigrants to become citizens or get green cards if they have ever used a range of public benefit programs, including Obamacare, children’s health insurance and food stamps. Stephen Miller’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies are leading some in his own family to speak out against him. We speak with Dr….