American Fascism

  By Andre Damon World Soialist Web Site  (12/15/17) The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted Thursday to overturn rules, known as net neutrality, that required internet service providers (ISPs) to treat all data on the internet the same and prohibited them from limiting or blocking users’ access to web sites and services. The ruling heralds a new age in internet communications, where giant internet and technology monopolies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast regulate what information people have access to. Since the emergence of broadband internet, the Federal Communications Commission had de facto operated under net neutrality principles, including a 2005 declaration that…

  By Paul Buchheit Common Dreams (1/22/18) When average Americans were oppressed in the 18th century, they knew where the plutocrats lived, and they didn’t have military-style police forces holding them back. The Stamp Act drove the New York masses to ransack the houses of Governor Cadwallader Colden and the British major who was pointing army artillery toward the local town. Another mob looted the house of pro-English aristocrat Thomas Hutchinson, carrying away his fine furnishings and emptying his wine cellar in part of what the British called a “war of plunder” to take away the “distinction of rich and poor.” That doesn’t happen today….

  By S.V. Date The HuffPost (1/5/18) WASHINGTON ― Just a few months ago, Steve Bannon was warning “establishment” Republicans that a “day of reckoning” was at hand. As it turns out, he was right. Bannon, President Donald Trump’s initial top aide and self-described architect of his improbable victory, has fallen faster than might have seemed possible – from “The Great Manipulator” on the cover of Time magazine to the owner of a new, derisive Trump nickname in less than a year. “Sloppy Steve,” Trump called him Friday ― a continuation of the criticism that began on Wednesday when the president declared in a lengthy…

  By Jen Hayden Daily Kos (1/5/18) In October, a Missouri man was arrested after he was found tampering with the brakes of an Amtrak train in Nebraska: “An armed man was arrested after police say he pulled the brakes on an Amtrak train headed east near Oxford on Saturday. “Police say Taylor M. Wilson was carrying a loaded revolver in his waistband and a speed loader in his pocket this weekend. “The Amtrak train was preparing to make a stop in Holdrege when police say 25 year–old Taylor Wilson got into the second locomotive and pulled the brakes in Furnas…

  By David Neiwert The Guardian (11/26/17) In the days before he walked into Charleston’s Mother Emanuel church with a gun and murdered nine people, Dylann Roof put together a manifesto. It was a bizarre, rambling tract loaded with racial and political animus, much of it cribbed from white-supremacist groups with ties to South Carolina’s Republican establishment. In the final section, Roof wrote: “I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing…

  On Contact With Chris Hedges (11/26/17) Alfred McCoy, Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains the decline of the United States as a global power and the rise of the Chinese empire. Link to 28-Minute Video

The Last Word/MSNBC (11/7/17) Nadya Tolokonnikova from the Russian punk music and protest group Pussy Riot joins MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss the similarities and differences between President Trump and Vladimir Putin and to share her advice for the American resistance. [The courageous Tolokonnikova was one of two band members that was imprisoned for two years for protesting Putin’s totalitarian rule.] Link to 8+-Minute Video

An anonymous group of vigilantes works to identify racists, a legally gray tactic known as doxxing that comes with plenty of risk for all. By Decca Muldowney ProPublica (10/30/17) “Fallon” is not her real name. It’s a pseudonym she’s using because she wants to remain anonymous. She knows that can be an elusive goal, chiefly because of people not unlike her. When I first contacted Fallon, here is what she told me about herself: she’s in her mid-30s; she’s white; she has children; she works a 9-to-5 office job; and she lives in Ohio. She has a voice like a…

  Vice News (10/18/17) In the backwoods of Georgia, a controversial, right-wing, “anti-terror” militia group gathers once a month to complete field training exercises under the command of Chris Hill—a.k.a Blood Agent. This militia group, called the Georgia III% Security Force, is part of the Three Percenter movement, which is inspired by the unfounded claim that only three percent of colonists fought against the British in the American Revolution. VICE joins Hill and the Georgia III% Security Force during one of their monthly gatherings to see how they prepare themselves to “defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic”…

The Guardian (11/6/17) In a dramatic interview, the Guardian’s Gary Younge speaks to white supremacist Richard Spencer about why he wants to create an ‘ethno-state’ for white people, and why he believes that Africans have ‘benefited from white supremacy’ Watch the full-length documentary Angry, White and American on BBC Channel 4 on Thursday 9 November at 10 p.m. Link to Story and 3-Minute Video 

    By A.C. Thompson & Ali Winston ProPublica (11/2/17) Right-wing extremists communicating in confidential online chats in recent months have shared scores of documents detailing the manufacture and use of bombs, grenades, mines and other incendiary devices. The documents, which range from instructions on detonating dynamite to U.S. military manuals for constructing improvised explosives and booby traps, were passed around during online conversations among members of Anticom, a secretive and militant group that has emerged during the past year. Records of the online chats were made available to ProPublica by Unicorn Riot, a leftist media collective that has reported critically on racist marches and…

  Democracy Now! (9/18/17) Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has tapped the former head of U.S. operations for oil giant Shell to lead Houston’s post-Hurricane Harvey recovery effort. Marvin Odum was the chair of Shell for eight years. He retired in 2016. Hurricane Harvey killed at least 82 people, flooded thousands of homes and destroyed billions of dollars of property. It also caused widespread environmental contamination, triggering a half-million-gallon gasoline spill and the release of up to 5 million pounds of pollutants into the air. For more, we speak with best-selling author and journalist Naomi Klein. Link to Story and 16-Minute…

“If current trends continue for another 20 or 30 years, democracy will be toast.”   By Sean Illing Vox (10/13/17) Is American democracy in decline? Should we be worried? On October 6, some of America’s top political scientists gathered at Yale University to answer these questions. And nearly everyone agreed: American democracy is eroding on multiple fronts — socially, culturally, and economically. The scholars pointed to breakdowns in social cohesion (meaning citizens are more fragmented than ever), the rise of tribalism, the erosion of democratic norms such as a commitment to rule of law, and a loss of faith in…

  By Andrea Germanos Common Dreams (10/20/17) According to Mike Pompeo, the agency he leads—which has supported coups across the globe, engaged in targeted killings, and led a detention and torture program—has not been nasty enough. Speaking Thursday at a Foundation for Defense of Democracies forum, the CIA director, who has signaled suport for torture, said “we’ve now laid out a strategy for how we’re going to execute our strategy with incredible vigor. We’re going to become a much more vicious agency in ensuring that we are delivering this work. We are going to go to the hardest places with some of the hardest…

  (Editor’s Note: This interview is worth the listen, however, Robert Kuttner – a pretty standard cookie cutter liberal democrat – is beyond naive on the actual state of American fascist forces propelled by a growing economic crisis. His calls for Barack Obama to come to the “rescue” misses the mark on what the democrats need. Besides, Obama is too busy cashing $400,000 Wall Street checks  and hobnobbing with Virgin Airlines billionaire Richard Branson to say nothing of the fact that his record of spineless betrayal of the working class and democratic party ideals paved the way for Trump. A starry-eyed…