robertpaulsen
robertpaulsen's JournalAmerica is now in fascism's legal phase
America is now in fascism’s legal phaseby Jason Stanley
“Let us be reminded that before there is a final solution, there must be a first solution, a second one, even a third. The move toward a final solution is not a jump. It takes one step, then another, then another.”
So began Toni Morrison’s 1995 address to Howard University, entitled Racism and Fascism, which delineated 10 step-by-step procedures to carry a society from first to last.
Morrison’s interest was not in fascist demagogues or fascist regimes. It was rather in “forces interested in fascist solutions to national problems”. The procedures she described were methods to normalize such solutions, to “construct an internal enemy”, isolate, demonize and criminalize it and sympathizers to its ideology and their allies, and, using the media, provide the illusion of power and influence to one’s supporters.
Morrison saw, in the history of US racism, fascist practices – ones that could enable a fascist social and political movement in the United States.
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Often, those who employ fascist tactics do so cynically – they do not really believe the enemies they target are so malign, or so powerful, as their rhetoric suggests. Nevertheless, there comes a tipping point, where rhetoric becomes policy. Donald Trump and the party that is now in thrall to him have long been exploiting fascist propaganda. They are now inscribing it into fascist policy.
Fascist propaganda takes place in the US in already fertile ground – decades of racial strife has led to the United States having by far the highest incarceration rate in the world. A police militarized to address the wounds of racial inequities by violence, and a recent history of unsuccessful imperial wars have made us susceptible to a narrative of national humiliation by enemies both internal and external. As WEB Du Bois showed in his 1935 masterwork Black Reconstruction, there is a long history of business elites backing racism and fascism out of self-interest, to divide the working class and thereby destroy the labor movement.
The novel development is that a ruthless would-be autocrat has marshalled these fascist forces and shaped them into a cult, with him as its leader. We are now well into the repercussions of this latter process – where fascist lies, for example, the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen, have begun to restructure institutions, notably electoral infrastructure and law. As this process unfolds, slowly and deliberately, the media’s normalization of these processes evokes Morrison’s tenth and final step: “Maintain, at all costs, silence.”
more...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/america-is-now-in-fascism-s-legal-phase/ar-AAS3Up1?ocid=entnewsntp
This Is What the First Hours of a Near-Total Ban on Abortion Look Like
This Is What the First Hours of a Near-Total Ban on Abortion Look Like
The Texas law SB 8 will force abortion clinics in the state to turn away about 80 percent of all patients.
By Amy LittlefieldTODAY 11:56 AM
Like many abortion activists in Texas, Amanda Beatriz Williams stayed up most of the night on Tuesday and awoke to a terrifying silence.
Her organization, the Lilith Fund, helps people pay for abortions in Texas. On a typical shift, they hear from between 30 and 50 people. On Wednesday, as a near-total ban forced clinics across the state to stop providing most abortions, the fund heard from fewer than 10.
“This is a huge drop in the number of people that we normally hear from and that just tells us that those people are out there, pregnant against their will,” Williams said. “It is absolutely devastating.” As she speaks, Williams breaks down into sobs.
The law, Senate Bill 8, bans abortion after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected, which usually happens between five and seven weeks after a woman’s last period, before many women know they’re pregnant, and before an embryo has developed anything resembling a heart. Experts have estimated that the ban will force Texas clinics to turn away about 80 percent of all patients. It deputizes any private citizen to enforce the law by filing suit against anyone who “aids and abets” in a banned abortion, a definition so sprawling, opponents warn, it could apply to a patient’s friend or spouse, the Uber driver who takes them to the clinic, or a donor who writes a check to an abortion fund. Those who sue have an incentive; they can win at least $10,000 per abortion and even if they lose, the person they sued will still have to pay their own legal fees. Clinics and grassroots activists like Williams had hoped for a last-minute reprieve from the Supreme Court after the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit canceled a lower-court hearing on a challenge to the ban. But the Supreme Court failed to act and then, late Wednesday night, denied an emergency request to block the ban.
more....
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/texas-abortion-ban-sb8/
A Trip Inside Omega Mart at Las Vegas, Nevada
A Trip Inside Omega Mart at Las Vegas, NevadaLas Vegas has always had a reputation for pushing and breaking boundaries, for stretching the possibilities of what you can legally experience in America. If that can be done in Las Vegas with gambling and other forms of entertainment, why not an immersive art experience? That is the challenge that Meow Wolf, an arts collective based in Santa Fe, rose to when they opened Omega Mart at Area 15 in Las Vegas in February 2021. Neek, Sar and I couldn’t wait to discover what it was all about!
Remember what happened 20 years ago today? We shouldn't forget.
The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons.
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."
After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.
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Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
https://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/
Bush knew what was coming down 20 years ago today and, much like Trump with COVID-19, sat on his ass and let hell rain down on the country he was supposed to be protecting.
Fallout for Trump's political targeting: Top DOJ appointee to resign, AG Garland announces probe
Source: Salon
The Justice Department's top national security official, John Demers, is reportedly resigning amid the torrent of revelations surrounding the agency's forceful seizure of phone data from House Democrats during the Trump administration. Demers, a Trump appointee, was the longest-serving official at the Department of Justice from the previous administration.
On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the Trump Justice Department undertook an extensive investigation in 2017 and 2018 into at least a dozen members of the House Intelligence Committee, subpoenaing their computer and phone records from Apple and Microsoft, both of whom were put under a gag order, which prevented the companies from speaking out. According to CNN, the agency demanded metadata on 73 phone numbers and 36 email addresses specifically from Apple.
The probes apparently sought to root out the source of confidential information leaks regarding potential communications between Trump officials and Russia in advance of the 2016 general election. Some have speculated that the probe aimed to snuff out lawmakers who may have fed information to the press regarding Trump-Russia collusion.
The slow trickle of truth surrounding the probe has sparked outrage amongst Democratic lawmakers.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fallout-for-trump-s-political-targeting-top-doj-appointee-to-resign-ag-garland-announces-probe/ar-AAL2bSf?ocid=entnewsntp
The Paradoxical Politics of the GameStop Pump
The Paradoxical Politics of the GameStop Pumpr/WallStreetBets and the double-edged sword of a self-aware Internet.
By Ryan Broderick
We are now barreling into our third week of financial meme hell. Video game retailer GameStop’s stock rose over 1,000 percent after it was championed by the r/WallStreetBets subreddit. The stock fell 30 percent on Monday, however, leading many to believe a crash may be imminent.
What started as a half-serious Reddit campaign to rally around GameStop has ballooned into something much larger. Is this Occupy Wall Street 2? Or is this a second Gamergate? Are the Redditors that are leading the movement right now populist heroes? Or is this, as Elizabeth Warren has suggested, just a psychotic Internet casino that is tearing the fabric of society apart?
What can’t be denied is that a Reddit community was able to harness its scale to bend the market to its will. That’s a genie you can’t put back in the bottle.
r/WallStreetBets is a 7 million-strong subreddit for stock traders. It was created in 2012 by a banking technology consultant named Jaime Rogozinski. Its users—who commonly refer to themselves as “retarded degenerates”—bond over edgy memes, insane bets, idiotic financial trolling, and sharing what they call “loss porn”—screenshots of their tremendous losses. To get a sense of where the community’s values lie, Martin Shkreli—the former hedge fund manager who became a target for public hatred when, as CEO of a pharmaceutical company, he jacked up the price of a lifesaving drug by 5,000 percent, and was later convicted of fraud—was a frequent contributor. In a 2017 thread, a user asked the subreddit why they loved Shkreli so much.
more...
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/gamestop-stock-r-wallstreetbets-meme/
Has the FBI designated the Proud Boys as a domestic terror organization yet?
I think that official designation is well overdue.
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