Tag: fascist

Republican Party, America’s rightwing mouthpiece, restarts their campaign to Whitewash history

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25 May 2020, a man died after a “medical incident during police interaction” in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The man was suspected of forgery and “believed to be in his 40s”. He “physically resisted officers” and, after being handcuffed, “appeared to be suffering medical distress”. He was taken to the hospital “where he died a short time later”.

It is not difficult to imagine a version of reality where this, the first police account of George Floyd’s brutal death beneath the knee of an implacable police officer, remained the official narrative of what took place in Minneapolis one year ago. That version of reality unfolds every day. Police lies are accepted and endorsed by the press; press accounts are accepted and believed by the public.

That something else happened – that it is now possible for a news organization to say without caveat or qualification that Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd – required herculean effort and extraordinary bravery on the part of millions of people.

The laborious project of establishing truth in the face of official lies is one that Americans embraced during the racial reckoning of the summer of 2020, whether it was individuals speaking out about their experiences of racism at work, or institutions acknowledging their own complicity in racial injustice. For a time, it seemed that America was finally ready to tell a more honest, nuanced story of itself, one that acknowledged the blood at the root.

But alongside this reassessment, another American tradition re-emerged: a reactionary movement bent on reasserting a whitewashed American myth. These reactionary forces have taken aim at efforts to tell an honest version of American history and speak openly about racism by proposing laws in statehouses across the country that would ban the teaching of “critical race theory”, the New York Times’s 1619 Project, and, euphemistically, “divisive concepts”…

Legislation seeking to limit how teachers talk about race has been considered by at least 15 states…

Hoping to return America to our racist roots, the fascist clown show that owns the Republican Party marches off again on their favorite highway paved with bigotry, lies and deceit.

German coup plot fueled by conspiracy nutballs

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An alleged plot to topple the German government, led by a self-styled prince, a retired paratrooper and a Berlin judge, had its roots in a murky mixture of post-war grudges, antisemitic conspiracy theories and anger over recent pandemic restrictions, experts say.

Police detained 25 people Wednesday described as being part of Germany’s Reichsbuerger, or Reich Citizens, movement…

Reich Citizens consider the partition of Germany by Allied powers after World War II and the subsequent democratic states that followed to have been illegal, arguing instead that the original Reich still exists.

“To some extent they distance themselves from the Third Reich,” said Johannes Kiess of the Else-Frenkel-Brunswik Institute for Democracy Studies in Leipzig, referring to the German dictatorship under Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1945. “But (they) have very little problems working together with any outright neo-Nazi groups.”

Some differences in the details; the song remains the same.

Fascist-minded politicos have decided that LGBTQ folk are as “dangerous” as everyone else they fear and hate

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WASHINGTON POST/GETTY

Last November, Cameron Samuels was met with cold stares when they attended a school board meeting to speak out against bans on LGBTQ books and resource websites in their district…

Now [Houston’s] Katy ISD students involved in the movement Samuels helped start are trying to push forward a book review policy, which would ensure at least one student is represented on the committee whenever a book is challenged in the district.

Katy ISD is just one of many school districts where students have begun pushing back against book bans. Recently, schools across the US have begun challenging—and in some cases successfully removing—a growing list of books from LGBTQ and Black authors. Some librarians have found themselves targeted for creating book displays featuring LGBTQ titles. And right-wing groups like Moms For Liberty have been organizing around the country to ban books they deem “obscene” from schools, and even make them illegal to sell or lend to minors…

Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education programs at PEN America says he is seeing youth voices play a critical role in book ban opposition.

“At a time when many teachers and librarians are having their speech chilled, it is often students who are leading the charge and speaking out for their rights—as they should,” Friedman told Motherboard.

I can empathize. BITD, as a night school student in profession-oriented college courses, simple self-interest pushed me into similar activism. Not often; but, often enough to identify me as a PITA to a few teachers and administrators, who felt they had a vested interest in blocking any doorway that allowed the entry of up-to-date textbooks.

Death Watch

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Thanks, gocomics.org

Of course, they’ll be coming back. Though they should consider a name change once the whole operation is dedicated to Trump’s political stink. Too bad THE AMERICAN NAZI PARTY is already taken.

Fox News is turning the Republican Party into a suicide cult — A reasonable goal for Trump voters

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Tucker Carlson really wants his audience to die. The notorious Fox News host and primary mainstreamer of white nationalist views was at it again on Monday night, presenting the coronavirus vaccine as some kind of evil conspiracy and discouraging his audience from getting it…

“How effective is this coronavirus vaccine?” How necessary is it to take the vaccine?” Carlson asked, with his usual feigned expression of skepticism.

He went on to defend the honor of “anti-vaxxers” and lambast social media sites for kicking off people who spread misinformation, claiming, falsely, “there are things we don’t know about the effects of this vaccine and all vaccines by the way.” This is typical Carlson rhetoric. He doesn’t exactly come right out and tell people that vaccines are a nefarious plot. He simply claims he’s “asking questions,” allowing the audience to believe they are practicing critical thinking when what they’re doing is the opposite: rejecting evidence in favor of outrageous conspiracy theories…

What’s weird about this situation, as many people have pointed out, is that Carlson, Ingraham, etc. are actively trying to get their own audiences killed. Nearly 2% of people who test positive for COVID-19 die of it. For Fox News viewers, who tend to lean older, the risk of death is much higher. Nearly half of male GOP voters say they won’t get the vaccine, and it’s a certainty that many of them will die because of it. It’s usually not considered particularly smart business practice to get your own customers killed, but that’s exactly what Carlson and his fellow travelers are doing.

You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
Well, you might find
You get what you need…

(Apologies to The Rolling Stones)