A SINGLE SUPREMACIST AGENDA CONNECTS VENEZUELA AND MINNEAPOLIS—AND IT IS STARTING TO OVER-REACH ~ Louis Further ~ “We live in a world in which, you can talk about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world… that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time…” That’s the ghoulish Goebbels clone, Stephen Miller — influential White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, and Homeland Security ‘Advisor’ since 2025 when interviewed hours after Trump/MAGA’s attack on Venezuela, which is illegal under Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter [pdf]. He says you all you need to know about the priorities and impetus behind Trump/MAGA foreign ‘policy’: Might makes right. Here‘s fascist House representative Andy Ogles (Tennessee) last week “[the United States is…] the dominant predator, quite frankly, force in the Western hemisphere”; and Trump interviewed in the ‘New York Times’: “[I do…]not need international law… [my]… power is limited only by […my…] own morality”. Jaws dropped at the news from Venezuela; TV programmes were interrupted; a few public figures told everyone how they should be ‘outraged’; pundits reminded audiences that there is nothing ‘new’ in US war with South American countries and speculated on how likely was similar aggression on Colombia, Cuba, Mexico then even Greenland and Canada. Yet (substantive) consequences for Trump and his cult members are unlikely because bombing Venezuela and kidnapping its leader was an ‘official act’, from prosecution for which the US Supreme Court ruled in July 2024 Trump is immune. MAGA cult members voiced support… “It’s about time!”. “Good, now we can get ‘our’ oil back!”. “Here’s hoping there can be a peaceful transition of power”. Minnesota Republican Tom Emmer on Fox ‘News’ was typical: “God bless this president of peace, Donald J Trump”. Representative Randy Fine (Florida) was sure that invading Venezuela was OK because it… “put America first”. Would supporters have to lie about the lives which the takeover will save by curtailing the ‘import’ of drugs? Yes: most fentanyl goes anywhere but north to the US. Oil, then? Crude in Venezuela’s main oil-producing area (the so-called Orinoco Belt in the east of Venezuela) is amongst the ‘dirtiest’ and most damaging in the world. Anyway, it soon became clear that major petrochemical executives weren’t really keen on the idea – even though they were rumoured to have been given advanced notice of the attack. Explaining that, of course, did for one major oil company as punishment. Impulsivity? Could be: Trump is known to have a short attention span and be influenced by his latest encounter with a sycophant or some snippet on far right TV. Secretary of State Rubio is known to have had régime change in Central America on his list for decades. Such scattershot actions seem also to lie behind Trump’s cryptically-inspired indiscriminate bombing of villages in Nigeria. Although possibly more than 100 were killed during the attack, Democrats in Congress were more concerned at not having been given the chance to weigh in on the plans for Venezuela (which they might well have endorsed: “Maduro is one of the bad guys”) than they were about the dangers of such unprovoked aggression: internecine rivalry and violence have already begun; widespread and/or regional instability must follow. Nor has the US gained a viable ‘bargaining chip’ with and for NATO, Putin, China. Remember, Democrats did nothing in response to Trump’s many acts of piracy killing over 100 sailing in the Caribbean and Pacific. You could sympathise with Democrat congresspeople angry at Trump’s continual illegal bypassing of Congress… only the US legislature can sanction invasions (War Powers Resolution), impose tariffs, demolish and de-fund government institutions and so on. Rather, the Democrat line is fast becoming that the best the party can do now is hang on and set their hopes on ‘change’ in the Midterms in November this year, and/or the next presidential election two years later – assuming that they happen. It seems as though Trump/MAGA is testing limits – how far can he go to implement Project 2025 before something breaks. For instance, more agents are to be sent into Minneapolis after events there. RESISTANCE  On the fifth anniversary (6th January) of Trump’s attempted insurrection in 2021, the official Whitehouse website published a trough of lies and rubbish in an attempt to rewrite the narrative of those same events which surely half the nation saw for themselves as it happened. Similarly, within hours of the murder of Renee Good by an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agent, the Department of Homeland Security took the unusual and unorthodox step of excluding local agencies in Minnesota from any ‘investigation’ into Good’s murder. Yet again widely viewed videos used in evidence already reveal – at the least – that an ICE agent stood in front of a vehicle preparing to exit a situation dangerous for its occupant (Good), and discharged his weapon (apparently in anger and retribution) at a moving vehicle – something which ICE training specifically prohibits [pdf]. Also within hours, resistance began, both spontaneous and hastily planned. From the unequivocally ‘forceful’ (with a capital ‘F’) imprecations of Minneapolis Mayor, Jacob Frey and others in the city, to peaceful vigils and marches in Minneapolis to the planned thousand “ICE out for Good” events in all 50 states and at least 500 cities last weekend. Remarkable was the speed with which participants voiced – and were able to express – alarm and revulsion at the whole idea of scapegoating, kidnapping and violently trafficking (non white) guest-workers, and – not for the first time –  murdering them. Also significant was the network of neighbourhood resistance: observers; notification (“Alert: ICE nearby”, whistles) techniques; blocking and protecting tactics. There is also vehement resistance in Portland, Oregon, where two passengers in a vehicle were shot by ICE agents, on 8 January. And refusal, despite these events, to be intimidated. And courage. And solidarity: recent reporting suggests that ICE mobs are specifically recruiting ‘gun enthusiasts’ and ‘military fans’ in a $US100 (£75) million drive. There is anecdotal evidence that many of those already working for ICE are welcomed as members of far right militias like the Proud Boys. Accounts on social media like these in this Reddit thread suggest that the situation in Minnesota has rapidly deteriorated even further in the past week, with ICE gangs now behaving much as the Gestapo did in the 1930s and ‘40s. This returns us to where we began: the supremacist strategy underlying it all. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security now plans to deport almost a third of the country’s residents: ‘The peace of a nation no longer besieged by the third world’ – meaning: “we’ll be getting rid of as many non-whites as we can”. According to an official government post, ‘2026 will be the year of American Supremacy’. Congresspeople have a constitutional right to visit ICE detention centres; but last week were again prevented from properly visiting one in Minnesota. Nevertheless, neither Democrat leader listened to calls to try and curb ICE through spending cuts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Images: Radical Graffiti in Minneapolis, MN and Paris, France The post Notes from the US: Might makes right appeared first on Freedom News.

FROM RACIST ELECTORAL ENGINEERING TO HOLLOWING OUT PUBLIC HEALTH, TRUMP’S SECOND TERM IS CONSOLIDATING AUTHORITARIAN POWER ~ Louis Further ~ As anarchists we can’t get excited about constitutions such as that of the United States. But its 14th Amendment also guarantees citizenship (and hence protection against deportation) to non-white children who are born in the US – regardless of their parents’ origins. Any amendment to the constitution would be a lengthy and complex process requiring congressional majorities. But the US Supreme Court announced that it would hear Trump’s challenge to this ‘birthright citizenship’ Amendment, which seeks to annul those rights. This is unnecessary if judges wish to hear the case merely to re-affirm that they cannot amend the Constitution. Alternatively, if they uphold his challenge, they will unequivocally establish a supremacist dictatorship which is legally and officially above the law and against the constitution. Similarly, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case which would confer on Trump powers to sack state officials without cause or notice, something which the law also currently forbids. What’s more, the Court has finally sided with moves in Texas to redraw electoral maps along unequivocally racist lines. There is some token resistance to the kidnapping, abduction and trafficking of non-whites from the streets particularly in some of the United States’ larger cities. But one would hope this were much stronger in the light of the harm being done by the ICE raids – particularly since over 97% of those abducted are not criminals; just not white. Those attacked increasingly include Asian Americans. Trump’s overt racist abuse and threats towards the Somali population need little comment. Indeed, tirades like those reported here and ‘views’ reported here would probably be enough to end the career of a politician under most ‘normal’ circumstances. HEALTH Health has become a greater locus of dogma, dispute, dismay, distress, disease and death under Trump’s second term than in any recent presidency. Legislation and changes are driven by the MAGA belief that only the fittest should survive. Tenets of proven medical science are disregarded in favour of fascist dogma advancing ‘superior’ race(s). Monstrous liar and eventually struck-off anti-vaccine fraudster, Andrew Wakefield, was recently rehabilitated to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) by quack Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has lauded Wakefield’s work, while influential Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson posted, “Time to apologize to Dr. Andrew Wakefield and all the others who were maligned and vilified for simply asking the right questions.” This as fake claim after fake claim is published on the CDC site replacing helpful and verifiable medical facts. Medical professionals at all levels are retiring or otherwise exiting Kennedy’s mess rather than promote junk science and collude in spreading preventable diseases and deaths. They are being replaced by ill-equipped MAGA cult members who act out of uninformed dogma, like Dr. Ralph Abraham, surgeon general in Louisiana who will be the second in command at the CDC; Abraham ordered health officials to stop promoting vaccinations. Paradoxically, this degradation of federal health agencies could sponsor a positive turn of events. Local, putatively independent, alternative bodies are quickly springing up to take matters into their own hands for the real benefit of residents who need proper public healthcare. Regional coalitions are beginning to share communications, briefs, and insights. Data is being tabulated across traditional demographics and communities by non-federal groups like the Vaccine Integrity Project. Professional groups like the AAP and The Evidence Collective are promoting the publication and spread of reliable information while initiatives like PopHIVE are fully aware of the disastrous effects of disinformation put out in the interests of fascist dogma. Nor is there evidence of ‘partisan rivalry’ amongst these enterprises. But to replace a nationwide structure ostensibly designed to advance public health won’t be easy, of course. Neither is an attempt to impeach Kennedy. Then if Trump/MAGA is serious about discriminatory ideas like his announcement that he will oblige visitors to the USA to disclose recent social media before being allowed into the country to ensure that they are loyal to fascism, and given that he considers criticising him a crime punishable by death, there could be a concerted attempt to shut down anyone providing accurate health information. This would be endorsed and supported by a legal system hell-bent on advancing the MAGA ‘agenda’ regardless of the law – as one of the US Supreme Court justices herself recently outlined. FASCISM Indeed, according to one source it may well not be long before criticising Trump and his policies becomes literally illegal; those belonging to groups which point out the illegality of the MAGA cult in power could soon be targeted as ‘terrorists’ whose “non-traditional” views are disallowed. This is in sharp contrast, of course, to Trump’s own blatant illegality in myriad spheres, in which he has complete immunity. The Trump administration has already designated Maduro as the head of a foreign terrorist organisation, fuelling fear of a potential U.S. invasion of Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest known reserves of oil. While the Trump administration claims its escalating attacks on boats in the Caribbean are in response to drug trafficking, critics say this is just another attempt by the U.S. government – effectively supported by the Democrat opposition – to destabilise Venezuela to force a regime change and exploit resources, including oil. As Trump lied in referring to the illegal murder of sailors in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean; but before his marine terrorists illegally seized a Venezuelan oil tanker (imagine if the Venezuelan navy had boarded a US vessel!), Florida Congressmember María Salazar, Republican assistant whip, remarked: “Venezuela, for the American oil companies, will be a field day, because it will be more than a trillion dollars in economic activity.” And to complete your holiday cheer, you may need to read this twice: in 2023 the US State Department adopted the Calibri font for its memos and publications because of its greater readability than the previous standard, Times New Roman, particularly on screens and when employees were engaged in text-to-speech and optical character recognition. Last week Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, ordered a return to Times New Roman because helping the visually impaired is seen by MAGA cultists as a weakness and too ‘woke’. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Image: Molly Riley, official White House photo on Flickr The post Notes from the US: Supremacist dictatorship appeared first on Freedom News.

AS THE RUBBLE THREW UP DUST, TRUMP REFUSED FOOD AID TO AS MANY AS 40 MILLION AMERICANS ~ Louis Further ~ With the usual caveat that anarchists attach scant value to voting and elections, it’s of concern that last month the US Supreme Court significantly undermined Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; this contains measures to ensure that electoral districts in any one state are arranged in rough proportion to its racial demographics. The Court has ruled that Louisiana cannot make such adjustments. Black votes now count for less. Elsewhere Republican-voting states are redrawing their electoral maps to favour white voters so actively and speedily that some legal commentators and ‘SCOTUS-watchers’ fear that this ruling could effectively result in permanent electoral majorities for the Republican (which now means far right/fascist) Party. The president is also widening his moves to overwrite the past—in this case by pardoning both more of those who tried to overturn the 2020 election in his favour and many of those found guilty of associated crimes. As the Court heard concluding oral arguments in this landmark voting rights case, the country’s president was publicly expressing major concerns about the way in which Time magazine had represented his haircut. He was also paying for the partial demolition of the White House with funds from supporters of genocide and abduction of non-whites by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), whose actions become ever more ferocious and sadistic. As the rubble threw up dust, Trump proved what a good Christian he is by refusing—illegally—to use the (non-charitable) resources mandated to feed perhaps as many as 40 million residents going hungry because of his government shutdown. This was quickly blamed on immigrants and trans people. Trump did, though, find the money to refurbish a bathroom in what he now seems to regard as his permanent home. Other signs of the extent to which Trump/MAGA cult is out of control (despite the fact that there is still little public contextual recognition of what is happening) are the sacking of those who refer to his attempted Putsch on January 6 2021 in a way of which he disapproves. Similarly, those who publicly criticise US support for Israel’s genocide often lose their jobs. Fascist senators like Ted Cruz (Texas) have legislation further to criminalise dissent. The media, of course, is feebly—if at all—trying to fend off blows from Trump, as he widens his reach to silence critics abroad. Correspondingly few are any murmurs that—although Trump is immune from legal consequences as president—those who ‘carry out his orders’ are not. MAGA cult members know that they need to stay in office indefinitely to retain that immunity. Judges’ demands for ‘accountability’ from ICE as it abducts and traffics non-whites across the country are being ignored. The ‘No Kings’ demonstrations on 18 October were estimated to have attracted more protesters than their equivalent in June by nearly 50%… seven million—or over 2% of the total population of the United States. Some sources are beginning to talk about the ‘2.5% rule‘. It would also be nice if such varied demonstrations do more than induce feelings of solidarity amongst those attending. But criticism of MAGA/Trump remains too ‘soft’ and disparate to make much impact; and lacks awareness of either the historical or geopolitical import of this resurgence of fascism. Trump’s response was characteristically vulgar. RACISM Trump and the MAGA merchants (some of whom now openly display Nazi flags) have surprised few recently by delivering themselves of a swill of offensive opinions. That slavery is and was a good thing; that racism is OK too. Vance, US vice president, stood up for such racism as this in his party and said that nobody wants to live next door to someone whose first language isn’t English; and that foreign nationals who criticised Charlie Kirk should be deported. Other forms of official government sadism include diminishing the support offered by what remains of the Department of Education responsible for young people with special needs by sacking those workers. Prosecutions for those abusing animals are also falling. Hatred is ever-present among Trump’s loyalists and ‘partners’: holocaust denier and antisemite Nick Fuentes, for instance, was given supportive exposure by prominent far right commentator Tucker Carlson—an event quickly endorsed by The Heritage Foundation, which is responsible for Project 2025, the blueprint of this administration. HEALTH ‘Policy’ in those government agencies formerly responsible for public health is increasingly based on the assumption that only the fittest deserve to survive This time last month 1,300 employees at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) were sacked—by email, without warning, without reason. This is a trend demoralising and frightening career professionals for months. Everyone has gone from the team that uses data of outbreaks in reports and guidance for the public. So have ‘epidemic intelligence service officers’ who detected and tracked emerging threats so as to mitigate their effects. And so on and so on, despite the by now familiar uncertainties and chaos around Scotch mist re-instatements. An estimated third of all employees at the CDC have now lost their jobs—on top of an expected additional 50% cut in budgets next year. Some commentators see this as a cruel experiment in just how far the deliberate and frenzied withdrawal of vital public health services from a society can go before collapse ensues. This is almost certainly only the first ‘act’ though… several ‘directives’ in Project 2025, which at first sight appear to be advocating [pdf] greater ‘efficiency’ are actually destructive and sinister; they envisage the replacement of dismissed staff (who are almost all highly experienced experts) with toadies, whose key attribute is not medical but loyalty to the fascist dogma which holds MAGA together. The way that Trump and his cabinet, including RF Kennedy Junior (who appeared the ‘flee the scene’ of a recent medial emergency), are stuffing their team, and diluting science with right-leaning anti-health dogma is alarming in the extreme.   The post Notes from the US: The fascist bathroom appeared first on Freedom News.

THIS MONTH SOMETHING DIFFERENT: A CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING WHY THE APPEAL OF SELFISHNESS GRIPS SO MANY PEOPLE SO FIERCELY ~ Louis Further ~ Right-wing beliefs are ultimately attempts to rationalise and justify selfishness. Fascism, ‘conservatism’, US Republicanism—call them what you will: the differences are essentially procedural. “My needs matter. Yours don’t”. But in order to explain much of what motivates those in the MAGA cult it’s necessary to understand the state which precedes selfishness. That is the primacy of the self devoid of empathy. Members of the MAGA cult thrive on the stark clarity of its identity and their adherence to it… badges, merchandise, flags, clothing. This applies less to other (far right) systems imposed on majorities in most other polities and other shades of élite, hierarchical, coercive political opinion—notably the Democrats in the US. But they too take what’s useful in selfishness. For that self (or selves) to be distinct first there have to be ‘others’, who are not the self. Secondly there has to be a qualitative comparison between the two entities. This drive to compare may originate in the psychology of their childhood wounds, in ongoing brainwashing, in fear, in ignorance, insecurity and so on. For cult members’ biographies (individual or collective) to make sense no two (or more) things can (co-)exist without being compared. Once the apparent ‘need’ to compare is admitted, it becomes inevitable and compelling. This adherence to the dogma of comparison for those in the MAGA cult often bypasses assertions of perceived ‘right’ vs ‘wrong’, ‘good’ vs ‘bad’. The very act of comparison (between races, sexes, classes, ideas of society etc) replaces rational analysis. Defining superiority-inferiority becomes an end in itself. This is much more than pragmatism: justifying selfishness and oppression becomes its own goal. Objectivity, tolerance, compassion, caring, empathising are all irrelevant and play no part in advancing such agendas as those which Trump/MAGA is now imposing on the US. The self (individual of collective) is the sole arbiter of such qualities as ‘strength’, ‘ruthlessness’, ‘bullying determination’; so they are more readily adopted when compared with such perceived opposites as ‘weakness’, being ‘soft on crime’ than for their innate qualities. If those in this camp subjected their perceived need to come out on top to logical or rational analysis, they would fail. So a spurious teleological element is (unconsciously) introduced: a wilful conviction that “history is on our side; we have the untrammelled right to impose”. This sense of historical inevitability both has its genesis in, and reinforces and encourages, the millenarian streak with which current US foreign ‘policy’ has been shot through at least since the élite upped its ‘war on terror’ a generation ago. It grew more harshly with the anti-Muslim fanaticism propagated by George W. Bush after the events of September 11 2001. It can still be found in establishment antisemitism and the Islamophobia of Trump and his fellow cultists. The need to capture, torture, and kill the ‘bomb-carrying Middle Easterner’ around every corner is readily satisfied by the élite’s assertion of white-male-American superiority over everyone else. Even when the hunts produce spurious results—or none—someone has to be punished. The same thing is happening now as ICE kidnaps and traffics many who fail to look ‘white’—in comparison with everyone else, especially the hunters. Such binary ‘decisions’ (“I belong. You don’t”) are endpoints. It’s easy to bask in the approbation which they receive—in propaganda outlets and legislative echo-chambers. After all, again, the ‘superior self’ is sole arbiter of what to subscribe to. CIRCULAR LOGIC Belief (as opposed to reason) also has its own circular justification. This is hardly surprising when you recall that fascism is a system which seeks to ‘solve’ a problem which it has itself created. Once the primacy—and so the perceived necessity—of binary comparisons has been accepted (as it is in fascist beliefs), then condemnation of the other is even more compelling and convincing to the likes of the MAGA/Trump cult: non-whites are undesirable because they are criminals (not even remotely true, of course). This means that they are criminals because they are non-white. Analogously “We whites are better than ‘illegal aliens’ because… we are not ‘illegal aliens’”. This horse-before-cart assertion of white superiority (currently, with ICE, towards all LatinX communities) uses such circular logic: “We kidnap them because they are immigrants. If they get kidnapped, they must deserve it because they are immigrants who have been kidnapped”. This is analogous to much back-and-forth, tit-for-tat threads on social media when attempts are made to denigrate all opinion which the right lumps together as ‘liberal’: “You are bad because you are socialist; but the reason why you hold socialist views is that you are ‘bad’; and—while we’re at it—you’re bad because you do not belong to or with us”. Then “‘Liberals’ (socialists) are bad and evil because they believe in taking away what we’ve striven so hard to accumulate; therefore believing in equality is bad because it’s what bad people like you socialists believe in”! But this is where it gets even more frightening: the immediacy of accepting and acting on selfishness also makes a nuisance of both facts and nuance. Who needs facts when what individuals say must always be right because it would be a breach of my freedom to stifle that. Once fascist dogma has (successfully) rendered decisions based on falsity and false ‘logic’ acceptable, popular even, the need to examine phenomena such as climate collapse and the efficacy of vaccines against verifiable facts is removed. The mere act of pronouncing on these issues is sufficient for what’s said to appear true to those who want it to be true. To hold a ‘position’ is itself a valid and worthy end. What’s more, fascist belief is both immature and simplistic. So it’s all too easy, for example, to justify climate denial by saying “Well, I can’t see evidence of the collapse that all of you keep saying is upon us; so it doesn’t exist.” Similarly, the White House issues reports almost daily about ‘necessary’ actions against immigrants and to combat crime, the rates of which are not rising. The unsophisticated fascist system accepts them at face value because to do otherwise would run counter to its anti-intellectual stances. Facts mean less than dogma. It seems likely that many cult members probably do know that much of what the cult stands for is based on sand. But shame and hero worship (the psychological aspect again) and the pressure to adhere are so far eclipsing any chance of their revising their views.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photos: Los Angeles, June 2025 via Corazónegro Cerbatanero on Facebook The post Notes from the US: The MAGA war on empathy appeared first on Freedom News.

AS ACTION ERUPTS AGAINST ICE RAIDS, THE MAGA CULT MOVES ON WITH ITS LEGISLATIVE ONSLAUGHT ~ Louis Further ~ What you see in reporting on protests against arbitrary and sadistic raids on non-White families—first in Los Angeles and increasingly in other cities across the US—is by and large what you get on the ground. Just take away the usual “anarchist agitators bent on violence, which is wrong!” and add the appalling conditions: overcrowding and lack of water, food and light with mandatory inspections denied. A fascist administration is following supremacist dogma to scapegoat guest-workers and their families. Many—but by no means all—have come to the US to escape exploitation of their countries by the US. Immigrants contribute to the US economy. They predominantly avoid crime—despite claims by a convicted felon with three other cases against him, someone who actually did incite an insurrection. Yet Trump and the MAGA cartel continue pushing the line that non-whites are inferior and are ‘invading’ the US—as the ghoulish Goebbels clone, Stephen Miller, posted last weekend: “Deport the invaders”—whether or not they are in the country legally, sick, dying, are children, pregnant, tax-payers. Anyone. They want to see more chaos and uncertainty, want to provoke reaction from overwhelmingly peaceful protesters. Trump’s almost unprecedented, unconstitutional and illegal action in moving National Guard (and perhaps soon Marines) forces onto the streets to confront, harm and possibly even kill protesters is aggression in the service of kidnapping and human trafficking—and perhaps an attempt to distract from the noisy exit from the government of Trump’s biggest campaign donor. To have been optimistic since January is to have awaited opposition to the cult. Maybe the solidarity and bravery amongst protesters in Los Angeles now is the first instance of that. As resistance to ICE shows itself in L.A. and elsewhere, the cult is moving to exercise increased censorship of the media and individuals’ views. Stories like this detailing how disgraced, misogynistic and racist members of Trump’s first term are now active again in his second appear less likely in the future. Opponents of the cult are increasingly being ejected from press conferences. TRUMP’S ‘BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL’ The future of the Trump/MAGA cult’s next, huge piece of legislation may be in doubt because of the split between Trump and Musk and rumblings of dissent within the Republican party. But would-be opponents in these situations usually cave in eventually. Even a cursory read-through of the proposals is spine-chilling. However much H.R.1 may be changed before it becomes law, it looks likely to be catastrophic. Sections 42108–42301 repeal minimal environmental safeguards like clean air acts. Sections 41009 and 80301–80309 remove preservation for places such as national parks, which bring in significant revenue from tourism; climate justice is undermined and the quantity and sums allotted to local communities as block grants decreased or eliminated. As per sections 80307 to 80309, after natural disasters funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA, which is to be abolished later this year anyway) are likely to be insufficient to help; and applied to favour Trumpy states. Meanwhile, (now gutted) Environmental Protection Agency is believed to have plans to remove all limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants. The Supreme Court is firmly behind accelerating the ruin. Section 20001 increases the likelihood of greater military involvement—especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Section 70302 introduces a provision requiring anyone seeking court intervention against the administration to post a financial bond, much more likely to impact its opponents than beneficiaries. After the passage last month of another bill—which may deprive up to 14 million poorer-off people of healthcare to give the rich yet more tax breaks—Sections 44141, 44122 and 44131 of H.R.1 significantly restrict access to health care through Medicaid, the agency acting as a safety net for those who do not otherwise have health ‘insurance’. Recipients in states (they administer Medicaid) which did not vote for Trump are expected to be deprived of more funds than those which did. Sections 44110 and 44125 end all care for undocumented guest-workers and ban gender-affirming care. As tariffs come into effect, Sections 10008, 10012 would significantly increase the cost of living. Potentially unparalleled austerity could result from the deregulation envisaged in Sections 50002 and 50003. Chaos and loss of services from the purges in the Civil Service (‘DOGE’ has illegally sacked employees with generations of expertise) are envisaged in Sections 90004 to 90006. Schools and colleges will become vehicles for greater indoctrination in dogma as the paltry efforts to recognise inequality and racism under ‘DEI‘ are eliminated under Section 30061. Federal grants to arts organisations and museums are being cut. Section 44001 prevents states from regulating AI, educational technology and amending privacy standards for 10 years. Meanwhile, in order to advance the MAGA white supremacist agenda—including the absurdity that white South Africans are a persecuted race with special status in the US—the Musk-owned AI system Grok has been ‘adjusted‘ the to answer with the issue of ‘Afrikaner refugees’ whatever question was put to it. Sections 50002, 50003, 80121(h) curtail the powers of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), and court oversight of fossil fuel permits. Corporate fraud is likely to rise unchecked. MAKE AMERICA CORRUPT AGAIN The sleazy MAGA cult has taken pure graft to dimensions that beggar belief. Some examples from the many being recorded by opponents—ideally with a view to doing something about it—include the way in which cult members are intimidating (the families of) judges who fail to find in Trump’s favour when ruling on the hundreds of lawsuits filed against him. Trump and his family are using their position to increase their wealth through business deals in the Middle East. Insiders are allegedly taking advantage accordingly to trade shares. Hand in hand with corruption goes incompetence. The cult holds itself above the law, and (so) unchallengeable. In a series of events worthy of ‘Yes Minister‘ last month, the Department of Health and Human Services—under unqualified, anti-vaccination quack, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—produced a ‘report’ titled ‘Make America Healthy Again’ and sprinkled with errors: missing references and misattributions, non-existent studies, broken links, typos and made up ‘sources’). When they amended it in response to media mockery they managed to compound the errors. Remember, this is the health and potential survival of millions of residents in the United States. Here’s another indicator of the absurdity of the MAGA cult. Perhaps they act like this to enhance their sense of belonging. Its members latch onto and fetishise positions, beliefs, dogma that the rest of us would look askance at. MAGA congressperson Tim Burchett explained to a Fox ‘News’ propagandist why he didn’t drink using straws. Environmental impact? No. It’s because “That’s what the women in my house do”, agreeing with Fox that it makes your lips purse and look effeminate. This time last month a far-right federal judge in the Northern District of Texas, Matthew Kacsmaryk, ruled that it is legal to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexual orientation. This contradicts the US Supreme Court’s unambiguous ruling in 2020 (Bostock v. Clayton County) that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act offers that protection. Another law, H.R.3518 denies funding to institutions which recognise racism and/or which don’t deny an elevated concern for diversity. We can’t end without touching on the unfolding horror in the Middle East. One cultist, unwilling to respond to—let alone rectify—the United States’ promotion of the mass slaughter in Gaza and its reduction to rubble, now publicly advocates its nuclear annihilation. For others, genocide is a joke. It remains to be seen whether the cult will be able to restrain itself following Israel’s attack on Iran—or, instead, seize on the opportunity to propel the world towards Armageddon. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photos: Portland IWW on Bluesky The post Notes from the US: Reaction and Resistance appeared first on Freedom News.

THE ONSLAUGHT OF A RACIST, DESTRUCTIVE AND LETHAL GOVERNMENT IS NOW IN FULL TRAIN (PT.1) ~ Louis Further ~ A lot has happened since Trump was inaugurated last month, so much that we will have to present this month’s update in two parts. Indeed, the very speed at which the MAGA cult has caused so much damage—rather than waiting to test the waters once bedded in—is alarming; and relatively unusual for dictatorships. On several occasions, staff employed in federal agencies have been summarily removed—such as at the US Department of Agriculture and Coast Guard. Emblematic gestures are also rife: Trump appointed a fascist insurrectionist, one Ed Martin, who raised funds for the ‘Stop the Steal’ cult then participated in the riot, to serve as the interim government prosecutor for Washington, D.C. This, while sacking the person responsible for government ethics. An as yet unsubstantiated report holds that the NASA has been ordered to remove all mentions of women and minorities from its website. For all their performative value, such acts are dangerous. Perhaps the most outrageous developments came the sacking of staff working in air traffic control and for the National Transportation Safety Board just as the US experienced two air disasters. Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan was sacked—presumably because of the part which the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) played in handling Trump’s illegal retention of top secret documents in bathrooms at his country club in Florida. United States lawmakers are also increasingly being denied access from government offices as they try to investigate the crimes being committed by Trump. Security for Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has been withdrawn because of his role in advocating measures to save tens of thousands of lives during the Covid pandemic. On the very evening of the inauguration a supremacist march by one of the newly-invigorated fascist militia groups took place. ‘Stop the steal’ cultist and January 6 organiser, Andy Biggs, is now a candidate for governor of Arizona. After Congressperson Andy Ogles (Tennessee) advanced a proposal that would enable Trump to remain president after the legal two-term limit, federal charges against Ogles appeared to be dropped. Recent reports suggest that Trump has ordered the removal/deletion by the Department of Justice (DOJ) of a database relating to the crimes and criminals responsible for the attempted Putsch on January 6 2021. Those responsible for the attempt to overturn the 2020 election on January 6 2021 were immediately all pardoned or had their sentences commuted; they are now free to murder and commit political violence, as long as it is in furtherance of the MAGA cult. Several have already re-offended. The DOJ is to drop charges against anti-abortion activists who illegally threatened health clinics. In the state of New York there appear to be official attempts to set up ‘citizen militias’ along the lines of Brownshirts in Nazi Germany. THE COURTS Central to the coup, of course, is unelected troll and hatchet person Elon Musk. He illegally gained access to the data and financial systems and databases of several US agencies—including ones scrutinising his businesses—and he is working his way through them for his own profit and gain. Amongst those illegally employed to ‘manage’ these highly sensitive systems were school leavers and avowed racists such as one Marko Elez, who bruited his pride at being “…racist before it was cool… You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity”. When he offered to resign, Musk rushed to re-instate him. Another 19-year-old ’employee’, Edward Coristine, ran an image-sharing site linking to paedophile sites and the KKK. Most of the Executive Orders which Trump has issued (sackings, threats to sack, ‘buy-out promises‘ and so on) are illegal and unconstitutional. Legal specialists began referring to a ‘Domesday scenario’ in which Trump ignores or flatly refuses to acknowledge and comply with, say, Federal judges’ injunctions halting the data breaches carried out by Musk. Indeed, the administration last week hinted that it is minded to ignore such rulings. This is now actually happening: a judge from Rhode Island has had to be asked to issue a ‘Motion to enforce’ just such an order to stop Trump’s administration from illegally accessing funds, which only Congress is legally entitled to control. Appeals processes will certainly take matters to the US Supreme Court, which has been heavily stacked in Trump’s favour and now has the additional weight of the so-called ‘tenth justice‘, the senior litigator(s) at the Department of Justice, which is all too likely—but not certain—to rule in MAGA’s favour. But even if the Supreme Court rules against Trump, it’s hard to imagine a MAGA-saturated Department of Justice and the marshals in its employ taking action against the US president—especially with armed militias on the loose. Well before trump took office, surrounded by a who’s who of far right and fascist leaders, and some of the most powerful technology and communication chiefs, the cult made clear it would replace career professionals in many government agencies with their own loyalists and flaunt the Courts in the process. Remember the interview which Vice President JD Vance gave in 2021? He said, “…fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people… When the courts stop you, stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it’.”. In other words: call the judiciary’s bluff. So Trump knows that he can get away with whatever he wants. Although some of the sillier things he is proposing—the effective (invasion and?) annexation of Gaza, Canada and Greenland—should be considered as balloons flown to gauge reaction, Trump’s baby side is by itself ominous. INHUMANE TO THE CORE A good indication of how far the MAGA/Trump disease has spread came in the days after the inauguration when MAGA cultists took to the press and social media to excoriate the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Mariann Edgar Budde, for criticising “…our great president…” and suggest that she should be deported; she is a US citizen. The highly influential Sean Hannity had harsher words. Budde’s sin? Urging Trump to turn to the Christian values which he claims to follow and show mercy to (members of) the communities which he plans to oppress, some of whom are in fear for their lives: “… the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals, they pay taxes, and are good neighbours, they are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwaras and temples…”, Budde said. It is in the dogma, novelty and very perversion of, say, the ongoing massive cuts in the funding of medical research, withdrawal from the World Health Organisation and Paris climate agreement and such backward moves on such issues as the overuse of plastic that Trump/MAGA’s appeal lies. Not in reason or the common good. Inhumane, racist, sadistic, punitive and retributive actions are at the core of the administrations new policies, with the common attributes of malice, revenge, anti-intellectualism, “ready-shoot-aim” incompetence, lawlessness and lethality. Analyses of the political right in past Notes from the US columns have drawn attention to the continuum of views: from ‘old style’ Republicans (who might find performances like this too ‘unpresidential’) to armed fascist militias. It’s impossible to apportion the quantities in each because MAGA cultists command and control virtually all of them. Fascism originates in selfishness, fear and ignorance. Without much sophisticated insight into the dangers of such forces, a large majority of the electorate believe that they stand to gain from a disease like MAGA. Trump and his MAGA cult leaders know this—even if unconsciously. That’s why incidents like Elon Musk’s recent Nazi salute find uncaring acceptance. Hence, too, the general indifference on the right to almost all, of Trump’s illegal executive orders—like that to end birthright citizenship, which is part of the US constitution. When pressed, most cultists answer that the supremacist end justifies the extra-judicial means. One alarming possibility is so far receiving little coverage in the media: the MAGA cult does not seem troubled that this may all become so unpopular as to have a negative effect at the polls in 2026. It is almost as if they now think that elections are things of the past. To be continued… The post Notes from the US: Spreading the disease appeared first on Freedom News.

WHAT A RESURGENT MAGA PRESIDENCY MEANS FOR POLICY AND RESISTANCE ~ Louis Further ~ It is a week since the elections, and our preliminary assessment of how and why Donald Trump – a twice impeached convicted felon, and an incompetent, largely economically ignorant white supremacist, misogynist and serial rapist – was legitimately elected to the US presidency. That such a thing could happen is still sinking in for many people. It will probably take until early next year for us to have the true measure of it all, after Trump is inaugurated and takes his place alongside recent history’s more violent, destructive, dictatorial, intolerant, and dangerous figures. While 19th century predecessors like Andrew Jackson, James Polk and Ulysses Grant also attracted opprobrium for being ‘Caesars’, this is essentially different. Globalisation, the benefits of a much richer and diverse society, and climate collapse, all make the stakes much higher. Obviously, it’s going to be a difficult two months, as we see developments towards Trump’s and the new MAGA-heavy Congress shape and announce their plans. Much will be rumour, some will be ‘announcements’ with largely provocative value. But a lot will be clear indications of the damage, death, and destruction about to be inflicted; and seemingly impossible to stop. Last time, apparently many potentially disastrous and illegal steps were quashed by Trump’s advisors, and by government agencies to the exercise of power and expertise of which the Supreme Court’s Chevron decision at the end of July put paid. As promised, those moderating forces are all gone. The guard rails are non-existent. The brakes are off. ALARM The transition process itself is already going against precedent: Trump has missed several deadlines and has so far refused to submit the ethics pledge which he is required to do by law before he can be sworn in. Many fear that there will be no (enforceable) sanctions for such actions, because he has managed to avoid all legal consequences for his crimes over the last four years. He has also pressured Congress to approve appointments during the months between election and inauguration. So far, Republicans have failed to push back. The news is currently dominated by announcements of who will take the senior positions in his administration. For instance, racist bigot Stephen Miller is to fill the post of deputy chief of staff for ‘policy’ from January. Just as disturbing, New York anti-environmentalist Republican congressman Lee Zeldin will head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Zeldin consistently voted against such EPA initiatives as replacing lead service lines, funding for clean school buses, cleaning up toxic brownfields and Biden’s climate law in 2022. Tom Homan is a loud-mouthed vulgar racist, who Trump has appointed to oversee his threatened mass deportation of non-white people. One of its most probable outcomes is going to be the separation of children from the adults who care for them… something Homan revelled in during the last Trump administration, while the United Nations suggested that it amounted to torture. It will again. THE LAW Trump is still facing four major legal cases: falsification of business records in the furtherance of his bid for the presidency (New York); although he’s due to be sentenced on 26 November, he will most likely run the appeal process for two more months until he becomes president. Legal opinion argues that it could then be paused until 2028, assuming that he leaves office (which he has promised not to have to do – although that could be just provocation). Those pursuing the case against him for his illegal misappropriation of classified documents are almost certain to be sacked, and the case nullified. Even if it were now ever to go ahead, attempts to hold Trump accountable for inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021 seem likely to fail. The same applies to all cases involving Trump with his MAGA cult. Attempts to pin down, say, the involvement of those in the 6 January attempt in overturning the 2020 elections with violence are likely to fail, because most defendants argue that they were merely doing as their leader exhorted. Trump, though, claims he couldn’t control them. It looks as if the legal establishment is already following a course which expert of fascism, Timothy Snyder calls ‘obeying in advance’. Most of those whose appointments have been announced so far voted to overturn the results of the 2020 elections anyway. SO WHERE DO WE STAND? Wisps of ‘resistance’ have begun. Some states have announced their plans to try and Trump-proof themselves. But no apologies are offered for again drawing attention to a set of speculative, but wholly possible, developments suggested by the Lincoln Project made up of ex-Republicans. Over time, Trump could push the United States into unrecognisably dire and dangerous places. It looks as though Trump has a tall pile of executive orders waiting for implementation in January. We should expect the enshrinement into law of white supremacist hatred – probably including the start of mass deportations of non-white guest workers; misogynistic regulation – perhaps a national abortion ban; suppression of any kind of dissent – including the press and media; and economic measures – which will benefit the rich and significantly harm the rest of the people in the United States. Trump is also in the process of preparing the first tranche of executive orders to hasten climate collapse. As 2024 shapes up to be the hottest year on record, he is expected to withdraw United States support for wider initiatives to curb emissions. Drilling for fossil fuels, as threatened, seems likely to be increased sooner rather than later. Trump is also feared to augment support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, where an average of 67 children are being murdered each day by Israeli terrorists. Mike Huckabee, the new US ambassador to Israel, has said, “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian” and been an ally of the settlers in Israel who are illegally annexing Palestinian land. This week the MAGA cult also introduced a bill which would allow Trump to close down non-profit organizations of which he disapproves. This is a little-discussed threat which, if passed into law, could have enormous implications for the country. WHY? Commentators of many stripes have understandably been falling over themselves to examine “why it happened”, and to advise on “what the Democrats need to do now”. Unsurprisingly, almost all published and broadcast opinions fail to recognise that the Democrat election campaigns of 2024 still supported the United States version of capitalist ‘liberal democracy’. Harris, Walz, and the congressional candidates never adopted an approach designed to defeat MAGA as a socio-historical phenomenon. After all, as members of the élite, they were partly responsible for enabling its creation and growth. Voters’ choices had many causes, not all of which are known. Ignorance certainly plays a huge part: many voters – perhaps a majority – have little or no idea of even the simplest historical context, let alone the tools to understand that their economic grievances will never be addressed by a move to the right. Similarly, they distrust the Washington ‘insider’ culture – but their vote does nothing to remedy this. To be sure, there is a sizeable slice of the electorate that fervently believes in the supremacy of white males and that the United States belongs to them against all-comers. They are arguably right in concluding that MAGA has granted them an unashamed, overt right to hate and bully. But black and Latinx demographics accounted for many decisive votes for Trump, as did those of the working class. For some, Trump was simply a better alternative to a black woman.   Empirically, the outcome of MAGA voting patterns does present a very gloomy assessment of the mess in which the United States now finds itself. Effectively, the country is in the process of ‘remaking’ itself. But even that is only half the story. Varieties of such outcomes are inevitable for societies like that of the United States. GRIEVANCES In other words, the question is not where ‘the Harris campaign’ went wrong, but why, where, and how the system under which the United States operates makes that irrelevant. Alarmingly, but hardly surprisingly, no observers from the kind of ‘news’ sources of which most people are likely to avail themselves have, do or will ever ask such a question. Ways out of this are depressingly hard to discern. The closest they come is when soft left commentators like CNN’s Michael Smerconish ask has Trump changed America or revealed ‘its’ true nature – as though one could generalise for the whole country. In truth, Trump has done both. Most alarmingly, he has made the hatred, intolerance, misogyny, supremacism, criminality, mendacity, reliance on oppressive fear, and generally offensive transgressiveness of the élite become the norm. It is more readily acceptable by more people for whom the ends of an aggressively white male pragmatically white and oppressive state have been the aim all along. Another highly pertinent question – especially given the many millions of people worldwide whose lives will now be negatively impacted, and in many cases ended – is what form response takes. Safety pins, marches, op-eds, placards, rallies, and ‘Resist’ badges won’t do it. Not that they ever would. Civil disobedience, non-compliance, and effective passive resistance may be appropriate. The post Notes from the US: Power unchecked appeared first on Freedom News.

ON THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION HALF — BUT ONLY HALF — OF AMERICANS WOKE UP SOMBRE, STUNNED, SICKENED, AND RIGHTLY VERY SCARED ~ Louis Further ~ On Tuesday Rudy Giuliani, disgraced and debarred lawyer and felonious election denier, arrived to cast his vote in Florida in a car which he had been ordered by a court to surrender. This was part of the $148 million settlement for defaming two poll workers from Georgia after the 2020 election, in furtherance of the lie that the election was stolen. Also voting in Florida on Tuesday was convicted felon Donald Trump — despite the fact that over a million ‘regular’ voters are banned in that state because… they are felons. Those episodes epitomise the smug lawlessness of the elite which is gripping the United States. To list only the most egregious of his many crimes (for none of which is he now likely to be held accountable), Trump tried to overturn the last election with deadly violence; he boasts of his many sexual assaults and serial rapes; he is avowedly and proudly supremacist, racist and misogynist; he stashed classified national security documents in his bathroom on leaving office in 2021 and refused to give them back when ordered to do so; he called for the assassination of his (political) opponents and of members of the press; his staggering number of lies and unpredictability made his last administration chaotic as well as dangerous. A majority of voters willingly elected a fascist dictator. It was no ‘fluke’. Now, his lawlessness may give way to laws simply being changed to allow massive oppression of the populace and destruction of the Earth. Maybe MAGA should stand for Manipulable, Aggrieved, Gullible, Ahistorical. Grievances are real. An acquisitive, hierarchical, and coercive society like that of the capitalist United States ensures that large sections of the population (working people, non-whites, women and LGBTQ+ folks) are systematically oppressed. But even in those groups many nevertheless chose their own oppression and disease anyway (junk science merchant Robert F Kennedy is likely to hold a key post in the next administration’s public health plans). Why did they vote in such decisively large numbers for Trump? Three factors account for this week’s outcome. The first is that Trump’s character, conduct and transgressions — from ‘indelicacies’ to proven criminality — simply don’t matter to his cult’s members. Facts don’t matter. The electorate seems to have got fixated on lies they were told about the economy, which in the end was ‘stronger’ under the Biden administration than it was under Trump’s. But spend an hour or two with cult members’ main sources of disinformation and you’ll discover that a sizeable minority of voters has a frighteningly slim grasp of reality. Worse, they tend to see and believe what they want to see and believe. Trump’s unsuitability to run a roadside lemonade stand — let alone have his hands on the nuclear codes of the most powerful and influential country in the world — long ago became irrelevant to his supporters. They dismiss his crimes and failings as too far in the past to worry about, or as ‘communist propaganda’. Reason doesn’t play much of a part in the MAGA approach to ‘analysing’ the (political) scene; from the point of view of clinical psychology, confirmation bias is much more powerful. Secondly, the propaganda which is fed to both sides of the post-truth US electorate is based, not on substance, but on personalities and their positioning. For instance, to level the charge at Trump or his party that they are likely to further hasten climate collapse, does not provoke the response that there are evidence and facts against which such a plan of his can be judged, but that the critic’s identity or position on the political spectrum make their opinions invalid. The criticisms are deemed invalid because the critic is a political enemy, a communist, a ‘bad person’, or someone that should be dismissed with a silly epithet — ideally of a crude or foul nature. For most commentators or allies, that suffices. Argument over. Issues as such are rarely discussed; “they’re the enemy”, “she’s an extremist”, “he served our country in the military”, “she lives in a ‘transgender neighbourhood'” is all you will hear. Similarly, the reasons why someone would advocate peace in Gaza and the West bank and not want to see (southern) Lebanon reduced (further) to rubble doesn’t seem to grab anyone’s attention. The fact that an opponent sided with Palestinian protesters is what counts — their label-able stance is as simple and important as the colour of their hair. Thirdly, the official ‘opposition’ to the MAGA movement, the Democratic party, acted consistently as if it was oblivious to political science, and the history of fascism. Indeed, they admit no substantial or effective critique of the way capitalist, male-led polities work. For the candidates and vast majority of commentators this all looked to be little more than the usual game of tennis: “First it’s my turn to run an oppressive and destructive system in the interests of the elite. Then it’s your turn”. None of the many correspondents, pundits, commentators, observers — even celebrities — on the so-called mainstream left stopped even once in the last couple of years, took a deep breath and (eyebrows and voices slightly raised) asked, “Just a minute. How the hell did we get here?! Why didn’t Biden’s Attorney General (Merrick Garland) assemble and press the charges against Trump as soon as he could after his crimes were committed? And why didn’t the Department of Justice foil the evasive actions by the judges to whose courts the cases were assigned? Why did Biden insist on a ‘softly softly’ approach to the MAGA cult? And why did Harris have Polyanna with her at every rally”? Indeed, post-election ‘analysis’ almost immediately began to argue about ways to present a “better and more convincing message” to the voters, one which “addresses the grievances” mentioned above… time for fresh balls from the freezer, change ends and continue the match. Anarchists put no stock in elections, politicians and party systems. Yet in the US, the Democrats stand for ostensibly (but not really) honest and ‘neutral’ ways to support the status quo with all its inequalities, belligerence and destruction. ‘Old style’ Republicans pretend to stand for those things too; but their platform is really a way to aggressively and unapologetically promote selfishness and destruction. And over the past eight years the MAGA cult has developed an unstoppable promotion of white supremacy, misogyny and anti-intellectual denial of the sciences, in particular climate collapse and decaying public health. Few outside the genuine radical left appear to have even begun to understand the threats of fascism in the United States and its rise globally. Now that Trump can deploy Project 2025 with absolute immunity and without the opponents in the Republican party who were there last time to temper at least some of his excesses, things look very grim indeed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo: Wikimedia commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 The post Trump’s victory: “Manipulable, Aggrieved, Gullible, Ahistorical” appeared first on Freedom News.

RACISM AND THE THREAT TO ENFORCE IT BY VIOLENCE SEEM TO BE LAPPING INTO EVER MORE AREAS OF PUBLIC LIFE ~ Louis Further ~ The fervent inbuilt racism of many (most?) members of the élite — especially, but not only, on the right, and certainly woven into the fabric of the Republican Party — continues to blast through public discourse as the country and its media and propaganda outlets approach the general election on 5 November. Indeed, perhaps the most salient points which both candidates made in the recent presidential ‘debate’ (really a sequence of poorly-crafted presentations) were racist. From Donald Trump: that hordes of nasty, sick non-white ‘lowlife’ criminals are invading the United States in their millions; so you’d better dread them. From Kamala Harris: that Palestinians are going to have to content themselves with verbal token sympathy; her administration would continue to promote and fund their massacre under the guise of the United States’s perceived duty to help Israel ‘defend’ itself. This time last month Trump spared no-one’s blushes when he posted on X the vile nonsense that voting for his opponent would cause something bad: more black people in the United States. His post was accompanied by two images side by side: a mass of immigrants with the legend “Import the third world” under Harris, and “white suburbia” under Trump. The post passed with only minor comment. That offence came the day after a twaddle-filled ‘interview’ between Trump and X’s owner, Elon Musk, who himself continues to augment the ferocity and foulness of his (presumably influential) supremacist views. But Trump didn’t stop there. On his Truth Social site the candidate officially nominated for president by the Republican party actually said that women should vote for him (Trump) or expect their daughters to be raped by black ‘monsters’. Other examples of outright racist tirades abound; but no-one outside the progressive movements seems either too surprised or much motivated to object. It has all become the norm. Animals appear to be no safer: Haitian immigrants apparently now eat true white Americans’ pets – at least in Springfield (Ohio), they do. Last week Republicans – including the Republican nominee for vice president, J D Vance – got all excited because the daughter of someone’s mother’s neighbour’s friend might have claimed that her (who knows whose?) cat had been “strung up” by a nasty Haitian. A pool of Republican racists like this senator retweeted and otherwise repeated the lie. As did Trump during that same debate, although he got the animal wrong. He also repeated the falsehood multiple times at his rallies (to huge cheers) thereafter and was clearly determined to continue the hateful rubbish – even after it was otherwise accepted as being debunked, and even after local government offices in Springfield had to be closed because of an anti-Haitian-immigrant bomb threat obviously ‘inspired’ by the racist talk. Of course, none of it ever happened. But that’s of no consequence: the alleged perpetrators are black and foreign. There has been no retraction from Vance or his party. When moderators in the presidential ‘debate’ pushed back on Trump’s reference to the lies, his retort was that he’d “seen it on television”. Indeed most of his ‘policies’ are actually half-baked ideas lifted from the latest rubbish he’s just watched on Fox and other far right TV outlets. Parents in Ohio have also had to ask Trump and Vance to stop making political capital out of their son’s death last year, where the driver of a minivan which collided with the school bus in which he was riding happened to be Haitian. Nor does anyone seem too upset at the logical fallacy of ascribing evil to the entirety of a substantial demographic (guest workers) because of an alleged handful of unrepresentative transgressions in those communities. Racism and the threat to enforce it by violence seem to be lapping into ever more areas of public life. Last month an ex-Army sniper and FBI informant, Joe Moore, made public his experiences of infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan; he revealed the lengths to which the ‘Klan’s members and now ‘affiliated’ staff from the police and armed forces etc are prepared to go in order to get Trump elected and a white supremacist agenda implemented in the United States. Famous motorcycle manufacturer, Harley-Davidson, is the latest large company to allow itself to be bullied into abandoning progressive DEI initiatives (diversity, equity, and inclusion) because of pressure from members of the intolerant right. Yet again, the pressure came from the bigot and conspiracist, Robby Starbuck, who celebrated his ignorance and hatred on X shortly after the company yielded to the pressure. GAZA The promotion, facilitating and funding of genocide, injury, destruction, torture and murder of Palestinian children, women and (non-combatant) men in Gaza goes on unchecked. There continues to be an almost fantasy-like feel to the coverage of the war by the vast majority of the US media and propaganda outlets. For them the only story to tell is that of upholding Israel’s right to ‘defend’ itself. The tens of thousands of Palestinians killed and the almost total reduction to rubble of their property, healthcare facilities, schools and infrastructure is just not happening. The fact that the United Nations reported that over a million people in central and southern Gaza received no food rations in August has made worse a situation which the UN calls “beyond catastrophic” went entirely uncovered by the mainstream propaganda outlets in the US. The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, went further last week. She posted on X that “Israel’s assault could end up exterminating almost the entire population in Gaza over the next couple of years”. At the very least — with a probable significant undercount of 40,000+ Palestinians murdered by Israeli terrorists – the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, accused Israel of mounting a ‘starvation campaign’ in Gaza: the World Food Programme assesses the number of Palestinians in urgent need of (such) aid at well over two million. Deporting the millions of murderers from South and Central America is of much more pressing concern, though, and appeals to far more people who make and report on the news. When (mostly young and left-leaning) protesters speak up to draw attention — if nothing else — to the imbalance of the Israeli élite’s response to Hamas’s own terrorism last October and articulate the reasonable exhortation not to punish Palestine and Palestinians now for the oppression of Jews over millennia, they are silenced. Either by the law; or by sanctions where they are students. There is evidence that universities and other institutions of higher education are systematically suppressing any whiff of addressing or examining what Steven Thrasher calls ‘faux objectivity’ – even though it is the job of lecturers in journalism, history and politics to work with students towards equipping them for careers in which they can report and comment critically – even if to do so refuses to reduce discussion of every circumstance to a story with two equally valid ‘sides’. It is the United States which supplies over two thirds of the weapons which Israeli terrorists use to injure and kill people. And not just in Gaza. There really is no spuriously alternative, imaginary ‘balanced’, way of presenting that fact. It is to be remembered that none of the bawling from the broad right about standing up for Jews and Jewish identity should be taken seriously when one of the most prominent far right pundits, Tucker Carlson, sides with Holocaust deniers and apologists for Nazism, as he did last week when he hosted fascist podcaster Darryl Cooper. Vice presidential nominee, J D Vance, is to undertake a ‘speaking tour’ with Carlson to re-enforce the lie. Absent a vociferous and unambiguous denial from the Republican nominees for president and vice president, it isn’t too much of a stretch to conclude that they — like Carlson and Cooper — are of the opinion that US opposition to Hitler was essentially wrong because “Hitler was right”… his treatment of the Jews, ‘asocials’, trade-unionists and socialists etc was appropriate. Add in the fact that self-professed fascist, Laura Loomer, joined Trump at a recent event commemorating the attacks on September 11, 2001 and it’s hard convincingly to sever lines between Republican plans and aspirations and those of ‘accomplished’ fascists already in power like Victor Orban, whom Trump cited with approval — admiration, in fact — in the recent ‘debate’. OPPRESSION Project 2025 is the programme and plan with which Trump is intimately involved; though – with his usual lies – he denies (any and all knowledge of) it. This is presumably because he knows how unpopular its contents are — especially with undecided voters. It’s known that – were the worst to happen and were he to be elected president in November — he would swiftly implement (parts of) Project 2025: so far advanced and detailed are Project 2025’s schedules that the first changes would be made immediately after Trump’s inauguration on 20 January 2025. Project 2025 prepares for the deployment of the justice system in the US to go after his opponents with an army of supporters and cult members, whom Trump is confident he can use to replace the current civil service. Indeed, at least one Project 2025 ‘designer’ and cult member has been caught on camera exposing in chilling detail some aspects of how it would work. What exactly does Project 2025 plan in its 900+ pages? Last month ProPublica obtained nearly two dozen ‘training’ videos containing 14 hours of material intended to instruct members of a new Trump administration on what to do and say, if (when?) the time comes. At their heart are directions for the development of a fascistic government with ways to outwit and circumvent any existing laws which, and bureaucrats who, may have managed to remain. “Avoid paper trails of what we propose to do… If you need to resolve something, if you can do it, it’s probably better to walk down the hall, buttonhole a guy [sic] and say, ‘Hey, what are we going to do here?’ Talk through the decision”. According to these videos such avoidance and obfuscation include, for example, strategies not to have to give disclosures according the Freedom of Information Act, which at times reveal truths and intentions that would prove embarrassing to a far right government. They also suggest ways to make sure that their ‘policies’ aren’t struck down by ‘left-wing judges’. Although some of these moves would be standard practice for any incoming administration with different priorities from the last one, Project 2025 is different: the training videos lead participants to change fundamentally how the federal government works and what it does far in excess of what the electorate will have knowingly voted for. Bethany Kozma, for instance, former deputy chief of staff at the US Agency for International Development in the last Trump administration, explains how the movement to tackle the climate catastrophe is really aimed at “control[ing] people”. So references to climate change will be eliminated from “absolutely everywhere”. Gender fluidity is “evil”. The thought that “…advanc[ing] equal rights and opportunities, regardless of gender or gender identity…” is so bad that it will have to be “eradicated”; all “…websites; [and] the language in internal and external policy documents and grant applications…” will have to remove all such language. “The noxious tenets of critical race theory and gender ideology should be excised from curriculum in every single public school in this country.” Are you frightened yet? Let’s go on. Project 2025 lays out a huge set of ‘policy’ changes: elimination of the Department of Education, and the National Endowment for the Arts (the rough equivalent of the British Arts Council); drastically cutting Medicaid; further restricting abortion access; and finding ways to sack and replace large numbers of government officials so that Trump has greater power to control the Department Of Justice. Indeed, the person who helped to lead the transition team from Obama in 2016, Rick Dearborn, explains how crucial staffing and personnel will be in implementing the next transition. As an example, in one of the videos, former legal White House advisor to Trump, Dan Huff, explains how anyone serving under the aegis of the plan will need to be ready to push really significant changes through — against all likely and inevitable opposition. To watch your way through the videos in their entirety is also to come away with the clear sense that the perpetrators of this are well aware of opposition, of how the whole oppressive and destructive project is shot through with what would otherwise have to be praxes that are amenable of negotiation, would involve give and take, persuasion and compromise. For those are the ways in which governments have hitherto been officially designed to work in the United States (however imperfectly). But here will be needed subterfuge, obfuscation, obscurity, deceit and — above all — force. Lastly, amongst the oppression envisaged by Project 2025 is an increase in the élite’s ‘right’ vigorously to censor especially books whose content frightens them; or goes against the white, heterosexual, male ‘norm’ which is the only sense of presumed monolithic lifestyle of which it approves. Of these book bans it is particularly the Trumpy states (in the South) which are guilty. But there are increasing signs that students, parents, families and communities are fighting back. MAGA Vulgarity, offensive insults and blatant lies are among Trump’s favourite weapons. He knows that members of his cult feel at home with them; they help to bind the cult. A pointed example was on display last month when convict Trump posted scurrilous lies designed to titillate and to suggest that his opponent had engaged in, or indeed was still active in, salacious sexually ‘deviant’ practices. But, as several commentators remarked, these lies (picked up and amplified by a few members of Trump’s cult, and some media outlets) were also made as clear and violent messages of misogyny to accompany the MAGA cult’s racism, supremacism and anti-LGBTQ+ filth. This should come as no surprise. For Trump loyalty is everything. As you think what the reaction would have been if those who invaded the US Capitol in Washington DC on January 6 2021 and tried to overturn the recent election had been black or Latina/o, take note of an event which Trump hosted earlier this month at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, to celebrate and ‘honour’ those who did take part that day. Twenty of those who took part were praised and received ‘awards’. In fact, Trump also claimed recently that he has “every right” to change the results of elections if he wants to. What’s more his nominee for vice president, J D Vance, said in a recent interview that if he had held that office in 2021 he would have done the same as Trump and tried to avoid certifying the real result of the 2020 presidential election. Alarming. ENVIRONMENT At the end of last month Republicans in two dozen states led from Oklahoma who are either ignorant of and/or who deny the climate catastrophe approached the US Supreme Court to insist that its MAGA majority aid them in hastening the collapse of life on Earth by stopping the meagre attempts by the Biden administration to reduce emissions. ‘Meagre’ because the changes which went into force in 2024 envisage only an 80% decrease in the next quarter of a century. We should not — of course — be taken in by promises on the environment from the Democratic nominee for US president this year, Kamala Harris. Although obviously a better alternative than Trump, Harris has backtracked on a previous gesture towards animal welfare to ban red ‘meat’ — on which a promise may not even have really been made. Her position on fracking seems previously to have been partially plausible. But now apparently no longer is. She’s in favour. Indeed, the broader approach of the only alternative to Trump’s commitment to augment fossil fuel extraction exponentially is predictably weak and destructive. Fewer than 50 days to go… The post Notes from the US: Subterfuge and force appeared first on Freedom News.