Category Archives: Fascism

#BanThis

Jeanette F.Italy-USA72, RETIRED WASHINGTON, DC

My parents left Italy in the 1920’s as teenagers. My father traveled alone. My mother traveled with her mother and four siblings. They traveled in steerage class, crossing the Atlantic, and in about two weeks arriving at Ellis Island. They faced intense discrimination when they arrived. However, they were so grateful to be in the US, they never complained.Why did your family come to the United States?My parents came to the US to escape the poverty of their small town.What would the U.S. be missing out on if you or your people were banned?If my parents had been banned from entering the US, this country would have missed a woman who cooked and sewed exquisitely. The country would have missed a man who worked every day, no vacation days for 50 years. The country would be lacking a grandson who became mayor of a world class city.

Source: #BanThis

Inoreader – Immigrants and Their Children Respond to Trump: #BanThis

There is so much we risk losing when any of us are banned. Unlike what is claimed by the administration, we are not banning the unknown, the evil, the ever illusive ‘other’. This order  is banning us – people who have been a part of the United States for generations and who make up this nation. Trump’s oversimplified rhetoric on immigration is a false depiction of our country, its history of immigration, and our struggles. #BanThis resists this erasure.To see more of this project and contribute to the campaign, follow them on Instagram at @banthiscampaign or check out their website at banthisthecampaign.org.

Source: Inoreader – Immigrants and Their Children Respond to Trump: #BanThis

From Dumb to dumber …. Trump Netanyahu’s gathering | nadiaharhash

I still think that Trump came into this business of being a President by a sheer joke, and he still does not know what it means. It is all part of TV show he thinks he used to produce and he can now present. But the more one sees him, the more one can only realize that the man is clueless on certain issues, and when it comes ot the Palestinian Israeli issue, he is definitely clueless. He is filled with fox news propaganda, that will just make him as dumb as he already looks like. it is no longer about his charisma and his sexist jokes. It is real business of conflict where he has no idea what it is about. he reminded me of Berlusconi arriving to Bethlehem and when asked about the wall, said which wall.

Source: From Dumb to dumber …. Trump Netanyahu’s gathering | nadiaharhash

“Traitor!” Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence – The New York Times

Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.But the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. At one point last summer, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event that he hoped Russian intelligence services had stolen Hillary Clinton’s emails and would make them public.The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump. On the Russian side, the contacts also included members of the Russian government outside of the intelligence services, the officials said. All of the current and former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the continuing investigation is classified.

Can Russia really derail Emmanuel Macron? – The Local

The motivation for Moscow to derail Macron’s campaign is simple.They would far rather see the anti-EU Marine Le Pen or François Fillon, both of whom are open admirers of Vladimir Putin, unlike Macron, who is openly pro-Europe, elected the next President of France.”They do not want a strong Europe, they want a weak Europe,” Macron’s spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said on Tuesday.The problem for Moscow is that ever since Fillon was struck down by fake job claims surrounding his wife, Macron has emerged as the favourite to win the election, beating Le Pen in  the second round runoff vote.’This is Putin’s plan to break up the EU’Macron’s team believe the increase in hostile reports and cyber attacks and the rise of the candidate in the polls is no coincidence. Moscow is getting jittery it seems.But so is Emmanuel Macron.His campaign chief Ferrand issued an appeal in French newspaper Le Monde on Tuesday.“We cannot let Russia de-stabilise the French presidential election,” read the title.“If these attacks succeed then the organisation of the EN Marche campaign would become very difficult, if not impossible,” said Ferrand.

Source: Can Russia really derail Emmanuel Macron? – The Local

Times May Change But Fascism Remains the Same | Dame Magazine – Trumpism, the latest run for Fascism!

If these arguments seem familiar, it’s because if you substitute Muslim for Jew and American identity for Christian identity, the cultural chaos and the backlash against women and those who are seen as not being part of the community are eerily similar. Donald Trump emphasizes exclusion and the marking of Muslims as a way of convincing Americans that there are distinctions between “real” Americans and “terrorists.” (The ideas are similar in his rhetoric about “Mexicans” and undocumented immigrants.) Trump’s executive order that banned Muslims from seven different countries was not about keeping Americans safe. His purpose was to convince his supporters that they have a claim to some sort of specialness that is due to having been born on American soil.While Trump uses different rhetorical structures to separate Americans by gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity, the purpose of his executive order was to create a sense of American identity that was based on one idea. According to Trump, Muslims cannot be true Americans. And, he believes, they cannot be admitted because, “In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.”The irony, of course, is that if “acts of bigotry … violence against women … or the oppression based on race, gender, or sexual orientation” are the criteria by which being admitted to the United States will be determined, millions of native-born Americans, including Donald Trump himself, should not be allowed to stay.It is a primary tool of the demagogue to convince their audience that a secret group lives among them. This secret group plots the larger community’s downfall; therefore, all the members of the community must not only swear allegiance to its chosen leader, they must all be willing to spy on other members of the group and turn them in should anyone suspect that a mole be working to bring them down.

Source: Times May Change But Fascism Remains the Same | Dame Magazine

What Happened to Elizabeth Warren Has Roots in Racism – The New York Times

 

In a historical coincidence, like Adams, Ms. Warren represents the state of Massachusetts. She occupies the same seat as Charles Sumner, who was nearly clubbed to death on the Senate floor in 1856 by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who was offended to the point of murderous violence by one of Sumner’s antislavery speeches. And Rule XIX itself was created in its current form in 1902 after the virulently racist Senator Benjamin Tillman assaulted his fellow South Carolinian Senator John McLaurin for saying that Tillman had uttered “a willful, malicious and deliberate lie.”This is the legacy that the 49 Republicans who voted to silence Senator Warren embraced. It is a legacy that regarded the sensitive feelings of thin-skinned congressmen as more important than good government or the voices of the people — especially the voices of women and minorities. Adams was gagged for presenting antislavery petitions from women and blacks, Senator Warren for reading the words of a female civil rights icon. This is a legacy no one should want to preserve.

Donald Trump: The Role of the Media in Addressing the Threat – SPIEGEL ONLINE

So there we have it: Donald Trump, a misogynist and a racist businessman who verifiably made 87 false statements in the course of only five days of the election campaign, is no longer a candidate. He’s sitting in the White House. Here are three insights about this American president who has been in office since Jan. 20.First, in the two-and-a-half weeks since his awful inauguration speech, he has demonstrated that he will do what he said he would: He is ordering the construction of a wall on the border to Mexico, he is issuing xenophobic decrees and he is rattling America’s allies and international institutions and, by doing so, every aspect of global politics. He has already threatened Iran and North Korea. None of this comes as a surprise either, because even Trump’s voters knew that adviser Stephen Bannon is a man who considers wars to be useful.Second, Trump is also showing that he will do much that he did not announce in the campaign. He has ordered scientists not to conduct or publish research on topics of which he does not approve. He says climate change doesn’t exist and means it seriously. He stood by as one of his closest confidants invented the term “alternative facts” to create a parallel reality. Trump brings his children with him to high-level meetings, he hired his son-in-law as a White House adviser, he has spared countries in which he does business from his travel ban on citizens of predominately Muslim states, he has not divested himself of his company holdings, he has not released his tax filings (despite pledging to do so) and even had his adviser Kellyanne Conway claim that voters didn’t care. He now wants to undo banking regulations so that “friends of mine” can get easier access to money. Is he paving the way to cash in and further enrich himself while in office?Third, Trump has already proven some of the things we already knew about him. The perception people have of him is more important to Trump than anything else. Nothing was more important to him in his first two and a half weeks in office than the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Trump is a chronic liar and he proves this in one tweet after the other. Trump despises the media (he calls it the “opposition party” and says “As you know, I have a running war with the media”) as well as the judicial branch in the form of “this so-called judge” who didn’t rule the way that his ruler desired. Meanwhile, Trump claims the people protesting against him are “paid.”

Source: Donald Trump: The Role of the Media in Addressing the Threat – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Rome’s police are on the hunt for unknown anti-pope plotters – The Local

Germs of selfishness’

The reference to the pope ignoring cardinals is believed to relate to four cardinals, including Burke, who sent a letter to Francis at the end of last year in which they challenged the head of the Roman Catholic Church over his teachings on the family.Burke publicly warned Francis in November it may be necessary to make a highly rare “formal act of correction” if the Argentine did not answer the letter – a bold and almost unheard of challenge to his authority.The mention of the removal of priests likely refers to allegations that the pope ordered the sacking of prelates from a Vatican department. In terms of the Franciscans, the pope intervened in the religious order early on to restrict the use of Latin mass, Cruxnow.com said.The 80-year old pontiff, who was elected in 2013, has proved a divisive figure, hailed by some for his “progressive” attitude – refusing to judge those guilty of church sins, such as single mothers and gay people – but criticized by others for being too “liberal”.The climate in the tiny Vatican city state has become increasingly acrimonious and watchers warn of a possible show-down with the conservatives. Francis said at the end of last year that he was “not losing any sleep” over the in-fighting.On Sunday he made no reference to the posters but called on the faithful to stay away from “polluting germs of selfishness, envy, slander”.

Source: Rome’s police are on the hunt for unknown anti-pope plotters – The Local