Category Archives: Global Politics

How Donald Trump Is Building a Fourth Reich | Dame Magazine

It’s been two weeks and already we’ve been inundated with debates and think pieces on how and why our nation’s voters elected a lying, unstable, unqualified, egomaniacal racist and misogynistic candidate as the 45th president of the United States of America. Donald Trump’s victory proves that in America, white men—even the most morally degraded—only have to be fractionally as good as everybody to be successful.Mainstream media outlets, which profited off Trump’s campaign and failed to uphold their basic responsibility of reporting the facts, educating the public and correcting lies, will not act like retrospect experts. Not only are they refusing to be held accountable for their incessant coverage that helped Trump’s winning the election, they are using any backlash that ensues in the streets to build their ratings.Many pundits are already professing their shock, asking how we got here. And the media are quickly normalizing a man who built—and indeed won—on a campaign driven by hate while pretending to push a narrative of “unity.” And they’re not just normalizing him, but his whole chaotic transition team and proposed cabinet filled with far-right henchmen who will enact the white-supremacist, anti-Muslim, misogynist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, xenophobic messages Trump spouted off on the campaign trail.

Source: How Donald Trump Is Building a Fourth Reich | Dame Magazine

George Takei Responds to Trump Surrogate’s “Dangerous” Japanese-American Internment Camp Comments | Hollywood Reporter

George Takei is taking a firm stand against the recent comments by a Donald Trump surrogate that the treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII serves as “precedent” for a national Muslim registry now. Takei called the remarks “dangerous” and warned against history repeating itself. “The Japanese-American internment was an egregious violation of our national values and principles, a terrible event for which Congress apologized in 1988,” said Takei. “To invoke that dark chapter as a precedent for any action against any minorities today is a morally bankrupt and dangerous step, completely out-of-bounds with contemporary notions of civil and human rights.”

Source: George Takei Responds to Trump Surrogate’s “Dangerous” Japanese-American Internment Camp Comments | Hollywood Reporter

Swedish politician suspends Twitter account over ‘hate’ – The Local

A former Social Democrat MP and one of the party’s most outspoken feminist and anti-racist campaigners on Tuesday said ‘lies and hate’ had prompted her to take a break from Twitter.Racist and sexist trolls target Sweden’s Twitter account (06 Oct 16)Veronica Palm, a former member of parliament and chairwoman of the centre-left Social Democrat party’s local branch in Stockholm, said the increasingly hostile social climate on Twitter was behind her decision to suspend her account.”As you have noticed I’ve been tweeting less and less. The reason is simple: it actually bloody hurts,” she wrote in a tweet on Tuesday morning.”I simply don’t have the energy. I am human and want to continue to be human. Not switch off my feelings about what other people say. And in that case, lies and hate hurts. It gets under my skin, every day,” Palm, 43, continued.”I have promised that I won’t be silenced by hate and threats. I know that the democratic conversation and free speech is the foundation of democracy, but right now I just can’t do it. I won’t stay quiet, but I’m taking a break from Twitter.”

Source: Swedish politician suspends Twitter account over ‘hate’ – The Local

Photos: Largest Anti-Trump Protest Yet Swarms In Downtown L.A. For Fifth Day : LAist

An enormous gathering of more than 8,000 people expressing their disapproval of President-Elect Donald Trump have taken to the streets of downtown Los Angeles. The thousands of people began gathering this morning in MacArthur Park at around 10:00 a.m. Soon after, the march began walking east towards downtown Los Angeles on Wilshire Boulevard. By 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, the protest has begun circling through downtown Los Angeles’ streets.Wick reports that the gathering is a largely peaceful assembly of Angelenos from different backgrounds, many of whom have brought their kids along for a taste of their first amendment right to peaceful assembly.The march was organized the group Union del Barrio, a political organizing group that aims to increase political literacy in America’s growing Latinix community.

Source: Photos: Largest Anti-Trump Protest Yet Swarms In Downtown L.A. For Fifth Day : LAist

Hearts Open, Fists Up | Race Files

In the long term, we will need a different kind of politics fueled not by rage but by a deep-seated belief that the future belongs to us. A younger, more progressive, more inclusive, and more diverse generation is already here. The path forward will require a truly and deeply feminist vision that goes beyond simply electing female bodies to office, and instead reaches past the logic of brutal domination and rivalry toward interdependence, humanity, compassion, and respect for the earth. This feminism has its roots in Black feminist traditions and Indigenous world views, and has no meaning without race at the center.We will need to draw on all of our resources – the deep knowledge of survival in queer and trans communities, in Indigenous communities, in criminalized Black and Brown communities – to build the alternative services and systems we will need in this coming period as access to existing services gets dismantled. We will need the humanity of whites who want to live in a different world, one shaped not by the rivalries of race but by the wholeness of justice. We will need to forge a vision for a new economy and society. This will take work, but I know we have the immense talent and fortitude we need in our movements to achieve it.When we do this, we will have arrived not as Asian Americans, not as immigrants, not as people of color, but as a nation that finally acknowledges that society functions best and security can only exist when we all have what we need: home, health, family, education, culture, community, creativity, and spiritual growth. We will have arrived as a people who understands that you are not me and I am not you, and because of this, we need each other. We will understand that our collective survival hinges upon understanding, confronting, and dismantling race.The future is ours. But for now, we must build the unity and genuine capacity we need to declare clearly: No one comes for any of us without going through all of us. Hearts open, fists up.

Source: Hearts Open, Fists Up | Race Files

US elections: A presidency of fear | In English | EL PAÍS

Put simply, one half of the United States has voted against the rights of the other half. The people celebrating Trump’s victory on Tuesday night were celebrating the triumph of boorishness, intolerance, fear, and ignorance. The only sure thing we know about Trump is that he will say one thing one day and another the next, depending on which way the political wind is blowing, or which side of bed he got out of. In a single day he has been for and against abortion rights, same-sex marriage and banning Muslims from entering the country. And when it suits him, he has no problem lying.

Source: US elections: A presidency of fear | In English | EL PAÍS

It’s the End of the World as We Know It, and I Don’t Feel Fine. | Rebelle Society

Here’s the problem, folks…She doesn’t have a penis.Oh, I can feel your eyes rolling. Your brain is screaming about her f*cking emails, and how oily and polished she comes across. Like a typical politician. To you, I say: I don’t give a !@#$ about her emails. I like oily and polished. In this case, it meant the candidate had equilibrium because she knew what she talking about.Say what you want to say about Hillary Clinton’s off-putting demeanor, her lack of charisma, and her distrustful air. There’s no debating that she’s brilliant. Something Donald Trump isn’t.And see, Trump hates everything I am. Despises what I believe in. He has offended me as a woman. A Latina. And as a person who believes in a God by many names. Any time he offends people who lead with their faith, he is offending me.Before now, when I did not see eye to eye with a candidate and he was elected, I did not feel despair, thrown away, or less of an American because none of those men attacked me personally. None of them told me that the way I showed up in the world was intrinsically less-than. They had not assaulted me with their words and their hatred.Inside my body, in my heart, what I carry is rejection by my country. The country that I love. If this nation could elect Donald Trump to be our leader, I am a disposable American. Everything I am is being tossed in the bin.As Van Jones stated on CNN, “This was a White-lash.” The Men and the Whites rallied to elect Trump because they detest the changes that have occurred in America — what I consider progress.Plainly speaking, I’m terrified for my country. What does this election say about our path? Our legacy? What will the world think, and how will it affect international affairs and the economy throughout the next four years?There is a small part of me still clinging to hope that one day a woman will lead the United States. Another part of me wonders, if it does happen while I breathe, whether it will be a nation I recognize. Or if it will recognize me.The faith I have always held sacred, that has carried me through painful moments, wavers. On this day, I pray God sees us through the next four years. I’m too anxious to focus on my chores and my work.I just don’t know if it will ever happen for us.I haven’t got high hopes to see it in my lifetime.But then again, a racist, xenophobic misogynist with the temper of a hangry lab monkey got elected as the President of the United States.I suppose anything is possible.

Source: It’s the End of the World as We Know It, and I Don’t Feel Fine. | Rebelle Society

US presidential elections: Darkness falls in Washington | In English | EL PAÍS

The victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections is terrible news for democrats around the world. At the same time it is also a source of satisfaction and opportunity for enemies of democracy.The devastating victory of an unpredictable and dangerous demagogue plunges the world into a state of complete uncertainty, and one with immediate economic and geopolitical repercussions. The shock suffered by democratic voters in the US is the same as that being experienced in the capitals of Europe, which now risk seeing themselves abandoned by Washington at a particularly difficult historic moment because of a conjuncture of external threats and an important internal crisis of identity.

Source: US presidential elections: Darkness falls in Washington | In English | EL PAÍS

Donald Trump blames India, China for ‘greatest job theft’ – Times of India {Solution: Don’t let people like Trump move jobs out of USA!-LOL)

Donald Trump said US companies were moving out jobs to countries like India, China, Mexico and Singapore. “We are living through the greatest jobs theft in the history of the world. There’s never been a country that’s lost jobs like we do, so stupidly, so easy to solve,” he added.

Source: Donald Trump: Donald Trump blames India, China for ‘greatest job theft’ – Times of India

Cybersecurity Expert: Proof Russia Behind DNC, Podesta Hacks – The Daily Beast

Is there linkage between the DNC and Podesta hacks and the 2014 State Department hacks that were also believed to be carried out by Russia?Yeah, these are being conducted by the same groups. We know that from the IOCs—by looking at the tools they use and the infrastructure they use.

Source: Cybersecurity Expert: Proof Russia Behind DNC, Podesta Hacks – The Daily Beast