Tag: USA

Bernie Sanders (1941) — America’s Most Famous Living Socialist

On By rebelbreezeIn USALeave a comment

Geoff Cobb

(Reading time: mins.)

A maverick who denounces the political and economic establishment, Bernie Sanders is longest-serving independent in congressional history. Amazingly he came from the far Left and an urban background to win elections in one of the most rural states in the country. Serving as United States Senator from Vermont since 2007, Sanders has finished second twice in his bids to win the presidential nomination of the Democratic party. An icon of the American left, Sanders’ attacks on the rich and support for the struggles of working people have shaken the Democratic Party establishment and also earned him the adoration of tens of millions of Americans.

Born in Brooklyn to Polish Jewish parents who could not go to a college, Bernie Sanders grew up in on East 26th Street. His father, Eli, worked most of his life as a struggling paint salesman. His mother, Dorothy Sanders, was a stay-at-home mother who died young — she was 46 — the year after Bernie Sanders graduated from high school. The family barely made ends meet and arguments about money were a regular feature of the Sanders’ Home. His brother Larry Sanders recalledT that they didn’t really know whether they’d have the rent the following month. They probably would, but it wasn’t sure.:

“We had what we needed in general, but it was the fact that our parents were arguing that was the problem. And I think what Bernard and I took from that is that financial problems are never just financial problems. They enter into people’s lives in very deep and personal levels.“

Educated in public schools and Hebrew schools, Sanders was taught that all people are equal and that they are entitled to be treated with dignity. Sanders grew up in an immigrant Jewish culture that stressed the importance of getting an education and doing something worthwhile in life. Sanders graduated from James Madison High School, where in addition to being a good student, Sanderswas also an excellent middle-distance runner.

Sanders spent a year at Brooklyn College before transferring to the University of Chicago, which had a smart, precocious student body that was passionate about fighting racism and achieving social justice. At the university, Sanders spent a lot of time in the library reading about politics and social issues. In 1963, Sanders traveled to Washington for the famous march where Dr. Martin Luther King made his iconic “I have a dream speech.” He became active in protesting against segregation in Chicago and did his first public speaking in rallies denouncing segregation.

While Sanders was at Chicago, he discovered the life and writings of Eugene Debs, the founder of the American Socialist Party and a five-time presidential candidate. Sanders would echo Debs’ conviction that there was something fundamentally wrong in America where so few had so much and so many had so little. Debs’ campaign focus on wealth equality and social justice would later become the central issues of Sanders’ presidential campaigns.

MOVING TO VERMONT

As a child Sanders had read brochures about the bucolic beauty of Vermont. After graduating from college, Sanders his then-wife and brother pooled their money and bought a piece of land in Middlesex, about six miles north of the state capital of Montpelier. “We had never been to Vermont in our lives; we just drove up,” Sanders told NPR. “We bought 85 acres or $2,500. How’s that? But it was woodland.”

Rural Vermont was vastly different than the intellectual, activist scene that Bernie Sanders experienced seven at the University of Chicago, but Sanders enjoyed life in Vermont. Sanders became an activist in Vermont’s tiny, radical, Liberty Union Party, which opposed the Vietnam War and was trying to become a viable third party in Vermont. The state was seeing an influx of young people, a demographic shift that later became known as the “hippie invasion.” Sanders ran for United States Senator on the Liberty Party line in 1971, as well as a 1974 race for Senate and a 1976 race for governor, never breaking more than 6%. In 1979, he broke with the Liberty Union. In his book, Outsider in the House, Sanders said it was a painful decision, but that the small third party wasn’t attracting members, energy or leadership.

Though Sanders had lost four elections in Vermont, undeterred Sanders ran in 1980 as an independent for mayor of Burlington, Vermont’s largest college town. Burlington was economically depressed and the city’s Democratic mayor did little to address the housing affordability crisis that the city was grappling with. During the campaign, Sanders turned his attention to local concerns including unplowed streets and a City Hall that listened to business and developers more than ordinary people. The mayor dismissed Sanders as a fringe candidate and did not campaign vigorously against him. Sanders shocked not only Burlington, but also America when he won election as mayor by a ten-vote majority. Sanders became the only mayor in the entire country who was neither a Democrat nor a Republican, and one of the few self-described socialists to gain public office. Burlington’s political establishment was aghast, but Sanders proved himself to be a competent mayor who could fashion bipartisan coalitions to achieve results. Sanders was re-elected mayor three times, laying the foundations for his later campaigns for statewide office.

In 1986, Sanders ran as an independent for governor, losing to the Democratic incumbent as well as the Republican, Peter Smith. In 1988, Sanders faced Smith again, this time in a race for Vermont’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Smith won, but Sanders surprisingly received more votes than the Democratic candidate Paul Poirier.

Bernie Sanders on election campaign trail (Photo sourced: Internet)

THE LONE INDEPENDENT IN CONGRESS

In 1990, Sanders again challenged Smith, who made some costly political miscalculations, including support for a ban on assault rifles. Sanders then won the endorsement of the National Rifle Association and the election, shocking the national political establishment.

Sanders was the lone independent in Congress. He had never been a legislator previously, and also had no party affiliation. At first, the Democrats refused to let him caucus with them but, after they lost control to the Republicans in 1995, they decided they needed Sanders’ vote. Ever since, Sanders has caucused with the Democrats and earned seniority in the congressional system, even though he was not a member of either party. Sanders took extremely controversial positions by opposing the War in Iraq and supporting normalization of trade with China.

In 2006, when Sanders ran for an open U.S. Senate seat, he garnered more than twice as many votes as his opponent. In 2012, he was re-elected with 71 percent of the vote. On December 10, 2010, Sanders rose to speak against President Obama’s extension of tax cuts for the rich. Speaking for more than eight hours, so many people tuned in to Sanders’ filibuster that the Senate’s web servers crashed.

PRESIDENTIAL RUN

In 2015, Sanders announced he was seeking the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. His run for the White House was described as quixotic, and pundits have labeled his goals as unrealistic and unachievable. Sanders and his policies however attracted millions of voters and amazingly he won 23 primaries and caucuses and around 46% of pledged delegates before losing the nomination to Hillary Clinton. A feature of his campaign was his supporters’ enthusiasm. He also stood out from other candidates for rejecting large donations from corporations, the financial industry, and associated political action committees.

Bernie Sanders campaigning for the Democratic Party’s Presidential Nomination (Photo sourced: Internet)

Though he lost again four years later to Joe Biden, Sanders continued to articulate his social and economic justice platform. Sanders showed that he has had more influence on American politics than almost any other failed presidential candidate in the country’s history. Many of his ideas, which were once considered fringe concepts, became part of the party’s platform, including Medicare for All, tuition-free college, and the Green New Deal.

End.

WHY A.C.A.B?

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Mass Media Criticism, Police Violence, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

POLICING IN THE USA

Extract

“20-year old Daunte Wright was killed on April 11th, 2021 in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota by a cop (26 year veteran) who allegedly mistook their own gun for a taser. On March 3rd, 2021, Daisha Smalls’ 1 year old child was shot in the head by cops in Houston, Texas while they were chasing a robbery suspect. On March 29th, 13 year old Adam Toledo was shot and killed in Chicago after being chased down by a cop. The Atlanta, Georgia mass shooter who targeted Asian women in massage parlours was said to have “had a bad day” in a statement from Captain Jay Baker, a cop with a history of anti-Asian social media posts. Capitol police were caught taking pictures with domestic terrorists and QAnon fuckwits (oh sorry… “protestors”) in January as they stormed the Capitol Building to protest Biden’s inevitable presidency. These are just some examples from 2021.”

https://orderandanarchy.ca/2021/04/20/acab-and-other-overdue-lessons-from-the-thin-blue-line-continued-unfortunately/

Extract

According to Mapping Police Violence, 319 people have been killed by police in the USA alone since January 1st, 2021. Hell, there were only 18 days in 2020 when cops didn’t kill somebody. Lots of people aren’t going home to their families, their spouses, or their friends because of run-ins with the “thin blue line” and we’re supposed to accept it. We’ve been conditioned to believe that cops are always making the best call and actively keeping communities safe from bad guys and miscreants. Anyone who dies at their hands probably had a good reason to be shot, tased, beaten, or otherwise neglected. “They should have complied” we hear. “They shouldn’t have run” they argue. “Just be polite” they claim again and again.

Image with thanks from Order & Anarchy (see link for article)

QAnon: How Long Will the Madness Reign?

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Political Analysis, USA4 Comments

By Geoff Cobb

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Prominent among the crazed mob that stormed the American Capitol building on January 6th were banners of QAnon, a far right-wing, loosely-organized network and community of believers who embrace a range of wacky, discredited beliefs. Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed during the violence inside the Capitol was a fanatical QAnon adherent. Babbitt’s social media feed was a stream of messages celebrating President Trump and QAnon conspiracy theories and many of her co-insurrectionists were also QAnon true believers. For many on the American far right, QAnon shapes their worldview and explains their fanatical support for President Trump, but what exactly is QAnon, how large and powerful is it, and what do they believe?

At its heart, QAnon is a cult united by the insane belief that President Trump was waging a secret war against a cabal of elite cannibalistic Satan-worshipping pedophiles. QAnon supporters believe that Trump was planning a day of reckoning, known as the “Storm”, when thousands of members of the cabal would be arrested. After the Storm, believers say military tribunals would ensure that these baby-eating traitors would be executed or sentenced to life in prison. Faced with overwhelming proof of the cabal’s existence, a stunned public would mourn; rage; and ultimately unite behind President Trump, ushering in a golden age of patriotism and prosperity.

QAnon supporters claim liberal Hollywood actors, Democratic Party politicians and high-ranking “deep State” government officials are all members of the cabal. They have also claimed that Trump feigned a conspiracy with Russians to trap Robert Mueller into exposing the sex-trafficking ring and preventing a coup d’état led by Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama and George Soros. Disgraced General Michael Flynn, who was convicted of lying to the FBI, but then pardoned by Trump is one of the heroes of the movement. He was filmed reciting the QAnon oath — “Where we go one, we go all” — with his family.

No-one knows the exact number of QAnon believers but social media and opinion polls indicate there are at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who believe at least some of the bizarre theories offered up by QAnon. In August, according to NBC, an internal Facebook review identified more than three million followers across a number of groups and pages. Roughly 10 percent of American adults believe in some or all of QAnon’s theories, according to a Pew Research study conducted last year.

It all started in October 2017, when an anonymous user posted a series of notes on social media message board 4chan. The user signed off as “Q” and claimed to have a level of US security approval known as “Q clearance.” These messages became known as “Q drops” or “breadcrumbs”, often written in cryptic language peppered with slogans, pledges and pro-Trump themes. True believers argue that deliberate misinformation is sown into Q’s messages, making the conspiracy theory impossible to disprove.

QAnon placard at Trump rally (Photo sourced: Internet)

“Q” signs and merchandise were first spotted at Trump campaign rallies in 2018 and the cult has spread like wildfire. In 2019, the FBI designated Qanon as a potential domestic terrorist threat. Using social media, QAnon believers swap conspiracy theories, welcoming opponents of vaccinations, people who believe the moon landing was faked, and followers of just about every other conspiracy theory into their community. QAnon is also tightly linked to the equally mad “pizzagate” conspiracy theory, which claimed that Hillary Clinton ran a pedophile ring from a Washington pizzeria. Many of the most popular QAnon groups also double as pizzagate groups, according to leaked documents. Theses fantasies though have spurred violent reactions among its believers. Both pizzagate and QAnon have been implicated in real-world violence, including armed standoffs, harassment campaigns, attempted kidnappings, a shooting and two murders. Data from digital researchers shows that QAnon content spiked during the early coronavirus lockdowns in the spring of 2020. Even after mainstream social media platforms began cracking down on QAnon-related accounts — Twitter banned them in July with Facebook and Youtube following in October — people continued spreading conspiracy theories through camouflaged account names and hashtags.

Prior to the 2020 election, a Yahoo Poll found that nearly half of Trump supporters had heard of QAnon, and of those, more than a third said they believe at least some of it is true. When asked about the baseless claim that “top Democrats” were involved in child sex-trafficking, half of all Trump supporters agreed.

Chansley aka Angeli aka Q Shaman, photographed inside the Capitol building 6 February 2021. (Photo sourced: Internet)

QAnon played a prominent role in the 2020 election. In the election, more than 70 congressional candidates endorsed some part of the QAnon ideology. The Texas Republican Party used a QAnon slogan for its 2020 campaign, (“We Are the Storm”), then rolled it out with a new line of swag and text messages to supporters (“Text STORM2020 for updates”). Fox News, playing to the group’s adherents, ramped up its coverage of sex-trafficking stings and, in an interview with Eric Trump, Fox host Jesse Watters said: “Q can do some crazy stuff, with the pizza stuff and the Wayfair stuff, but they’ve also uncovered a lot of great stuff when it comes to (pedophile Jeffrey) Epstein and when it comes to the deep state.” Trump himself mentioned QAnon during a debate in October claiming he knew “nothing about it” but had heard “they’re very strong against pedophilia, and I agree with that.”

Q predicted a Trump victory and true believers were devastated when Joe Biden won, but in a worldview dominated by the belief that Democratic elites have rigged the system, a Biden victory wasn’t a repudiation of the theory, instead it was further evidence of a scandal. A QAnon believer soon claimed that the Biden campaign used a powerful supercomputer known as the hammer to change millions of Trump votes to Biden ones. The Hammer story neatly fit into QAnon’s overarching narrative of corrupt Democrats stealing the election from its rightful winner, Mr. Donald Trump and hence, the presence of so many of its followers inside the Capitol.

Though Trump lost, in many ways QAnon won. Almost a million and a half Americans will be represented in Congress by people who support QAnon. Gun-toting Colorado Republican Representative Lauren Boebert who won her race to represent her district is perhaps the most famous QAnon supporter. In the wake of the Capitol attack, Boebert has faced fierce criticism for disclosing the secret location of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the insurrection, putting Pelosi’s life in danger. Boebert has been called the “Qanon Congresswoman” for saying she hopes the conspiracy theory is “real.”

Lauren Boebert, Republican Colorado Representative, “QAnon Congresswoman”. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Boebert is not alone in the House of Representatives. Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia has called “Q” a “patriot” who is “worth listening to and claimed that Q “posted many things that seem to verify that he is the real deal,” she says. “It’s not just someone poking in the dark, messing with people.” Taylor Greene has also accused holocaust survivor George Soros of collaborating with the Nazis and  Trump has called her a “future Republican star. There is speculation that she might run for the United States Senate or Governor of Georgia.

Republican Congresswoman for Georgia Marjorie Taylor Greene, hopes QAnon conspiracy theory is real. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Perhaps the poster child for the movement is the Q Shaman, whose name is actually Jacob Anthony Chansley. Also known as Jake Angeli, he was photographed striding through the Capitol bare-chested wearing a fur and horns, while carrying a six foot spear and a USA flag. In February, Mr Angeli was photographed at a Trump rally holding a sign that read “Q Sent Me.” Mr Angeli has called himself a “multi-dimensional or hyper-dimensional being” and claims he can “see into these other higher dimensions that these entities – these pedophiles, these rapists, these really high up people … that they can almost hide in the shadows in.” He faces multiple charges including violent entry and disorderly conduct. Angeli told federal authorities he traveled to the Capitol to answer the call from his President, who had asked his supporters to muster in Washington, D.C., on the day Congress met to certify the election defeat of Donald Trump. Angeli’s claim of following Trump’s order, along with the same claim made by others arrested in the insurrection, will serve as evidence in Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska recently warned in an op-ed in The Atlantic magazine that the QAnon conspiracy theory movement is destroying his Party. He wrote, “We can dedicate ourselves to defending the Constitution and perpetuating our best American institutions and traditions, or we can be a party of conspiracy theories, cable-news fantasists, and the ruin that comes with them.” He added, “The GOP must reject conspiracy theories or be consumed by them. Now is the time to decide what this party is about.”

Will Biden’s victory dim QAnon’s allure? Or will these conspiracy theories always survive, even in the face of apparent contradictions? Will Sasse and rational Republicans prevail or is the movement too powerfully entrenched in the party to be extirpated? One thing is sure: Qanon is not going to go away quietly.

End.

Government Collusion in Attack on American Capitol Raises Many Disturbing Questions

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Official Corruption, Political Analysis, USA5 Comments

Geoff Cobb

(Reading time: 5 mins)

Back in November, I was horrified enough by an orgy of violence at a Pro-Trump march to write a column exposing it, but never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the horrific scenes that unfolded on television Wednesday January 6th. Millions of Americans watched in disbelief as tens of thousands of Neo Nazis, White Supremacists and other members of the extreme Right invaded the Capitol. A horrified CNN presenter asked the question that was on everyone’s mind: where is the National Guard and law enforcement? Black Lives Matter protestors asked: why was their peaceful march in Washington met by a huge National Guard and police presence, while these same forces were nowhere to be seen as violent white supremacists ran amok?

Trump supporters all along stairs at front of the Capitol building, the seat of the USA legislature. (Source: Internet)

Looking at the complete lack of preparations for the violent mob which swarmed the Capitol on Wednesday, it may have seemed like bad planning. However, it’s becoming more and more obvious that the lack of security was absolutely intentional. 

The attacks that took place should have surprised no one. The extensive multi-billion dollar security apparatus ignored several red flags. Plotters in on-line far-right forums explicitly discussed how to storm the building, handcuff lawmakers with zip ties and disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s election — in what they portrayed as responding to orders from President Trump. Trump supporters exchanged detailed tactical advice about what to bring and what to do once they assembled at the Capitol to conduct “citizen’s arrests” of members of Congress. One poster said, “[expletive] zip ties. I’m bringing rope!” Online chatter was organized, in some cases, around hashtags such as #StormTheCapitol and included threats to kill congressional leaders.

The violence that occurred was orchestrated at the highest levels of the Trump administration. Trump made sure that the Pentagon would not provide necessary forces to protect the nation’s capital against the assault he was orchestrating. Shortly after losing the election in November, Trump began replacing Pentagon officials. Principled leaders were dismissed as Trump packed the Pentagon with sycophants who had demonstrated blind loyalty to him. The new appointmentss included bringing in disgraced former Gen. Anthony Tata, Islamophobic right-wing radio host Frank Wuco, and conspiracy theorist Rich Higgins. A day after positioning this trio, Trump replaced the Chief of Staff at the Pentagon with former Devin Nunes staffer Kash Patel. On the same day, he forced out the undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence

Last Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol seemed that the Government was caught unprepared, but the lack of response was carefully crafted. Trump made certain to get rid of those officials who had resisted efforts to use active military troops against Black Lives Matter protestors over the summer. When the violence started last Wednesday, Trump’s lackeys at the Pentagon blocked repeated requests from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser for the use of the National Guard to contain Trump’s “wild” protest and continued blocking it, even as Senators and Representatives were frantically phoning from inside the besieged Capitol. This was not a spontaneous event. It was, in every way, a plotted coup and the Pentagon was part of it.

While exactly what happened still remains murky it is now clear that the Pentagon limited the Washington D.C. National Guard to managing traffic. Foreseeing violence, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested support in advance of Trump’s rally, but the Department of Defense said that the National Guard could not have ammunition or riot gear, interact with protesters except in self-defense, or otherwise function in a protective capacity without the explicit permission of acting Secretary Christopher Miller, whom Trump put into office shortly after the election after firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

When Capitol Police requested aid early Wednesday afternoon, the request was denied. Defense officials held back the National Guard for about three hours before sending it to support the Capitol Police. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, tried repeatedly to send his state’s National Guard, but the Pentagon would not authorize it. The National Guard of Virginia was mobilized only when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the Governor, Ralph Northam, herself.

There was also a personal angle to holding back the National Guard. Bowser was harshly critical of Trump in the summer, and the Pentagon got revenge on her by denying help when she needed it. A White House adviser told New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi that Trump was watching television coverage of the siege and was enthusiastic, although he didn’t like that the rioters looked “low class.” Many people called for Trump to make a statement urging his followers to desist, but for hours Trump said nothing.

As the assault on the Capitol unfolded, Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who resigned on Thursday, made “an urgent plea” for a 200-member rapid response force to rush to the Capitol building. However, an official from the office of the Secretary of the Army replied that “wasn’t going to be possible.” As a reason, that official said the Pentagon didn’t like the “optics” of Guard members entering the Capitol—even though the building was at that point surrounded by thousands of Trump supporters who had forced their way through multiple levels of police security. It wasn’t until Trump supporters had actually stormed the building, smashed their way into the chambers of Congress, ransacked congressional offices, and prowled the halls hoping to take political leaders hostage, that the Pentagon finally approved the use of National Guard forces.

US Far-Right activists and supporters in possession of the Capitol, building of the Legislature of the USA on 6th January 2021. (Source: Internet)

On Thursday, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy ludicrously claimed the military had “acted as quickly as possible” and that officials hadn’t anticipated the level of violence demonstrated by Trump supporters in their “wildest imagination.” If so, they were the only ones. Trump encouraged exactly this type of action, and many others warned of the potential for violence. In fact, many of the same groups that rioted in December planned another orgy of violence for the bigger event that Trump was already advertising for January 6th.

Perhaps the prime target of the Capitol rioters was Vice President Mike Pence who had refused to block the certification of Biden’s election as president. While the rioters were in the Capitol, Trump tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify.” The Vice President had to be whisked away to a secure location to save his life. Reuters photographer Jim Bourg, who was inside the Capitol, told he overheard three rioters in “Make America Great Again” caps plotting to find Vice President Mike Pence and hang him as a “traitor”; other rioters were shouting the same.

Many of the rioters are being identified and they allegedly include police officers, elected Republican Party officials and former members of the military. Some rioters gained access to the security cordon around the Capitol supposedly by flashing badges. Some Capitol police allegedly opened barricades for the rioters and even took selfies with the mob. Five people died in the mayhem including a woman shot in the chest. Capitol Police have identified her as Ashli E. Babbitt, an Air Force veteran and Q Anon conspiracy believer from San Diego. Fifty U.S. Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department officers were injured in the riot and one officer died while on duty.

Trump supporters storm thin line of police at an entrance to the Capitol building, Washington DC, capital of the USA. (Source: Internet)

AMAZING NOT MORE LOSS OF LIFE

It is amazing that there was not more loss of life. An Alabama man allegedly parked a pickup truck packed with 11 homemade bombs, an assault rifle and a handgun two blocks from the US Capitol. Another man showed up with an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and told acquaintances that he wanted to shoot or run over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Christopher Alberts, of Maryland, was arrested for carrying a handgun and 25 rounds of ammunition on Capitol grounds. Explosives were found in the Capitol and multiple locations around Washington.

Trumpist supporters actually inside the Capitol. Some Rightists including a Senator claimed the riot was caused by Antifa and BLM supporters! The FBI denied any substance to that allegation. (Source: Internet)

In response to the wave of anger that spread across the country, right wingers claimed that the rioters were Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists. Speaking on the House floor only hours after the mayhem, Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) expressed his anger at the perpetrators. But Gaetz wasn’t accusing fellow Trump supporters — instead, he suggested members (sic) of Antifa had secretly infiltrated the group to cause the chaos. The F.B.I subsequently refuted claims that Antifa activists took part in the attack.

Will Trump be punished for his role in the violence? If there were real justice in America, Donald Trump and his flunkies in the Pentagon who planned holding back the National Guard would face severe punishment. It is almost certain, though, that Trump will avoid paying for his criminal role in the riot, even though he has blood on his hands.

End.

Shot of Trumpist mob in front of Capitol building as many have already gained entrance (Source: Internet)

CAPITALIST DEMOCRACY, TRUMP AND FASCISM

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Political Analysis, USALeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

In the capital city of the USA, the most powerful superpower in the world, supporters of the President who lost the elections stormed the Capitol, seat of the Congress of Representatives and of the legislative branch of the USA. The Trump supporters invading the building, according to some witness and police reports, carried weapons such as steel bars and chemical sprays and wounded 50 police officers, some seriously. Four people died in the Capitol grounds, at least one shot by a police officer.

Those who forced their way into the Capitol building were apparently intent on preventing Congress, the parliament of the USA, from discussing the Presidential election results and probably voting that they were legal and correct. They had been whipped up through weeks of President Trump claiming that the vote that ousted him was rigged and then yesterday again by him in person addressing a mass protest meeting in the Capital.

While mainstream opponents of Trump and some of his erstwhile supporters are calling these incidents an attack on democracy, I cannot agree. I certainly agree that current Trump supporters generally and those in the riot in particular are hostile to democracy – many of them are racist, fascist and violent. However I cannot agree that the system of government in the USA is democratic, much less representative — but more about that anon.

THE COPS AND THE FAR-RIGHT

I feel pretty confident in saying that if that rioting crowd had been black – or socialist – that there would have been a lot more than four dead. The Capitol steps and the ground around would have been dark with bodies and awash with blood. US police forces carry guns and are not shy of using them. Nevertheless, at most they shot four and possibly less out of an armed crowd that assaulted them and stormed the building of the government of the USA. What could explain that degree of restraint on the part of the cops?

Washington DC Trumpist rally prior to the Capitol invasion. (Photo source: Internet)

The Capitol’s Chief of Police Steven Sund, responding to criticism of lack of police preparedness, said that his force had a good plan worked out but that it was for a peaceful demonstration. OK — but why that assumption? There have been many examples of the violent behaviour of that Trumpist sector in many cities where the Right are in minority and one as recently as 14th November 2020 in Washington itself (reported on Rebel Breeze, see below). On that evening, far-Right Trump supporters, angry at the election totals in favour of contender Joe Biden and at Trump losing the election, rioted in the capital city and attacked people who did not agree with them.

Ah, yes, but you see, that violence was not directed at the police – in fact, it was directed at people who the police tend not to like either. Like socialists. Like people of colour. Trumpists attacked people of colour and left-wingers while police mostly stood by or attacked the victims defending themselves. The police have come to regard most of the Far-Right in the USA as being the right kind of people with the right kind of thinking – i.e Right-wing. Which is because the police themselves, for the most part, have the same kind of thinking. They expected the demonstration to be peaceful because they did not expect the Trumpists to attack the police.

The cops have got so accustomed to the Far-Right attacking the traditional targets of the cops, so used to colluding with them on many occasions, even in murders, that it seemed inconceivable to them that they would actually attack cops to get where they wanted to go. And we see this often, don’t we? The PSNI shocked at the violence towards them from the Loyalists in the Six Counties because normally, they collude against the Republicans and the nationalist areas. French police shocked when French fascists turn on them instead of both attacking the Algerians, Africans, commies ….

The US Acting Attorney General announced that they were processing evidence and expected to have 52 participants charged on Thursday as well as possibly others later. But what about charging Trump as the instigator?

A Trump supporter in the Capitol with Confederacy flag, an even more reactionary flag than the usual. (Photo source: Internet)

TRUMP WENT TOO FAR?

Twitter gave Trump a 12-hour ban only after he appeared to condone the rioting and Facebook has banned him until he steps down from the Presidency. I don’t view that as democratic defence action since I have seen comrades and other activists regularly suspended and banned from Facebook for doing no more than telling the truth about the behaviour of the PSNI or of the Israeli Zionist state. But to ban a right-winger and the President of the USA! What that says to me is that there is a growing consensus in the ruling class of the USA that Trump has gone too far, that he is a danger – not to democracy but to their class. That he has taken his ego above the needs of the class of which he was a member and which sustained him.

Trump addressing rally of his supporters in Washington DC prior to their storming the Capitol building. (Photo source: Internet)

That consensus is growing with resignations from his administration, including one of the Secretaries (like a government Minister in many European state parliaments). And also with cries for his impeachment again (he beat the process in 2019!), i.e something like being put on trial by the legislature and losing his position as President. Of course, the majority may wish to wait until January 20th when Trump has to step down anyway, as apart from him, only two other US Presidents have faced impeachment: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton (Nixon resigned before it came to that). But there is no doubt that Trump’s actions and the attack and invasion of the Capitol have rattled the elite so what they will do is not certain yet.

“DEMOCRACY”

Though they may be concerned about the members of their class sticking to agreed procedures and respecting their institutions (at least on the surface), their alarm has nothing to do with defending democracy. The USA Congress is not a democratic institution; just over half the members of the House of Representatives are at least millionaires and many billionaires – hardly representative of the population of the United States. Successful election campaigns are funded by financial, industrial and military interests that then expect payback in voting favourable legislation, tax cuts and other measures. And voting down “harmful” proposals such as reducing the damage to the environment or taxing corporations adequately. In my time alone I have seen all US Presidents lie blatantly about foreign policy (Trump perhaps less than some others), one instigate burglaries and tell lies, another bring the country to war based on blatant lies, another use government offices for liaisons and then lie about it … and so on.

Although the USA is perhaps one of the most obvious examples of corrupt government on a huge scale, all capitalist government is like it, albeit possibly to a lesser degree. The most we may expect from capitalist democracy is to be given a choice as to which party of the exploiting capitalist class we can put into government.

AND THE FASCISTS ….

Most fascists pretend most of the time that they support democracy, by which they mean the kind of capitalist democracy which I have just been describing. Socialism, on the other hand, is “undemocratic”, they claim. But when fascists feel what they want is being threatened, they quickly drop all appearance of democracy, even capitalist democracy. That is when fascists burn government buildings (like the Reichstag in Germany in 1933) or when they stage coups (as in Austria 1934, Spain in 1936, Hungary in 1944). Or when they storm the Capitol because they didn’t get the candidate they wanted reelected as President of the USA. Democracy, for fascists, is what gives them what they want.

Trump supporters overwhelm cop lines and storm the Capitol building. (Photo source: Internet)

Not only that, they lie and put the blame on their enemies. Like they tried to blame communists for the burning of the German Reichstag in February 1933 and anarchists for the bombing of the Basque Town of Gernika in April 1937. Like some blamed the Washington violence last November (including in a rant to Rebel Breeze) on “BLM and Antifa”. And like some are already, incredibly one might think, blaming the Left for having “taken over” the Capitol “demonstration” (see RTÉ report below).

End.

SOURCES:

Capitol riots and politician reactions: https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/pelosi-threatens-to-impeach-trump-after-armed-insurrection-against-america-1061189.html

Previous recent Trump supporters violence in Washington DC: https://rebelbreeze.com/tag/far-right-2/

Police Chief comments: https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/capitol-police-chief-condemns-protest-and-identifies-woman-who-died-1061106.html

Calls for impeachment: https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/donald-trump-vows-orderly-transition-but-calls-mount-for-him-to-be-ousted-1061161.html

Minimising the violence and blaming the Left (from RTÉ reporting):

“American conservative media has played down the gravity of the storming of the US Capitol citing anger at the establishment and accusing the hard left – without proof – of having infiltrated the crowd.

“As well as Fox News, new ultra-conservative outlets battling to nibble market share from the television news giant sought to dissociate Trump supporters from the chaos in Congress.

“The demonstrators “pushed and shoved but for the most part, that was about it,” said Kevin Corke, a Fox News reporter.

“ “Most of what we saw was beautiful today,” said Ben Bergquam, a reporter for the small online channel Real America’s Voice.

“Outlets including Real America’s Voice, Newsmax and the One America News Network (OAN) – which Trump has recommended several times in recent weeks – claimed without any evidence that the crowd had been infiltrated by small ultra-left groups.

“ “I think they were undercover Antifa,” Gina Loudon, presenter for Real America’s Voice, said of the rioters she encountered in the corridors of the Capitol.

“While denouncing the violence committed in the precincts of Congress, Greg Kelly, of Newsmax, said it nonetheless followed a certain logic.

“ “If you steal an election,” he explained, echoing Trump’s discredited accusations, “there are going to be a lot of angry people.”

“ “There’s a reason this is happening,” said Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson. “It is happening because the people with all the power have decided to clamp down so harshly on the population that things explode at a certain point.” ”

https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0107/1188165-world-live-updates/

THE CAULDRON CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, USA2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Total reading time: 5 mins.)

It is reported in the news today that Trump has ordered the deregistration on the Stock Exchange of three China companies in the belief that they are basically fronts for the Chinese military. It is reported also that the incumbent, Joe Biden, is unlikely to take a different line and that “US officials have complained that China’s ruling Communist Party takes advantage of access to American technology and investment to expand its military, already one of the world’s biggest and most heavily armed.”

China’s military may indeed be one of the world’s biggest and most heavily armed but there is no question of which power is the most heavily-armed, far above all others: the USA. According to statistics supplied by an EU armed forces comparison site (see SOURCES below), China spends $288 billion on its military, which is much more than doubled by the USA’s $610 billions. And the USA’s military share of its GDP (Gross Domestic Production), at %3.1 is way ahead that of China’s 1.9%.

One of the few areas in which China’s military outstrips the USA’s is in active personnel, at 2,300,000 against 1,281,900. Which is hardly surprising, as China’s population is more than four times that of the USA’s (1.43 billion, compared with 329 million). And that too would account for its reservist imbalance, 8,000,000 versus the USA’s 811,000.

China Type99 Tank. Armoured vehicles and numbers of personnel are the few areas in which China outstrips the USA. (Photo source: Internet)

Another area in which the Chinese military outstrips the USA’s is in tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery, self-propelled artillery and rocket artillery (that last by not so large a margin). But the USA has three times the total military aircraft of China, twice the number of attack aircraft, nearly four times the number of multirole aircraft and over four times the number of helicopters. Only in fighter aircraft does China outnumber the US’s and that by a significant amount: 1,150 against 587 – but multirole aircraft, of which the USA has 2,192, are designed for air-to-air combat as well as missile launching against ground targets.

In naval power, although China’s total of 780 looks impressive next to the USA’s 437, the USA has 20 aircraft carriers while China has …. two. The USA is not bothered with frigates or corvettes, of which China has respectively 54 and 42 but the USA’s 85 destroyers are more than double China’s 36. In submarines they are not far off level pegging, with China’s 76 against the USA’s 71.

The USA has 20 aircraft carriers while China has just two. This hi-tech US carrier cost $13 Billion. (Photo source: Internet)

These figures tell us that the USA far outranks China in military hardware and also that its military production per head of population is vastly greater than China’s. But when we look at the type of weapons in which one predominates over another (without regard to quality or modernity), it tells us something else: the USA is far better fitted for long-range warfare than is China. No state is safe from long-range attack by the USA military but many parts of the world are relatively secure from such an attack by China’s current military capability.

Furthermore, in a war between both powers, the USA would rely on hitting China from afar with bombing raids from air bases in countries with US-friendly regimes (e.g Pakistan, Indonesia, Australia, Thailand, Philippines, South Korea, Japan) and from its fleet of aircraft carriers.

China could perhaps overrun the USA’s defences on the ground but how could their troops and vehicles reach America?

Of course, the USA vastly outnumbers China in nuclear warheads too: 6,500 against 280.

MILITARISATION OF THE ECONOMY

Lenin and others wrote that increasingly in the capitalist countries, finance capital had become merged with industrial and whereas finance had earlier fed industrial development, it was towards the end of the 19th Century deserting industry at home to invest in super-profits available through exploitation of natural resources and labour power in the developing world. Countries that had large colonial territories and foreign investment preferments or monopolies were neglecting their industries in the time of imperialism while capitalist countries without the same outlets were concentrating their capital on modernising their production models and methods.

In the USA, finance capital merged long ago with industrial but, since WW2, with military expenditure also. But not only merged — the military side has come to dominate. Not necessarily in actual production statistics, though these are pretty high – according to industrial analyst Louise Echitelle writing in 2017, Roughly 10% of the $2.2 trillion in factory output in the United States goes into the production of weapons sold mainly to the Defense Department for use by the armed forces. But in addition, over half the World’s arms sales in 2013, according to a SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) pie chart quoted by Wikipedia, were by the USA and this share is likely to have increased since.

USA’s multirole fighters far outnumber China’s. This is the F-15E Strike Eagle. (Photo source: Internet)

Military production is publicly funded in Government purchasing and also in allocation of production sites – Echitelle wrote three years ago that the bidding to get a major company to locate in a municipality

“can sometimes top $100 million per factory location. A manufacturer who finally accepts a municipality’s bid collects tax breaks, a gift of land on which to put a factory and sometimes the cost of building and equipping the factory itself at taxpayers’ expense.”

Share of arms sales by state in 2013: chart by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Photo source: Wikipedia)

Incidentally, that level of reliance on military production also makes for a militarisation of the labour force, a binding of workers and trade unions to military production. This will be reflected also in cultural products such as war films (documentaries of US Wars, fictional or semi-fictional war films, Sci-Fi with US military in the future), war games and novels, USA Armed Forces Day barbecues and street parties on the third Saturday of each May, all together resulting in social support for war, invasion of other countries and …. further military expenditure.

Although the figures here have concentrated on military production and its public funding in the USA, one has to take into account many other aspects, such as that expended on raising and educating a child to military age and all that is involved in that huge investment over a period of 18 years or so.

Another factor in the calculation is what is not being produced because of the concentration on military production and its secure source of public funding. Or no longer being produced. Echitelle points out that at the end of WW2, US industry produced cars and appliances, clothing, shoes, houses and furnishings for the home market and exported many of them too. The reliance on military spending in production facility and its public funding has seen the US give way to foreign competitors in those consumer goods not only abroad but in its domestic economy too. On the other hand, China is increasingly producing such goods for its huge home market and even exporting some, for example in communication technology products.

One does not need to be a supporter of the Chinese regime to burst out laughing at the irony when a US President or US officials accuse the Chinese of militarising their economy.

End.

SOURCES

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/new-york-stock-exchange-to-delist-three-chinese-companies-under-trump-order-1058223.html

https://armedforces.eu/compare/country_China_vs_USA

Far Right Thugs Foment Night of Violence After Pro-Trump Washington D.C. March

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Fascism, USALeave a comment

Geoff Cobb

(Reading time text: 2 mins.)

The ugly violent pattern that has become a norm for far-right thugs again repeated itself Saturday night in the America’s capital city as thousands of pro-Trump extremists descended on the city to support their leader’s fraudulent claim that President-elect Joe Biden stole the recent presidential election. Saturday night’s violence surprised few and was merely a repeat of scenes that repeatedly took place this summer and autumn in other liberal cities such Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Line of Washington DC cops backlit by flames of night of Far-Right violence on Saturday. (Photo source:Getty images).

Many infamous hate-group street-brawlers showed up Saturday including The Proud Boys, American Guard, Oath Keepers, and Groypers. These groups mingled in daytime with other Trump enthusiasts who carried flags and banners reading, “Trump 2020: Keep America great”, “Trump 2020: No more bullshit”, “All aboard the Trump train!” and “Trump 2020: Pro- life, pro God, pro-gun”, while Trump’s faithful shouted “USA! USA!”, “We want Trump! We want Trump!” and “Four more years! Four more years!”

The crowd’s wishes were answered when Trump himself emerged from the White House in his limousine to raucous applause, cheers, waving and whistles from hundreds of supporters lining both sides of the street. They raised fists in salute, took pictures with phones and held signs that included “Best prez ever” and “Stop the steal.” Some supporters ran excitedly behind the presidential motorcade chanting, “We want Trump! We want Trump!” and “Four more years! Four more years!”

(Photo source: Deutche Welle).

Far right-wing celebrities egged on the crowd including notorious Info Wars rabble rouser Alex Jones and Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the extremist Proud Boys group who gained nationwide notoriety when Trump famously acknowledged them during a Presidential debate claiming they should “stand down and stand by.” Jack Posobiec, who promoted the infamous “Pizzagate” conspiracy was also part of the march.

Trump has still not conceded, denying the validity of the results of the presidential election, adding to the sullen and vengeful mood of the marchers. Many of his aggrieved supporters were not only there to protest. They were there for violence and waited until nightfall to swing into action. Large menacing throngs of Proud Boys and other violent pro-Trump brawlers combed downtown streets and commenced an orgy of violence including punching, shoving, kicking and stabbing protesters, while Metro Police seemingly ignored the brawlers and focused on restraining the Anti-Trump demonstrators. According to the Washington Post twenty people were arrested, including four charged with gun possession. One person was stabbed and had to be hospitalized.

Conflict between Far-Right and Trump opponents. The former seem to be on the left (with substance spray?), the latter on the right of photo. Allegiance of person on the ground uncertain. (Photo source: Daily Kos).

Instead of condemning the violence Trump’s tweet seemed to revel in it: ANTIFA SCUM ran for the hills today when they tried attacking the people at the Trump Rally, because those people aggressively fought back. Antifa waited until tonight, when 99% were gone, to attack innocent #MAGA People. D.C. Police, get going — do your job and don’t hold back!!!

Trump retweeted a misleading video posted by right-wing pseudo-journalist Andy Ngo, depicting a Trump supporter being knocked out from behind by an antifascist protester. “Human Radical Left garbage did this,” Trump wrote. “Being arrested now!” However, Ngo’s video was deceptively edited to blame antifascists for the violence. Another unedited video clearly shows that the Trump supporter started the altercation by punching and shoving a protester who had been using a bullhorn, then brawling with a number of other protesters, before finally receiving a knockout sucker punch.

Far-Right protesters attacked any Trump opponents. One with weapon disguised as flag while another using a (pepper?) spray (Photo source: Independent UK).
(Photo source: Standard Co.UK).

The Proud Boys instigated other acts of violence, deliberately attacking people who voiced opposition. The cops intervened but directed their attention at the protesters, not at the Proud Boys, who had clearly instigated the violence. Melees broke out in the middle of intersections where protesters sometimes gathered. At other times, gangs of pro-Trump rally-goers chased protesters down and beat them up. In one horrifying instance, Proud Boys knocked out a black female and left her unconscious in the street.

One of the victims wounded in the melees was journalist Talia Jane, who was stabbed from behind in the ear. Jane was also punched by an assailant who simply approached her and knocked her down. She got treated and continued reporting the rest of the night with a bandage wrapped round her head. Other journalists were harassed and even chased. MSNBC reporter Ellison Barber was chased by Trump thugs who chanted ‘fake news, fake news. ”

During the evening, a crowd of pro-Trump thugs were filmed destroying six large Black Lives Matter signs on the front of the Laborers International Union of North America building, near McPherson Square, while police stood by and failed to intervene. They then stomped on and destroyed other BLM signs.

(Photo source: Daily Kos).

Amazingly Trump and his supporters in the media have blamed such violence not on right wing extremists and brawlers, but on Antifa and sadly, millions of Americans have believed this false narrative. Hopefully, the new administration will crack down on these thugs and end the orgy of violence on the streets of America’s cities.

End.

Rebel Breeze postcript, from Wikipedia: Gavin McInnes co-founded Vice magazine in 1994, but he was pushed out in 2008 due to “creative differences”. After leaving, he began “doggedly hacking a jagged but unrelenting path to the far-right fringes of American culture”, according to a 2017 profile in the Canadian Globe and Mail.[43] The Proud Boys organization was launched in September 2016, on the website of Taki’s Magazine, a far-right publication for which white nationalist Richard B. Spencer had once served as executive editor.[5] It existed informally before then as a group centered around McInnes, and the first gathering of the Brooklyn chapter in July 2016 resulted in a brawl in the bar where they met. The name is derived from the song “Proud of Your Boy” originally created for Disney’s 1992 film Aladdin but left out following story changes in production and later featured in the 2011 musical adaptation. In the song the character Aladdin apologizes to his mother for being a bad son and promises to make her proud. McInnes interprets it as Aladdin apologizing for being a boy. He first heard it while attending his daughter’s school music recital. The song’s “fake, humble, and self-serving” lyrics became a running theme on his podcast. McInnes said it was the most annoying song in the world but that he could not get enough of it.

The Defiant Sprit of the Lakota Nation

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Indigenous or Original People, Political Analysis, Racism, Traditions & Folk Custom, USA1 Comment

Geoffrey Cobb

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

If people know anything about the Lakota nation, known to Americans as the Sioux, then it is the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which the Lakota dealt the United States Army a humiliating defeat, completely destroying the Seventh Cavalry of General George Custer. This battle, however, was merely one chapter in the continuing struggle of the Lakota people against the ongoing colonialism practiced by the United States government.

Lakota houses on reservation land. (Photo: Larry Towell/ Magnum Photos New York Times)

The Lakota, a semi-autonomous people whose reservations occupy huge Areas of North and South Dakota have defined themselves over generations by stubbornly clinging to their culture, language and values against the forces of cultural assimilation wielded against them by the United States government.

In the 1860s, conflict arose as settlers entered the Lakota homeland, which covered a huge swath of the American Great Plains. A nomadic people, the Lakota lifestyle centered around hunting the massive herds of bison. The Lakota signed treaties protecting their homeland in 1851 and 1868, but the United States government broke them before the ink was even dry. After the disaster at Little Big Horn, the American army hungered for revenge and it responded with a campaign of terror, beginning with the Wounded Knee massacre, in which soldiers slaughtered hundreds of Native people, including women and children.

American bison — main resource of the nomadic plains tribes for food, clothing, tools and weapons (Photo source: Wikipedia)

The sovereignty of the Lakotas depended on bison, and the American government embarked on a program of systematic extermination of these herds, In a three-year period, hunters butchered more than three million bison, close to 3,000 animals a day. Their food source gone, the Lakota were forced to end their armed struggle and live on reservations, which was often the poorest and most desiccated land.

The genocide of the Lakota through the extermination of the American Bison — a mountain of bison skulls. (Photo source: Wikipedia)

The Lakota were to experience even worse horrors than the destruction of their traditional way of life. Their very culture was targeted for extermination. The American government mounted a nearly 100 year-long calculated assault on the Lakota as the state tried to force them to assimilate. The government banned the Sundance, the Lakota’s most sacred ceremony, with its days of fasting and ritual bloodletting and they were forbidden to openly practice their religion. However, perhaps most devastating to the Lakota psyche were the boarding schools, in which generations of Indians were forced to assimilate into white culture. Lakota children were severely beaten for even speaking their native tongue. As a result, many Lakota began to doubt the worth of their indigenous culture and lack of cultural pride still is an issue haunting many Lakota today.

The Lakota still struggle to cope with the attempts to destroy their culture. Their reservations are the scenes of grinding poverty. The Lakota have tragically high rates of unemployment, alcoholism, drug addiction, family abuse and suicide. There is a severe housing shortage on the reservations, which has magnified the effects of the covid pandemic on the Lakota.

Lakota culture, though, proved difficult to exterminate and their faith survived. Central to that faith is the belief that nature is our mother and that humans should live in harmony with nature. This belief manifested itself in 2014 when the Dakota access pipeline was announced. The 3.78 billion dollar underground oil pipeline was intended to run for 1,172-mile-long (1,886 km) across Lakota lands. The Lakota immediately objected to the project because it not only threatened the Missouri River, their water supply, but also would destroy sites of cultural, historic and religious significance to the Lakota.

A dead car carries a live message on Lakota land. (Photo: Larry Towell/ Magnum Photos New York Times)

In the Spring of 2016, The Lakota mobilized to protest the pipeline, but it seemed like David fighting Goliath. The protests, which lasted months through sub-zero winter temperatures, were organized by Lakota teenagers on the Standing Rock Reservation. In the vanguard of the protesters were women who defied mace attacks, arrests and strip searches. The police used teargas, bulldozers and “military-style counterterrorism measures” to suppress the protesters, but the Standing Rock protests attracted tens of thousands of Native Americans from across the continent, becoming the largest Native American demonstration against the government in over a century. The rallying cry of the protestors in Lakota was “Mni wichoni! Water is life!” The protests became a cause célèbre, drawing media attention from around the world, as international environmentalists supported the Lakota defiance.

President Donald Trump supported construction of the pipeline and spoke out in favor of crushing the Native American protestors, but in a shocking decision on August 5, 2020, a district court ruled in favor of the Lakota. ” Mike Faith, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, expressed delight at the verdict, “Today is a historic day for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the many people who have supported us in the fight against the pipeline.”

Trump, though, was not finished in his battle with the Lakota and would continue disrespecting them. Trump deliberately chose to target the Lakota by celebrating the July 4th holiday of American Independence at an inflammatory site: Mt. Rushmore, where massive heads of American presidents were carved into mountains the Lakota hold sacred. “Wherever you go to connect to God, that’s what the Black Hills are to the Lakota,” said Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and the president of NDN Collective, an Indigenous activist group. Prospectors seized the land during a gold rush in the 1870s, violating the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which recognized the Black Hills as Lakota property. In 1980, A Federal Judge sided with the Native Americans in a suit to reclaim the Black Hills but awarded them a monetary settlement in lieu of the land. The Lakota, offended by the decision, have never touched the money.

(Photo: Larry Towell/ Magnum Photos New York Times)

The statues were carved by a white supremacist with strong ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Harold Frazier, the chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, called the monument a “brand on our flesh” that needed to be removed. He said,” Visitors look upon the faces of those presidents and extol the virtues that they believe make America the country it is today. Lakota see the faces of the men who lied, cheated and murdered innocent people whose only crime was living on the land they wanted to steal.” Washington and Jefferson were both slave owners, and Lincoln ordered the hanging of 38 Lakota men in Minnesota after an uprising of 1862. Theodore Roosevelt once said, “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are.”

Trump’s arrival again spurred Lakota protests and at least fifteen activists were arrested for blocking the highway leading to Mount Rushmore. One of the activists, Michael Patrick O’Connor, said he came because he wanted to express his outrage at the desecration of his people’s sacred lands and his frustration at a president who has failed the people of America. “I couldn’t find any reason not to be up here,” he said. “I felt like I owed it to the grandmas and grandpas, owed it to the people who suffered before us to do something and to come here because our people were gathering.”

Campaign banner during the struggle (Photo sourced: Wikipedia)

Good Voice Elk, a spiritual advisor for the Lakota, was among the older protestors. He said this was by no means his first protest. “I grew up in protests,” he said. “The seventies were really bad, and those kids, now they are the leaders.” Protesters ranged in age from senior citizens to children as young as 10. One girl was brought by her father from the Ute Mountain tribe in Colorado so she could experience Indigenous communities coming together.

Nick, Tilsen, the leader of the non-violent protest, has been singled out for retribution by local officials. He is facing felony charges that bring his potential prison sentence to 17 years. Tilsen is just the latest victim in the American government’s attempt to crush Lakota resistance. Despite the heavy-handed response to the protests, it’s hard to imagine the tenacious Lakota giving up anytime soon.

End.

USEFUL LINKS

Defend, Develop, Decolonise collective: https://ndncollective.org/

DON’T CARE ABOUT HISTORY?

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Cultural Comment, Education, History, Human Rights, Ireland, irish history, National Liberation, Science, USA, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

(Reading time: three minutes)

Diarmuid Breatnach

You don’t care about history? Well, perhaps but history cares about you. Or rather, it affects you and the world you live in, explains how you got to where you are, your successes and failures – and where you might yet go.

          Of course, what I said earlier was kind of a slick answer; history doesn’t really care about you …. or about me …. or anyone else. The wind moves the trees, fills the sails, cools us or brings rain or snow – it affects us, moves us and things around us …. but is not moved by us. That is a useful metaphor because often people think they can stop some things happening by wishing strongly that they would not. Liberals and social democrats, for example …. But the metaphor breaks down – unlike our relationship with the wind, we can move things.

The shape of a tree testifies to the forces that have come to bear upon it as it was growing and its bark rings tell us of years of plenty or scarcity. To say that you don’t care about history is like, in a way, saying you don’t care about your childhood. That period of your past life and the influences that came to bear upon it and how you reacted to them have made you, to an extent, who you are today. Certainly they have hugely affected you, as any psychologist will tell.

Tree Bent by Wind in Grass
A tree shaped in its growing by prevailing wind etc, revealing an important part of its history. (Photo source: Internet)

If you really don’t care about history, you should not care whether you experience pain or pleasure. Typically, humans like to repeat pleasure and to avoid pain. But how do we know in advance what will give us pleasure or instead cause us pain? Experience. And that too is a kind of history. Which may also teach us what pleasure may be reached through pain, as for example in certain kinds of exercise – or what pleasures may end in pain, as with addictions. And we don’t only have our own experience to go on but that of many others, in their stories and in the accounts of those who have studied them. Another kind of history.

To say that you don’t care about history is to say that you don’t care about cause and effect. You don’t care about science, in other words. Science, in the sense of observation of processes and in the sense of experiment, is a kind of history. If you do this to that, in this atmosphere at that temperature, this will be the result. How do we know? It has been observed or tested, time and time again and recorded. Very like history.

Perhaps history was not taught to you in the way most suited to you at the time. Or rather, perhaps it was not introduced to you as it would best have been. A required subject to study, to gain marks and to ignore forever afterwards is hardly likely to inspire. A list of dates, of kings and queens, of prime ministers, along with their desires, though they figure in it, is not really history. “Facts” without encouragement to challenge, to interpret, to ask and to search for why and how – these drive some minds away while others learn them – but only as dogma.

History Cursive Script Blackboard

Kings, Queens, Generals and Leaders of insurgents helped make history – but they didn’t really make history, though we are told they did and often say it ourselves. No king built a castle or a city though we are often told that is what happened. People build castles and cities: they dig foundations and sewers or latrines, dig wells or canals, cut timber and stone, mine and forge metal, construct buildings, grow food, settle, take up livelihoods, raise children, study nature, perform arts, record in print or orally …. History was made by people, ordinary people mostly with a few extraordinary individuals; history was made by people like you and I.

Or perhaps you acknowledge all that but think ok, as an ordinary person, there is nothing you can consciously do to alter the course of things now? Yes, our masters would like you to think that. The reality is that you can make choices: to join that organisation or movement, participate in that action or demonstration …. or not. To vote for one person or party or another – or to abstain. To treat people in this or that way.

What will help you make those choices? Well, for a start, your experience. And experience is a personal history. I did that and this happened; I didn’t agree with that outcome so now I will do something else. But we also have the experiences of millions of others upon which to draw, across thousands of years. History.

Rights Man Book Cover Penguin French Revolution
Thomas Paine’s writings influenced republican thinking which in turn led many to revolution. (Photo source: Internet)

USA Emmet Washington DC monument
Washington DC Monument to Irish Republican revolutionary Robert Emmet, a United irishman (a copy of the monument is in Stephens Green, Dublin). He was part of a historical process. (Photo source: Internet)

You are not an isolated individual and your people, your nation or state, is not an isolated mass. The productive forces of emerging capitalism struggled with monarchy and feudalist systems and elites and produced republicanism. Republican ideas were promoted by English and French intellectuals, for example and found receptive minds among the capitalist sons and daughters of English colonists in Ireland, bringing about the bid for a democratic parliament of all the people in Ireland. When that attempt failed, the ideas impelled some to found the United Irishmen, which hundreds of thousands of others supported because they wished for freedom from the colonial power. Less than a decade after the failure of Grattan’s Parliament to admit representation by Catholic and Dissenter, the United Irish rose in revolutionary upsurge. That was in 1798 and they looked for support from republican France, which had its revolution less than a decade earlier, in 1789. The Irish and the French republicans were encouraged by the American Revolution, which had begun in 1765 and emerged victorious in 1783.

The republican revolutions were carried out by the ordinary mass of people but it was the capitalist class that they brought to power; today the working class struggle to overcome them and come into power themselves, for the first time a majority class taking power and holding up the possibility of the end of classes and therefore of class exploitation. “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”, wrote Karly Marx and Frederick Engels in the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848.

Communist Manifesto Clenched Fist Book Cover

You are in history. You are a product of history. What you do now affects the historical outcome to some degree at least – to one degree or another you are making history. You might as well study its process and use its lessons to illuminate your way: the distilled and concentrated experiences of millions of human beings like you.

End.