Nina-Bytes: Order of the Day

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web. Want more? Click here to subscribe to NIDC today. 

 

Nina-Bytes: Order of the Day

Just over five years ago, in the wake of the openly fascist "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, I came to an important realization that has shaped much of my work since. Specifically, that America was in the process of an obvious slide into overt fascism; fueled in part by the election of Donald Trump. Of course, I already knew and had repeatedly written that Trump himself was a fascist; but like many of my readers today, I had some faith that the American faux democratic system would contain Trump's personal ideological tendencies. Watching significant portions of the media establishment, and indeed the U.S. government openly embrace and enable the swine emperor's fascist political tactics, utterly shattered that faith within the first six months of Downmarket Mussolini's presidency; and little has happened to restore it since.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this devotion to the fascist cause and Trumpism as a whole, was particularly apparent in federal law enforcement, Amerikkka's odious immigration police, and the larger Department of Homeland Security. While many were content to ignore concentration camps for migrant children, even the mainstream media establishment stood up and took notice when Trump, his fascist Department of Justice, and his pet federal agencies declared war on the city of Portland and started black-bagging leftist activists off the street.

While this shift from the enemy without, to the presumed enemy within represented a clear warning sign on America's road to fascism, our society and its media influencers appear only too happy to forget Portland, and what it can tell us about the Pork Reich's current precarious dance with full fascist control. To avoid repeating that mistake, I'd like to take a look at this November 5th, 2022 article written by Dell Cameron over on Gizmodo:

Homeland Security Admits It Tried to Manufacture Fake Terrorists for Trump

As always you should read the whole article, but the short version is pretty straightforward. Facing down the end of his first term, Herr Donald sought to link his three major political enemies, Black Lives Matter protestors, the Democratic Party, and antifascists, together as a single terrorist organization called "Antifa." This was fascist conspiracy nonsense, but doing so would allow the swine emperor to unlock sweeping federal powers (and funds) to persecute his opposition in the lead up to the 2020 election; which he would ultimately lose, and attempt to overturn with a riot. Well as it turns out, Trump tasked the Department of Homeland Security to manufacture evidence to support this authoritarian nonsense; and to the surprise of precisely no one, they complied!

Lead by noted fascist sh*tbag Chad Wolf, DHS proceeded to go full "the Hunt for Osama Bin Laden" on the streets of Portland. Agents were ordered to assume all protesters were "violent antifa anarchists" unless they had specific intelligence proving otherwise. Anti-terrorism dossiers, the so-called DHS "baseball cards" so familiar from the fight against Al-Qaeda, were produced for numerous innocent protestors; including those merely exercising their free speech rights, and folks who weren't even arrested. As the article makes clear, those dossiers remain in government custody and would ultimately make their way far from the warzone Trump manufactured in Portland:

"The dossiers, known as Operational Background Reports, or OBRs, are known colloquially within the agency as “baseball cards,” the report says. The task of creating them was handed, “with little to no guidance on execution,” to the agency’s Current and Emerging Threats Center, an analysis unit whose “actionable intelligence” is distributed widely throughout the government. According to the report, the dossiers would’ve been shared with, among others, the agency’s Field Operations Division, which works closely with House and Senate committee staffers, and the Federal Protection Service, whose core mission is securing some 9,000 federal facilities across the country. The extent to which entities outside the federal government were meant to be involved is unclear; however, the report indicates that DHS state and local partners, which would naturally include law enforcement, but also potentially organizations like National Governors Association, could have also been in the loop."

At one point, these muppets even brought in the Homeland Identities, Targeting and Exploitation Center to try and prove the existence of a vast "antifa" financing network; more or less entirely to satisfy the delusions of a septuagenarian fascist and the white nationalists running his government. Ultimately and unsurprisingly, these efforts lead nowhere, but the plain and obvious truth here is that entire departments of the U.S. federal government happily went along with a fascist conspiracy that criminalized anyone daring to exercise their first amendment rights in Portland, as open enemies of the state. There was almost no pushback from either the foot soldiers in the street, or the ideologically compromised administrators who run these already quite fascist portions of the government.

So why does this matter in the here and now? Tomorrow in America, there is a very good chance that the midterm elections will hand multiple branches of the government back to a wholly-fascist Republican Party still quite enthralled by Donald Trump. With storm clouds gathering, there are many folks in our discourse encouraging you to sleepwalk through the rise of fascism with polite fictions, and wistful lullabies about the strength of our institutions. They say little will change, and that the American political experiment is too strong to succumb to fascists, even if rigged elections hand them power.

Those people are dead wrong. And everything we know about Portland is all you need to prove it.

 

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Podcast at “Kropotkin’s Barbershop” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

 

Article Analysis: Law and (the Fascist) Order

Editor's note: this article represents completely new content and has never before appeared elsewhere on the internet. Please also note that I didn't cram just under a hundred hyperlinks in this article to argue about whether or not I know what fascism is with alt-right trolls; click on the links and stop wasting my time.

At this point dear readers, I must confess to having become utterly exasperated with the cowardly and mendacious members of mainstream American society who utterly refuse to acknowledge even the existence, let alone the terrifying progress of the Trump-led fascist creep in America. I certainly don't think it takes a fortune teller to realize that when the President is signalling his open support for a deranged reactionary conspiracy theory that argues all of his political opponents are satanist pedophiles working with George Soros, Black Lives Matter and "Antifa" to conduct a coup against the rightful Furher, Donald Trump - we've gone a little bit past "dog-whistle" politics in America.

In particular however I have grown exceptionally weary of hearing about how Trump and his Pork Reich administration cannot represent an all-American form of fascism because "you can still say he's a fascist" - while the president actively conflates First Amendment protected protest with terrorism, unaccountable cracker murderpigs are taking head shots at journalists during riots started by the police and the administration is threatening to pull broadcast licences from media outlets that don't treat the President "fairly."

This argument is to say the least unsupported by an increasingly growing pile of evidence and perhaps more accurately represents a mendacious call for civility designed to attack the left, in the middle of a fascist takeover by the right. In recent days however, the objectively fascist Trump administration added two more pieces of damning evidence to the pile and disturbingly, the mass media at large hasn't really taken much notice yet. Let's start with this short piece from Vanity Fair's Caleb Ecarma on September 1st, 2020:

DHS Says It's "Working On" a Black Lives Matter Crackdown

First of all, I'd like to point out how completely dysfunctional the American corporate media has become if I'm seriously offering backhanded praise to Vanity Fair for having the balls to publish this story in any sort of context; other outlets that bothered to at least mention the fascist or authoritarian nature of Wolf's comments include the Daily Beast and Esquire, but all in all I think it's fair to say the American media basically sh*t its pants on this incredibly important story.

Why is it important? Well let's see, here we have the fascist head of the Department of Homeland Security (a man appropriately named Chad Wolf) telling noted fascist commentator Tucker Carlson, on national television, about another potential mass arrest plan to round up "the leaders" of "Antifa" and Black Lives Matter the Department of Justice (under noted fundie fascist William Barr, more on him in a minute) is "working on." Just so you don't think I'm f*cking with you, let's grab a screenshot:

Again, please keep in mind that this is the guy currently running the Department of Homeland Security and conducting an objectively fascist paramilitary "policing" war against protesters in Portland and other (primarily Democrat-led) American cities. In other words, when Chad Wolf threatens to do fascism against protesters, there's a fairly recent precedent that suggests you should take him seriously. As you'll see below however, I'm definitely not sure this author, Vanity Fair or the larger American media grasps that concept as of yet. 

After our quoted passage, the article then goes on to offer up some halfhearted, milquetoast push-back on some, but not all, of Wolf's outrageous statements and the conspiracy theories it implicitly supports:

"It’s unclear exactly who the DOJ views as the leaders of nebulous political movements like antifa and Black Lives Matter, as the past few months of nationwide protests sparked by police shootings of Black Americans are largely grassroots, often spontaneous demonstrations organized at local levels."

These are of course fairly logical counter-points to Wolf's argument but to say they leave a lot of important information out would be a bit of a mild understatement. 

What about the fact that Americans have a legal right to protest? What about the fact that a protest movement isn't the f*cking Mafia and trying to use RICO charges to silence antifascists and African Americans exercising their First Amendment rights is in fact, fascist? Should I applaud Ecarma for vaguely hinting at the idea Trump is wrong for suggesting simply protesting his Junta is "terrorism" at the top of the article, or would now maybe be a good time to expect our media to be a little more explicit about why that's textbook fascism? 

The article then goes on to tie-in Tucker Carlson's sympathetic coverage of far right vigilante murderer Kyle Rittenhouse, the growing (and open) GOP conspiracy that protesters are being flown around the country to conduct riots and finally Rand Paul's bizarre claim that protesters who targeted him near the White House after the Republican National Convention are “interstate criminal traffic being paid.” 

What it doesn't do at any point in time however is offer up any sort of righteous indignation, urgency or alarm at the fact that the f*cking head of Homeland Security is openly talking about "working with" the Attorney General on a plan to "round up" protesters like mobsters or terrorists based on the unhinged and objectively false conspiracy theories of the American far-right and their swine emperor, Donald Trump; conspiracy theories happily supported by fascists in US corporate media, might I add. 

This then brings us to our second and perhaps even more terrifying article of evidence that we are indeed roiling in the throes of an all-American fascist creep; let's start with this September 4th, 2020 article from Christina Carrega at CNN:

Barr says streets are 'safer' after killing of an alleged Antifa member

So for starters, just let me say here "holy f*ck" are you folks at CNN kidding me? The fundie fascist Attorney General cuts an objectively unhinged statement justifying the extrajudicial murder of a supposed member of a completely fictional organization, on the Friday before a holiday weekend no less - and the best you mendacious minions can come up with is a 281 word blurb treating Barr's assertions at face value, that somehow doesn't contain a printed copy of the (now repeatedly altered) statement? Let's take a look at that full statement below:

Okay so did the US Attorney General, the de-facto head of the U.S. Department of Justice just describe an extrajudicial execution (without evidence, a trial or any judicial process whatsoever) of someone suspected of a crime as a triumph for justice, while effectively signalling to law enforcement that the government will have their back if they kill anarchists or members of "Antifa?" You betcha; that is exactly what just happened - but don't tell CNN or the rest of mainstream "liberal" media in America, they clearly don't consider it very important that the President just put a hit out on a man (who might have acted in self defense) for political purposes, or that his fixer Attorney General then justified that revenge killing as necessary to maintain public safety. 

Naturally, CNN wasn't the only outlet to accept Barr's blatantly politically motivated arguments in favor of Michael Reinoehl's execution as gospel truth, they're just the ones that did so with the least amount of effort to do anything resembling journalism. There is of course just one problem, well aside from the fact that this isn't how the rule of law works at all; namely that it's increasingly looking like Barr straight up lied about Reinoehl pulling a gun on the fugitive task force that was trying to "apprehend" him by... shooting at him before they even uttered any commands. 

Now look, I might not have a fancy journalism degree from Columbia but I think it's safe to say that when protesting against the government is terrorism, it's worse in the eyes of the state to be antifascist than a violent nazi terrorist, and murderpigs are coordinating with far right extremists to exterminate the left, it's pretty f*cking obtuse to be quibbling about definitions of the word fascism. We're here, even if our media establishment is still too terrified to say it out loud.

So what pray tell has the stalwart opposition in the Democratic Party been up to while all of this is going on? Actually, it's probably for the best that you don't ask.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

Homework Assignment 3: Hamstrung

 

Author's note: ok so I've just spent the better part of twenty hours editing an eighty minute podcast through what felt like infinite Vegas Pro crashes and a double clicking mouse; I am to put it politely, exhausted and all out of f*cks to give – so today's homework assignment is going to be fairly short and to the point; fans of the No Fugazi Podcast should expect a new episode later this (Saturday) morning. 

I must confess that I'm rapidly losing interest in a rigged 2020 US Presidential Election that I have gone on record as saying I think Donald Trump is likely to win, if only because he's going to cheat and threaten violence to get what he wants in the end. Unfortunately and even despite my attempts to avoid insipid and sensationalized culture war content disguised as American politics, the fact that Downmarket Mussolini is explicitly staking his re-election (and the function of his state) on the argument that antifascists and protesters are terrorists, I have been thus far unable to tune out U.S. election coverage completely.

Now before we go any further, I would like to make one thing abundantly clear to readers who may not be familiar with my work and our previous discussions. I think at this point you'd have to be willfully blind to not recognize that Trump, the Republican Party and the larger American right are attempting to demonize public protest, antifascism and even left-leaning political thought as terrorism against the state; even while simultaneously dog-whistling their support for violent fascist terrorism from the loyal Volk. I have written extensively about this subject and you can click on the links in this paragraph if you're interested in exploring the dangerous and authoritarian intent behind this reactionary propaganda campaign further.

Which of course brings us to perhaps the most willfully blind group of people in America; Joe Biden, his in-the-tank media minions and the dead-eyed sociopaths running his 2020 Presidential campaign. I don't think it's any sort of big secret that Biden was not my preferred Democratic Party nominee in the broader fight against Trump's fascist creep and frankly there's a lot I could say here about why Biden's skillful blending of Hillary Clinton's doomed 2016 campaign, and John Kerry's doomed 2004 campaign is utter dogsh*t. The problem is that as I mentioned I honestly don't care. In fact, I am so out of f*cks to give about the Democratic Party and the elite liberal establishment as a whole that I can't even really summon up the energy to put Biden on blast for his quixotic Republican-lite campaign - in an election he has to win, because the other guy is an overt fascist.

Unfortunately however when Joe Biden goes on live television, after a 17 year old fascist militia goon murders two people, and once again starts babbling about looters, arsonists and rioting, I am suddenly forced to pay more attention. Frankly, this isn't just a question of bad politics, or even the coded racist dog-whistling involved in constantly agreeing with right wing messaging about antifascists, the Black Lives Matter movement and folks protesting against racialized police violence in general. In his desperate efforts to both embrace a fascist American law enforcement institution (that is currently clubbing soccer moms and veterans in the street,) while running from the right's unhinged fever dream that Biden is controlling or controlled by Antifa and Black Lives Matter to do terrorism, Palooka Joe's needle threading has undoubtedly put countless innocent lives in danger.

As you may well be aware (especially if you're clicking on the links as you go,) I have written extensively on the subject of why it is dangerous, disingenuous and even outright cowardly to conflate antifascist defensive actions with the premeditated, violent terrorism conducted by the reactionary American right; indeed this is clearly one of the subjects I visit most often precisely because I recognize its grave relevance to our present political situation. What I haven't really talked much about however, is why conflating "Antifa" or anti-fascist action with violent reactionary terrorism is simply and factually wrong - which is where today's homework assignment comes in. 

Writing in 2017 after the deadly fascist riot that was the "Unite the Right Rally" in Charlottesville, North Carolina, Dr. Stanislav Vysotsky details the fallacy of "bothsidesism" and precisely why defensive anti-fascist action cannot be credibly compared to fascist violence - check out this short but extremely relevant article at In These Times: 

Drawing Equivalencies Between Fascists and Anti-Fascists Is Not Just Wrong—It’s Dangerous

For those of you who may have already checked out this article based on my Twitter reading recommendations, here's some supplemental (and more mainstream) reading that might be very useful for those of you still attempting to de-radicalize reactionary relatives:

Let's Put An End To "Horseshoe Theory" Once And For All

How to Talk About Antifa With People Who Are Freaked Out About It

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”