In The Aggregate: Reactions

Editor's Note: In The Aggregate is a new semi-regular series bringing you links to, and commentary on stories of interest to leftists, from around the web.

Staying Busy Underwater

Since there's no easy way to say this I'm just going to be real with you folks; I have long Covid. At some point I might write about the journey that lead me to discovering this, but for now the only important thing you need to know is that I have long Covid, and I've had it for quite a while. I'm not going to die, but I'm still learning how to cope with this long-term illness, and as such it's not exactly easy for me to write essays right now. 

What I can still do however, is read, share, and briefly analyze articles by other people; people who aren't suffering from an extreme inability to focus and chronic fatigue. Is this effectively a link dump being published by a woman so desperate for content she'll try anything? In a word, yes. It's also what I'm capable of doing right now and I'm tired of getting three hundred words into an essay and then passing out exhausted. 

Please note that just because I link to an article doesn't mean I'm endorsing everything the author has ever said, or the website that article is published on. I will not link to crypto-fascists and racists, but sometimes the article you want to share is on Vox, even if you think Vox is a faux-progressive corporate propaganda shop run by rich liberals and tech barons. I should also note that I've accumulated a lot of links I want to share over the past nine months of struggling to write, so early editions of In The Aggregate are definitely going to feature a mix of new and old links; over time, I'll run out of good old links and it'll be mostly current affairs items.

Alright then, let's go; we've got a lot of long reads to cover this week and you might want to click on the links as we go along.

Fascism in the Pig Empire

The Whole Country is the Reichstag by Adolph Reed Jr. at nonsite.org 

Well, would you look at that. After nigh on six years of having out of context Adolph Reed Jr. quotes thrown at me by crypto-fascists, lumpen reactionaries and faux vulgar Marxists who don't understand his work, a friend of mine showed me this glorious longform essay by the man himself. At almost eight thousand words, this is certainly an absorbing read, but it's also the best analysis of modern fascism in the American political context I've ever encountered; and I'm not just saying that because Reed covers so much of the same ground I've been writing about for the past half-decade either. Blending history, political theory, and incisive analysis of key current events in the rise of modern fascism, this essay provides an illuminating handle on the convergence of political, judicial, and financial power behind the re-emergence of an organized, violent right wing extremism in America. As Reed demonstrates, the United States has been on the fast track to our current fascist moment since at least Goldwater; this is the logical outcome of that trip. It is indeed "time to be blunt" about the dangers of Americanized fascism; my only question for Reed at this point is - what took you so long to get here?   

88 Tactical, Militarized Police, and a Looming Coup in Brazil by Amanda Gailey at Seeing Red

So what exactly does this nexus of political power, private sector influence and violent white supremacy look like in practice? This two thousand word banger shines a light on the peculiar relationship between members of fascist ruling family in Brazil, the Trump political organization, and a neonazi paramilitary training company in Nebraska that goes by, I kid you not, 88 Tactical. After falling at their first putsch attempt in American on January 6th, are the forces of Pig Empire fascism looking to up their game in Brazil? It sure does look like it. We've got cops, nazis and would be Führers aplenty in this story that is genuinely stranger than fiction, and yet attracted almost no mainstream media attention whatsoever. 

It’s shocking to see so many leftwingers lured to the far right by conspiracy theories by George Monbiot at the Guardian.

Given that I've spent the past eleven months setting my life on fire by trying to counteract reactionary attempts to recruit left, I'm mostly just publishing this as a belated "I told you so." Of course, just because Monbiot can correctly identify the problem of fascists using anti-establishment sentiment, Covid 19, and conspiracy thinking to recruit nominal lumpen proles who think they're leftists, doesn't mean he has any idea what to do about it. Liberal antifascism is staggeringly ineffective and always has been; the only way to stop fascism, is to make fascists (including rich fascists) too afraid to spread their poisonous ideology. In light of American capital's dependence on maintaining core principles of that ideology in order to justify exploitation for profit, I fear giving the nazis a stern talking-to might not be enough to stem the tide of legally and politically empowered fascism in the Pig Empire. 

Canada’s Far Right Is More of a Threat Than You Think by Luke Savage at Jacobin

As anyone who understands the intertwined relationship between capitalism and fascism could have predicted, the Americanized model of fascism we've grown familiar with over the past half-decade, is easily exportable to other settler capitalist countries operating under the fig-leaf of "liberal democracy." In this short piece, Luke Savage talks about the progress of a Canadian fascist movement fueled by reactionary pandemic politics and conspiracies. The People's Party of Canada may have helped Justin Trudeau stave off defeat, but now the fascists have a seat at the table in Canadian politics and that will have consequences of its own. 

Armed Picnics and Snipers at Family Dollar: Life in a Town With a Government-Approved Militia by Matt Cohen at Mother Jones

One of the hallmarks of a liberal democracy under the influence of a fascist creep, is the way civic and political power is used to lead an air of authority, respectability and normalcy to reactionary paramilitaries and vigilantes; see for example the relationship between Hindutva extremists and the Modi government in India. In this lengthy expose, Cohen takes us inside the far too close for comfort relationship between the local government in Bedford County, Virginia and far right militia groups opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement and convinced the 2020 US election was stolen from Downmarket Mussolini. If you want to know what fascism coming to America is going to look like, this article is a good place to start; although like most liberals, this author isn't actually brave enough to name the beast directly.

How the Epik hack reveals every secret the far-right tried to hide by Mikael Thalen at Daily Dot 

Speaking of stories that aren't getting nearly as much attention as they warrant from corporate mainstream media, have you heard about the 2021 Epik Data Breach? Just over two weeks ago, the hacktivist collective known as Anonymous dumped the “entire primary database” of domain registrar and web hosting company Epik, online. Run by noted sh*theel Rob Monster, Epik is important because apparently it's the critical web services company of choice for fascist websites who've been kicked off other social media platforms; including Gab, Parler, and numerous right wing extremist forums. After dragging their asses for two weeks, it would seem the mainstream media is finally (and perhaps reluctantly) on the story; I wonder how long it will taken them to find the connection between Epik and the Stop the Steal rallies that lead to the January 6th coup attempt?

Copaganda and the Police State

"We get to hear them training to kill us.” by Christina Cauterucci at Slate

If you've ever wondered why African Americans in urban and suburban areas used to refer to local policing as "the occupation" then this is the kind of story you need to read. Ostensibly an article about the local resident's fight to remove a Cincinnati Police Department open-air firing ranged from a small, predominantly minority suburb called Lincoln Heights, this evocative longform expose is really about the constant exercise of whiteness under the guise of color-blind civic policy, to intimidate and suppress African Americans. From city services, to zoning fights, and all the way to an upcoming battle over control of the property the (hopefully) vacated shooting range resides on, it always seems that through pure coincidence, the citizens of Lincoln Heights bear the costs, while other, wealthier and whiter communities reap the rewards of modern living. That's no accident my friends; white supremacy in America has never ended, it just rebrands itself every couple of decades. 

Federal Prison's Switch to Scanning Mail is a Surveillance Nightmare by Lauren Gill at The Intercept

Even after roughly seven years of studying the American carceral machine, I am still shocked the dystopian ways our society invents to both deprive incarcerated persons of their rights and dignity, while simultaneously finding a way for someone to profit from that endeavor. In this story Federal Bureau of Prison facilities are photocopying and then keeping incoming mail in what amounts to a for-profit mass surveillance scheme. Astoundingly enough, prison officials claim this is part of "an effort to stop drugs that are entering facilities by being sprayed on mail, which officials claim is affecting staff, though there is scant evidence of this phenomenon." Let's just say prison pigs aren't exactly the brightest lights on the porch and move on.   

Five Tropes Local TV News Uses to Dehumanize Homeless People by Adam Johnson at The Column

Over the past little while, I've published two lengthy articles about both the experience of being homeless, and violent persecution of the homeless in the Pig Empire, on our main website: NIDC. In this excellent piece by media critic Adam Johnson, we get a look inside the casual propaganda employed by literally every level of media in our society, to demonize the homeless is ways that allow the dehumanization and ultimately violent persecution of innocent people who simply lack housing, every day. The manufacture of consent for authoritarian policy is a function of both domestic and foreign policies in the Pig Empire, and even its local media reflects that reality.

Copaganda and a Complicit Media: a Thread by Scott Hechinger on Twitter

Who says Twitter isn't good for anything? In this lengthy chain of posts a public defender and anti-criminalization advocate dissects the outright lies, misrepresentations, and false intimations made by one NPR reporter on behalf of American police. While the sheer number of crass fallacies exposed in this thread is certainly shocking, it's important to understand that this is just one story in an infinite sea of willful pro-police propaganda spread in mainstream U.S. media; here's another thread just like it by author and civil rights advocate Alec Karakatsanis, this time featuring copaganda published by the New York Times. Nor is this type of casual copaganda reserved for the national news; here's a reporter for the local ABC affiliate in Philadelphia pushing the absolutely bonkers idea that folks are handing out thousands of dollars worth of weed edibles as Halloween candy; why? Because some cops told her so for... reasons. 

Police and Racist Vigilantes: Even Worse Than You Think by John Knefel at The American Prospect

Finally, to close this section off and illustrate the "reaction" tie-in that binds this whole article together, I thought I'd share this blast from the past about the cozy, even overlapping relationship between fascists, white supremacists and American police. In a media environment dripping with pro-police copaganda, it's important to disabuse ourselves of the fiction that policing, even reformed policing, is the answer to the fascist menace; the police are after all, usually on the same side as the nazis, and always have been.  

Quotable Reading

“Whenever fascism threatens, its representatives and facilitators denounce universities and schools as sources of "Marxist indoctrination," the classic bogeyman of fascist politics. Typically used without any connection to Marx or Marxism, the expression is employed in fascist politics as a way to malign equality. That is why universities that seek to give some intellectual space to marginalized perspectives, however small, are subject to denunciation as hotbeds of "Marxism.” 

Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them

Theory Corner

A History of “Wokeness” by Aja Romano at Vox

As folks who've read my Film Sessions articles on Cancel Culture and the 1776 Project are undoubtedly aware, I consider pushing back on fascist "culture war" narratives a necessary, if tedious, part of anti-fascist work. Today I've decided to let someone else lug the cart up the hill in the form of this lengthy and detailed examination of the term woke; its meaning, its history, and how the American right (including and especially the far right fascists) has co-opted the term and tried to alter its usage. Unfortunately, the author fails to really get into why using woke as a pejorative term is so firmly rooted in anti-Blackness. For that I'd also recommend reading "How “Woke” Became a Slur" by Joshua Adams at Colorlines. Additionally, I should mention that at some point the Vox piece calls James Lindsey "a writer" when in reality, he's a fascist provocateur with a college degree. While this may seem like old news, given the centrality of "anti-wokeness" to the crypto-reactionary movement recruiting left online, it's probably a good idea to clarify what the word actually means before letting nazis define the terms of the discourse. 

Debate Me! How To Know Things on Youtube by JohntheDuncan on YouTube

One of the wonderful things about human diversity is that we all have our own unique ways of learning or acquiring knowledge. For example, some of the folks reading this are going to be glad I included a video essay because they're hardwired to absorb information better in that format. I should warn you however that this forty minute video touches on some pretty heady concepts. In answering the seemingly simple question of "how useful is online debate culture" our presenter is forced to break down the structurally capitalist nature of the YouTube platform, and how that structure exerts pressure to privilege certain types of knowledge, ways of knowing, and (dramatic) forms of discourse. While these debates may generate easy and exciting content, they demonstrably lack the intellectual rigor and sincerity to function as a legitimate teaching tool. Finally, John illuminates how both of these pressures result in the replication of a neoliberal capitalist, Western-centric, and deeply patriarchal lens through which we understand what knowledge even is. I warned you it was heady stuff.  

Anarchism Shaped David Graeber. Then He Shaped Anarchism by Shane Little on Novara Media

I must confess that as a “capital-A” anarchist (anarcho-syndicalist) who believes in the importance of organizing around a common political and social program, closing off this edition of In the Aggregate with this particular essay may seem like a curious choice. The truth however is that for every point of disagreement I've ever had with Graeber's work, my own thoughts have been shaped and influenced in countless additional ways by his writing and ideas. If the purpose of a Theory Corner section is to challenge readers to think differently, then I see no reason why I can't subject myself to the same ritual. Crucially, Graeber's work looks towards an organic, modern theory of anarchist living that becomes more vital by the day on a planet set on boil; regardless of your (or my) commitment to classical forms. I do believe that we are indeed all poorer in a world without Dave Graeber; for more information on why please check out "David Graeber Was Right: A Debt Free World Is Possible" by Andrew Ross, and "Sex Work Is Not a Bullshit Job" by Marin Scarlett; also on Novara Media. 

  - 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 “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 4: Fascism, White Nationalism and American Values

 

Editor's note: as I briefly mentioned at the start of this series, I've decided to engage in an ongoing series of (typically) brief discussions about modern (mostly American) fascism that center around recommended reading links and some of my own decolonization theory, for what I hope are educational purposes; today we're back with Part Four of those discussions. 

Please note this post represents new content and has never before appeared on the internet.

In Homework Assignment 2 "But He's Not Hitler..." I explored some of the reasons why I believe Americans and many Western Europeans struggle to identify fascism and fascist ideology at home (even if they're quite eager to apply the label to those deemed from abroad somehow.) Obviously the focus of that discussion was the fact that Trump himself didn't have to be exactly like Adolph Hitler to be a fascist; indeed, the argument itself is pretty ridiculous because not even other contemporary fascists leaders in the 1930's were exactly like Hitler. Today we're going to switch gears slightly and talk about the distinct individual characteristics of fascist and reactionary ultra-nationalist movements or perhaps more specifically, where those individual characteristics come from. 

First let's look at localized fascist movements inside nation states, in our case this primarily means examining American fascism. I think there is an unfortunate tendency among novice observers to get bogged down in what I've been calling "fascist scrabble" - the myriad of terms, titles and variations on the eliminationist, reactionary ultranationalism that forms the heart of all fascist movements; be they ethno-nationalist, religious nationalism or cultural nationalism. The truth however is that much of this nazi word-salad is about obfuscation and bad faith argumentation for the fascist movements that adopt this lexicon, and can thus be safely ignored by anyone who isn't devoting time and energy to an extremely granular study of violent, right wing extremist politics.

Are there minor differences among various fascist movements inside a given state? Well, yes, at least in terms of organizational structure, tactics and even ideological justification for the violent suppression of their political and racial enemies. At the end of the day however, they all believe in strict legal enforcement of unequal hierarchies, they all share an intense antipathy towards the left, or even milquetoast liberal social justice initiatives and they're all prepared to commit unimaginable violence against their societal enemies to protect their own personalized concept of the nation and the people "who matter." Whatever inter-squad disagreements the violent reactionary right may have, they are united in their loathing, hatred and desire to destroy the left such as they see it.   

Why don't fascists just call themselves fascists? Frankly the historical track record of fascism suggests its adherents will probably end up bleeding to death in the mud and it's pretty hard to sell new converts on the upside of "rotting in prison for the rest of your life" or "swinging by your neck until you expire" like the boys at Nuremberg did. Furthermore, running around openly preaching eliminationism and antidemocratic rhetoric has a way of alarming voters and political opponents, although curiously (or perhaps, revealingly), aggressive nativism does not, even though it certainly should. Naturally, post-War fascist movements have solved these problems the same way their ideological ancestors solved societal reluctance to adopt open fascism; by lying and as such it's a really bad idea to take a fascist's word for it when he says he's not a fascist - they have after all, been known to bullsh*t.

Even despite all of this however, and if you step back from the minutiae of the American fascist quilt in particular, there are readily apparent differences between fascist movements across time and especially across the state borders that define "the volk" for most nationalist ideologies. As Eco touched on and a cursory examination of history demonstrates, there were significant differences (particularly in terms of organizational philosophy and animating myths) between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Spain under Franco; let alone the vast differences between these movements and the Reich's allies in Imperial Japan - which despite the trappings of the Emperor, was unquestionably an entho-nationalist military cult that at least functioned exactly like fascism.

Turning towards more contemporary "fascist-movements-in-progress" we also see significant purposeful differentiation in the animating myths and rhetorical forms of modern ultranationalist reactionary movements. For example, in Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has built a fascist political machine based on exulting latent anti-Indigenous racism and a loving embrace of the country's 1964 - 1985 (fascist) military dictatorship. By contrast, Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in India have achieved much the same results by embracing portions of the ongoing political legacy of its extremist (and openly fascist) ideological progenitor, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and embracing the Hidutva ideology of a (mythical) patriarchal, sexually chaste and culturally pure Hindu nation corrupted by decadent Muslims and eventually Christians. 

On the surface these two movements, and Trumpism for that matter, may seem very different (at least at times) and thus capable of defying a fair classification as "fascist." As illustrated at length in Professor Jason Stanley's recent book "How Fascism Works" however, the only functional understanding of fascism that is not vulnerable to fascist lies and fascist word salad is one that defines fascist movements as those that practice fascist politics. Still, while that insight is extremely useful for identifying "fascist-movements-in-progress" it still does little to explain why fascist movements evolve differently, in different times and places.

Naturally, some of this differentiation will be structural and dictated by the material and social conditions in nations that birth fascist movements; it would after all be extremely difficult to sell a wholly racialized Aryan-supremacist ideology fueled by a debunked antisemitic conspiracy theory in a racially diverse, largely non-white country like India. It's not just a matter of flopping the names around either; the animating powers of Nazi race science and its associated conspiracies (which are increasingly making a comeback in America and Europe) simply don't pack the same punch where preexisting nationalist sentiments and animosities revolve around religion and culture instead of purely race.

After spending much of the past five years actively studying and writing about fascism however, I think I've stumbled on two (interrelated) seemingly universal similarities shared by fascist movements that, perhaps perversely, function to make each new fascist movement at least appear unique.

First and most obviously, fascist movements invariably work to actively exploit preexisting societal divisions, prejudices and nationalist sentiments along racial, religious or cultural fault lines. The Nazis certainly didn't invent antisemitism, Social Darwinism or attitudes of militant German superiority, even if they did work extremely hard to encapsulate all of these concepts into the (still preexisting and altogether fabricated) construct of a fictional "Aryan" race. These hateful ideas were already well represented in Germany and ultimately helped serve as a vehicle to power for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party; just as the hateful ideas, sentiments and enthusiasms that propelled Bolsonaro and Modi to power were already deeply established before their elections in Brazil and India respectively.

Indeed after studying a wide variety of fascist movements the past few years, I've largely come to the conclusion that they don't really create anything, even ideas, so much as loot, appropriate and re-purpose them; which fits in well with the popular theory that fascism is at its root a kind of death cult. 

This brings me to the second similarity, the fact that all fascists seem to borrow their myths, political ideology and conspiracy theories from preexisting reactionary movements in a given society of origin. To once again turn towards the most infamous fascists in history - the Nazi Party ideology originally formed out of the reactionary volkisch movement in Germany, grew its influence by exploiting the right wing "stabbed in the back" myth popularized after the Kaiser's defeat in World War I, and finally vaulted Hitler to absolute power primarily on the back of a decades old, thoroughly debunked antisemitic conspiracy theory originally forged by Tsarist Russians; the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 

Without belaboring the point and while recognizing that the pattern match is (as of yet) imperfect, you can easily see echoes of this same appropriation in Modi's co-option of his former party's (RSS) platform and Hidutva ideology, as well as Bolsonaro's repeated association with the Brazilian military dictatorship and comparable fascist leaders in the region, like Agusto Pinochet.

All of which brings us to a fairly obvious and important question; if Trump is a fascist and his administration is openly employing fascist politics, what are the preexisting ideologies, conspiracies and animating myths this movement is employing to sell Downmarket Mussolini's fascist agenda? To answer that question we turn to today's reading assignment, an April 2019 article in the Atlantic by Adam Serwer that explores White Nationalism, the white genocide conspiracy theory and the ideological progenitor of the hateful beliefs Trump is capitalizing on to seize total power - check it out by clicking on the link below: 

White Nationalism’s Deep American Roots

- 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…”

Screamsheets: America Gestapo Edition

Editor's Note: obviously I've been away from this website for the past couple months and while most of that time was spent feeling mopey and angsty, the past couple weeks have been more "exciting" in the thoroughly ironic sense of the word. 

First up - owing to a recent and permanent suspension from Twitter, I've now migrated my online presence to Mastodon and Facebook, while simultaneously opening up a new Discord Chat (the Pavlichenko Appreciation Society) which you can find here. There's no password so anyone is free to join but please be advised that reasonable human behavior is expected; no nazis and no cops, thanks.

Additionally I recently published a medium-length letter on my Patreon Blog that talks about why I haven't been writing the past couple of months and what I'm trying to do to rectify the situation; the condensed version is that I'm frustrated and a little burnt out, so I'm trying to work my way back with shorter posts that are decidedly not essays - like this one, and this one. Please be assured that as soon as I can get back to my normal style of writing, I most certainly will do so.

Which brings me to today's post; for the past couple of years I've tried and failed to get in the habit of writing the sort of quasi-regular "link dump" articles other blogs use to help maintain daily traffic. A big part of the problem has been that while I'm busy working on long-form essays, I don't always have time to collect links to all the good articles I've read recently and offer some brief thoughts on each of them. At the moment however, I'm struggling with the necessary focus and endurance required to perform my regular sort of compositions, so I figured I might as well try my hand at another links article feature. 

I don't know how often, or for how long I'm going to publish this kind of post but for now I'd rather stay busy and keep sharing than sit around "waiting for the magic to happen" again. In light of the fact that this blog is called "Media Madness" you can rest assured that the links will be horrifying and make you want to invest in guillotine shares.

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From an opening day Trump administration policy of mass deportations to the expansion of a preexisting concentration camp system on U.S. soil, I've spent a lot of time these past three years talking about why ICE is, and has always been the American Gestapo of our modern times. Although many have foolishly dismissed such concerning comparisons as hyperbolic, there now exists a growing body of evidence even in the pitifully myopic mainstream corporate media that indeed, something quite obviously fascist "this way comes." Let's take a quick look at some recent and extremely alarming headlines:

ICE Fails To Properly Redact Document, Reveals Location Of Future 'Urban Warfare' Training Facility - while much of the American corporate media has been ignoring this ongoing story, Newsweek (an otherwise terrible media company) has recently made it an important part of their surprisingly critical ICE coverage. For those who aren't interested in disabling their ad blocker, the long and short of it is that ICE is spending millions of dollars to construct "urban warfare" training facilities in Fort Benning, Georgia, modeled after real life locations in Arizona and the far-right's "black on black violence" bête noire, Chicago. Although Newsweek itself seems regrettably focused on the "gotcha" moment of ICE's failed redaction, local coverage in both Chicago and Arizona is a little more sober, if still largely inadequate. As Eoin Higgins over at Common Dreams notes however, the real question you should be asking is "what the hell does ICE need a "hyper-realistic" urban warfare training facility for?" As you'll see in our next few links, the answer appears unlikely to be "good things."

ICE Agents Shot An Immigrant Trying To Flee. Now The FBI Is Investigating - this is another story about militant ICE violence that is largely being ignored, or reported far too credulously and dishonestly framed by extremely police-friendly outlets in the mainstream media. Even the Buzzfeed article above wastes several paragraphs presenting a he said/she said tale of an ICE traffic stop gone wrong in which a suspect escapes by aiming his truck like a weapon at a brave law enforcement officer and is thereby wounded in self-defense; indeed, it's noted that ICE called in the FBI to investigate a possible assault - on, not by, the officer that shot a guy. The problem of course, as demonstrated by the embedded video in Buzzfeed's own article and this piece by David Boddiger over at Splinter, is that almost none of ICE's story appears to be true: "video shows that the truck was stopped at the time of the confrontation, and the plainclothes ICE officers appear to approach it in two separate vehicles. As the truck pulls away moments later, the officers do not appear to be in danger of being struck, and one is seen raising his arm as if to fire a weapon." As this article at Latino Rebels points out however, the fact that the ICE agent is clearly lying isn't even the most disturbing part of this story - the shooting victim was under no legal obligation to turn over the requested identification without a judicial warrant and being in the country "illegally" is typically either a federal misdemeanor or a civil offense; it sure as hell doesn't justify the use of deadly force!

ERO Letter to the American Public - this of course brings us to a terrifying bit of fascist self-pitying doublespeak released by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations. While I won't bore you with lies about providing "safe, humane and appropriate conditions of confinement" or pedantic quibbles about the difference between "targeted arrests" and "raids" let's focus in on the important point, here:

Arguably the most disturbing part of this statement from a moral perspective is that much of it is true in the strictest sense of the word; however the staggering amount of information left out of this explainer makes it a clear lie by omission. It makes no mention of the probable cause required before an ICE officer can even ask to see your identification, or the fact that you are not legally compelled to provide it unless you actually aren't an American citizen. Indeed, this propaganda explainer makes no mention at all of the difference between the rights of an American citizen, a documented migrant and an undocumented migrant. Nor does ICE explain that they do in fact still require a judicial warrant to enter or search a home, business or a private space, like say, your box truck. The ERO letter then goes on to hide behind the civil nature of an immigration violation and seeks purposely conflate ICE officers with police (despite claiming powers far beyond the purview of any local police force) - all before strongly suggesting via the word "jeopardy" that they might kill you for interfering in what is once again a civil enforcement matter, not a violent and dangerous crime. This is objectively a fascist fantasy; after all even cracker pigs in the deep south aren't allowed to put a cap in your ass for jaywalking - at least in theory. 

The overall effect here is clearly intended to imply that ICE is free to do whatever fascist police state crap it wants to do in the pursuit of "rounding up illegals" with no additional authority or oversight required and you're probably a pinko traitor if you don't agree with the department's extremely "liberal" interpretation of its own purview. This is especially true if you don't read the underlying text and just focus on the bold-type, objectively terrifying headline - as the ICE Twitter account so helpfully allowed you to do.  

ICE Keeps Arresting Prominent Immigration Activists. They Think They’re Being Targeted - further cementing the disturbing and decidedly fascist direction US immigration enforcement agencies are taking is this August 24th story about the apparent open ICE targeting of immigration activists at Vice by Gaby Del Valle. Although apologists, reactionaries and bigots will seek to treat each incident as a random occurrence in isolation, any reasonable observer can look at both the number (twenty and counting) as well as the circumstances involved in each of these cases and see what appears to be a clear pattern of retaliation against migrant activists for the mere exercise of free speech and the right to protest. This conclusion is of course further supported by the rapidly growing body of evidence that the US government is actively spying on journalists, lawyers and immigration activists along the U.S.-Mexican border. Finally of course it should be noted that this is not the only time people tied to the Trump administration have been found using ICE to persecute political enemies; a very alarming picture of a truly functional American Gestapo is indeed beginning to emerge from the chaos.

--- 

After more than a decade of watching and multiple years of writing about ICE, it is in the aggregate results of the agency's actions, and not the media's consistent portrayal of "a few bad apples" that don't represent the whole, in which I find the true nature of the beast we now find ourselves facing in earnest. 

These stories cannot be fully understood as isolated incidents but must be recognized in the context of a white nationalist immigration policy and a revanchist, objectively racist yearning for a return to dog-whistle "law and order" politics. They must be considered in relation to a country that is rapidly expanding its already repugnant concentration camp system - a country lead by a wholly fascist political party and its reality TV show bigot president; who are at once the architects of, and slaves to, a hard-line anti-immigration policy openly forged in xenophobia and hate. 

Finally, these events must also be understood in the uncompromising light of history. There is a name by which society has previously identified a militant, secretive, racist and largely unaccountable police force trained to fight its own populace and bent on enforcing malevolently racist laws - we called them the Gestapo; even if it hurt their feelings.

- Nina Illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus.

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.