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…”

 

Nina-Bytes: Snitch Culture and Fascism in America

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

Nina-Bytes: Snitch Culture and Fascism in America

In my recent writing, I've briefly touched on two important concepts for understanding life under a fascist political order; a subject that's increasingly relevant to anyone living in the Pig Empire, whether they want to admit that or not. First, it is important to understand that fascist political persecution laws are always retroactive. Fascists are not particularly interested in fairness, so much as excuses to persecute an ever-growing number of "enemies" necessary for "the politics of us against them" to properly function. Second, fascist laws and ideological conformity are always enforced by not only the state, but also extra-legal vigilantism and ad hoc policing efforts among the volk. 

These are of course grim realities in an Amerikkka falling to open fascism at high speed, and as such it's pretty rare to find anything in mainstream corporate media that's going to put these issues into the proper, and ultimately threatening, context. You can imagine my utter shock then, when I stumbled on this exceptionally blunt November 1st, 2022 article by Thor Benson over at Wired; let's take a closer look at it here:

When Your Neighbor Turns You In

Although it's still couched in editorial "weasel" words like "authoritarian" and "may," it's impossible not to read this as Benson starkly firing up an ominous signal flare on the edge of an impeding Pork Reich fascist takeover. First he points out that a defining feature of an authoritarian state is the establishment and incentivization of a snitch culture; then the author notes that many of the American GOP's new political persecution laws explicitly feature a snitch culture component:

"In the United States, we appear to be creeping toward this culture of community surveillance. Texas’ SB 8 deputized everyday Americans to sue anyone who has had an abortion or assisted with one. Texans are reporting the parents of transgender children to authorities. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin set up a tip line and encouraged parents to report teachers who are teaching “divisive” subjects. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law encourages parents to monitor teachers. With the Republican Party increasingly embracing authoritarianism, this is likely just the start."

 

Given that this is an article in Wired, our author is quick to mention that modern technology enables a reactionary surveillance culture to operate in ways far more effective than Nazi Germany could hope for, but this piece is still rooted firmly in recognizing the existence of this fascist snitch culture in present day Amerikkka; even if he won't call it "fascist." As Benson points out repeatedly, when fascist ideology and fantasy become the law, these snitching structures enable an efficient and relentless persecution of folks criminalized by their beliefs, or indeed their very identities:

"If the US moves further toward authoritarianism, you can imagine states passing more laws to disempower, criminalize, or otherwise marginalize certain groups. Anyone you encounter on a regular basis who doesn’t agree with politically could be encouraged to report you for violations of these laws as some sort of act of civic duty. They’ll have more ways to do it than ever before, considering modern technology allows us to monitor people’s social media feeds, watch them through Ring cameras, report them through community-watch apps like Citizen, and more."

Finally for our purpose here, perhaps the most important thing Benson discusses in this article gets touched on only briefly, and is brought up by one of his expert sources. Specifically the retroactively punitive nature of fascist political repression laws designed to divide and control our communities:

"Consuelo Amat, an assistant professor of political science at John Hopkins University, says that when a state becomes authoritarian, anything people in your community learned about you during democratic years can be used against you once the new regime takes power. She’s closely studied Chile under dictator Augusto Pinochet and says that’s what happened there. Amat says those who support the new regime can essentially become informants for it.

“When that starts happening, the dynamic for communities and neighborhoods is extremely bad,” Amat says. “The distrust that people have is huge, so people start not sharing information at all. One of the cores of democracy is neighborhood trust. You need to trust others in your society and in your community for democracy to work. Period. When there’s a very high level of distrust, you will see a fracturing of community.”

Of course, the biggest flaw with this piece is Benson's insistence on implying this is a mere possibility, when in his own article he's actively pointing out that this snitch culture enforcement of fascist political laws is already a reality in many Republican-controlled parts of the country. Furthermore, this isn't just a fascist community surveillance issue. To properly understand the speed with which the fascists are currently exerting control here, you need to factor in things like using police forces and challenges by local reactionary cranks for widespread voter intimidation and suppression, or the now-ubiquitous presence of antagonistic security forces and armed vigilante groups at virtually every protest against fascism in all its forms, across much of America. 

In short the reactionary volk are already both empowered by, and empowering, a fascist political order in America; it's not a future possibility, it's happening right now. There is no point in ruminating on what a fascist America might look like in a grim potential future; that future is already here, and it's spreading rapidly. It might be a good idea for a liberal establishment now under direct assault from these forces of fascism to stop policing anti-fascist protestors, and to start arresting the rich and powerful nazis running this sh*tshow. It would be a damn shame if we all ended up in labor camps waiting to die just because octogenarian liberal politicians can't tell the difference between violent fascists, and the everyday people trying to oppose this nightmare.

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…”

 

Nina-Bytes: Accelerator

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

After the fascist coup attempt on January 6th, 2021, I wrote that the removing Donald Trump from the White House would by no means end the rise of American fascism, or the powder keg of violence that goes along with it. I further warned that a policy of ignoring, legitimating, and appeasing fascists would likely fuel that rise, and bring with it violence acts of reactionary stochastic terrorism. Needless to say, this turned out to be a very unpopular opinion in some (then) rather surprising portions of the online "left" community. 

Unfortunately for us all, as of last Friday those warnings are now distinctly less abstract; a fascist conspiracy theorist broke into the Pelosi home and attacked the Speaker of the House's husband with a hammer. The assailant, a 42 year old fascist Gryoper into just about every right wing conspiracy you could imagine, reportedly attempted to tie Paul Pelosi up with the intention of waiting until his wife Nancy came home. You can read more about this clear act of political violence in this Oct 29th, 2022 summary over on the Guardian:

Paul Pelosi, husband of Nancy Pelosi, in hospital with skull fracture after attack

While I certainly don't want to minimize the severity of an 82 year old man's violent assault with a hammer, what's important to our larger discussion about fascism is the fact that the current Democrat Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi was the target of the attack. And despite the protestations of conspiratorial fascist propagandists, it sure does seem political:

"It was reported by CNN that the suspect intended to tie the victim up “until Nancy got home” and that he had posted rightwing and conspiracy theories online, including content promoting the lie that Donald Trump was deprived of victory in the 2020 election because of voter fraud."

There will of course be those, even in the mainstream "centrist" media who insist that this is a crime story, or that the primary issue here is the attacker's mental health. These arguments however ring hollow once you understand that triggering violence from unstable individuals among a faceless reactionary mass is precisely how stochastic terrorism is designed to work. It certainly doesn't take a genius to connect calls for Pelosi's public execution by a fascist GOP Congresswoman, to a disturbed ultra-reactionary conspiracy theorist's attempts to do just that. Even liberal media minions too cowardly to describe this as fascism in writing, fully concede that the result was utterly predictable. And as this October 29th Guardian article by Joan E. Greve ominously predicts, the fascist political violence has only just begun:

Attack on Pelosi’s husband heightens fears of increasing US political violence

Although it remains utterly inexplicable to me that "liberal" media outlets still refuse to use the word "fascist" to describe right wing political violence in the Pig Empire, even after Joe Biden's "semi-fascist" speech, the overall sentiment here is correct. The mainstreaming of conspiracy theories, eliminationist propaganda, and reactionary ideas in the Pig Empire has lead to a drastic rise in political violence; and that violence is by no means from "both sides" as our author makes clear:

"The US Capitol police has reported an overall rise in the number of threats against members of Congress since the deadly January 6 insurrection last year.

According to USCP data, officers tracked 9,625 threats and directions of interest (meaning concerning actions or statements) against members of Congress in 2021, compared with 3,939 such instances in 2017. The House sergeant at arms has responded to this worrisome trend by giving lawmakers up to $10,000 to upgrade security at their homes.

Although both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have faced a number of threats in recent months, the increase is not evenly distributed along the political spectrum. According to a study conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, rightwing extremists have committed about 75% of the 450 political murders that occurred in the US over the past decade, compared with 4% attributed to leftwing extremists."

 

Look folks, I'm certainly not trying to be an alarmist. But when everyday people find ourselves watching a trans pogrom in progress, organized voter intimidation parties, and actual "lone wolf" assassination attempts on high profile liberal politicians, it's fair to say we're now talking about a fascist sprint, and not a fascist creep. Furthermore it's increasingly difficult to place much faith in a liberal establishment too disinterested, or too afraid, to materially challenge fascist violence; even when it targets one or more of their own kind. Instead they hide behind weasel words, punch left, and continue to arm up a police state that increasingly looks like it will soon belong to the fascists the police themselves already support.

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…”

 

Nina-Bytes: The Impending Rule of Unreality

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Yesterday on my Facebook Journal, I published several discussions that touched on what it means when fascist lies, fantasies, and conspiracy theories acquire the force of law, and with it real power to distort our supposedly democratic society. Today then, let's look at a couple of articles that demonstrate what fascists weaponizing "unreality" in the political process actually looks like, and why that's a very ominous sign in a Pig Empire actively falling under overt fascist rule. 

First up, let's take a look at this October 24th, 2022 article about the Pennsylvania GOP's most recent attempt to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, written by Akela Lacy over on the Intercept:

Larry Krasner Impeachment Committee Relies on Widely Panned Journal Study

Frankly I don't want to wade too deeply into the left wing side of the debate about the so-called "progressive prosecutor" movement here; you can be certain that American fascists aren't tossing their cookies about guys like Krasner because of his insufficient commitment to prison abolition. As the article notes, what we're really talking about here is an establishment Republican (and conservative Democrat) attempt to remove a marginally progressive official they loathe, explicitly against the will of his constituents; who surprise, surprise, aren't affluent white fascists:

"Monday’s report is the latest step in a series of yearslong efforts to curb Krasner’s power or remove him from office entirely — despite the fact that the progressive DA was overwhelmingly reelected a year ago. Krasner’s attempts to implement criminal justice reforms and address the underlying causes of mass incarceration have made him a target of lawmakers from both parties since his election in 2017. As removal efforts built steam among Republicans, state House Democrats joined the opposing party last month in voting to hold Krasner in contempt for his refusal to comply with a subpoena in the impeachment efforts."

While this all looks very official, the twist here is that almost every accusation against Krasner is pure nonsense. The arguments being used to impeach Krasner are based on fascist election propaganda about crime, conspiracy theories, and a politically-motivated study that's been widely debunked by data scientists. It's not just about Larry Krasner either, research shows that there is literally no evidence linking progressive prosecutors to rising crime rates in cities anywhere; which exposes a lie that underpins the entire unhinged fascist attack on any prosecutor that so much as utters the words "bail reform." Bonus points if you guessed that this "moral panic about crime as politics" operation is secretly about race; because it is.

In other words reactionary politicians are transforming lies, into the force of law, for the purposes of actively violating the democratic will of Philadelphia voters; which is precisely what legally and politically-empowered fascism in progress looks like. Why is that bad news even if you don't live in Philly? Because as this October 25th, 2002 article by Kaleigh Rogers at FiveThirtyEight points out, fascist fantasy as the law of the land seems poised to strike well beyond the mean streets of Pennsylvania: 

Most Candidates Who Think 2020 Was Rigged Are Probably Going To Win In November

If you've read my writing, you know I loathe "horse race" political coverage as much as anyone reading this does, so let's not waste too much time on this piece of fluff. The important point we need to take from this article is that over a hundred Republicans pushing the objectively fascist "Big Lie" about the 2020 election, are about to take real political power in Amerikkkan society;

"Luna is one of well over a hundred of candidates running this fall who have denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election and have a strong chance of winning their race. Of the 185 Republican candidates running for House, Senate and governor’s seats who have denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election, 124 — or 67 percent — are in races our forecast currently pins at “Solid R,” meaning they have a 95-in-100 or better chance of winning. Overall, a bigger share of election deniers are running in Solid R races than Republican candidates in general: Of the 496 Republican candidates running for House, Senate and governor, 225 — or 45 percent — are in Solid R races."

As you can see, this problem isn't really about Democrats versus Republicans, but rather a Republican Party happily nominating fascist conspiracy theorists in safe seats, over pretty much every other type of reactionary on offer. This is not only evidence that the party as a whole has embraced fascism, but also a deadly perilous moment in American history. Fascists stand on the verge of legally declaring their reactionary propaganda and conspiracy theories the understood law of the land, and no amount of "respecting the standards and norms" is going to protect us from that kind of nightmare.

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…”

 

Nina-Bytes: Discreet Lies of Immense Proportions

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Over the past eight years, I've spent a great deal of time writing about what I've now come to call the "tri-headed serpent" that threatens the larger labor class in our society. Broadly speaking these threats would be capitalism, its violent handmaiden fascism, and ruling class propaganda that prevents us from uniting to stop these threats to our very survival. Recent social and political developments in the Pig Empire have forced me to focus a lot on the rise of fascism, but since these three heads more or less share the same body, it's important to stay focused on all three of these calamities simultaneously. 

Today then, I'd like to share a couple of stories from left wing independent media that directly touch on murdering the planet for capitalism, but also indirectly expose the propaganda model media's complicity in "leading us to our own doom." First up, let's look at this October 12th, 2022 feature by Sam Knight over on Truthout.

Lobbyists Admit Big Banks Don’t Plan to Honor Climate Pledges

The story here is simple enough; a powerful banking lobby group, The Bank Policy Institute, has publicly admitted that the banks they represent have zero intention of keeping the various "net zero" pledges they've made. Of course, we've already talked about why even these promises are wholly inadequate to prevent climate crisis and will likely usher us into an ecofascist future; but it really says something when the bankers call even genocidal half measures an "aspirational solution." That's not an exaggeration either, as our article notes:

"Specifically, the lobbying group rejected the notion floated by the agencies that regulations should ensure banks’ greenhouse gas commitments to the public “are consistent with their internal strategies and risk appetite statements.”

“The final guidance with respect to public communications should recognize the aspirational nature of external commitments and the fact that these commitments and plans will need to adapt over time as data and methodologies improve and external circumstances change,” the organization said.

The institute urged regulators to “establish realistic expectations with respect to public statements” and said the government “should calibrate its expectations as to the granularity between external statements and internal risk appetite statements accordingly.”

To be clear, I can't say that as a student of left wing theory and Pig Empire history I'm particularly surprised by this development; the entire history of capitalism is about looting the commons for money, and leaving the labor class to deal with the fallout. Still, when influential capitalist institutions that literally have the power to dictate policy to your government start openly admitting they're fine with destroying all life on earth while pretending to be part of the solution, you'd think that might merit a little notice in the larger discourse. 

We'll come back to this idea in a moment; in the meantime let's look at our second article. This October 23rd, 2022 post from Andy Rowell shared on Common Dreams looks at where Big Oil is sitting on the verge of the controversial COP27 climate summit coming this November.

Ahead of COP27, Big Oil Climate Denial More Potent Than Ever

Once again, this isn't really a complicated story. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Chevron CEO Mike Worth pretty much went off; and let the cat out of the bag in the process. Promising to drill more oil, not less, and low key pushing climate science denial, Worth and presumably the company he runs, went on the offensive:

"He told the FT that western governments had made a global oil and gas crunch worse by "doubling down" on climate policies that had made energy markets "more volatile, more unpredictable, more chaotic."

And even though the UN has warned that we cannot afford to drill for more oil and gas if we want a livable future, Worth predicted that fossil fuels are "going to run the world tomorrow and five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now."

He also fudged his belief over whether fossil fuels were the primary driver of climate change. "The IPCC concludes that anthropogenic climate change is a real thing and that the use of fossil fuels has contributed, and so we accept that," he said. But then, according to the Financial Times, Worth "rejected the blame attributed to oil companies" for providing "a legal product that complies with all the laws", and pledged that Chevron would increase oil and gas supply."

 

Please keep in mind that these aren't random internet cranks or even our esteemed Congresswoman from Q-Anon. These guys are absurdly rich and powerful people in industries, banking and fossil fuels, that drive the entire Pig Empire economy. They can, and do, move governments to forge the rules under which we operate a capitalist society. And they're more or less admitting they plan to kill us all in the not-so long term, because there are profits to be made right now. Furthermore, these are not isolated incidents; they are part of a consistent pattern of capitalist lies uttered while the ruling class locks us all into climate apocalypse proactively.

Alright then; so how does this involve the propaganda model media? Well just ask yourself if your favorite corporate propaganda outlet disguised as news, even reported on either of these events? If so, did they explicitly put it in the context of an open plan to murder billions like I have? Of course not. But you can be sure that those same corporate media outlets, including the ones who portray themselves as somehow "liberal" in their pervading ideology, have told you about these company's climate pledges, and will continue to share their lies with you in the future.

In other words, billionaire investors and the companies they control are actively conducting an open genocide against perhaps all of humanity, and the corporate media they also control, are busy covering it up. It's a closed loop of homicidal capitalist f*ckery; mass murder is on the menu and the capitalist order is happily shuffling us all towards the rotating knives in anticipation of the meal. The simple truth is that it's not a question of fighting capitalism, or fascism, or climate catastrophe; in a reactionary society where the profit motive rules all, these problems are one and the same beast and must be destroyed together.

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…”

 

Nina-Bytes: Rigging America In The Open

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

Inside Steve Bannon’s ‘disturbing’ quest to radically rewrite the US constitution

Recently on Twitter, I devoted a few pithy words to mentioning that fascists in American society were "tapping every possible route to power that they can and hoping one hits." I know this because I've been writing about these efforts to override what passes for our "liberal democracy" for several years now; whether they occur by legalist means, or through highly illegal acts of terror and politicized violence. Given this, I think that it's probably saying something when I note that this October 19th, 2022 article by Ed Pilkington over in The Guardian made my blood run cold. 

While I strongly advise you to read the entire article, "the too long didn't read" here is that noted fascist strategist Steve Bannon is using his trash fire podcast to push a highly-plausible right wing conspiracy to re-write the constitution pretty much any way they please. The tactic involves using a thirty-four state conservative majority, to hold a Constitutional Convention. Given that this is a fascist movement that is currently denying the results of the last Presidential election, attempting to rig elections going forward, and organizing a pogrom against trans people, all out in the open, that prospect should be quite concerning to you. As the piece itself makes clear:

 

"Mark Meckler, a founder of the Tea Party who now leads one of the largest groups advocating for the tactic, the Convention of States Action (Cosa), spelled out some of the prime objectives on Bannon’s show. “We need to say constitutionally, ‘No, the federal government cannot be involved in education, or healthcare, or energy, or the environment’,” he said.

Meckler went on to divulge the anti-democratic nature of the state convention movement when he said a main aim was to prevent progressive policies being advanced through presidential elections. “The problem is, any time the administration swings back to Democrat – or radical progressive, or Marxist which is what they are – we are going to lose the gains. So you do the structural fix.”

The “structural fix” involves Republican state legislatures pushing conservative amendments to America’s foundational document. By cementing the policies into the US constitution, they would become largely immune to electoral challenge."

 

So how plausible is this really? Well this is where things get terrifying because we're talking about an extremely well-funded project with support across the broader mainstream right; this isn't one of Bannon's fascist fantasies, this project is on the wish list of powerful lobby groups and billionaires like the Mercer family and groups run by Leonard Leo. Furthermore, and as this article makes clear - these guys are making progress:

 

"Under Article V, 34 states would have to call for a constitutional convention to reach the two-thirds requirement. Cosa has so far succeeded in getting 19 states to sign up, with a further six in active consideration.

ALEC, which sets a narrower remit for a convention focused on its balanced budget amendment, has gone further with 28 states on board.

Either way, there is a shortfall. To address it, constitutional convention leaders have invented increasingly exotic mathematical formulas for attaining the magic number, 34."

 

Please keep in mind that due to aggressive gerrymandering and a concerted effort to control state legislatures by the Republican Party, the GOP currently controls thirty-one states and only needs thirty-four; even if not all of those state legislatures are currently on board with this plan, there's nothing to suggest that will remain true as the GOP continues to slide further into open fascist politics. Once that happens, all bets are off; and that's even setting aside the fact that a GOP Congress could simply decide to fudge the numbers.

All of which leaves only one obvious question; is it still "ridiculous" to call political movement actively working to eliminate democratic rights and permanently lock the destruction of all life on Earth into the constitution on behalf of fossil fuel capital, fascist? Asking for about seven billion friends who aren't part of the capitalist ruling class.

 

 

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…”

 

Nina-Bytes: At Your Service

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

The Jan. 6 Committee Gave Us Some Bad News About the Secret Service

I really don't think it's a secret at this point that I don't have a lot of faith in liberal antifascism, or a January 6th Committee that promised in advance they weren't going to recommend charging any powerful fascists for conducting a failed autogolpe. Long before President Biden went on stage to call the MAGA movement "semi-fascist," the largely useless ruling liberal establishment was signaling that their plan was to use the commission to lay out the coup plotter's crimes, and then pass the ball back to voters without taking significant action to stop a still ongoing fascist insurrection at all. Needless to say, I think this is a pretty terrible plan. 

As such I haven't spent a whole lot of time writing about the findings of the January 6th Committee, under the mistaken belief the mainstream liberal media would handle that for me. When I see dozens of mainstream corporate media outlets respond to clear evidence that the Secret Service was involved in the failed coup plot like it was a threat estimation error however, I feel obligated to push back on that idea. Please keep in mind, all this is despite the fact that we already know the Service hid evidence of a plot to murder Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, deleted text messages from that day, and openly speculated on the lifespan of then-Vice President Mike Pence while the riots raged outside. 

To correct this absurd state of affairs, let's turn to this October 14th, 2022 article by David Rothkopf in The Daily Beast of all places; starting with a quote that sums up what you should have heard on the evening news:

"The contents of some of those documents were revealed on Thursday. They made it clear that reports of an “intelligence failure” related to Jan. 6 were nonsense. The agency had clear and specific warnings describing an armed attack on the Capitol and threats against members of Congress as part of plan to block the certification of votes. And nonetheless, they let the president’s speech go on. And they did not do much to prevent the attacks from happening. While some in the agency reported on the escalating dangers during the day of Jan. 6, others clearly chose to let events transpire. They were even planning to bring Trump to the Hill until shortly after the Capitol barricades were breached. Rather than presiding over an intelligence failure, they had actually actively enabled the insurrection to take place, with some among their ranks content to look the other way and ignore established protocols."

 

Wow; I'd pay real cash money to hear even one single politician on my TV talking like David does here, instead of milquetoast admonishments about the dangers of "semi-fascism" - and I'm not alone on that one, I assure you. Thankfully for those of us who're tired of feeling like we're taking crazy pills while Weimar America implodes around us however, Rothkopf doesn't stop there. He also clearly articulates the mainstream, legalist nature of the fascist threat, and the growing sense of doubt that Merrick Garland's Department of Justice is up to the challenge of taking it on:

"The real culmination of the inquiry must be left to the Sphinx-like Department of Justice, whose silence might reveal its commitment to the secrecy that should surround an historically significant investigation. Or that silence might be followed by inaction. We just cannot know at this point, even though the Jan. 6 committee’s revelations made it clear that inaction in the face of the evidence that exists would be one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in U.S. history and would set a dangerous precedent, leaving our entire system at risk.

But there were other disturbing threads that emerged from the congressional inquiry that themselves appeared to require their own independent inquiry. Several of these concern the seeming existence of what might be called the “dark state.” This is not the conspiracy theory fantasy spun by the far right about a “deep state” permanent government that was foiling the will of the people: That was always such a stalking horse, a concept that would enable MAGA officials to root out public servants who placed fealty to the Constitution ahead of loyalty to a political party. Rather it was a real loose alliance among Trump allies in the government who were willing to set aside the rule of law in the service of Trump himself.

At the core of this movement were officials within key government agencies—including the Department of Homeland Security and within it the Secret Service, the FBI, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and the intelligence community—who had been placed in positions of responsibility because they could be counted upon to bend the rules for Trump."

Quite frankly folks, I don't really have a whole lot else to add here. This isn't an "I told you so" moment, although quite frankly I did. The fact of the matter is the Capital Hill riot was a coup attempt, conducted and then justified by then-President Trump as well numerous mainstream figures in American "semi-fascist" politics with very real positions of power. If after months of the January 6th Committee "making the argument" literally nobody in the voting public seems to really give a damn anymore, maybe it's time to ask whether or not the our wise liberal leaders and the corporate muppets that pass for our media might bear some responsibility for that reality. 

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

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