WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

 

What is Fascism?

No one is seriously claiming that Trump consciously models himself on past fascist leaders such as Germany’s Hitler, Spain’s Franco or Italy’s Mussolini – however much Trump’s public mugging for the cameras appears to mimic the latter’s jaw jutting scowl.  However, looking at historical fascism as a socio-political phenomenon does reveal some parallels with what is happening in the US today.  In each case there was a crisis of legitimacy of the system which put the continued rule of the dominant political/economic elite in doubt.  In response, these elites mobilized the fears and prejudices of insecure and declining classes to whip up nationalism, racism and chauvinism in defense of the status quo.  In each case, the forces unleashed by the economic elites broke free from their control to assume a power of their own in national politics.  Thus contemporary Trumpism is in effect the logical descendant of the Republican “southern strategy” begun under President Nixon in the 1970’s.  All the hand-wringing of the Republican elites over Trump’s outrageous statements cannot disguise the fact that he is the heir of their own policies.

 

Trump is the Outcome of Long-term Republican Strategy

When large swaths of the conservative movement resisted the notion that the GOP needed to widen its appeal to minorities, and could win by appealing to a broader base of whites, it was liberals who warned that these voters would drag the party into a racial abyss.

Trump is the fulfillment of that prophecy. Better than any Republican candidate in recent memory, he intuits the mood of the disaffected Republican electorate. Or rather, because he’s almost entirely uninterested in straddling party factions, he gives voice to their paranoia and racism without massaging it the way the pretenders to his lead do. It’s possible to imagine a more traditional politician, like Ted Cruz, taking up Trump’s mantle without ever making Reince Priebus or House Speaker Paul Ryan angry, but their platforms would look practically identical. This is the main reason GOP protestations, five months after Trump reached the top of the polls, ring so hollow.   More

 

Donald Trump’s “Ban Muslims” Proposal Is Not Far Outside the U.S. Mainstream

Professional political analysts have underestimated Trump’s impact by failing to take into account his massive, long-standing cultural celebrity, which commands the attention of large numbers of Americans who usually ignore politics (which happens to be the majority of the population), which in turn generates enormous, highly charged crowds pulsating with grievance and rage. That means that even if he fails to win a single state, he’s powerfully poisoning public discourse about multiple marginalized minority groups: in particular, inciting and inflaming what was already volatile anti-Muslim animosity in the U.S… All that said, it’s important not to treat Trump as some radical aberration. He’s essentially the American id, simply channeling pervasive sentiments unadorned with the typical diplomatic and PR niceties designed to prettify the prevailing mentality… Whatever else you want to say about him, Trump is a skillful entertainer, and good entertainers — like good fascist demagogues — know their audience.   More

 

Trump proposal to ban Muslims from US relies on debunked poll from pro-Israel think tank

Yesterday Donald Trump released a shocking proposal to bar Muslims from entering the United States. Trump’s idea rests on research from the Center for Security Policy, a neocon think tank run by Frank Gaffney who has a long history of pro-Israel advocacy and has been called “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes” by the Southern Poverty Law Center… Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy has been at the center of the effort to bring anti-Muslim bigotry into the American political mainstream, and Gaffney and other pro-Israeli activists have played a central role in several notable anti-Muslim campaigns.  As Donna Nevel and Elly Bulkin’s research has revealed the same funders are supporting these attacks on Muslims are also funding right-wing Israel advocacy.  More

 

Deepening Inequality Driving US Middle Class into Oblivion

Based on the definition used in the Pew Research Center report released Wednesday, the share of American adults living in middle-income households—that is, with an income that is two-thirds to double that of the overall median household income, or $42,000 to $126,000 annually in 2014—has fallen from a high of 61 percent in 1971 to 50 percent in 2015.  At the same time, the share living in the upper-income tier jumped from 14 percent to 21 percent over the same period, and the share in the lower-income tier rose from 25 percent to 29 percent.  "The hollowing of the middle has proceeded steadily for four decades, and it may have reached a tipping point," the Pew study suggests. Furthermore, a "closer look at the shift out of the middle reveals that a deeper polarization is underway in the American economy."    More

 

Richest 20 People Have More Wealth Than Half Of All Americans

According to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) America’s 20 wealthiest people now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population combined. IPS calculates the top 20 in the Forbes 400 richest list own more wealth than 152 million people in 57 million households.   Beyond the top 20 the numbers get even worse. The IPS report estimates that the entire Forbes 400 Richest Americans list own more wealth than the bottom 61% of the country — 194 million people — combined. IPS can only estimate due to widespread use among the rich of offshore tax havens, which means inequality could actually be more severe.  The Forbes 400 richest Americans are not just wealthy relative to other Americans, but to people all over the world. As IPS notes, the total amount of wealth estimated to be held by the Forbes 400 is $2.34 trillion, an amount that surpasses the GDP of India with a population that exceeds 1 billion people… Many members of the Forbes 400 have amassed wealth in their lifetime through successful companies and innovation. But all of the Forbes 400 have also benefited enormously from a system of tax, trade, and regulatory rules tipped in favor of wealth holders at the expense of wage earners.  Tax policies, for instance, routinely favor capital income over wage income, and these policies disproportionately benefit the Forbes 400, especially those working in finance.   More

 

US cops trained to use lethal Israeli tactics

Officers from 15 US police agencies recently traveled to the Middle East for lessons from their Israeli counterparts.  For 10 days in late November, police officers from New York, Miami, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department, the Drug Enforcement Agency and US Customs and Border Protection observed the daily operations of the Jerusalem police, the Israeli Border Police and the Shin Bet secret service, all of which play a vital role in administering Israel’s system of control over Palestinians.  The training junket was hosted by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a neoconservative think tank that claims to have organized Israeli training sessions for some 9,500 law enforcement officials since 2004 through its Law Enforcement Exchange Program (LEEP).  More

 

On Int'l Human Rights Day: Climate Change is the Biggest Human Rights Issue There Is

MARY ROBINSON: Human rights absolutely relate to climate change, because climate change is undermining human rights all over the world and undermining people’s livelihoods, undermining people’s health, forcing people to leave their homes because of drought or flooding—often, actually, also causing them loss of life. It is having a very negative impact. And that’s been recognized by the Human Rights Council. So, even if there was nothing in this agreement—which I hope there will be—about human rights, human rights is there anyway as very, very central to our approach to climate change. To me, it’s the biggest human rights issue in the world.   More