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Fascism

The State Murder Of Tortuguita And Tyre Nichols Are Inextricably Linked

The cold-blooded assassination of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, also known as Tortuguita, Spanish for “Little Turtle,” is a reminder that fascism in the United States cannot be reduced to the political intentions of avowed white nationalists. African/Black and Indigenous people residing in the settler-colonial project known as the United States continue to be subjected to a cycle of state-sanctioned violence and political repression with bipartisan consensus. People of the global majority and their allies must not allow these latest episodes of injustice to go unanswered. The Atlanta City-Wide Alliance of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP-Atlanta) has been working with a coalition of Indigenous people, African/Black people, other people of color, and Euro-Americans to prevent the construction of “Cop City,” as BAP-Atlanta expressed in a recent statement. The statement highlighted the obvious nexus between the proposed $90 million police-training facility site, where Tortuguita was killed on January 18, and the white supremacy-fueled genocide, militarism, and oppression the U.S. empire exercises both outside and within.

Universities Submit To Neoliberalism And Fascism

We are witnessing the rise of a unique brand of U.S. fascism, which has once again reared its ugly head and has made higher education one of its primary targets. This fascist attack on the university is made possible by the longstanding neoliberal withering of its institutions, which now rely mostly on underpaid contingent workers. The disempowerment of university labor runs hand-in-hand with a right-wing ideological front — rooted in rampant anti-intellectualism and rugged individualism — which seeks to control what knowledge universities can produce and teach. In order to counter this attack on higher education, faculty unions must scale up their organizing efforts against neoliberalism and the rising tide of fascism. It is not surprising that former President Donald Trump accused universities of “radical left indoctrination.”

It’s Not About Phenotype; It’s About The Interests Being Served

Well, they have done it to us again.  What for most White Americans is a simple inconvenience, a traffic stop, became for an African American another series of frames from a horror movie.  Instead of being pulled over, given a ticket and sent on his way; Tyre Nichols was pulled out of his car by the police, sadistically beaten and sent to the hospital to die. The villain or beast from this real-life horror was not Dracula or Frankenstein. The spawns of Satan that beat Tyre Nichols are not made-up characters from the minds of Bram Stoker or Mary Shelley.  This villainous threat to the African American community is real! They are stalking the streets of our cities and towns for more victims every hour of every day and night. This threat, these body snatchers don’t need the cover of darkness or need to operate in the shadows.  They conduct their evil in broad daylight under the color of law.  They are the urban army that is sworn to “protect and serve”.

Fighting Fascism From The Age Of Reagan To The Present

This movement has many of the elements we recognize as fascism. Fascism is a far-right political approach that offers what the historian Robert Paxton calls “compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity” to people obsessed with perceived humiliation and social decline. Historically, fascist movements have taken the form of militant nationalist parties that turn against democracy in alliance with elements of the conservative elite. They engage in “redemptive violence” to pursue “goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.” Although it may seem to have come out of nowhere, today’s American fascism has roots in a surge of far-right violence in the late 20th century. We have much to learn from the recent evolution of fascism — and from anti-fascist responses — to help understand far right violence today.

Coup Attempt In Brazil Condemned By Leaders From Across The Globe

On Sunday January 8, supporters of former far-right Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro invaded the Supreme Federal Court, the National Congress, and the Planalto Palace, the office of the president, breaking through the blockade of the Military Police and the National Security Force at the Esplanade of Ministers in the capital Brasília. After invading the headquarters of the three branches of government, the violent groups vandalized the buildings, looted the armory at the Planalto Palace, and caused tremendous damage to public institutions. Following the acts of violence, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned the situation, criticized the complicity of Brasília’s public security forces in the attacks, and decreed federal intervention in public security of Brasília until January 31.

Ukraine: Parliament, Army Leadership Celebrate Fascist Mass Murderer

On January 1, 2023, hours after the Ukrainian armed forces engaged in an airstrike on a Russian military base that led to the death of at least 89 Russian soldiers—most of them raw recruits—the Ukrainian parliament, army leadership and local officials celebrated the 114th anniversary of Stepan Bandera, the figurehead of Ukrainian fascism. Bandera advocated the establishment of an “ethnically pure” Ukrainian state in alliance first with German and then with US imperialism. He personally participated in multiple targeted political assassinations of Polish politicians in the 1930s. During World War II, the Bandera-led Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its paramilitary wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), participated in the Nazi-led genocide of hundreds of thousands of Jews in what is now Ukraine and Poland; in 1943-44, the OUN-B and UPA engaged in massacres of an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 Poles.

Liberal Democracy: The Bedfellow Of Fascism

Antifascism, as a politic and concept, has grown more appealing in the last 6 years because of the rise of right-wing authoritarianism domestically and globally rooted in patriarchy and ongoing (settler) colonialism. Nonetheless, there remains much confusion about fascism. Earlier this month, I was a featured panelist for a roundtable discussion with the editors of For Antifascist Futures: Against the Violence of Imperial Crisis and author of On Microfascism: Gender War and Death at the Red Emma’s bookstore in Baltimore. It was a compelling cultural and political exploration wherein we engaged the feminist and anticolonial dimensions of antifascism with readers and has since led me to deeper exploration of fascism’s historical relationship to liberal democracy, in the context of this current political and pop culture infused moment.

Noam Chomsky: Neoliberalism And The Roots Of Fascism

World-renowned linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, essayist, and political activist Noam Chomsky returns to The Chris Hedges Report to continue their discussion on contemporary fascism, the war in Ukraine, and the tasks of the left in a time of ecological and political crisis. Noam Chomsky is the author of more than 150 books on topics that include linguistics, the press, the inner workings of empire, and the war industry. He is a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and an Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His books include Hegemony or Survival, For Reasons of State, American Power and the New Mandarins, Understanding Power, The Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature, On Language, Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship, The Fateful Triangle, and many others.

Noam Chomsky: Ukraine, Climate Crisis, And Declining Empire

World-renowned linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, essayist, and political activist Noam Chomsky joins The Chris Hedges Report for the first of a two-part interview. Chomsky has been a vocal critic of the $47 billion dollars in military aid the US has sent to Ukraine—an amount that equals the total budget of the State Department and exceeds the paltry amounts the country has committed to the fight against climate change. In a wide-ranging discussion, Chomsky and Hedges discuss the current war, the rising tide of global fascism, the climate catastrophe, and the role left to public intellectuals in an increasingly restrictive and censored media environment. Noam Chomsky is the author of more than 150 books on topics that include linguistics, the press, the inner workings of empire, and the war industry.

The Most Important Election In Brazil’s History

On Sunday, up to 156 million Brazilian voters will go to the polls to choose a new president in a run-off election. The stakes could not be higher. The far-right incumbent is Jair Bolsonaro, whose term (2019-2022) has been marked by endless controversy, accusations of corruption, and the death of more than 600,000 Brazilians in a woefully mismanaged pandemic. He will face the center-left former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose eight years in power (2003-2010) witnessed major reductions in poverty and inequality, sustained efforts to expand rights for marginalized groups, and unprecedented prestige for Brazil on the international stage. Although Lula defeated Bolsonaro by 5.2 percentage points in the October 2 first-round vote, he did not achieve the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. The most recent polls show Lula leading by margins of 2-6 points.

The New York Times Has Been Friendly To Nazis For 80 Years

The New York Times loves a good Nazi. And I don’t just mean this past year. I mean, going back to World War II to the OG Nazis, the guy with the mustache. If any of you out there are still New York Times lovers; then you really shouldn’t watch this episode. Just go back to playing with your Legos or something. Back in 2019, an Australian white supremacist murdered 49 people in New Zealand. As discussed this week by Fairness And Accuracy in Reporting, at the time, the New York Times correctly reported that “On his flak jacket was a symbol commonly used by the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary organization….” So, at least in 2019, the New York Times was opposed to Neo-Nazis. How good of them! Yet, that has very much changed this year.The New York Times loves a good Nazi. And I don’t just mean this past year. I mean, going back to World War II to the OG Nazis, the guy with the mustache. If any of you out there are still New York Times lovers; then you really shouldn’t watch this episode. Just go back to playing with your Legos or something. Back in 2019, an Australian white supremacist murdered 49 people in New Zealand. As discussed this week by Fairness And Accuracy in Reporting, at the time, the New York Times correctly reported that “On his flak jacket was a symbol commonly used by the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary organization….” So, at least in 2019, the New York Times was opposed to Neo-Nazis. How good of them! Yet, that has very much changed this year.

OAS Statute Of Queen Isabella Disrespects Indigenous People

On Monday October 10, when the nation celebrates Indigenous Peoples’ Day,  D.C.-based peace activists transformed a prominent statue of Queen Isabella I of Castile by dressing her in traditional indigenous garments. The statue stands in Washington, D.C.’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood at the entrance to the headquarters of the Organization of the American States (OAS). Queen Isabella sponsored Christopher Columbus’ 1492 expedition that led to the extermination of millions of indigenous peoples, laying the foundation for Spanish colonialism and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  The statue was gifted to the OAS in 1966 by the fascist leader of Spain, Francisco Franco. General Franco clearly looked to Queen Isabella as the embodiment of his own ideals, and of the right of Christian Europeans to rule as dictators over other peoples.

Brazil: More Fascism, Neocolonialism Or A Path Back To Self-Determination?

When you arrive in another country, there is nothing more precious than new friends who adopt you, protect you, and teach you about their language, music, culture, and traditions. For an open-minded traveler, ethnographer and anti-imperialist organizer, this new family is more valuable than any air-conditioned hotel,  amount of comfort or money. When I moved to Brazil in May of 2003, Binho, Mateuszinho, Thiago and their family and neighborhood crew took me in and put me up in O Morro do Santo Cristo and O Complexo da Penha, the heart of Río de Janeiro’s favelas and drug war. They walked me through the complex landscape of Rio’s corrupt brutal police who shoot first and rarely ask questions later, their violent blitzes (Río slang for stop and frisks), and a maze of morros (ghettos spread across hills) divided between two major paramilitary drug gangs: O Comando Vermelho and O Terceiro Comando (The Red Command and The Third Command).

How Shinzo Abe Whitewashed Genocidal Imperial Crimes

Japan’s longest serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe tried to rewrite the history of the fascist Japanese empire and its genocidal crimes. And he and his Nazi-collaborating grandfather enjoyed staunch Western support. After World War II, the US government pardoned and recruited many of the fascists who had led imperial Japan, putting in power war criminals who had committed genocide in China, Korea, and Southeast Asia, carrying out biological warfare, human experimentation, and mass sexual slavery. Multipolarista editor Benjamin Norton discusses how Japan’s political system still today is a one-party right-wing regime run by descendants of these fascist war criminals.

Lawyers Speak Out On Supreme Court: ‘This Is A Revelation Of The Future’

The recent US Supreme Court rulings set legal precedents that will further erode human and civil rights and empower corporations as well as open the door for more cases that will advance Christian and capitalist ideologies. Clearing the FOG speaks with two legal experts, Shahid Buttar and Marjorie Cohn, about the specifics of the recent decisions on abortion, gun rights, school prayer, and the EPA and how they fit into the bigger picture. They also provide guidance on what we need to do to stop growing fascism in the United States.

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Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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