Stating The Obvious

From my perspective, it is clear that America has become a fascist country. Those who deny that reality are either extreme partisans (I refuse to use the term patriots, the word fascists favour) or living in a world of massive denial. 

The militarization of American cities, an essential precondition of fascism, has been going on for some time. Just look at the tanks and the army paraphernalia many police forces now sport - certainly a reflection of their relationship with their citizens. What is striking, however, is how quickly and unabashedly the Trump regime is moving in establishing a siege mentality, another precondition for fascist rule. There has been the stationing of military presences in Los Angeles, D.C., Memphis, and Portland, with deployment plans for other Democratic cities as well. There is the constant denigration of Democrats as "far-left radicals' and antifa acolytes. Additionally, Trump, in his recent address to the military in Quantico, referred to "the enemy within." In other words, American citizens have become the enemy, and he went further and suggested the Pentagon use American cities as “training grounds” for its troops.  

For those with the audacity to still think independently, the irony of the entire situation cannot be lost. Masquerading as the law and order regime pursuing the 'enemy', another favourite fascist ploy, Trump and his jackboots are in fact violating a myriad of laws. Justin Ling writes:

Off the coast of Venezuela, the enemy was four unarmed fishing boats. The White House declared them cartel members and terrorists — for which they supplied no evidence — and ordered drone strikes to kill everyone onboard. 

This extrajudicial killing could constitute a war crime. 

Pete Hegseth, the former Fox personality and now Secretary of War, 

says there will be “no more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”

Those rules of engagement are designed to comply with international law — to avoid the murder of civilians, to prevent torture, to forbid the use of weapons of mass destruction. More importantly, the rules of engagement are part of strong set of internal rules that allow officers and soldiers alike to refuse illegal orders. 

Those rules are being flagrantly violated.

Those rules of engagement, and the U.S. constitution, forbid the military from policing the streets of America in peacetime. And yet active-duty personnel have been deployed to American cities, with more occupations to come. Trump says he’ll authorize “full force” to quell the enemy at home. The U.S. military, arguably the nation’s most fiercely independent institution, looks set to obey. 

In the new fascist Amerika, enemies are ubiquitous.

Trump has classified antifa — the mere concept of anti-fascist activism, not an actual group — a terror organization. He has ordered the Department of Justice to go after former FBI Director James Comey and Congressman Adam Schiff.

Given the ongoing threats against Venezuela and Greenland, Ling believes it is past time for Canada to take the fascist threat seriously through careful preparation.

It means revising agreements and cancelling memoranda of understanding. It means not sending our Canadian Armed Forces to train with units who no longer feel bound to the Geneva Convention and marking intelligence ‘for Canadian eyes only’ because it could be used to commit war crimes. It will mean creating systems within NATO that operate separately from Hegseth’s new warrior corps. This will invoke Trump’s ire, no doubt, but history teaches us that appeasing despots rarely works out.

But more is needed. 

[T]here will come a point where we need to make our objections clear, and where we will need to rally our allies into speaking up as well. Trump’s adventurism in South America will be a direct security challenge to Canada. His new affinity for committing war crimes will implicate the Canadian Armed Forces, who serve shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. military on many fronts. His comfort to fellow autocrats and despots will be a direct threat to the countries still pursuing democracy.

The greatest advantage Trump and his lieutenants currently hold is people's stubborn belief that fascism is impossible in the U.S.A. It has already arrived, and the sooner that fact is widely acknowledged, the better the chances of excising that malignancy from the body politic.  

 

The Return Of Gunboat 'Diplomacy'

I haven't had a lot of spare time of late to write, and today will see but a brief post to observe the following: as the U.S. continues its transition to domestic fascism, it is not forgetting the rest of the world in the process.

News comes daily about the sight of soldiers in the streets, with the national guard this past summer in Los Angeles and currently occupying D.C. Herr Trump promises, despite the legal obstacles, to dispatch them to Democratic cities like Chicago and Baltimore, despite plummeting crime rates. Of course red states are currently being ignored, many of which have higher murder rates.

But not satisfied to subjugate the domestic populace, the mad king is bent on imposing his rule on the world. Tariffs are assuaging part of that imperialistic impulse, but he certainly plainly intends to use his mighty military toys where he deems fit.

Having already labelled Venezuela a narco state and repository of terrible gangs such as Tren de Argua  (Orwell's Goldstein of the current era), it seems that all force is now being legitimized to stop this scourge, as evidenced by by the American ships positioned off of that South American country's shores. 

But what fun is having such military might if you don't use it? The Yanks answered that one quickly enough, firing upon a boat purportedly carrying drugs bound for America.

The president said in a Truth Social social media post that 11 people were killed in the U.S. military operation, and he posted a video of a small vessel appearing to explode in flames.

"The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States," Trump said in the posting. "No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America."

Now, I have no sympathy for drug cartels and their trafficking, but several questions need to be raised here: 

• how did the Americans know the boat was carrying drugs?
• how did they identify the Tren de Aragua gang as the occupants of the boat?
• why did they not simply stop the boat and arrest the alleged culprits?

Ultimately, the most important question is the one involving due process. While many Americans may mindlessly cheer the obliteration of drug smugglers, they also need to recognize that the elimination of due process is happening in their own country, as we see in the mass deportations currently underway. 

But then again, perhaps the mindless, aka the MAGATS, are okay with that too.

Amerika: Truths Its People Refuse To Acknowledge

The following was sent to me by a friend, and, set in hard relief against other countries, it defines its true nature.

“AMERICA IS A GUN” by Brian Bilston

England is a cup of tea.
France, a wheel of ripened brie.
Greece, a short, squat olive tree.
America is a gun.
Brazil is football on the sand.
Argentina, Maradona’s hand.
Germany, an oompah band.
America is a gun.
Holland is a wooden shoe.
Hungary, a goulash stew.
Australia, a kangaroo.
America is a gun.
Japan is a thermal spring.
Scotland is a highland fling.
Oh, better to be anything
than America as a gun.

---

Paul Millicheap, who writes as Brian Bilston, is a British poet and author. Born in Birmingham, he studied at the University of Wales, Swansea,

The following was sent by another friend, and serves the same purpose as the above.

This Speaks Rather Loudly, Eh?

While the woman in the above photo, Birgitt Peterson, claims she was provoked and that her Nazi salute has been misinterpreted (I'm sure such mistakes happen all the time), and a right-wing site offers a lamentably lame spin on her, as they say, actions speak louder than words, eh?

That is not to say, however, that Toronto Star readers' words fork no lightning as they discuss their views of the the U.S. descent into fascism via Donald Trump. All of the missives are excellent, but I reproduce only a few of them below:

The Trump phenom might be ugly, as your editorial states, but it says a lot about the anti-intellectual stream that exists in American society. It’s not just Trump, but most of the Republican candidates for president are worse. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are downright scary. They look like characters in a bad Hollywood movie.

This is the country that put a Man on the moon and developed the Internet, but a good chunk of America is quite ignorant and knows nothing about the rest of the world. And in many ways, why should it? It has a huge domestic economy where internal trade is more important than external trade. They don’t need to look outside their borders.

But saying that, there is no excuse for ignorance. Let’s face it, many Americans, including most Republicans, still believe in Creationism. They believe the world was created in six days and many deny climate change. Even though cities like Miami and New York will be under water in a hundred years.

Obviously, Donald Trump plays to the anger many feel over their lot in life; lost jobs due to globalization and the hollowing out of the American manufacturing sector. Trump speaks to their fears, even though he has no real solutions. Crazy American elections aren’t new, just look at 1968 with the likes of Richard Nixon, George Wallace and Hubert Humphrey. But what is consistent in American life, despite their immense power, is their parochialism and small mindedness.

That is dangerous and sad.

Andrew van Velzen, Toronto

I have read literally hundreds of negative reports on Trump campaign, yet not one article mentions why he is so popular. Although the average American does not know for sure why things are so bad regarding wages, job opportunities or how the 2008 Wall Street fiasco screwed them out of millions of homes, they instinctively know they are being lied to. It would be nice if the schools taught the real history of what has been happening and what led to World War II, but somehow I doubt that is going to happen.

Add to that the “dumbing down of America” that has been in full swing since the mid 1970s and this is what America has become.

All we have to do is look at Germany in the 1930s. They were probably the most educated and advanced society in the early 20th century, yet they allowed a tyrant into power who led the world to a world war.

And why did this tyrant get into power? The economy had collapsed, the German dollar had collapsed and people were desperate for help. Now we see America with cities in ruin, poison water, jobless people living in tent cities and they do not have the social net we have in Canada.

Let’s be honest. The so called 1 per cent has put us in this position and Trump is the answer the Americans have come up with.

If we do not wake up and realize that without a solid middle class, we are doomed to repeat history, then people like Trump will rule.

Gary Brigden, Toronto

Perhaps a significant block of American voters are responding to Donald Trump not because they admire a bully, but because in one respect at least he’s finally speaking to something that no North American politician, and few elsewhere, have dared to speak to in a generation, something that has detrimentally affected and continues to affect virtually every working-class person on the continent.
The so-called “free trade” deals that have been imposed continentally for the past 30 years were calculated to wipe out domestic manufacturing, simply and solely for the sake of somebody else’s bottom line. Although new deals in the offing still persist in callously promising us the moon, they only ever leave a decimated economy at street-level, and diminished opportunities to prosper for succeeding generations. This is clear to anyone who has experienced life in such an economy, such as the current generation of Canadians.

Trump speaks to the fraudulent nature of these multiple ersatz trade deals, which plainly have always had more to do, even in the latest proposals, with investor rights than with broad economic advancements.

If Trump is finally talking turkey about the daily lived fraud that North American workers have endured for too long, and if his message in this respect is resonating with workers, then perhaps his opponents and his critics might take a lesson from his strategy and finally start talking real cases themselves.

Justin Trudeau, are you listening?

George Higton, Toronto

To borrow sardonically from The Bard, who seems to have seen it all,

O brave new world / That has such people in't!