Simply Shameful

The other day I noted the difference between Canadian and American coverage of natural disasters. Canadian news does not shy away from references to, and analyses of, climate change, while American news, doubtlessly due to corporate decree, treats it as a theoretical/ideological/political construct not to be mentioned. Apparently, not running afoul of the powers-that-be and influential network sponsors takes precedence over the truth.

If you go to the three-minute mark of the following NBC Nightly News report, Al Roker gives Lester Holt his morally bankrupt version of the meteorological facts of life.

He Takes A Nice Selfie, But Secrecy Is His Real Forté

Those of us who follow politics fairly closely know that there is frequently less than meets the eye in the Trudeau government. Certainly, the Prime Minister talks a reasonably good game, and his selfies are world-renowned, but scratch the surface and you will find increasing evidence that the emperor is, at the very least, scantily-clad.

There is, of course, Trudeau's widely-known betrayal of his election-campaign commitment to electoral reform. We were told that there just was no consensus, a claim widely ridiculed since the government never asked Canadians what new voting system they preferred.

But even more worrying than that lie is the disparity that exists between his rhetoric about climate change and the reality of what he is pursuing in relative secrecy, one that seems to be very close to what we often euphemistically call 'industry self-regulation'. Gloria Galloway writes:

Environmental groups say they are surprised to learn that the federal Liberal government has been rewriting and consolidating the regulations governing offshore oil and gas drilling for more than a year without informing them or obtaining much input beyond that of the petroleum industry.

The current draft of the regulations requires the oil and gas industry to implement the safety measures that companies determine to be "reasonably practicable," but the environmentalists say it imposes no minimum standards.

[This suggests that] the proposed changes would allow the industry to decide what safety measures can be reasonably and practicably implemented, the environmentalists say. They suggest oil and gas companies would be able to argue that some are too expensive or too difficult.

Known as the Frontier and Offshore Regulatory Renewal Initiative (FORRI), consultations began last year and are now in their final stages. And the excluded groups are not only environmental organizations, but also indigenous groups, quite remarkable given the Trudeau government's blather about reconciliation.

... while the FORRI website includes many responses to the draft regulations from the petroleum industry, the only Indigenous feedback is from the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC), an Inuit company that manages a land claim in the western Arctic. The IRC expressed significant concerns about the initiative and the consultations.

Other Inuit groups, including the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, which represents Inuit on Baffin Island, say they got no opportunity to give input.

Make of all of this what you will, but I don't think one has to be especially cynical to be very, very concerned about giving the oil and gas industry more freedom, worried as we all should be about our collective future, especially given the global climate disruptions we are currently in the midst of.

The Evidence And The Explanation

One of the big differences I have noticed between Canadian and American news is that while the former frequently addresses and uses the term climate change in their coverage of 'natural' disasters,' the latter almost never employs the phrase nor attempts any meaningful analysis of the underlying causes of catastrophes they commonly report on.

Last night, Global National addressed climate change head-on in relation to Hurricane Harvey. However, if you watch to the end of the report, you will see how deeply and shockingly ingrained denialism is in the psyches of many, many people.



Meanwhile, Matthew Hoffmann writes that the time is long past when we can think of climate change as something separate from our everyday lives:

The gulf between the enormity of the climate change challenge and our readiness to undertake it is staggering. This is painfully obvious when climate change is visible, when we are faced with the evidence that the impacts of climate change are happening now with devastating consequences. But this gulf is also evident in society’s failure to internalize climate awareness and concern. As a society we are simply not fully “woke” to the idea that climate change is not some discrete problem to solve; it is, as characterized by climate scientist Mike Hulme, a part of the modern condition. Addressing and living with climate change requires serious transformation of society. We have a lot of work to do and it will not be easy.

Unless and until we are able to honestly confront climate change and the role we all play in its ever-worsening effects, we can expect ever-more frequent reports of its increasingly devastating consequences for the entire world.

*Echoes Of History - Part 111: Contemporary Economic Terrorism

I must confess that I continue to feel the impact of reading The Blood of Emmett Till. This is a good thing, as it has made me much more aware of the long road involved in the journey to civil rights in the United States, a journey that was regularly punctuated, not just by physical violence but also by violence of the economic kind.

In 1955, these threats were potent weapons to stop Black people from registering to vote, something the racists of the time feared would lead to them exerting electoral power and attaining political office. Nipping such efforts in the bud was the default position of the time.

One of the most insidious mechanisms for this operated through the White Citizens' Councils, a less violent version, if you will, of the KKK, their goal being to silence leaders in the Black movement through economic pressure. A prominent doctor and entrepreneur, T.R.M. Morton, founder of Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) in 1951, was a crucial leader in the fight for civil rights as well as justice in the murder of Till. As a result of his activism, he faced a situation where banks would no longer extend credit to him, suppliers severed their relationship with him, etc., the goal being to financially hobble him into silence, a quest that failed badly.

Black store owners were also victims in this battle to stop the civil rights movement. They lost their customers as the White Citizens Councils made it known that anyone doing business with them would face their wrath, including job loss. Tremendous economic cudgels were wielded, but many still resisted, despite the peril.

When you juxtapose the depth of character required for someone to risk life. limb and livelihood in the pursuit of justice and equality for all with the supremacists' claim to superiority because of the mere color of their skin, the sheer emptiness of their claims is laid bare. People who hide behind sheets, march in angry groups and preach hatred are hardly what most of us would label as people of character.

Sadly, economic weapons are still being today. Consider the situation of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, a quarterback with the San Francisco 49ers for three seasons who rose to fame (notoriety if you are of a certain bent) by refusing to stand for the American national anthem, opting to instead kneel, motivated by what he viewed as the oppression of people of color in the U.S.

Kaepernick opted out of his contract at the end of 2016 season to become a free agent. Despite the fact that there are 32 NFL teams, not one has even offered him a tryout. This fact recently occasioned a protest outside of NFL headquarters.


ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos

Scott Stinson puts to the lie the non-racist reasons cited for not giving Kapernik a new football opportunity:

The idea that all the NFL rosters are filled out with quarterbacks who are better than Kaepernick at the skills required is simply nonsense. Over his five seasons of mostly full-time work, the 29-year-old has a career rating of 88.9. That is 17th ALL TIME. Sorry for yelling. Kaepernick’s career rating is better than those of Dan Marino, Brett Favre, and Troy Aikman. Also, John Elway and Warren Moon. And Dan Fouts. Phil Simms, Joe Theismann. I’ll stop now. Jim Kelly and Johnny Unitas. OK, now.

The past cannot be changed, and the future has not yet been written. Confronting the racism of both past and contemporary society is something the Americans have a great deal of difficulty doing, and to be sure, it is no easy task. Only now is Canada coming to grips with our abuse of Indigenous peoples, and the road to reconciliation will undoubtedly be a long one. Until Americans are willing to walk the same path, things will only continue to deteriorate for all.

* If you are interested, Echoes of History, Part One, can be accessed here, and Part 11, here.

There Is A Lesson Here For All Of Us

While no rational person could fail to see ever-worsening climate change as a major contributor to the Houston flooding, there is a compounding problem, as the following report makes clear.

Surely there is a lesson here for all of us.



As to how urban engineering can help address this problem, my thanks to Things Are Good for this:

No Matter What His Motivation Might Have Been, This Is Just Wrong

ATLANTA—A white Cobb County police lieutenant has been moved to administrative duty for telling a white woman during a traffic stop, “Remember, we only shoot Black people.”

An Old Favourite, Updated

Enjoy this searing indictment:

Strong Evidence Of Trump's Racism

The CBC's Neil Macdonald has written a searing assessment of Donald Trump that leaves little doubt that the Americans elected a racist president. His starting pint is an interview conducted by the NYT of one Derek Black, a former white supremacist nurtured since childhood by a family that embraced racism; his father started that shrine to hatred known as Stormfront.

... the arc of the interview was that eventually Derek Black went off to college out of state and found himself contending with educated people who would systematically shred the studies and pseudo-science Black cited in support of his beliefs that, for example, there are IQ differences between races.

In short, Black himself received a humiliating education, decided white supremacy was a fringe movement for ignorant, angry people and publicly abandoned it. In return, his family basically disowned him.

After the terrible events of Charlottesville, Black expected a full-throated denunciation by all politicians, despite the fact that the 'protesters' had used code words well-known in racist circles, such as "protecting our history and culture."

That Donald Trump did not immediately denounce the marchers (though he read a boilerplate repudiation from a teleprompter on Monday), said Black, was "weird" and was taken as somewhat of a victory by his racist former fellow travellers, some of whom had shouted "Hail Trump" at the rally.

Then came Trump's news conference on Tuesday, Aug. 15, when he said that some of the marchers in the white nationalist rally were "very fine people" and focused on criticizing the counter-protesters and those who wanted to take down the statue of Lee.

Ask yourself this: how in heaven's name do "fine people" find themselves among torch-waving men shouting about non-white minorities and "blood and soil?" (Look up the provenance of that slogan). And why would a fine person not bolt at the first chant of "Jews will not replace us?"

Trump then said: "You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name [Emancipation Park]."

Now. Look at those last three words: "to another name." Donald Trump, president of the United States, not only thought there were fine people among the white supremacist marchers, he refused to say "Emancipation Park."

The consequence of this abysmal failure of national leadership was far-reaching:

Derek Black, listening in a coffee shop, said Trump's words "took my breath away."

The president had, in his view, validated the white supremacist messaging strategy in a stroke.

What they heard, he said, was "Donald Trump thinks we're fine." All the people who just needed a little extra nudge, to be told their son would be denied university because of affirmative action, or that an immigrant would take their jobs, had just been nudged.

Black called it the most important moment in the history of the modern white nationalist movement. David Duke and other white supremacists rejoiced. They've crawled out from under their rocks and are basking in their president's complicity.

To fight an evil, one must first be able to name it. Trump's conscious choice not to denounce racism in any credible way, along with his pardon of convicted racist Joe Arpaio, leaves little doubt that a racist is now occupying the White House.

I Remain Transfixed

Until relatively recently, I did not think I would live so long as to see this climate-change future.

Sixty-two Years Ago Today

On August 28, 1955, Emmett Till was murdered in a horrific racist crime that reverberated throughout the world.

In April of this year, Jazz Night in America recorded Wadada Leo Smith performing a portion of his original composition "Emmett Till: Defiant, Fearless" while canoeing down the Little Tallahatchie River in Glendora, Miss.

Here is the 360˚ VR video of that composition:

For Your Sunday Consideration

Thanks to my friend Gary, who sent me this:

Part 11 - Echoes Of History: 1955 And 2017

In Part 1, I discussed the murder of Emmett Till, the exoneration of his murderers, and the tactics used by the racists of 1955 Mississippi to try to discredit both the NAACP and the entire trial. Efforts went so far as to suggest Till had not been murdered at all but was in fact living in Detroit, part of an elaborate scheme by the NAACP to embarrass the South and discredit its traditions.

Fast forwarding 2017, it is apparent that not much has changed in the racist camp, now known as 'White Nationalists'or the'alt.right', euphemisms that do little to obscure what they really are. Following the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, that became abundantly clear.

There was, of course, the now infamous press conference by Donald Trump which seemed to use the time-honoured, disingenous and quite cowardly tactic of arguing for a moral equivalency between the swastika-bearing white supremacists and the many who showed up to oppose them.

"What about the 'alt-left' that came charging at, as you say, the 'alt-right,' do they have any semblance of guilt?" Trump asked. "What about the fact they came charging with clubs in hands, swinging clubs, do they have any problem? I think they do."

He added: "You had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. nobody wants to say it, but I will say it right now."

From the never subtle or nuanced Trump, it was an obvious and rather pathetic display of his leanings. Other efforts can sometimes be more subtle. And that subtlety often comes in the form of presenting the racists as victims of intolerance and 'liberal' hypocrisy rather than as perpetrators of hatred. Consider, for example, two of the aggrieved memes circulating widely on the Internet:



Of course, racist strategy goes far beyond such memes. In the Charlottesville violence, the torch-bearing supremacists presented themselves as full-throated Americans marching in favour of free speech and the preservation of historical monuments, yet their real motives are clear to most. As Patrick Sisson recently wrote:

“The Charlottesville protesters revealed what we know to be true about these monuments: They are monuments to white supremacy, and the threat that we’ll tear them down is a threat to their ideology and movement.”

Those not certain of this need only to listen to the chants of Charlottesville 'protesters.'

Casting doubt on the veracity of events is also a time-honoured racist tactic. As noted in Part 1, there were dark hints that the NAACP had engineered the 'killing' of Emmett Till as a tactic to advance their cause. That very same approach was recently used by Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka who, in answering why his leader did not make any comments about the August mosque bombing in Minnesota, discussed Trump's need to have all the information about the bombing (a restraint he has never practised in attacks initiated by Muslims) before offering a public statement to ascertain it wasn't a "fake hate crime."

"We've had a series of crimes committed, alleged hate crimes, by right wing individuals in the last six months that turned out to actually have been propagated by the left," he said.

In Till's day, there were efforts to present the NAACP as a communist-infiltrated organization whose purpose was to upend American society. Efforts are also underway today to conflate those involved in clashes with the supremacists as hypocrites and violent thugs:

Then there was the shocking, disgusting Twitter post by Jason Kessler, the far-right activist who organized the Charlottesville march, to denigrate and slander the 32-year-old woman killed by a hate monger during the demonstration:

“Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist,” the post said. “Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time.”

Or consider the smear campaign uncovered by the BBC:

Far-right activists are using fake Twitter accounts and images of battered women to smear anti-fascist groups in the US, an online investigation has revealed.

The online campaign is using fake Antifa (an umbrella term for anti-fascist protestors) Twitter accounts to claim anti-fascists promote physically abusing women who support US President Donald Trump or white supremacy.

One image shows the slogan "53% of white women voted for Trump, 53% of white women should look like this", above a photograph of a woman with a bruised and cut face and an anti-fascist symbol.


The woman pictured is actually British actress Anna Friel and the photograph was taken for a Women's Aid anti-domestic violence campaign in 2007.

How about this one, another picture promoted on a false Twitter account:


This is the kind of post that could go on almost ad infinitum with examples of racist strategies. Rather than prolong it, I will recommend that you check out two articles that are quite instructive: Michael Coren's recent article, Lessons on how to confront fascists, and How I Became Fake News, Brennan Gilmore's account of what happened to him after he posted his video of the car heading toward and killing Heather Heyer.

But I will close now with the hope that people will be more critical in their thinking and not let their biases blind them to such basic tasks as checking the bona fides of news sites, especially those that abound on the Internet, go to multiple legitimate sources of information, not fall down the rabbit hole of mindless conspiracy theories and, most importantly, use the brains they were born with to constantly assess and reassess the best approximations of the truth we can have in this life.

Oh, and just one more thing. Lest we feel smug and think racism and discrimination are things that afflict only our southern neighbour, this disquieting video from Manitoba should be a source of shame for all Canadians:

UPDATED: A Glimpse Of The Religiously Insane

Behold.

UPDATE: Unless you can stand more of Paula White's sanctimonious and unhinged hypocrisy, I suggest you start the following at the 3:40 mark to savor Roland Martin's relentless take down of her and her fellow crazed evangelicals:

Echoes Of History: 1955 and 2017

From this tragedy large, diverse groups of people organized a movement that grew to transform a nation, not sufficiently but certainly meaningfully. What matters most is what we have and what we will do with what we do know. We must look at the facts squarely ... The bloody and unjust arc of our history will not bend upward if we merely pretend that history did not happen here.
- Timothy B. Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Till

As a species, we are terrible students of history. Although its tools have become much more refined over the years, its lessons seem all too frequently lost on many, either because we prefer comforting illusions or we see them through narrow ideological lenses. Refusing to confront ugly truths ensures their longevity.

One of the most emotionally difficult books I have read in a long time is The Blood of Emmett Till. This excerpt from a NYT review sums up the murder of Till, the 14-year-old black lad from Chicago who, in the summer of 1955, was visiting relatives in Mississippi:

On a Wednesday evening in August, Till allegedly flirted with and grabbed the hand of Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who worked as the cashier at a local market. According to recovered court transcripts released by the F.B.I. in 2007, he let out a “wolf whistle” as she exited the store to get a gun from her car. Bryant later informed her husband and his half brother, who proceeded to uphold a grim tradition: Till was abducted, beaten, shot in the head and thrown into the Tallahatchie River. A 74-pound gin fan was tied to his neck with barbed wire, with the hope that he would never be found.

Despite overwhelming evidence of their guilt, his murderers were, in the Southern tradition of the time, found not guilty. Despite the absence of justice, Till's mother, an indefatigable woman, changed the course of civil rights history by insisting that the horribly mutilated body of her son rest in an open coffin, of which photographs were published in prominent magazines, while an estimated 240,000 filed by his casket.

The purpose of this post, however, is not to revisit the horrific details explored in the book that go well beyond the murder of a young teen. Rather, it is to draw parallels between the language and justifications of the racists of Till's time with those of the contemporary white supremacist movement. While over 60 years separate the two eras, the echoes of history are evident for all who care to look.

The most obvious parallel evolves around efforts to discredit the veracity of events. Examples of this 'strategy' abound in the book:

The editor of the Picayune Item snarled that a "prejudiced communistic inspired NAACP" could not "not blacken the name of the great sovereign state of Mississippi, regardless of their claims of Negro Haters, lynching, or whatever [emphasis mine].

Sherriff Strider, a racist who was friends with the accused, sought to constantly undermine the evidence and question whether or not the body was, in fact, that of Till's, telling reporters the following:

"The body we took from the river looked more like that of a grown man instead of a young boy. It was also more decomposed than it should have been after that short a stay in the water."

Soon after, Strider told reporters, "This whole thing looks like a deal made up by the NAACP."

During the trial, Strider was happy to share his racist view with reporters, disguised as questioning the evidence:

"It just seems to me that the evidence is getting slimmer and slimmer. I'm chasing down some evidence now that the killing might have been planned and plotted by the NAACP."

Of course, there was no such evidence. Just as there was no evidence to support a convenient claim that Till had been spirited out of Mississippi and was now living in Detroit, again part of the larger effort to cast doubt on the evidence and the integrity of the NAACP.

Why the attacks on the NAACP? Besides trying to sow doubts about the murder, it was part of a pattern of extreme resistance to school integration and voting rights that Hodding Carter wrote about in The Saturday Evening Post:

Whites considered the NAACP "the fountainhead of all evil and woe," and the factual nature of most of the NAACP's bills of particulars ... doesn't help make its accusations any more acceptable. "The hatred that is concentrated upon the NAACP surpasses in its intensity any emotional reaction that I have witnessed in my southern lifetime." This reflected the NAACP's demands for voting rights and school integration as much as it did their protests over the Till case.

Any fair-minded person who reads The Blood of Emmett Till cannot emerge from the experience without a deep sense of outrage over the horrible injustices meted out to Black people over the years, as well as a profound admiration for those extraordinary souls who, countless times, braved both physical and economic reprisal in their long battle to be treated exactly as they were: American citizens demanding their full rights.

And the battle continues today. In Part 11 of this post, I will look at the tactics employed by white supremacists today, tactics that eerily echo those of a much earlier time as the racists among us seek to turn back the clock and once more subjugate those they deem their inferiors.

Deciphering White Supremacists

The New York Times provides a very useful glossary of the terms favoured by white supremacists these days. Be sure to check it out. As well, the following video breaks down the symbols brandished by these hate-mongers, symbols that were much in evidence last week in Charlottesville.

A Very, Very Timely Message

Arnold Schwarzenegger has a timely and very powerful message for Donald Trump and his racist supporters:



If you go to the YouTube page where this video is posted, you will see by the many vile comments that his message needs to be spread widely.

Will This Saudi 'Explanation' Give Freeland And Trudeau The Cover They Desperately Seek?

As I recently wrote, I am very doubtful that the Trudeau government will rescind its $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, damning evidence of the Saudi deployment of the weaponry against their own people notwithstanding. It is my suspicion that both Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland hope that their sanctimonious expressions of concern prompted by this evidence will be sufficient for the Canadian people.

Now Saudi Arabia has admitted using the armoured vehicles in their Eastern Province, but guess what? They claim it is to fight terrorism.

The Saudi Arabian government is defending the recent deployment of Canadian-made armoured vehicles against residents of the kingdom’s Eastern Province, saying security forces found it necessary to use “military equipment” to fight terrorists who threatened the safety of its population.

Interestingly, the vehicles have been unleashed in al-Qatif, which is predominantly Shia, a sect that finds no favour in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia. And while it is true that tensions abound in the area, the Saudis are not keen to talk about any of the reasons.

Consider the following event from June of this year:

A Saudi soldier has been killed and two others wounded when an explosive device went off during a patrol in the kingdom's restive Qatif province, the interior ministry said.

In a statement carried by Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the ministry said that the blast occurred late Sunday evening in the Masoura district in the village of Awamiya.

It described the explosion as a "terrorist incident".

What led to this 'terrorist incident'?

The oil-rich eastern province of Qatif is mostly Shia, a minority in the Sunni-majority kingdom.

The SPA has reported an increase in clashes between Shia fighters and security forces in Masoura in recent weeks after the Saudi government sent in workers to demolish a 400-year-old walled neighbourhood there.

UN rights experts have urged the Saudi government to halt the demolition, saying the planned commercial zone threatened the town's historical and cultural heritage and could result in the forced eviction of hundreds of people from their businesses and residences.

Nothing to see here, claim the Saudis:

“The terrorist groups in Awamiyah are equipped with military equipment and they are attacking civilians in the area,” the embassy said in a statement.

Cesar Jaramillo, the executive director of Project Ploughshares, a disarmament group that tracks military exports, said the Saudi explanation for what took place merits skepticism.

“The Saudi government’s depiction of military operations in civilian areas as being part of its war on terrorism has become routine, and increasingly suspect,” he said.

“The fact is that there are too many red flags. A country consistently found to be among the very worst human-rights violators on the planet is now categorically denying any human-rights violations in the siege of Awamiyah. The Canadian public needs to know how much credence Ottawa gives to this claim and whether it is consistent with its own findings.”

Ali Adubisi, director of the Berlin-based European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights, said the Saudi government criminalizes any form of dissent. Many civilians were targeted and killed in Awamiyah, he said, while the government is saying it’s fighting armed men. “Portraying themselves as the protectors of civilians in Awamiyah is a mockery.”

Human Rights Watch said in a statement this week that residents in Awamiyah told them Saudi security forces fired into populated areas from Al-Masora, killing residents, occupying a public school, closing clinics and pharmacies and preventing essential services such as ambulances from reaching the area. The group called for an investigation into whether Saudi authorities “used excessive force in Awamiyah.”

There has been long-standing evidence of the almost genocidal hatred the Sunnis have for the Shia. For Mr. Trudeau and Ms. Freeland to cherry-pick the evidence and stand behind the deal would not only be indefensible, but also yet another indication of an amoral government with contempt for principles and human rights.

For Your Consideration

UPDATED: No, Mr. Trump, There Aren't Two Sides

Although issues of justice and equity have concerned me throughout most of my life, as I move through my final decades I find matters becoming more, not less, pressing. Clearly, history is not on an upward trajectory, and as the saying goes, we can rest when we are dead.

Like most, I suppose, I can only bear witness to the suffering that injustice, prejudice and hatred impose and, when opportunities and venues materialize, speak out and write about them and personally intervene if witnessing untoward acts. We all have a deep moral and social obligation not to turn away from but to confront evil in its many forms. Silences gives consent.

One of the most accessible venues for speaking out is a blog, although I am under no illusions about the efficacy of such methodology. However, if it serves to convey information that a reader might not otherwise have, I feel it at least accomplishes something, however little that might be in the larger scheme of things.

In that spirit I offer a clip from NBC News that includes an excerpt from a Vice News documentary exposing what went on behind the scenes in Charlottesville last weekend; it is a clip that puts to the lie everything the diseased leader of the 'free world', Donald Trump, had to say yesterday about some of the fine people who were marching with the white supremacists there. After watching the clip, you can follow this link to Mother Jones, where you can view the entire 22-minutes of the piece.



UPDATE: There is nothing more pathetic than a whining Nazi. Watch below as Christopher Cantwell, the white bare-shirt supremacist who so proudly extolled violence in the Vice clip, now sings a different turn:

This Is Chilling

Make no mistake. If you are against Trump, you are an enemy of the state.

The US government is seeking to unmask every person who visited an anti-Trump website in what privacy advocates say is an unconstitutional “fishing expedition” for political dissidents.

The warrant appears to be an escalation of the Department of Justice’s (DoJ) campaign against anti-Trump activities, including the harsh prosecution of inauguration day protesters.

On 17 July, the DoJ served a website-hosting company, DreamHost, with a search warrant for every piece of information it possessed that was related to a website that was used to coordinate protests during Donald Trump’s inauguration. The warrant covers the people who own and operate the site, but also seeks to get the IP addresses of 1.3 million people who visited it, as well as the date and time of their visit and information about what browser or operating system they used.

The website, www.disruptj20.org, was used to coordinate protests and civil disobedience on 20 January, when Trump was inaugurated.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been advising DreamHost, characterized the warrant as “unconstitutional” and “a fishing expedition”.

“I can’t conceive of a legitimate justification other than casting your net as broadly as possible to justify millions of user logs,” senior staff attorney Mark Rumold told the Guardian.

Logs of IP addresses don’t uniquely identify users, but they link back to specific physical addresses if no digital tools are used to mask it.

“What they would be getting is a list of everyone who has ever been interested in attending these protests or seeing what was going on at the protests and that’s the troubling aspect. It’s a short step after you have the list to connect the IP address to someone’s identity,” he said.

If none of this disturbs and appalls you, your autopsy is likely pending.