Fighting fascism

Suggestions for a rational response to the outrageously anti-democratic authoritarian U.S. government. 

 

Activism – Reclaiming Democracy:

* Become active in local political organizations, volunteer and provide support.

* Identify your personal interests and find an organization to work with on related goals.¹

 

Tax resistance:

*Withhold tax return and/or refuse to pay federal taxes, and advocate for same.

* Include protest statement with your return. * Or just ignore them.

 

Advocate for unionization of workforce

* Unions provide community, solidarity, and democratic control of workplace.

* Support striking workers * Participate in general strikes.²

* suggest unionization to workers you encounter and provide resource materials.³⁴

 

BDS: (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) US+state Governments, For-profit Corporations, politicians, Academic Institutions, Media Corporations and Personalities which are fascism complicit … and, call them out!

* Have a retirement investment account? Discover how your money is used.

* Research anti-BDS stipulations in your state, employment, school, associations.

* Discover what corporations or politicians you wish to support – or not⁵

 

Find trustworthy media:

* Do not rely on profit driven corporate entities; NYT, ABC, CNN, CBS, etc.

* Investigate the many independent media sources on YouTube, SubStack, MeansTV, and among the many independent journals online such as Common Dreams, Truthout, In These Times, Truthdig, or Responsible Statecraft.

 

* See below for additional recommended news sources.

1 RepresentUS: https://represent.us/about/

 

2 Support Social Security workers: https://www.afgec220.org/ https://socialsecurityworks.org/

 

3 Labor Now Needs to Be an Anti-Fascist Movement https://inthesetimes.com/article/trump-maga-labor-fascism

 

4 Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee: https://workerorganizing.org/. 

 

Union organizing videos with more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vRd5S2BFg&t=19s

 

Unions Are Good And Cool, Second Thought, organizing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHOGRhBkWOE

 

5 Politicos’ funding: https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress An APP: https://www.goodsuniteus.com/

Wayne’s favorite news journals and YouTubers (search)

 

https://www.commondreams.org/ Second Thought

 

https://truthout.org/ Geopolitical Economy Report

 

https://www.truthdig.com/ Chris Hedges

 

https://jacobin.com/ The Analysis News

 

https://inthesetimes.com/ The Humanist Report

 

https:/responsiblestatecraft.org/ Jeffrey Sachs

 

https://means.tv/ Zeteo

 

https://www.counterpunch.org/ Real News Network

 

Trustworthy news sources suggested by social media communicants from around the world and assembled by a friend of Fighting Fascism. 

 

Aljazeera (world news) https://www.aljazeera.com/

 

CBC (Canadan public media) https://www.cbc.ca/

 

The Globe and Mail (Canada) https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

 

Common Cause https://www.commoncause.org/

 

The Post (Copehagen Denmark) https://cphpost.dk/

 

The Guardian (UK) https://www.theguardian.com/

 

The Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/

 

RTE (Ireland National media) https://www.rte.ie/?v=1.0.24

 

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Human Rights https://civilrights.org/

 

Lenkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (US) https://www.lemkininstitute.com/

 

Radio Free Europe https://www.rferl.org/

 

NZ Herald (New Zealand) https://www.nzherald.co.nz/

 

RNZ (New Zealand) https://www.rnz.co.nz/

Facets of Fascism

Prominent nationalistic displays; patriotic slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.*

Reverence for the Military; Military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, Soldiers and military service are glamorized.*

* Excerpted, (paraphrased) "Fascism Anyone?," L. Britt, Free Inquiry , Spring 2003

And here we are:

Think Main st. Cobleskill; US flags on every street light pole and banners depicting military "heroes," and flags of the various military divisions too, Other Main Streets probably look the same. Cobleskill-Richmondville High School graduation ceremony where military veterans in the audience were asked to stand to be recognized. And military recruiters welcomed in our schools. Flags, pledges and prayers usual at every government meeting. And, recognize the excessive 2022 military budget while we can't end child poverty or fund any other domestic needs!

And there is so much more:

Patriarchal culture and gender issues; The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.*

Religion and Government Intertwined; Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.*

 

Controlled Mass Media; Sometimes media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.*

* Excerpted, (paraphrased) "Fascism Anyone?," L. Britt, Free Inquiry , Spring 2003

And here we are:

Recognize the terrible violence against transgender people. Note the proliferation of state legislation restricting abortion (and the war on Roe V. Wade abortion rights, soon to be considered by SCOTUS), the book-burning-like assault on literature dealing with LGBTQ+ issues, and the over-zealous prosecution of whistle-blowers using the 100 year old Espionage Act from the First World War insanity, including the outrageous assault on freedom of the press and the decade long persecution of Julian Assange. And FOX so-called news!

More Facets of Fascism

It has been a year since the attempted coup. Undoubtedly there will be all sorts of commentators telling us what happened that day, not all that helpful. Some will attempt to access the risk of further insurrectionist efforts, more useful I guess. Most importantly, we need to learn what we must do to protect democracy. To that end please read on.

One of the most commonly recognized features of fascism is the inclusion of, and dependency upon, large corporations in the management of the state's economy. Mussolini expressly stated such in his corporatist economic system.

In this recent report by Accountable we can see where many of our large corporations stand by looking at their post Jan. 6 statements and their actions concerning financial support for particular politicians. https://www.accountable.us/research/in-bad-company/#JJ

A year ago, violent rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol, armed with Trump’s Big Lie and bolstered by a cabal of extreme-right Congress members who refused to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

As the words “January 6” morphed from a date on the calendar to the invocation of an American tragedy, our democracy continued to face threats from Trump’s continued election fraud lies. By year’s end, over 30 state laws would be enacted making it harder for Americans to vote and a European think tank would label the U.S. a “backsliding democracy.” And despite all of this, corporations and trade groups still donated over $8.1 million to the 147 members of the Sedition Caucus ¹—the members of Congress who validated dangerous myths of voter fraud by objecting to election certification.  

Here’s the list of fascist collaborators on both sides of the $$$$ flow:  Where is your wealth parked?  BDS as you can!    WRS

Summary | Altria Group | Boeing | Chevron | Cigna | Duke Energy | Eli Lilly | ExxonMobil | FedEx | General Dynamics | General Motors | Johnson & Johnson | L3Harris Technologies | Lockheed Martin | Merck | Northrop Grumman | Pfizer | Raytheon Technologies | Regions Financial | UPS | Valero Energy | American Bankers Association | Associated Builders and Contractors | Credit Union National Association | Crop Insurance Professionals Association | Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America | National Automobile Dealers Association | National Cattlemen’s Beef Association | National Electric Contractors Association | National Shooting Sports Foundation | National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association 

UNDERSTANDING FASCISM

 

For those of you wishing to learn more about the Fascist threat two academics review a historian's perspective: 

 

Rivers-Pitt on Fascism 

Be patient, the fascism content is in the second half of the article. 

More by Michael Parenti

Nov. 2020 lecture, "Ur Fascism" by Umberto Eco 27 min.

 

INSURRECTION

Friends, some thoughts regarding insurrection,

Some correspondents have expressed skepticism or disagreement regarding use of “insurrection” to describe what happened at the 6 January joint congressional assembly convened to accept the Electoral College ballots. I also note some news reports use words such as angry mob, rioters or other such descriptors to avoid using insurrection or attempted insurrection.

I must point out that it is difficult to remedy a problem if you fail to identify the problem in the first place.

I argue we are in the late stages of an insurrection begun decades ago with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (“government is the problem” “There is no society only individuals”) and the adoption of neoliberal ideology and cruel capitalism which continue to dominate our society today. Successive Republican administrations have pressed for reduction of regulations governing public safety and environmental pollution. These changes often effected by hobbling the government agencies responsible for the oversight.

Part and parcel of the plan is destruction of labor unions, in part, because such collective action violates Ms. Thatcher’s dictum. Those individuals (read workers) who toil as Uber drivers, food delivery drones, various gig workers and nomadic camper-living Amazon temporary workers, are examples of the atomized work force with no claim to community. The atomized have no weight, no power and likely feel no commitment or loyalty to community or nation. That is the desired effect described by some observers as alienation.

Five years ago two knowledgeable Eastern European historians warned us of the authoritarian tendencies of Donald Trump. They didn’t use the insurrection label (or the fascism label at the time) but the warning they offered included the clear, if only implied, description of a possible take over of the government by that authoritarian.

January 2017 we got Donald Trump as President and he immediately began to install his loyalists and donors in positions of leadership in various government agencies, agencies which are our government, agencies which we expect to work for us, agencies we need for our security, health protection and education. The obvious example is Postmaster General DeJoy who crippled the Post Office to slow the mail of absentee ballots. Some observers describe America as having fallen to third world status for some parameters (poverty, life expectancy). This destruction of government services should be understood as an assault and a continuation of the ongoing insurrection.

We watched Trump spit out his vile hate and bigotry for four years. The message was embraced by those citizens who were susceptible for whatever reason. His big lie propaganda and demonization of others, particularly Democrats, instructed his followers who their enemies were and continued right through to the January 6 assault on Congress.

Consider what might have happened if the hate motivated mob had been able to take control of the building and seize political leaders that day. What might have developed if VP Pence had done what Trump wanted, that is to reject the electoral ballots from several states sufficient to deny any candidate to necessary 270 votes. The plan was to then shift the selection of President to the House of Representatives and if several of the progressive house members were detained and unable to vote, the House would then vote to declare Trump President.

It failed for several reasons. Trump apparently assumed he had greater support of police and military. He was counting on Pence to do his bidding. His “army,” probably a small percentage of the people who actually entered the building, were prepared to take custody of some legislators (zip ties in hand) but were stymied by the legislators having been secured elsewhere. And, maybe Trump thought some of the Republican legislators would help neutralize Democrats however, they didn’t have the opportunity and might have been too cowardly to do so anyway.

In closing I must remind everyone the history of Europe in the last century. Adolf Hitler was such a threat in the first years of the 1930s and was actually jailed for a time. He came back big time in 1933 being named Germany’s Chancellor in and then Führer in 1934. The Reichstag was neutered at that time and Hitler was then allowed to function as a dictator. The lesson for us here is that the threat of insurrection remains. Trump is not going away and so we must consider the Insurrection as ongoing.

Consider the recent efforts by Republican controlled states to restrict voting opportunities. Over 250 such laws have been introduced in 43 states in recent weeks. Laws aimed at reducing the availability polling places,restricting early voting and requiring citizen identification documents. Such laws should be considered continued acts of insurrection in so far as these actions are intended to control election outcomes.

I will leave it the reader to identify America’s enemies in this whole terrible process. I have my opinions, implied in the above analysis, but prefer to invite others to offer their observations.

Dr. Bandy X Lee, a forensic psychiatrist and editor of "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" has written a second book Profile of a Nation: Trump’s Mind, America’s Soul, a psychological assessment of the president against the backdrop of his supporters and the country as a whole.

“I ...emphasize in Profile of a Nation that we should consider the president, his followers and the nation as an ecology, not in isolation. Hence, what he does after this presidency depends a great deal on us. This is the reason I frantically wrote the book over the summer: we require active intervention to stop him from achieving any number of destructive outcomes for the nation,” Read the whole report here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-shared-psychosis-of-donald-trump-and-his-loyalists/

Perhaps Dr. Lee’s analysis will help us understand how to defend our country from the fascist insurrection.

Wayne

Law Enforcement Review

7 October 2020

To the Editor

The Mountain Eagle/Schoharie News

A recent report concerning a meeting of the Schoharie County Law Enforcement Review Committee (LERC) (Times Journal 9/9/2020 “County promises transparency in cop review”) Schoharie County Sheriff Ron Stevens is quoted “I don’t watch the news at night because I can’t stand the news. We don’t live in those communities.” I am assuming the quote is accurate.

I am not sure what Sheriff Stevens’ words “We don’t live in those communities.” mean to him...or us. It might be as simple as we don’t have gatherings of angry citizens protesting police abuse. Does he mean we don’t have a significant people of color demographic which might protest for some reason? Or, does he believe his Deputies would never do anything wrong? Yes we do, yes we do, and yes they do.

Sheriff Stevens is wrong, Schoharie County is one of “those communities.” His deputies display the same damaged-brand-blue-uniform as the police in Kenosha and New Orleans. Certainly there are citizens hereabouts who fear mistreatment by police officers. And, our recent history has shown that the hand of justice falls less heavily, if at all, on police than on ordinary citizens. There is a great deal of repair to be accomplished before the Sheriff, District Attorney, Judicial actors, or the LERC can be exonerated.

The Governor’s Executive Order #203 directs localities to review law enforcement policies and practices to “...promote community engagement to foster trust, fairness, and legitimacy…” We must deal honestly with police transparency and accountability issues to accomplish these goals. Failing this we will have accomplished nothing.

Wayne Stinson

Summit, NY

POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY

 

Friends,  

The police can be held accountable by your political representatives. If you witness what you believe is improper conduct by a police officer you should contact the appropriate municipal authority.

See more at Police Accountability link in left column.

Police Accountability Contact List

 

 

Cobleskill Village Mayor Rebecca Stanton-Terk   518-234-3891 Mayor@Cobleskill.org

 

 

County Board of Supervisors Chair, William A. Federice, (607) 353-2110 federicebill@gmail.com

Law Enforcement Committee:

Chair, Richard Lape, Richmondville Town, Cell Phone: (518) 231-3084 lapelspc@midtel.net

Steve Winhofer, Broome Town, 518-827-4510, Broomeclerk@midtel.net

Margaret Hait, Jefferson Town, (607) 652-7223 jeffersontwnsup@gmail.com

John H. Leavitt, Calisle Town, (518) 429-8365 carlisleclerk@gmail.com

Harold Vroman, Summit Town, Home: (607) 397-8187, summitclerk@midtel.net

NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York State, NYS State Capitol Building Albany, NY 12224, 1-518-474-8390 https://www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form

NYS AG Letitia James, Office of the Attorney General
The Capitol Albany, NY 12224-0341 https://ag.ny.gov/contact-attorney-general-letitia-james

NYCLU Capital District Chapter, 41 State Street, Suite 612, Albany, New York 12207

518-436-8594 mtrimble@nyclu.org



Times Journal: tjournalnews@yahoo.com
Mountain Eagle/Schoharie News: theschoharienews@gmail.com
Times Union: tuletters@timesunion.com
Daily Gazette: PO Box 1090 Schenectady, NY 12301 https://www.dailygazette.com/ [could not find serviceable link for email submissions]

 

DIVEST FROM OILY BANKS

23 November 2019 press release

Climate Action Group Formed

Schoharie County Climate Action announced their intention to petition county government to divest from banks which continue to finance fossil fuel exploitation.

Over a year ago the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN-IPCC) released a status report stating it is critically important we reduce carbon dioxide emissions 50% by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. They stated we have just 10 years to avoid serious social and economic disruption as well as real existential threats to many species we depend upon.

In recent months younger citizens around the world have stepped up to the challenge. The Sunrise movement has been pressing their case in our legislatures, and Extinction Rebellion is in the streets demanding governmental action proportionate to the need. “It’s now incumbent upon the citizens of Schoharie County to stand with our youth to protect our habitat for generations to come,” said group member Wayne Stinson.

A significant portion of Schoharie County’s funds are placed with JP Morgan Chase bank. A recent report, jointly authored by several environmental organizations, singled out Chase: “...JP Morgan Chase is very clearly the world’s worst banker of climate change. ...the $196 billion the bank poured into fossil fuels between 2016 and 2018 is nearly a third higher than the second-worst bank, Wells Fargo. ...JP Morgan Chase sticks out even more...: the bank’s $67 billion in finance for expansion over the past three years was a stunning two-thirds higher than the second-biggest banker of fossil fuel expansion (Citi).” [Banking on Climate Change, Rainforest Action Network, January 2019]

“The rational way forward is clear, Schoharie County’s funds must be removed from JP Morgan Chase and any other financial institution with similar commitments to fossil fuel corporations.” Stinson said.

“The Climate Action Group encourages all who live or work in Schoharie County to join the petition effort by messaging scfpg@midtel.net with their full name and the town in which they live or work.”

The full text of the petition, including specific demands for action by county government, can be accessed here.