The Revolution Continues blog is news, views, opinion and other expressions of hope from a leftist point-of-view. (We are not affiliated with any candidate, political party or organization. All are welcome.)
Showing posts with label #WhiteSupremacists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #WhiteSupremacists. Show all posts
The following is a transcript of a podcast I stumbled upon after waking up from a horrible nightmare. Read at your own risk. --C. A. Matthews*
Hi! It’s me, your favorite social media influencer of all time, Ima Queen, here with the news you really shouldn’t know. I mean it—you really should not know any of these details if you want to remain my friend or make friends with my well-connected friends in Tel Aviv. Got it? Good.
First off, we have a quick rundown from a recent lecture given by a first-class traitor of Israel, Miko Peled. You really shouldn’t listen to that man because he says so many stupid things. For instance:
“I grew up in a colony.” While Peled was growing up as the son of a IDF general in Jerusalem he says he learned that the “Arabs” in Israel were an inherently backwards people because they didn’t have electricity and running water and live in a European-styled city like he did. Only much later did he come to realize the reality of why Palestinians lived the way they did. He says it’s because Palestinians are being oppressed. (As if!)
(...)
Our second example is a young woman you definitely should not listen to if you know what’s good for you. You may remember her as an adorable teenager sitting in front of the Swedish Parliament “Striking for the Climate” or some other such nonsense. Now she’s all grown up and has attempted not one but two illegal invasions of Israeli territorial waters. How criminal can you get!
(...)
This last item is one that you definitely should not listen to, although actually it’s a book. If you ever find an audio version of it, do not listen to it! If you find a printed or electronic copy, get rid of it at once!
*To read more of this satire piece about who you shouldn't listen to (if you know what's good for you), please copy or click on the following link:
There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and
be able to leave comments. You can become a free or paid subscriber and
receive weekly posts in your email box, along with occasional special
articles just for paid subscribers, too.
This
article is the 542nd blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began
in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading,
sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another ten years.
Update:
Since this was published online, there's been yet another mass
murder--this time at an elementary school in Ulvade, Texas. We'll talk
about it in next Tuesday's post, but in the meantime, I believe this
week's theme explains much about America's obsession with gun violence
and sponsoring bloody warfare around the world.
This
week we're all still reeling from the hideous massacre of ten African
Americans by an 18 year old white boy. Shooter Payton Gendron drove three
hours to predominantly Black East Buffalo to hunt down residents. His
180 page manifesto demonstrates that he idolizes the white supremacy
philosophy of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion. Where did an American kid
ever get such a horrific idea that actual Nazis are to be worshiped and glorified?
Could
it be that our dumping of billions of dollars of weaponry into the
current proxy war and the mainstream media's downplaying of the Nazi
white supremacist attitudes of the Ukrainian militias is to blame? Gendron made it clear that he sympathized with the Azov Battalion when he displayed their Nazi symbology, yet Biden and his neoliberal lackeys in the media continually downplay and actively try to rehabilitate their members' heinous reputations.
Our armchair historian gives us the following words of warning to those who would try to excuse fascism.
No Such Animal
by Coast Watcher
Knowing history as I do, I am continuously baffled by those who insist that there are "good Nazis."
People, there’s no such animal!
All those images of young men (and it is young men for the most part) sporting battledress badges and tattoos with Nazi symbols are exactly what they appear to be—Nazis.
Symbols have meaning. A "Caution: Contents will be hot after heating" symbol means the contents of a receptacle will be hot after heating. "Danger: Wet floor" means the surface of the floor is wet and dangerously slippery. Nazi swastika, SS lighting bolt, and black sun images mean exactly what they indicate—the person wearing them is committed to persecuting Jews, Gays, the Roma, the disabled—in fact anyone their extreme right-wing ideology tells them to, to the point of killing them in the most brutal way possible.
There. Are. No. Good. Nazis.
If somebody tells you otherwise, refer them to a history of Nazi German atrocities during the 1930s through to 1945. Don't forget to include those perpetuated in Ukraine and Russia following Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. The Azov Battalion people you are praising to the skies for defending Ukraine against Russia are ideologically no different to those SS folk 77 years ago. In fact they wear the same symbols to show their ideological connection and affinity with those fascist invaders. The "enemy of my enemy is my friend" does not apply to these people.
Get this through your head: There. Are. No. Good. Nazis.
What does this defense of fascism mean to America and the West in the long run? Peace activist and former Green Party Vice Presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka states:
Zelensky talks about the need to “defend the West,” “Europeanness,”
“Western values,” and the liberal/left does not recognize the inherent
assumptions of white supremacy in those terms. But Payton Gendron did
and is why he enlisted in Zelensky’s fight not in Ukraine but in the
middle of an African American community.
An exaggeration?
History will determine that. But what some of us see is a racialized
discourse operating just below the surface in which Europe and
Europeaness that Ukrainians strive for is also connected to a racialized
trope of Europe being ontologically civilized while the less-white
Slavs are barbarians, prone to irrational violence, like the Russians
who decided “out of nowhere” to just attack Ukraine!
We also understand that downplaying the threat of a resurgent white
supremacist fascism in its most sophisticated form represented by
Zelensky who has become that slick, right-wing politician with politics
as racist as Trump but without the crudeness who many feared could
emerge in the U.S. No one could have anticipated that person would
emerge in Europe as the lovable face of fascism.
Buffalo closes the loop that connects crude white supremacy with its
more polished and dangerous expression. Both of these versions represent
a consensus that is committed to using force and violence to ensure
that white power will not to be “replaced.” This new consensus has
created the ideological foundation for the legitimation of a cross-class
white supremacist defense of something called European values and the
interests of Europe. The lack of concern for the consequences of the war
and sanctions on the rest of the world confirms that this consensus and
the interests it defends are in contradiction to the interests of the
non-Western global majority.
For us, Buffalo is not a wake-up call but a declaration of war.
What goes around comes around. The Orwellian thought police may pretend Azov aren’t neo-Nazis. But for white-supremacists, the praise being heaped on Ukrainian neo-Nazis is a public relations coup. That should terrify us all. https://t.co/TYhuLAD33t
Biden went to Buffalo, read off the names of the people killed by a white supremacist and said there was no place for white supremacy in America
Days later he stole $40 billion from the American people to use part of the money to arm Nazis that use the same symbol as the killer
— Black in the Empire (@blackintheempir) May 20, 2022
No more civilians to hide behind, no more undertrained Nazis on the frontlines. Now it’s just Russia VS NATO head on. Get ready y’all. The battle is over but the war has just started.
I knew our country was going downhill but I don't know if I imagined reaching the point where I had to explain why giving billions of dollars to arm Nazis is a bad idea
— Black in the Empire (@blackintheempir) May 23, 2022
Haiku:
Lead in the water, Dotard in the white house, Dollars for Nazis.
It's been a tiring week. I'm still recuperating from a recent surgery, but I felt it was important to attend a local peace demonstration. I also feel it's important to share information from non-mainstream media sources to a wider audience who has fallen down the rabbit hole into Alice's (nonsensical neoliberal/warmongering propaganda) Wonderland... A place were so-called "peace activists" are actually advocating for sending more weapons to, as well as enforcing a no-fly zone over, Ukraine because in their minds, "War is peace."
Didn't George Orwell say something like that in his dystopian masterpiece of a novel, 1984? I'm sure I've read it somewhere.
Frankly, I don't have enough energy right now to argue with the "President Zelensky can't support Nazis/fascism because he's Jewish" crowd. Yes, he can and here's the link to an excellent article from The Grayzone that explains how Zelensky gave a medal of honor to an openly avowed Neo-Nazi in December 2021.
Yes, he did just that less than four months ago. Read it and learn to think for yourself. I promise you'll thank me for it later. (Or not.) But at least things will start to fall into place for you as you learn how Ukrainian oil oligarch (or, as we call them in the West,"a billionaire") Igor Kolomoisky helped to place Zelenski into power with the help of the US-backed coup in 2014. Click here or the link below to read all about the fun and games of Zelensky and Kolomoisky utilizing Neo-Nazi paramilitary units to further their political and financial aims.
I hope peace activists' voices will eventually break through this toxic fog of propaganda funded by the US government along with its Big Oil and military industrial complex allies. Below I've shared a few good quotes and article links I've come across this week that will help clear that nasty propaganda fog completely from your mind.
One news tidbit that'll cut through the muddy logic of American war-loving propgandists: According to indie journalist Ben Norton, "An estimated 377,000 Yemenis have died in the US-Saudi war on their country, and roughly 70% of deaths were children under age 5."
I hope you'll soon be able to discern that 377,000 Yemenis--most of them children--dying in the ongoing US-sponsored bombing war with Saudi Arabia against Yemen is actually a much more horrific current conflict than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Horrible that it is, Ukraine hasn't experienced anywhere near the loss of life or property damage. (Less than 400 confirmed deaths, some of them ethnic Russians.) And, yes, brown-skinned Muslim peoples can suffer just as much (if not more) as white-skinned European "Christian" peoples.
Like the Yemeni woman in the meme above, one day soon I'd like to be able to say, "Now they'll see us!" And we will still have enough of our humanity intact to go and rebuild their bombed cities and help them bury their hundreds of thousands dead in Yemen, in Somalia, in Gaza, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya... even if they're not blue-eyed blond Ukrainians who, according to one American mainstream media pundit, "Look just like us."
Uh-huh. Sounds like something a Neo-Nazi would say, doesn't it?
Here are some examples of good independent reporting:
Civilian casualties in Ukraine are relatively few. Despite the strenuous
efforts to find then, actual numbers appear to be in the order of
300-400. For good reasons, Russian forces are calculatingly avoiding
attacks on urban centers; after all, 40% of the population is Russian
and concentrated in the regions where the fighting is taking place.
Moreover, Moscow has no interest in subjugating the country to its rule.
In comparison, the Ukrainian army has been shelling the city centers of
Lugansk and Donetsk, producing casualties estimated by a UN agency at
more than 1,300 (3 or 4 times what objective observers estimate on the
Ukrainian government’s side of the battle lines). Also. the water system
has been destroyed. Yet, these facts are unreported and unnoticed in
the total absence of media presence in an area they have erased from
their reportorial map. --Michael Brenner, Another Casualty of the Ukraine Conflict: The Truth
More concerning than backing Nazi militias in Ukraine is the far more
widespread, far more deadly, and equally white supremacist belief we're seeing throughout the western world that invading a nation of white people is horrific while invading a nation of brown people is normal.
Is what the US and its allies are trying to accomplish in Ukraine worth continually risking nuclear armageddon for? This is the single most important question in the world right now, and hardly anyone seems to be asking it. --Caitlin Johnstone, Every US Enemy Is Hitler
In December 2021, Zelensky would be seen delivering a “Hero of Ukraine” award to a leader of the fascistic Right Sector in a ceremony in Ukraine’s parliamenthttps://t.co/FWGNJST5v4
— David J Farquhar🌹 #Peace&Love (@DavidJFarquhar) March 5, 2022
The US has a history of working to draw Moscow into gruelling, costly
military quagmires which monopolize its military firepower while
leaching it of blood and treasure. Jimmy Carter's National Security
Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, author of US hegemonic manifesto The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, openly bragged about having lured Russia into its own Vietnam fighting the US-backed mujahideen in Afghanistan for a decade.
Just two years ago then-US Special Representative for Syria engagement said during a video event hosted by the Hudson Institute that his job was to make Syria "a quagmire for the Russians".
So
this isn't something new or out of the blue, and what it means is that
all the self-righteous posturing by the western political/media class
about the need to pour weapons into Ukraine is not really about saving
Ukrainian lives (only negotiating a ceasefire can do that), but about
seizing this golden opportunity to hurt Russia's geostrategic interests
as much as possible. Ukraine on its own is powerless to stop Russia from
taking Kyiv no matter how many weapons are sent, but those weapons can
be used to fight a "long, bloody insurgency" after that happens which
costs many more lives, keeps Moscow militarily preoccupied and
hemorrhaging money, and ultimately hurts Putin's popularity at home. --Caitlin Johnstone, Ukraine Is A Sacrificial Pawn On The Imperial Chessboard
Nowhere could the the revelations from the Pandora Papers
investigation hit harder than in Ukraine. The discovery of offshore
accounts strike at the heart of the current government and power
structure of a ruling class that rose to power on the promise of
fighting corruption, including the television-star-turned-President
Volodymyr Zelensky.
The
worldwide probe, prompted by a massive leak to the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), has included work by
journalists from the Ukrainian media Slidstvо.Info,
which connected the shady financial dealings of Zelensky's television
production company Studio Kvartal 95 to the Ukrainian oligarch Igor
Kolomoisky. Slidstvo found that the laundered money passed through the
Cyprus branch of Kolomoisky-owned Privatbank, according to law enforcement officers. --Livy Bereg,Zelensky's Ukraine, Where the Pandora Papers Hit Hardest
This is what Putin's bombs are doing to children in Ukraine.
Wait, not Ukraine, that's Yemen. And they're not Putin's bombs, they're US bombs. Dropped by our friends the Saudis. Yes, Russia's bombing ppl in Ukraine- It's wrong. So why do you only talk about one of these things? pic.twitter.com/SigmvawzPP
— The ice continues to melt (@squaneenge) March 6, 2022
Is NBC run by "Putin Lovers" too because they told the truth about how racist Nazi ultranayionalist army soldiers in Ukraine put black students from Africa in danger by denying them safe passage out of Ukraine? They were backing it up with US guns by the way. Freedom pic.twitter.com/uMPZfoWbme
The Establishment had a tough time trying to deny the Nazi presence in Ukraine, because everybody acknowledged it for 8 years and the Nazis wouldn't stop coming out publicly proudly pronouncing that they were Nazis.
— Black in the Empire (@blackintheempir) March 7, 2022
***
In a near-future dystopian world, hope blossoms where mutual aid and democracy begins...
Zonta’s
world is turned upside down when Jake arrives at the commune to
investigate the disappearance of agents of the Authority. Can she
persuade him to switch sides before the Protectors (antifascist
fighters) take action?
There are, in reality, two
Americas. One for those who have justice. One for those who seek it and receive it not.
Many Americans
believe they have not received justice when, in fact, they have received justice at the expense of many others. When
they get angry enough about what they perceive as a lack of justice, they're
apt to form large groups or mobs and seek revenge against those they feel have
thwarted it. They, of course, will not see themselves as vengeance seekers but
rather as "patriots" or "revolutionaries."
What would you
say is the main difference between an "Angry Mob" and "True
Revolutionaries"? I'll venture to say it's one of simple motivation.
An Angry Mob is
out for their own selfish gain and holds to a twisted sense of justice. True
Revolutionaries want to see things change for the better for all people, so that all may enjoy the
fruits of a just and fair world.
An Angry Mob in
America will more than likely be made up of white supremacists, because white
supremacists may want things to change--but only for the people who make up
their group. They take their anger out on others who aren't in their group. They will not have any qualms about destroying public
property or threatening violence against those in authority as long as they get
their way.
One way to look at an Angry Mob is to think of them as cranky
toddlers who don't get their way and throw a hissy fit when you tell them it's
time for bed. Or a cranky toddler with the nuclear codes in his possession.
So, on January
6, 2021, the Feast of the Epiphany--the celebration of the Magi (Brown skinned
immigrants) who traveled from the East (Iran?) to visit the infant Jesus
(another Brown person)--the Angry Mob, containing openly defiant white
supremacists, decided to trash our Capitol building and threaten violence on
the people therein, killing a police officer in the process. Do these
self-centered, homicidal, domestic terrorists think of themselves today as
"True Revolutionaries" and "patriots"?You
bet your bottom dollar they do!
This is America, lady. You're not a patriot. You're a patsy for the oligarchy who couldn't care less about you or your friends.
There's been no
great change to make life better, more just, for all Americans during the Trump
years. Or the Obama years. Or the Bush years. Or the Clinton years. Or the Reagan years. Or probably
even in the Biden years to come.
And that is perhaps
America's saddest legacy of all.
Until we become
united as a people into One America, a genuine democracy of the people and for the people, America will never
be truly great--again or for the first time.
As white vigilantes attacked the US Capitol this week, the mayor of
the District of Columbia had to ask the Trump administration for
permission to deploy the National Guard to defend human life and
preserve order on the streets of Washington.
It was denied, just one of the many injustices the diverse city of Washington faces without representation in Congress.
The Washington Post reports that “Democratic control of the Senate — and Capitol breach — put D.C. statehood front and center.”
Statehood for the majority-minority District of Columbia is a racial justice imperative.
Over the summer, federal government police agencies used violent,
draconian force against DC’s Black Lives Matter protests, over the
objections of DC’s local government.
But when majority white pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, the
federal government dragged its feet and prevented the District from
taking action.
It’s time to end taxation without representation, and stop treating DC’s 700,000 residents as second-class citizens.
PCAF supporters have written tens of thousands of letters
demanding DC statehood, helping the Washington DC Admission Act pass the
House for the first time ever last year. Now is the best chance we’ve
ever had to make DC Statehood a reality.
The world recoiled in horror as a band of pro-Trump rioters stormed
the US Capitol, demanding that the current regime stay in power.
Many said, "this isn't America." But it happened here, not in a
distant foreign land on our TV screens. And it was fueled by the
President of the United States
Donald Trump is so dangerous to our democracy that he must
be removed from power now, whether it's through swift impeachment or the
25th Amendment.
We have learned from the Trump administration how thin the line is between a robust democracy and state failure.
We saw the worst coronavirus outbreak in the world as America fell
behind other first world nations. We saw how one wannabe strongman could
threaten basic principles of democracy.
And now, a ragtag bunch of maniacs was able to penetrate the US Capitol.
For immigrants that fled chaotic regimes, these were dark reminders.
But our belief in the American spirit is strong. We can do better. We must do better.
When a president incites violence, calls his followers to commit
treason, and disregards democracy it is clear they cannot be allowed
access to our nuclear codes. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has
already called on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Mark Milley, to prevent an unlawful nuclear strike but the reality is, not even Milley could lawfully stop President Trump.
Congress must step up and enact No First Use now for the sake of people and the planet. Our
representatives have experienced first hand the results of the
president’s violent rhetoric and know better than anyone the damage he
can cause. We cannot wait for the next Administration to pass No First
Use, we must demand action now.