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The Wisconsin Library Wars

The village of Grafton, Wisconsin, chose to honor the USS Liberty by naming its new library after the ship. The complaints that followed filled the local newspapers and airwaves for months. This is the story of the USS Liberty Memorial Public Library and the controversy that followed.

By James M. Ennes, Jr. | USS Liberty Memorial

After a long pause to stop the flow of blood, 1988 marked the tenth year of the great Wisconsin library wars.

The first blows were struck in 1979 when supporters of Israel in Milwaukee decided to flex their political muscle. In a test of power (some would say to flaunt it), spokesmen for Israel renamed the library at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee after an Israeli political leader.

“Let this place be known forever as the Golda Meir Library,” they proclaimed.

To no surprise, a great hue and cry developed almost overnight as students, faculty, and local citizens recorded their outrage.

Golda Meir

Golda Meir, born Goldie Mabovitch in Poland in 1898, had lived in Milwaukee between her 8th and 21st year. She studied at the Milwaukee Teachers Seminary of Milwaukee, later taught school briefly in Milwaukee, and then moved to Palestine in 1919 to join the growing Jewish community there.

Golda Meir was respected by her fans, not for charm, tact, or diplomatic skill, but for her stubborn Israeli intransigence.

When she became prime minister in 1969, Time magazine said of her: “The essence of the woman is conviction, without compromise, and expressed with all the subtlety of a Centurion tank. She seldom loses an argument….”

Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, himself a Jew, described her as “a tough, obstinate, unintelligent woman, without discernment, wisdom or poise.”

Yet, among Arabs and many Americans, Golda Meir is best remembered and often despised for her hard line against the Palestinian population, and for her insistence that Israel had no “Palestinian problem” because, she said, “It was not as though there was a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”

The First Great Library War

Opponents of the Golda Meir name argued that this was a public institution created with public money and should not be named by special interests or for a foreign leader. The existing name, “The University of Wisconsin Library,” was more suitable, they said, and should be kept. Otherwise it should be named for an American.

“The Golda Meir name should not be used because it is controversial and offensive to a large segment of the population,” they argued to deaf ears. “Golda Meir is a symbol of hate in the Arab-American community and to many Americans,” they said.

Others said privately that they were opposed to the name but were afraid to speak out because the Israeli partisans were “powerful in the community.”

Arab students complained that the partisans lack sensitivity, ignore Arab feelings, and regard Arabs as less than human.

Students picketed in protest. A meeting of Regents held to formalize the name was disrupted by student protesters, and at one point a Jewish professor attacked the pickets, beating them with a cane.

The pro-Israel faction, however, withered their opponents with their ultimate weapon. “All opposition to the name comes from anti-Semites,” they said. “Arabs and anti-Semites object to the name,” they said, “because of their hatred for Jews and Israel. We can never yield to anti-Semites.”

The argument was picked up and echoed everywhere. Soon everyone opposed to the name became increasingly seen as zealots, racists, Nazis, and unthinking radical extremists. The argument, though apparently without substance, was effective. It won the war. The name sticks.

Arab students report that they wince whenever they enter the building.

The Second War

Just 18 miles due north of the Milwaukee campus on the shore of Lake Michigan the town of Grafton, population 8,500, decided recently to replace the aging and overcrowded town library. Jim Grant was elected president of the town council on his pledge to work toward creating the new library.

Unlike the Golda Meir library, the Grafton library was to be built almost entirely with private donations. Soon the new library committee had pledges for well over half the $1-million cost, including an $83,000 federal contribution and a $250,000 pledge from the brothers Ted and Ben Grob, who own a Grafton machine tool business.

Since the Grob’s contribution was the largest single gift, the library board offered the Grob brothers the opportunity to name the new library–expecting them to name it “Grob.” But that didn’t happen.

The Grobs, who had recently read a book about the Liberty and a transcript of a speech by a survivor, surprised everyone.

“Name it The USS Liberty Memorial Library,” they said, “in honor of the 34 Americans who died when Israel attacked the USS Liberty in 1967.”

Surprised, the town council and the town library board considered the name. Members who hesitated were asked to read the book that the Grobs had read. And soon both the council and the board gave their unanimous approval to the new name.

Enter Israel

A few days later an angry letter arrived from one Gideon Goldenholz, rabbi of the Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue in nearby Mequon.

Sharpening a weapon that had served well in the Golda Meir library skirmishes, Goldenholz called the proposal “a cynical act” which carries “a hint of anti-Semitism” and is therefore “insulting to Jews.”

“The USS Liberty incident has become a rallying point for anti- Israel and anti-Semetic (sic) people and groups,” wrote James Fromstein for the Milwaukee Jewish Council, an umbrella group that represents Goldenholz’s synagogue and 21 other Milwaukee Jewish organizations. “As such, it is… considered offensive… to Jewish people everywhere,” he said, raising a trusted bludgeon from previous wars.

A few days later Fromstein appeared at Grant’s door with two television trucks, three newsmen from Milwaukee, and an aide. Grant, however, would not be intimidated. “We are very comfortable with the name,” he said.

“The name caters to Arabs and anti-Semites,” Fromstein insisted. After all, his aide added, Arabs are “only nomads,” while anti-Semites must be opposed on principal. After an hour of fruitless argument, Fromstein departed amid promises of “further action” and some lightly veiled threats of economic and other sanctions. “We can never yield to anti-Semites,” he insisted.

“The name sticks,” Grant said.

A Combined Media Blitz

Soon Jim Grant discovered that someone was checking into his background, verifying his military record, and otherwise searching for some fodder for a scandal. Librarian Kathy Kafka learned that persons unknown were attempting to verify her academic record.

Almost immediately Grant learned that the $83,000 federal commitment had been “postponed” because of complaints about the “anti-Semitic” name.

Phone calls and letters from Israeli spokesmen in Milwaukee urged local donors to withdraw their contributions because of the “anti-Semitic” influence.

Next, a solid barrage of stories about the library appeared in five area newspapers and the Chicago Tribune, along with frequent and highly caustic mention on area television news and talk shows.

The Milwaukee Jewish Chronicle set the tone early with a headline that proclaimed, “Jews battle extremists on library name.” “Rename the library,” demanded a Chronicle editorial. “New Library divides Wisconsin town,” wrote the Tribune. Milwaukee Magazine complained editorially about “The Gift of Grob.”

“Library name rightly condemned,” editorialized the Milwaukee Journal. “Where is the outrage in Grafton? Why is there no outcry?” complained the Journal when the first editorial failed to spark an outcry. “The Grafton library has aligned itself with the bigots and hate-mongers,” the Journal complained, recycling another battered tool from the Golda Meir trenches.

“Why,” survivors asked, “is it OK to have memorials for USS Stark, Maine, Arizona, and a hundred other ships without protest from the countries that attacked them, while any mention of the USS Liberty brings an avalanche of organized protest from Israel?” No one could answer the question, but the protests continued without pause.

Journal reporter Michael Krenn, asked by town officials to interview a survivor of the attack, declined. “That is not my story,” Krenn insisted. Krenn was interested only in bashing devils.

Rarely did anything favoring the library become part of “Krenn’s story.” Supporting statements came in from Rabbi Elmer Berger, Reverend Humphrey Walz and Admiral Thomas Moorer, among others, but none of this ever made it into “Krenn’s story.” Articles about the Liberty by experts on the subject including Admiral Moorer were submitted for publication, but none were printed or acknowledged.

When survivors Joe Meadors and John Hrankowski visited Grafton with former congressman Pete McCloskey to answer townspeople’s questions, the Journal did not find the event worthy of coverage until forced to do so days later when readers complained. The well-attended event displayed nearly total support for the new library name, and it was covered by reporter Krenn, but this was “not his story” so he chose not to write about it.

And the reports that did appear typically failed to mention the most noteworthy details, such as public support for the library name by Grafton’s State Assemblywoman Susan Vergeront and McCloskey’s spirited denunciation of the “anti-Semite” charge.

“How can a memorial for American sailors who died in the service of their country possibly be anti-Semitic?” McCloskey demanded to know as the crowd roared its approval.

Even an account by the Journal’s ombudsman, while acknowledging that their coverage was badly done, continued to ignore Grafton’s viewpoint and reasserted the “anti-Semite” influence.

At last count the Journal was on record with nineteen heavily slanted “news” stories, five angry editorials and one incomplete ombudsman’s report, all suggesting that the library, the ship, the town council, and everyone involved is somehow allied with or unwitting stooges of anti-Semites and other loonies.

“This is the most outrageous, egregious, biased, and unprofessional reporting I have seen in 20 years in the business,” remarked a California editor of a major newspaper who was sufficiently moved to call Krenn and tell him so. But still the smears and innuendo continue.

When two spokesmen from Grafton responded to a request for a television interview in Milwaukee, they were unexpectedly confronted on camera by two spokesmen for Israel, prepared to debate. Although Grafton emerged victorious, it was a tense hour.

“You were set up,” whispered a sympathetic station employee, clearly pleased with the unexpected outcome. “This was to have been an ambush.”

When library board chairman Carol Schneider agreed to a television interview, she found herself confronted by a hostile interviewer who did his professional best to humiliate her on camera.

Complaints Come From Outside

Most of the blitz, however, comes from outside the town. For instance, one of the first shots fired was a paid advertisement in the Ozaukee County Guide signed by 17 clergymen, all from outside of Grafton, which appealed to the fair minded citizens to rise up against their leaders and demand a new name. The clergymen were concerned, they wrote, about “harassment of minorities, hate letters and phone calls to rabbis and desecration of synagogues” which, they said, “have once again raised their ugly heads.” “Neo Nazis and other hate groups use the symbol of the USS Liberty to promote their cause,” the clergymen wrote.

No matter that no harassment, hate letters, phone calls or desecration had occurred. No matter that no sign of anti-Semitism or “extremist” influence had been uncovered. No matter that none of the clergymen knew anything about the case except what they had been told by spokesmen for Israel who persuaded them to lend their names.

In another attack from the hinterlands, two churches in nearby Mequon circulated petitions in Grafton seeking opposition to the library name. After several days work, they collected 79 signatures, including only seven from Grafton. Library supporters easily collected 616 signatures in an afternoon, all from Grafton.

In a rare protest from within the town, the pastor of the Grafton Catholic Church issued a statement. A new name must be found, he said, because “the incident is used by extremists to further anti-Semitism. The USS Liberty has become a symbol of hate.”

Asked later for his source of information, the good father confessed that he knew only what he had read in the Journal and been told in a phone call from an out-of-town Rabbi. Without checking further, he urged his parish to oppose the library because he felt he should respond to the influence of “anti-Semites.”

“I may have been hasty,” he confessed later.

To the dismay of most Grafton schoolteachers, two teachers living outside Grafton attempted on their own to cancel a teachers’ commitment to raise money for the library. Two teachers then circulated questionnaires to their classes asking, “Should Nazis be allowed to name our new library?” No matter that no Nazis could be found.

“No, no, no,” chirped the cherubs.

Soon, prompted by guidance unknown, the Grafton High School Valedictorian publicly articulated the reasons Nazis and other weirdos should not be allowed to name the town’s temple of knowledge.

Phony Radicals, Phony Issues

These things are reported in all the area newspapers, usually in a way that suggests that a small band of extremists controls city hall in defiance of a majority who would, if they could, unseat the radicals. Despite their spirited search, however, no radical has ever been identified.

That does not deter the opponents, however. Anti-Semitism is the most effective weapon in their arsenal, and it must be continually dragged out and fired whether any proper targets can be seen or not.

In a frantic search for anti-Semites, one reporter learned that a magazine that the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith considers anti- Semitic sometimes writes about the USS Liberty. Worse, he learned that one of the Grob brothers has seen the magazine.

Proof at last! To the Milwaukee Jewish Council, the magazine’s interest in the Liberty is enough to justify their entire campaign. No matter that dozens of esteemed journalists, at least five Pulitzer prizewinners, scores of leading newspapers, and at least 30 book authors have also written sympathetically about the Liberty. No matter that Liberty survivors have no connection with the suspect magazine and actively shun its attentions. To spokesmen for Israel, the USS Liberty has become a “symbol of hate” and “must be opposed” because people they consider “anti-Semites” have written about it.

Suddenly what looked like a “genuine” anti-Semite appeared. A man driving a car with Illinois license plates spent a day marching at Grafton’s main intersection with a large sign reading, “Support the USS Liberty – Israel is America’s enemy.” That evening the man went from door to door spouting offensive anti-Jewish rhetoric and appealing to Grafton residents to support the name because they shouldn’t take any more guff “from the Jews.”

When Grafton citizens investigated, they found that the man was actually opposed to the library. The entire performance was a carefully orchestrated charade designed to make library supporters appear to be anti- Semitic radicals.

“They will never give up!”

The library now looks certain to go ahead on schedule.

“But they will never give up,” warns a war-weary veteran of the Golda Meir conflict. “A year or five years or ten years from now they will be back to try to change the name. Sooner or later they will win. And if Grafton is not careful they will probably change it to something like ‘Menachem Begin’ or ‘Ariel Sharon.'”

“They persist in throwing stones from their glass house,” he said, “so the best defense is a counter-attack. Start a drive to change the Golda Meir Library back to its original name.”

James M. Ennes was a lieutenant on the bridge of the USS Liberty when the ship was attacked. His book about the attack, Assault on the Liberty (Random House, 1980; Ballantine, 1987) has been called the most important book of the year by two leading reviewers, and was named “editor’s choice” when reviewed in the Washington Post. It is routinely removed from bookshelves, however, when area spokesmen for Israel complain to booksellers that they have stocked a book that is “anti-Israel” and “offensive to Jewish people everywhere.”

August 13, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | 4 Comments

State owned Qatari propaganda bullhorn links Bashar al-Assad with US far-right

By Adam Garrie | The Duran | August 13, 2017

State owned Qatari propaganda bullhorn Al-Jazeera has tried to link Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad with the American far-right and in particular with the man currently under arrest for yesterday’s vehicle ramming incident in the United States.

First of all, Bashar al-Assad is a socialist. He is a member of Syria’s ruling Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party. Although the clue is in the name, it helps to understand the intellectual origins of Ba’athism.

The three leading founders of Ba’athism Salah al-Din al-Bitar, Zaki al-Arsuzi and Michel Aflaq were all Syrian Arabs, Aflaq being a Christian Arab with Salah and al-Arsuzi were Muslims. Ba’athism’s essence combines traditional Arab cultural values with the anti-imperialist concept of Arab nationalism while harnessing the ideas of traditional socialism as both a bulwark against imperialist aggression and as a means of allowing post-colonial peoples to elevate their economic independence efficiently and rapidly.

Ba’athism, unlike Marxist-Leninism is not anti-religious and encourages the integration of Islam and Christianity with modern forms of government. Ba’athist organisations throughout the Arab world continue to attract all varieties of both Muslim and Christian men and women. Religious tolerance under a secular government and female rights are key features of Ba’athism.

But somehow Al-Jazeera thinks this philosophy is a talking point of the America far-right.

The following is a quote from an Al-Jazeera piece on the man whose car was used in the attack on marches in Virginia.

“Others (other far-right Americans) showed support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who alt-rightists and other far-right activists have publicly stood with in recent months”.

There are several grave problems with this statement. Most so-called far-right and alt-right groups online are a combination of parody, semi-intelligible and often random rage, support for the iconography of Adolf Hitler and extreme hatred of anything that actually is or is falsely assumed to be Islamic or Arabic in nature. This is hardly a place where the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party would find support and in fact it does not find support in such places.

Of course many people in the United States and throughout the world support the Arab Socialist Ba’ath party of the Syrian President. They support it because they generally prefer a secular tolerant vision for the Middle East to the extremist Wahhabi Sunni dictatorship that the terrorists fighting the Syrian government seek to establish.

People who support a secular, tolerant Syria are not far right, they are best called ‘moderates’. Ironically, the Wahhabi extremists were called  ‘moderate rebels’ by the US, Turkish, Qatari and Saudi media throughout the duration of the conflict. A more accurate term for such people might be the far-right of the Middle East or perhaps better yet ‘alt-Islam’.

August 13, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Did media miss real story in North Korea’s war of words?

38 North website says Kim never said “never” on nuke negotiations

By Asia Unhedged | Asia Times | August 11, 2017

The Western media misinterpreted and ignored key parts of a recent North Korean statement on negotiating with the US about its nuclear program, says a commentary on Johns Hopkins University 38 North website.

The August 9 editor’s column on the respected site dedicated to analysis on North Korea says that Pyongyang hasn’t changed its previous position on nukes. It hasn’t ruled out negotiating. It will still come to the table if the US removes its “hostile policy and nuclear threat” against the DPRK. If true, the latest hullabaloo about imminent war with North Korea may be a wash.

The error, according to 38 North, lies in an inept English translation of a statement made by North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho at the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting on July 26.

The English translation was: “We will, under no circumstances, put the nukes and ballistic rockets on the negotiating table. Neither shall we flinch even an inch from the road to bolstering up the nuclear forces chosen by ourselves, unless the hostile policy and nuclear threat of the US against the DPRK are fundamentally eliminated.”

38 North says the splitting of the sentences raises several questions as to what was covered under the qualifier of “unless” the hostile policy is removed. But 38 North says the answer can be found in the Korean-language version in which the formula was presented as one sentence, not two.

The Korean version reads: “Unless the hostile policy and nuclear threat of the US against the DPRK are fundamentally eliminated, we, under no circumstances, will put the nukes and ballistic rockets on the negotiating table and will not flinch even an inch away from our path of strengthening of nuclear forces, which is chosen by ourselves.”

This statement in Korean is said to merely repeat an earlier statement by Kim Jong-un on July 4 and one by the North Korean government on August 7 which says the only way Pyongyang will put its WMD programs on the table is if the US threat to their country ends.

38 North says this is a very different position than the one described in Western media reports.

“The media cherry-picked a part of what the North Koreans were saying in order to write a sensational story,” the 38 North column said. It said such misreporting is especially dangerous given the escalating crisis between Washington and Pyongyang.

August 13, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

Lebanese Hezbollah leader says Israel not able to wage new war on Lebanon

Press TV – August 13, 2017

The Secretary General of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement says Israel is not able to launch a new war on Lebanon, because it knows that Hezbollah is much more powerful than 2006 and any such war would cost Tel Aviv dearly.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah made the remarks in a speech on the anniversary of Israel’s defeat in the 33-day military onslaught against Lebanon back in the summer of 2006.

During his speech, Nasrallah noted that the main reason behind the victory of Hezbollah fighters in the war with Israel was their patience, steadfastness, valor and faith.

Stressing the rise in Hezbollah’s power since the war in 2006, Nasrallah noted that the resistance group is ready to counter any further act of aggression, warning that in case of new Israeli aggression, Israel will face a 100 times tougher response than the one its forces saw during the 2006 war.

Nasrallah added that Israeli analysts were still analyzing the results of that war, because it destroyed their self-confidence and they have admitted to their defeat in the summer war in 2006.

Everything that Israelis say about the power of Hezbollah is because of their defeat in summer 2006 war, Nasrallah said.

The Hezbollah chief stated that Israelis wanted to destroy Hezbollah, but after 11 years, they say Hezbollah has become stronger and more powerful and this shows that they have failed to achieve the goals they pursued through 2006 war.

Elsewhere in his speech, Nasrallah explained that Hezbollah only fights outside the Lebanese borders and will not use force in domestic developments of the country.

He added that in return for its victories, Hezbollah does not seek personal, party, or tribal interests, noting that today, the resistance movement is more powerful than ever and the enemy has reached the conclusion that any new aggression against Lebanon will be very costly.

Rejecting any chance of a new Israeli aggression against Lebanon, Nasrallah noted that the time of toying with Lebanon is over and Israelis themselves have owned up to the high cost of such a war and have said that war with Lebanon should not take place.

They wanted to crush the resistance in 2006 war, but they failed to achieve this goal, Nasrallah said.

The Hezbollah chief added that not only Israel, but all those parties which seek to crush Hezbollah at the present time will fail to achieve this goal.

Nasrallah said that due to its inability to wage new war on Lebanon, Israel wants to collectively punish the entire Lebanese nation, and it is putting high pressure on the administration of US President Donald Trump, but they will fail to achieve anything as in the past.

About 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, lost their lives during Israel’s 33-day war on Lebanon back in the summer of 2006.

According to the 629-page Winograd Report by the Israeli regime itself, Hezbollah fighters involved in defending Lebanon against the Israeli war defeated the enemy and Tel Aviv was compelled to withdraw without having achieved any of its objectives.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which brokered a ceasefire in the 2006 war, calls on Israel to respect Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Manar television network on Jul 14, head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council Sayyed Hashem Safieddine stated that the resistance movement will “surprise” Israel in any future war, relying on its enhanced military capabilities.

Safieddine stressed that Hezbollah has been changing and developing new military capabilities, and Israeli reports on Hezbollah’s weaponry are “inaccurate as the enemy intelligence agencies can never reach veracious data in this context.”

August 13, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 2 Comments

The De-Putin-Nazification of America

By CJ Hopkins | CounterPunch | August 11, 2017

Sometime circa late July, as the hundreds of thousands of de facto vassals that cater to the needs of New York City’s simulated aristocracy were navigating the sweltering hell that subway system has recently become, approximately one hundred miles to the east, deep in the heart of Resistance territory, where villas rent for up to a million a month, members of the notorious Bridgehampton Cell of the Neoliberal Liberation Army were gathered in one of their luxury safehouses, vetting the latest leading candidate for the coveted position of “resistance leader.”

California Senator Kamala Harris, multimillionaire woman of the people, and friend of rapacious banks like OneWest, must have impressed the Bridgehampton Cell, because their comrades in corporate-owned media immediately launched a propaganda campaign to get the word out to the American people (who’ve been suffering under occupation for going on the last seven months) that the Senator and her affluent backers represent their last best hope of overthrowing the Trumpian Reich and saving the world from the Putin-Nazis.

For those unfamiliar with the Putin-Nazis, it’s an official term I recently made up to describe, not just the Russian Federation, and Vladimir Putin and his inner circle, but also the maleficent global alliance of Russian hackers, Russian propagandists, Russian diplomats, Russian businesspersons, persons married to Russian persons, persons with Russian-sounding names, neo-Nazis, alt-right geeks, Goldman Sachs guys, Sandernistas, Corbynistas, former coal miners, hillbilly oxycodone addicts, socialists, anarchists, Black Lives Matterists, the ghost of George Carlin, the ACLU, and anyone who has ever retweeted Wikileaks or didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton.

As I’m sure you’ll recall, the Putin-Nazis originally materialized out of thin air around the time that Clinton was managing to lose the US presidential election to a repulsive, jabbering, narcissistic clown with absolutely no political experience, who the mainstream media had been assuring the world for months was the Second Coming of Hitler. Given that it was virtually impossible for Clinton to lose to such a noxious buffoon, the only rational explanation was that the Russians had somehow “hacked” the election, or “interfered with,” or “influenced” the election. They had done this by getting their hands on a batch of internal Democratic Party emails, passing them on to Putin-Nazi Propaganda Minister Julian Assange, who published them on the Internet, where they were read by former Obama-voters, who were so completely shocked by their contents that they decided not to vote for Clinton, as they had obviously been intending to do, until their minds got “interfered with.”

The rest, as they say, is history. On January 20, despite the fact that everyone knew that the entire Trump family were Putin-Nazi “sleeper” agents, and that the man himself was the Glorious Leader of an underground army of neo-Nazis numbering in the tens of hundreds that was threatening the very fabric of democracy by circulating cartoon frogs on the Internet, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as President, and the Trumpian Reich officially began.

Fortunately, Americans are not a bunch of Camembert-slurping surrender monkeys. Although the ruling establishment was bound by law to allow a neo-fascist dictator who was clearly working for a hostile foreign power to move his circus into the White House, they were hardly going to sit idly by and watch as he transformed America into some sort of neo-nationalist dystopia where grade-school children would be forced to learn Russian, Hitler-salute the confederate flag, and whatever other Russo-Nazi horrors he and Bannon had in mind. Before Trump could even order the removal of every likeness of Martin Luther King from the D.C. metropolitan area, the Democratic Party, patriotic Republicans, the Intelligence Community, the corporate-owned media, and, of course, just millions of Good Americans launched a grassroots resistance movement to remove him from office by any means necessary.

Seven months later, here we are, with a Special Counsel and a D.C. grand jury, who will certainly be able to find something on Trump, or at least ensure that he spends the rest of his term denying the stream of allegations, rumors, and leaks that will flow therefrom. Which means it’s time to start getting ready for the day when our national nightmare is over, and Kamala Harris (or whichever loyal figurehead the ruling classes ultimately choose) marches through Washington like Charles de Gaulle, presumably with the Obamas and Clintons in tow, after which the USA can continue to bomb, occupy, sanction, and otherwise destabilize various other countries, allow its banks to debt-enslave its citizens, maintain a brutal, militarized police force, and everything else it’s doing at the moment, but in a normal, liberal, non-fascist manner, and Stephen Colbert can get back to comedy.

Now, to pull this off, the Resistance is going to need to deal with these Putin-Nazis, specifically the Putin-Nazis on the Left, who are already tweeting “fake news” tweets impugning the character of Senator Harris (who happens to be black, and a woman, by the way … not that that has anything to do with anything, of course), and reminding Americans how they got bamboozled by Obama’s Hope-and-Change routine. These people need to be de-Putin-Nazified, and they need to be de-Putin-Nazified immediately. The last thing the Resistance needs at this point is to go through all the trouble of regime-changing Trump, only to have Americans elect some other non-vetted, narcissistic billionaire who thinks it might be fun to run for president.

This de-Putin-Nazification Program is going to involve a concerted effort on the part of the entire neoliberal establishment to stigmatize anyone who voted for Trump, or who didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, or who questions the integrity of Kamala Harris (who, as I may have already mentioned, is black), as a bug-eyed, Sieg-heiling Putin-Nazi. These people are going to need to be shamed, guilt-tripped, and otherwise emotionally manipulated into keeping their Putin-Nazi mouths shut. This isn’t going to work on your actual fascists, but it will work on nearly everyone else, or at least on those Obama voters who didn’t turn out for Hillary Clinton, and those bitter white Bernie Bros who voted for Trump as personal “fuck you” to the Democratic Party.

See, odd as this is going to sound, the majority of your Putin-Nazis don’t see themselves as Putin-Nazis. They see themselves, well, as just regular Americans who have lost all faith in the electoral system, and who believe they are living in a sham republic controlled by global corporations and obscenely wealthy individuals who couldn’t care less about them and their families, and whose only allegiance is to a transnational class of corporatist leeches like themselves. Still, despite their cynical beliefs, most of these folks are not particularly fond of being likened to Nazis, or racists, or xenophobes, or useful idiots. So this is exactly what the Resistance is doing, and intends to keep doing for the next few years (i.e., calling their detractors bad names, basically), so that any anti-corporatist dissent that they can’t get Google to make disappear with an “anti-fake news algorithm” can be stigmatized as racist, misogynist, or some other variation of “deplorable.”

Now, they need our help to make this work (yes, even CounterPunch readers can contribute to this vital effort). Don’t worry about the Russia hysteria. The corporate-owned media will take care of that. You want to focus on the fascism aspect, and the racism, misogyny, and xenophobia stuff, which is always the best way to silence other leftists. Here are a few simple things you can do.

(1) Exaggerate the neo-fascist threat! You can do this on Twitter and Facebook endlessly. Forget about the fact that the number of actual fascists in America is ridiculously small, and that odds of some sort of fascist takeover of the US government are infinitesimal. Convince your friends and Twitter followers that the fascists are on the verge of launching a national fascist revolution. Tweet about their “leaders” as if they were actual players on the national political stage, and not just a handful of pathetic creeps parading around in their Hitler hairdos for two or three hundred other such creeps. The point here is to help the Resistance keep folks’ attention focused on “the fascists,” and the racists, misogynists, xenophobes, et al., and not on the global capitalist elites and the vast transnational corporations that currently control most Western governments.

(2) Hammer the identity politics! Do not miss an opportunity to call out anyone who accidentally writes, speaks, or otherwise disseminates a word or phrase that oppresses anyone, or that displays any type of unacknowledged privilege. Not only will this help the Resistance keep folks divided into an ever-increasing number of powerless little sub-groups that pose no threat to the corporatist ruling classes, it will feel really good to self-righteously hector anyone whose values are different from yours, especially members of the working classes who couldn’t afford to go to university and learn about intersectionality, and so on. These folks are virtually fascists anyway. What difference does it make if you alienate them?

(3) Now, this one is absolutely crucial. Keep comparing Trump to Hitler! If you don’t have time for the other two, at least you can help the Resistance with this one. See, it’s really important that folks believe that Trump is not just a random bozo who rode a wave of populist anger and distrust of the Democrats into the White House, and who is now in the process of being neutralized by the people who actually run the country. He needs to be seen as a powerful dictator, who at any moment is liable to start … well, you know, killing the Jews, or something. Plus, this dovetails with the other two points. Exaggerating the fascist threat works much better when you have a powerful Hitler figure you can wag your finger at. And, given that Trump is actually a bigot, and a misogynist pig, and a xenophobe (or at least he plays one on TV), you can have a field day with the identity politics. So go hard on the Hitler stuff, and any kind of German references you can think of. Spell his name “Drumpf,” or call him “Herr Trump,” or put a little Hitler-mustache on him. Don’t worry about getting chastised by any intersectionalist purity freaks. These kinds of slurs are perfectly acceptable, because, as every Good American knows, the Germans are, and will always be, Nazis.

These are just a few ideas to get started with. I’m sure you can think up some more on your own. The main thing is to steer well clear of any kind of political analysis that reminds folks about that corporatocracy, or how much it costs to get elected to office, and where the majority of that money comes from, and thus how irrelevant electoral politics is.

Oh, and keep an eye out for those Putin-Nazis! You never know where they’re going to turn up, and I’d hate to see your mind get “interfered with.”

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can reached at cjhopkins.com

August 13, 2017 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Three Social Leaders Murdered in Colombia in Only 72 Hours

teleSUR | August 12, 2017

The Colombian activist and social leader Fernando Asprilla was murdered on Friday in the Cauca department, and was the third death of a social leader recorded in a 72 hour period.

The Ombudsman of Colombia, Carlos Alfonso Negret Mosquera, showed in a recent report that during the period between the first of January, 2016, and March 1st of 2017, at least 156 homicides, five disappearances, and 33 violent attacks against community and social leaders occurred.

According to the report given by Negret, one of the primary causes of the deadly trend is the continued operations of illegal armed right-wing paramilitary organizations that have occupied territory left behind by the disarming Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC – EP).

Human rights defenders and activists in the districts of Antioquia, Arauca, Atlantico, Bolivar, Caldas, Caqueta, Casanare, Cauca, Cesar, Cordoba, Cundinamarca, Choco, Huila, La Guajira, Magdalena, Meta, Nariño, Norte de Santander, Putumayo, Risaralda, Santander, Tolima and Cauca Valley have been assassinated since the FARC’s demobilization process began.

As they have handed over their weapons and negotiated terms of peace with the Colombian government, FARC-EP has consistently demanded that the state works to dismantle paramilitarism in the country, saying its ongoing violence represents the greatest threat to the peace process.

The government however, has largely ignored the existence of paramilitaries, claiming that they were demobilized during Alvaro Uribe’s presidential term between 2006 and 2008. FARC-EP leaders have pointed out that many of the groups have been reclassified as criminal gangs, but continue to represent the same threat as always by assassinating leaders who fight for human and land rights.

August 13, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment