This Week In Fascism is a weekly Refusefascism.org feature that exposes the rapid unfolding of a fascist USA and the necessity to stop it.
Trump being the legacy maker that he is, decided to skip the visit that every U.S. president since 1989 has made to the Monument to the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto, located at the site of the Warsaw Ghetto. Instead he stood shoulder to shoulder with Poland’s fascist president Andrzej Duda and last Thursday gave a speech that would have made Hitler proud.
In Mein Kampf manner he posed whether “the West has the will to survive… Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders?” But who are the “we” and what are these “values”? He railed that “[T]here are dire threats to our security and our way of life.” This speech was nothing less than a war whoop to white supremacists from a man who consistently doubles down on a narrative where all Mexican immigrants are criminals and Islam as a religion is out to get white Christians. This July 6th speech was a clear war cry from a man who is all too eager to push the nuclear button and a sharp reminder that this is a fascist regime on the offensive that must be stopped before it is too late.
Expanding Wars for Empire
- July 6 Warsaw, Poland: Trump responded to North Korea’s testing of a potentially intercontinental missile during a press conference saying: “I have pretty severe things that we’re thinking about. That doesn’t mean that we’ll do them. It’s a shame they’re behaving this way and they’re behaving in a very dangerous manner, and something will have to be done about it.” This is ominous coming from a man who repeatedly questions why we can’t use nuclear weapons if we have them and acts in total disregard for human life.
- July 7 Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited Guantanamo Bay Prison where 41 men continue to languish in indefinite detention including 5 who’ve been cleared for release. This visit serves to prepare what Trump has promised for Guantanamo, to “load it up with some bad dudes.”
- July 8 Washington, D.C: Stephen Bannon (Trump’s chief strategist) and Jared Kushner (son-in-law turned senior advisor) requested proposals for the use of military contractors as opposed to sending more US troops to Afghanistan. Erik D. Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide, and Stephen A. Feinberg, owner of DynCorp International prepared and presented these proposals to Mattis.
- July 11: Amnesty International released a report that illustrates the human cost of the U.S.-led coalition’s actions in Mosul. They interviewed 150 witnesses, experts and analysts to assess a “pattern of attacks” from January-July 2017. These harrowing accounts and records, make clear that the Trump/Pence regime violated international humanitarian law, committed war crimes, and is responsible for massive civilian carnage from use of airstrikes and Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions. Full report available here.
Emboldening Shock Troops
- July 7, Philadelphia, PA: A noose was found on Friday hanging from a tree along the sidewalk in the Graduate Hospital section of Philadelphia This follows an incident at the US Mint where a white employee put a noose in a black employee’s workspace at the end of June but came to light on ___ with an article in The New York Times. The perpetrator of this violence at the Mint has been placed on administrative leave.
- July 5 Phoenix, AZ: A couple returned from vacation to find anti-semitic graffiti spray painted on their home including the word Jew and a swastika. According to the Anti-Defamation League, in the first quarter of 2017 we have witnessed an 86 percent jump in anti-semitic incidents.
- July 8 Charlottesville, VA: The Ku Klux Klan returned again to Emancipation Park (formerly Lee Park and the former home to a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee – defender of slavery). This time they were largely outnumbered. A couple dozen KKK members donning white KKK robes and handguns while toting Confederate flags were met by over 1,000 counter protestors shutting down their “white power” hatefest. A large police presence (100+) defended the KKK members and utilized tear gas and pepper spray against those who stood up to the KKK. Over 23 protestors were arrested.
Attacking Immigrants, Refugees, and Muslims
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- July 7 Washington, D.C: An internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo (from earlier this year) obtained by ProPublica sheds light on the sharp rise in immigration arrests. In this memo, Matthew Albence (ICE official in charge of the division that leads deportation proceedings) wrote to the agency’s current staff of 5,700 deportation officers that “effective immediately, ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations] officers will take enforcement action against all removable aliens encountered in the course of their duties.” ICE agents have been given the greenlight to take action against any undocumented immigrant they encounter while on duty regardless of criminal history.
- July 7 Honolulu, Hawaii: Federal judge Derrick Watson denied an emergency motion asking for clarification of the Supreme Court’s meaning of “bona fide” relationship in its travel ban ruling. Hawaii was advocating for grandparents, aunts, and uncles to be included in the exception. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles from the 6 nations included in the muslim ban will therefore be denied entrance for at least four months.
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If reading this fills you with heartache and fury, you are not alone! In three days all of us who are brimming with disgust at what the Trump/Pence regime is doing and plans to do here and around the world must manifest that on the streets nationwide. On July 15 we will project the demand that the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
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