This Week in Fascism is a regular Refusefascism.org feature that exposes the rapid unfolding of a fascist USA and the necessity to stop it.
Pushing the planet and all of humanity into the crosshairs of nuclear war, attacking the free press through further criminalizing journalism, radically reducing the number of documented immigrants, and slamming affirmative action. This is just some of the damage done by the Trump/Pence Regime this week, a nightmare that plagues all of humanity. Refuse Fascism put out a new call demanding, “This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!” and announced plans to build now for people to take to the streets on November 4th and refuse to leave until this demand is met.
Here is a closer look at some of the fascist nightmare that transpired this week:
Expanding Wars for Empire
August 4, Yemen: The Pentagon announced that U.S. warplanes are now joined by a contingent of ground troops in central Yemen. The lives of people in Yemen (already the poorest country in the Arab region) are in peril as they suffer from U.S. bombs that rain from the sky while U.S.-backed Saudis have enforced a blockade cutting off supplies of food, fuel, and medicine. At the end of July, international aid agencies including Save the Children declared the situation in Yemen the “largest humanitarian crisis in the world,” 20.7 million people (half of which are children) are in imminent risk of death by starvation or poverty-related diseases (such as cholera which is ravaging the country).
August 7, Afghanistan: The White House is considering a plan from notorious Blackwater Founder Erik Prince to turn a large part of the U.S. 16 year and counting war on Afghanistan over to mercenaries. While being pitched as an “alternative to a surge”, it is anything but. It will only mean more horror for the people of Afghanistan. These private contractors have carried out heinous acts in Iraq and across the globe without any accountability. In addition, this plan enables individuals like Prince to directly profit from this unjust and immoral war. As NBC Journalist Cal Perry tweeted in response to Prince’s plan, “A private air force and bombing app! From the people who brought you Blackwater; an even more disturbing idea.”
August 8, North Korea: The day before the 72nd anniversary of the monstrously criminal incineration of 70,000 in Nagasaki, Donald Trump declared, “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen…” We should read this as what it is: an open-threat to incinerate humanity, putting current and future generations in grave danger. This is an ominous game of nuclear chicken that is being played by Trump, who has several times questioned with full seriousness why he can’t use nuclear weapons if he has them, and has already deployed in Afghanistan the “mother of all bombs,” the largest non-nuclear weapon in history. Any U.S. military action against North Korea will have devastating consequences in destruction and loss of life, especially across the whole Korean peninsula.
August 9, North Korea: S. Defense Secretary James Mattis via written statement demanded that North Korea “cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and destruction of its people” and “The DPRK must choose to stop isolating itself and stand down its pursuit of nuclear weapons.” These statements were punctuated by his threat that the “regime’s actions will continue to be grossly overmatched by ours and would lose any arms race or conflict it initiates.” The brutality and mafiaso nature of this regime and the danger it poses cannot be overstated: this fascist regime has now potentially put the very future of humanity in question. The Pentagon will not be reigning Trump in.
Attacking People of Color, Women, Immigrants, and Muslims
August 2, Nationwide: Jeff “I’m not racist, but” Sessions and his Justice Department have initiated an investigation into how they can undermine remaining affirmative action policies. They plan on suing any school whose policies they find to “discriminate against white applicants.”
August 2, Nationwide: Trump endorsed a bill to overhaul the legal immigration system, cutting the number of green cards in half and rating each applicant based on their knowledge of English, education level, salary, and job skill without consideration for family or community ties. One Fox News commentator and immigration attorney said “the bar would be raised so high that almost no one could get over it.” The plan is called “RAISE,” as in “Raise-ist.”
August 9, Texas: The Texas House, Senate, and Governor are now all in agreement over banning abortion coverage in private insurance plans across the state. Both houses have now passed versions of a bill, requested by Governor Greg Abbott which would force women who want abortion medical coverage to buy an additional plan, offered at their insurer’s discretion. They are shamelessly conspiring in full view of the public to deny a basic right to half of their citizens.
Emboldening Shock Troops and Threatening the Press
August 1, South Carolina: Catherine Templeton, Republican candidate for governor shared that she is “proud of the Confederacy”. In reference to removing Confederate monuments, she pledged that “we’re not going to rewrite history.” The battle to defend monuments that enshrine slavery is a mechanism through which various fascist groups are being united to enforce white supremacy.
August 4, Colorado: Anti-Semitic graffiti defaced the walls of Temple Beit Torah synagogue in Colorado Springs. A swastika and “sieg heil” were amongst the signs of cruelty. Nearby homes and cars were also vandalized with racist slurs. Hundreds gathered the Sunday following the event to denounce the bigotry. Unless and until this Trump/Pence fascist regime is driven out these hate crimes will only continue.
August 4, Nationwide: Under Obama a war was waged on journalists to release information about their sources. On Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued chilling threats to escalate this war on the press by subpoenaing news organizations and journalists for information about their sources even more than under the previous administration. Peter Sterne of the Freedom of the Press Foundation stated, “The Department of Justice is explicitly threatening to haul journalists before grand juries and force them to testify about their confidential sources or face jail time.” Threatening journalists if they publish information even mildly at odds with Trump’s “alternative facts” is an indication of how far advanced this regime is in consolidating fascism.
August, 5: Minnesota: While people gathered in prayer last Saturday morning at Dar Al Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota a makeshift bomb went off shattering the windows in the Imam’s office. Four days have passed and the Trump Regime has yet to utter a word to condemn this act of violence and intimidation while he continues to take to twitter to rail at fake news and threaten nuclear war. Through his words and his deeds Trump has sent a message that Muslims are not full human-beings and this is amplified by his silence whenever the Muslim community is attacked.
August 7, Nationwide: Alex Vablon of The Trace exposes how fascist militia groups like the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters are emerging as direct “political players”, not only a force that unleashes violence against the people, but provide security for local pro-Trump politicians and Republican organizations. Seeing militias as a means to “tighten their grip on power.” “The Trace has identified ‘at least five occasions, spread across three states, where gun-carrying anti-establishment protesters provided security, demonstrated in support of, or worked for conservative local elected officials or Republican Party functionaries’”.
**************
Who will end this nightmare? We will. Only the determined struggle of millions of people acting together with courage and conviction can drive this regime from power.
Register for an August 19 Refuse Fascism Regional Conference near you to prepare for and plan nationwide protests that will begin November 4 and continue – night after night and day after day, growing from thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions – until our demand is met: This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
J’Accuse: Read More about
the Fascism of the Trump/Pence Regime