The criminal investigation undertaken by the federal government against hundreds of participants in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol is polarizing the country and shredding civil liberties.
The increasing reliance upon censorship and overt repression under color of law are sure signs that the establishment is not feeling self-assured or confident.
I cry no tears for these folks. My tears are for the social jutice, anti-war, environmental and animal activists who have consistently been treated like this and more harshly -- how about the Shac 7 some of whom who were in a supermax for running a website. Or how about Standing Rock protestors or BLM potestors who were brutalized. I'd like a world where all protestors, and prisoners convicted of all crimes too, are treated with respect. But till we get there, crying for these folks trying to overturn an election to install a tyrant who are largely being treated much more humanely than people trying to make the world a better place but who infringe on corporate privilege...nope.
With all due respect , Chris, what is the appropriate deterrent for people involved in an attempted coup at the cause of a hateful power hungry ex president?
This country lost its mind after 9/11, with the creepy Patriot Act, Gitmo, and two needless wars. We have been sliding toward tyranny ever since, however, I have very little sympathy for any person who participated in the January 6 demonstration/protest/coup attempt/insurrection. They followed a fool, willingly, enthusiastically. What annoys me more than anything is that more than two years on there has been no accountability for the architects and key figures.
Hedges ignored the fact that the real Jan. 6 conspiracists in the White House, law enforcement, the military, and National Security State have not been named or investigated or prosecuted.
The Eastman memo laid out the legal basis for the coup - and there is no doubt that what Trumpers sought was a coup. The Supreme Court was engaged and very likely to uphold the legal theories in the Eastman memo, if just one State went along with it. That issue is now before the Court. I have little doubt that the Court ultimately will repeat 2000 Bush electoral theft.
These are the real issues.
BTW - the Atlanta protesters of Cop City are being persecuted with federal terrorism felony charges.
The PTB knew decades ago what was going to happen. This is why all police departments are gifted with military war toys. Eventually, it will take all of us to shut this place down.
"The Jan. 6 protestors were not the first to occupy Congressional offices, including Nancy Pelosi’s office. Young environmental activists from the Sunrise Movement, anti-war activists from Code Pink and even congressional staffers have engaged in numerous occupations of congressional offices and interrupted congressional hearings. What will happen to groups such as Code Pink if they occupy congressional offices with Republicans in control of the White House, the Congress and the courts? Will they be held for years in pretrial detention? Will they be given lengthy prison terms based on dubious interpretations of the law? Will they be considered domestic terrorists? Will protests and civil disobedience become impossible?"
They will be imprisoned. And those that advocated the removal of people from twitter or Facebook will also see the tables turned, or have.
Such short term thinking for such sort time left.
What a pity.
For the consequences point to the further embracement of fascism or fascist alliances.
And this is not surprising if one has read history.
What it means for material reality can be summed up by looking critically at history, something many do not seem to do.
The answer is to be found in the structural crisis of capital itself.
The stagnation and financialization of the capitalist economy, of which neoliberalism is the outward manifestation, requires that the system continually seek to intensify its exploitation and expropriation of the population and posits this as the only answer.
TINA.
Unable to rule in the old way, based simply on the actual accumulation process, and choosing outright robbery (so-called accumulation by dispossession) as its answer to its crisis of valorization, monopoly-finance capital in the neoliberal era is drawn to ever-greater extremes of expropriation, undermining and subsuming the liberal-democratic state itself, which has already happened.
Now-liberalism and austerity
The conclusion to which many are drawn is that the rise of neofascism is a manifestation of deeper contradictions of capital, including: the structural crisis of the system, the neoliberal assault on the working class, the destabilization of the liberal-democratic state, and the reactionary awakening of a radical right in the lower-middle stratum.
It comes at a time of insurmountable economic stagnation, unprecedented inequality, and rapid environmental decline. Moreover, this is not simply a problem evident in the advanced capitalist countries, but we can see the same fault lines in the so-called emerging economies as well, complicated by the fact that they have been on the receiving ends of centuries of colonialism and imperialism.
Rather, we are facing today the prospect of what David Harvey has referred to as a neoliberal-neofascist alliance.
Against this one has to recall that it was Hitler who first introduced “Keynesian” economic stimulus through military spending, privatization, and breaking unions, instituting deep cuts in workers’ wages.108 A neo-fascist economic strategy would be a more extreme version of neoliberal austerity, backed by racism and war preparation.
In the longer-run the economic contradictions of the system would remain, but the new economic nationalism would be aimed at making sure that in the context of global economic stagnation the United States would seize a greater share of the global pie.
I would argue that fascism started with military-Keynsianism before, during and after WWII.
"If we use Mussolini’s definition of fascism, then military Keynsianism, began really before WWII but certainly after, up and until to today, this would be both seen as State-military control or state investment in the military, of which this means communications, transport the things we use today.
Military-Keynsianism was how the introduction of corporatism was firmly unleashed. "
And it is totalizing.
A Boeing factory in every state was the motto decades ago.
Contracts in all states assure Congressmen can lose their jobs if they do not support the military.
Same with universities, the media, churches, temples, civic organizations, politicians and their supplicants.. This again, concretizes fascism while colonizing whole populations.
R and R in communications, satellites, etc. all came from public investment in the military. Then this goes to colleges and then they develop levels of technology. Then commercialized and sold to the public. Drones for example, Teflon pans. Sunglasses, everything. Fascism is totalizing.
Take the 2017 partnership between Google and Steve Schmidt and the government.
This is technocratic fascism, distinguished from ethno or national fascist movements.
But it is fascism.
The corporate democratic party is fascist, but it is Rainbow fascism.
The republican party is white settler, ethno nationalist fascism.
They are both fascist.
The corporate/CIA democratic avid support for "military Keynsianism" and the fact they are on the take distinguish them little from their republican 'counterparts'.
We would derive more meaning if we examined the faces of fascism for as George Jackson once noted:
I have absolutely no ideological sympathies with the January 6 mob; but am utterly appalled by the police state tactics being employed against them. Once one got past the initial shock value of the event there was essentially nothing that occurred on that day that qualified as an "insurrection" or "coup" - If so, the participants would have been armed, there would need to be a sympathetic police and military presence, and so on. January 6 was basically a clown show - albeit one with some casualties [all of them, rioters themselves]. The United States, heaving a democratic death rattle, will weaponize anything and everything at it's disposal to control an increasingly restive populace - from COVID restrictions to nakedly partisan attacks on civil liberties. Ryan Nichols and his family don't deserve the nightmare that the FBI brought to their doorstep - a federal agency that employs entrapment among other illegal activities. An empire in decline brings tyranny home.
HRC's unforgivable "basket of deplorables" made it clear what the neolibs and their professional elite Dem supporters really think about us, the declasse 80% of the old labor left and rural right. Best keep our anger aimed at one another lest we unite in political opposition to the oppressive status quo.
The shrill language of the NYT and WaPo reinforces the elites' belief dissenters are undeserving lessers. The D centrists tolerate leftist demonstrators only because they need us. As the neolib/neocon alliance becomes more desperate to cling to power, we will be treated the same way. Look at what happened during the 1999 anti-WTO Battle of Seattle.
I admit as an old school labor leftist, I enjoyed the idea of a bunch of MAGAts (another demeaning term) getting theirs. But think a minute--these people are the same as those from the Rust Belt, long ago abandoned by the Dems. The same now suffering from rising rates of deaths of despair. They, too, among those called in the N.T. "the least among us, my sisters and brothers."
Reading about the background of those charged humanizes them. McBride and Nichols in particular, since it's obvious we share a common cause. Doesn't matter, though, whether or not they they pass my pink litmus test. Like my I.W.W. grandfather, I proclaim in solidarity:
Absolutely true. I'm no fan of Trump, but I wouldn't plant evidence on him. This whole 1/6 Inquisition is a massively disproportionate judicial response to a bunch of rube tourists, many of whom were encouraged by undercover FBI or FBI affiliates.
Great article. Are the 500 riots in summer of 2020, including the Lafayette Park riot that attempted to breech White House barricades and injured dozens of security people, going to be prosecuted in this way?
"Will protests and civil disobedience become impossible?" Very likely. But when "protests and civil disobedience become impossible", revolution, I hope, will be both imminent and inevitable.
We need more fair reporting like this.
I share Hedges' dislike of the beliefs of the demonstrators, but agree that the prosecutions are out of proportion.
The increasing reliance upon censorship and overt repression under color of law are sure signs that the establishment is not feeling self-assured or confident.
Quite the opposite.
I cry no tears for these folks. My tears are for the social jutice, anti-war, environmental and animal activists who have consistently been treated like this and more harshly -- how about the Shac 7 some of whom who were in a supermax for running a website. Or how about Standing Rock protestors or BLM potestors who were brutalized. I'd like a world where all protestors, and prisoners convicted of all crimes too, are treated with respect. But till we get there, crying for these folks trying to overturn an election to install a tyrant who are largely being treated much more humanely than people trying to make the world a better place but who infringe on corporate privilege...nope.
With all due respect , Chris, what is the appropriate deterrent for people involved in an attempted coup at the cause of a hateful power hungry ex president?
This country lost its mind after 9/11, with the creepy Patriot Act, Gitmo, and two needless wars. We have been sliding toward tyranny ever since, however, I have very little sympathy for any person who participated in the January 6 demonstration/protest/coup attempt/insurrection. They followed a fool, willingly, enthusiastically. What annoys me more than anything is that more than two years on there has been no accountability for the architects and key figures.
Hedges ignored the fact that the real Jan. 6 conspiracists in the White House, law enforcement, the military, and National Security State have not been named or investigated or prosecuted.
The Eastman memo laid out the legal basis for the coup - and there is no doubt that what Trumpers sought was a coup. The Supreme Court was engaged and very likely to uphold the legal theories in the Eastman memo, if just one State went along with it. That issue is now before the Court. I have little doubt that the Court ultimately will repeat 2000 Bush electoral theft.
These are the real issues.
BTW - the Atlanta protesters of Cop City are being persecuted with federal terrorism felony charges.
Wow Chris.
you've certainly
got My little brain a'thinkin'.
.
Thank you.
The PTB knew decades ago what was going to happen. This is why all police departments are gifted with military war toys. Eventually, it will take all of us to shut this place down.
"The Jan. 6 protestors were not the first to occupy Congressional offices, including Nancy Pelosi’s office. Young environmental activists from the Sunrise Movement, anti-war activists from Code Pink and even congressional staffers have engaged in numerous occupations of congressional offices and interrupted congressional hearings. What will happen to groups such as Code Pink if they occupy congressional offices with Republicans in control of the White House, the Congress and the courts? Will they be held for years in pretrial detention? Will they be given lengthy prison terms based on dubious interpretations of the law? Will they be considered domestic terrorists? Will protests and civil disobedience become impossible?"
They will be imprisoned. And those that advocated the removal of people from twitter or Facebook will also see the tables turned, or have.
Such short term thinking for such sort time left.
What a pity.
For the consequences point to the further embracement of fascism or fascist alliances.
And this is not surprising if one has read history.
What it means for material reality can be summed up by looking critically at history, something many do not seem to do.
The answer is to be found in the structural crisis of capital itself.
The stagnation and financialization of the capitalist economy, of which neoliberalism is the outward manifestation, requires that the system continually seek to intensify its exploitation and expropriation of the population and posits this as the only answer.
TINA.
Unable to rule in the old way, based simply on the actual accumulation process, and choosing outright robbery (so-called accumulation by dispossession) as its answer to its crisis of valorization, monopoly-finance capital in the neoliberal era is drawn to ever-greater extremes of expropriation, undermining and subsuming the liberal-democratic state itself, which has already happened.
Now-liberalism and austerity
The conclusion to which many are drawn is that the rise of neofascism is a manifestation of deeper contradictions of capital, including: the structural crisis of the system, the neoliberal assault on the working class, the destabilization of the liberal-democratic state, and the reactionary awakening of a radical right in the lower-middle stratum.
It comes at a time of insurmountable economic stagnation, unprecedented inequality, and rapid environmental decline. Moreover, this is not simply a problem evident in the advanced capitalist countries, but we can see the same fault lines in the so-called emerging economies as well, complicated by the fact that they have been on the receiving ends of centuries of colonialism and imperialism.
Rather, we are facing today the prospect of what David Harvey has referred to as a neoliberal-neofascist alliance.
Against this one has to recall that it was Hitler who first introduced “Keynesian” economic stimulus through military spending, privatization, and breaking unions, instituting deep cuts in workers’ wages.108 A neo-fascist economic strategy would be a more extreme version of neoliberal austerity, backed by racism and war preparation.
In the longer-run the economic contradictions of the system would remain, but the new economic nationalism would be aimed at making sure that in the context of global economic stagnation the United States would seize a greater share of the global pie.
https://monthlyreview.org/2017/04/01/neofascism-in-the-white-house/
I would argue that fascism started with military-Keynsianism before, during and after WWII.
"If we use Mussolini’s definition of fascism, then military Keynsianism, began really before WWII but certainly after, up and until to today, this would be both seen as State-military control or state investment in the military, of which this means communications, transport the things we use today.
Military-Keynsianism was how the introduction of corporatism was firmly unleashed. "
And it is totalizing.
A Boeing factory in every state was the motto decades ago.
Contracts in all states assure Congressmen can lose their jobs if they do not support the military.
Same with universities, the media, churches, temples, civic organizations, politicians and their supplicants.. This again, concretizes fascism while colonizing whole populations.
R and R in communications, satellites, etc. all came from public investment in the military. Then this goes to colleges and then they develop levels of technology. Then commercialized and sold to the public. Drones for example, Teflon pans. Sunglasses, everything. Fascism is totalizing.
Take the 2017 partnership between Google and Steve Schmidt and the government.
This is technocratic fascism, distinguished from ethno or national fascist movements.
But it is fascism.
The corporate democratic party is fascist, but it is Rainbow fascism.
The republican party is white settler, ethno nationalist fascism.
They are both fascist.
The corporate/CIA democratic avid support for "military Keynsianism" and the fact they are on the take distinguish them little from their republican 'counterparts'.
We would derive more meaning if we examined the faces of fascism for as George Jackson once noted:
I have absolutely no ideological sympathies with the January 6 mob; but am utterly appalled by the police state tactics being employed against them. Once one got past the initial shock value of the event there was essentially nothing that occurred on that day that qualified as an "insurrection" or "coup" - If so, the participants would have been armed, there would need to be a sympathetic police and military presence, and so on. January 6 was basically a clown show - albeit one with some casualties [all of them, rioters themselves]. The United States, heaving a democratic death rattle, will weaponize anything and everything at it's disposal to control an increasingly restive populace - from COVID restrictions to nakedly partisan attacks on civil liberties. Ryan Nichols and his family don't deserve the nightmare that the FBI brought to their doorstep - a federal agency that employs entrapment among other illegal activities. An empire in decline brings tyranny home.
EGREGIOUS CLASS PREJUDICE
HRC's unforgivable "basket of deplorables" made it clear what the neolibs and their professional elite Dem supporters really think about us, the declasse 80% of the old labor left and rural right. Best keep our anger aimed at one another lest we unite in political opposition to the oppressive status quo.
The shrill language of the NYT and WaPo reinforces the elites' belief dissenters are undeserving lessers. The D centrists tolerate leftist demonstrators only because they need us. As the neolib/neocon alliance becomes more desperate to cling to power, we will be treated the same way. Look at what happened during the 1999 anti-WTO Battle of Seattle.
I admit as an old school labor leftist, I enjoyed the idea of a bunch of MAGAts (another demeaning term) getting theirs. But think a minute--these people are the same as those from the Rust Belt, long ago abandoned by the Dems. The same now suffering from rising rates of deaths of despair. They, too, among those called in the N.T. "the least among us, my sisters and brothers."
Reading about the background of those charged humanizes them. McBride and Nichols in particular, since it's obvious we share a common cause. Doesn't matter, though, whether or not they they pass my pink litmus test. Like my I.W.W. grandfather, I proclaim in solidarity:
AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL
Absolutely true. I'm no fan of Trump, but I wouldn't plant evidence on him. This whole 1/6 Inquisition is a massively disproportionate judicial response to a bunch of rube tourists, many of whom were encouraged by undercover FBI or FBI affiliates.
Great article. Are the 500 riots in summer of 2020, including the Lafayette Park riot that attempted to breech White House barricades and injured dozens of security people, going to be prosecuted in this way?
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." -- Matthew 5:7
"Will protests and civil disobedience become impossible?" Very likely. But when "protests and civil disobedience become impossible", revolution, I hope, will be both imminent and inevitable.
Thank you VERY much -- lynchings and entrapments -- all in itself major crimes.
Biden administration and Deep State executives are deeply corrupt criminals.