The Post is being hard on THEMSELVES. A moment of relief silence from the bunker (ODT)
via President Trump made 19,127 false or misleading claims in 1,226 days – The Washington Post
Month: June 2020
When the President of the United States says that he’ll be designating Antifa as a terrorist organization, a part of me thinks: well go on then, let’s see you try. Because this awful, foreign-sounding word “antifa” is only an abbreviation of “anti-fascist.” Organizations can be banned, but it isn’t so easy to do the same with ideas.
via Donald Trump’s Antifa Bogeyman Has a Long, Proud History of Fighting Fascists
The majority arrested were found to be LOCALS
For some critics, blaming outsiders is a way of distracting from protesters’ legitimate demands.
via Claims of “Outsiders” in Minneapolis Draw on Fraught History
Voice of idiots (ODT)
“SAVE FOX NEWS.” It was a long letter, but the essence of it was restated in this post script, which read: P.S. The radical Left is trying to destroy Fox News and I need you to join me to fight back against the Left’s scheme today — before it’s too late. We cannot allow the radical Left to tear down and destroy Fox News — the only source of truth in our otherwise fake-news media.”
For God and Country, Save Fox News, the “Only Source of Truth” | The Smirking Chimp
Where State-Sponsored Murder happens people react (ODT)
via Jerusalem Demonstrations against Police Brutality after Autistic Palestinian Youth Shot to Death
Trump goes Hard Right-Wing Mass shootings and Domestic Terror is Right – Wing (ODT)
Fascism will be rushed and it won’t be pretty if you lean left. An excuse has to be found (ODT)
Poorer areas, especially places with a high black populace are the hardest hit. There is also a systemic attack on blacks and other minorities through the hard-right lens of the media. Narratives are shaped via deceptive and negative stereotypes. The black man is portrayed as a criminal and dangerous individual, even when he has done no wrong, and is merely standing up against injustice.
Compare the vastly different narratives to the white libertarians who invaded congress with semi automatic guns, versus the black protests against police brutality. The white libertarian militias were largely praised in the media for standing up to “state oppression,” while the black protesters were scorned and mocked as “dangerous thugs.” More reading here.
There is an underlying media bias of whites being “good” and blacks “bad.” This of course ties into the division needed in order for capitalism to continue to benefit the primarily wealthy white establishment and to neglect the needs and rights of black people and other marginalised minorities.
via The killing of America – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Despite Trump’s pledge of making America great again, the nation is badly off track and there is a haemorrhage of confidence in its future.
As bad as things are now, imagine what happens when the gravity of the looming economic crisis is evident. Americans from anarchists and socialists on the far left to far-right extremists have powerful incentives to get their pitchforks out and bring the system down.
via Tom Switzer: Donald Trump fans the flames of resentment and hatred
No Blame it’s “THEM” says Trump again (ODT)
- Many of the protesters overseas are speaking about institutional racism at the hands of police
- US embassies in Europe have been the site of solidarity protests
- Russia, China and Iran have taken the opportunity to criticise Washington over the unrest
You’d be forgiven if you hadn’t noticed. His verbal bombshells are louder than ever, but Donald J Trump is no longer president of the United States.
Policing in the US is not about enforcing law. It’s about enforcing white supremacy
By having no constructive response to any of the monumental crises now convulsing America, Trump has abdicated his office.He is not governing. He’s golfing, watching cable TV and tweeting.
The incapable incompetant leader Charlet Chaplin predicted he would arrive in America and he has (ODT)
When Trump was done reading his teleprompter remarks in an almost bored monotone, he turned around and left the lectern, his aides who had stood beside him only as props in tow, with reporters calling out for him to take questions. What had been announced as a “press conference” turned out only to be a brief statement, wasting the time of all the reporters who had waited for Trump as the day ticked by. Reporters were stunned, having expected the president to address the many other issues roiling the nation. Instead, he seemed laser-focused on an issue he’s trying to leverage for his re-election: demonizing China.
The world and country are in chaos and mourning, and it’s clear both could use some leadership. But as many pointed out, it was probably better that Trump left the press conference without taking questions — his interactions with reporters have rarely if ever made anything better or clearer. He probably would have just stoked tensions among various groups even further.
Trump is incapable of being a leader for the country or the world. And it seems at this point, he’s not even trying.
Donald Trump’s bloodthirsty threat to have protesters in Minneapolis shot by the military, issued in a tweet early Friday morning, prompted Twitter to restrict access to the president’s message, ruling that it violated the social network’s policy against “glorifying violence.”
via The Racist History Behind Trump’s Threat to Shoot Protesters
Will we stand with the protesters of Hong Kong? Crucially would Australia, among others, be able to keep talking to Beijing, to keep diplomatic channels open?
The coronavirus crisis has brought front-and-centre the question of how the world lives with an increasingly-powerful authoritarian China. We have already seen a descent into insult and threat — from both sides.
It has been called a new Cold War, perhaps so, but China is far more critical to the global economy and more interconnected with our lives than the Soviet Union was.
The China challenge also comes at a time when freedom and democracy is weaker in the West. The world was always heading to this moment.
via Hong Kong and China’s fate has been clear all along. Xi Jinping is seeing it through – ABC News
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Pregnant and jailed for $3.60 of meth, this mother’s baby lived and died behind bars
Cambodia’s little-known war on drugs has led to human rights abuses and severe overcrowding in prisons, sparking fears they could become incubators for COVID‑19.
via Cambodia’s drug war has seen prisoner numbers skyrocket during coronavirus pandemic – ABC News
In China, as around the world, the pandemic is calling for far-reaching social and economic change. The direction this will take is subject to fierce struggles; and the outcome will also depend on our reading of how societies have dealt with the COVID-19 outbreak and the lessons we draw from it. Instead of exceptionalizing and othering China, progressives around the world have to see beyond the logic of nationalism and recognize the interconnectedness of our fights. The enemy in this pandemic is not China but inequality and the logic of profit over people.
The coronavirus emergency has dramatised this. In the US, people have poured into state capitals to demonstrate against pandemic precautions derived from the advice of public health experts. Antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists have been front and centre at the events. Facebook has played a crucial role in allowing the anti-lockdown movement to organise at a local level. And frequently people are coming to state capitols from the same rural areas where newspapers have been supplanted by cable news and partisan websites.
This perfect informational storm has driven the US slightly mad. Its effects have been fractal. Shattered local news ecosystems have made local communities easy prey for ideologues and grifters; at the same time, a polarised national media landscape makes any resolution of the country’s abiding problems difficult to envision.
Now the storm is settling in over Australia.
olddogthoughts 