The Acquittal Of Kyle Rittenhouse: A Judicial Travesty

Rittenhouse, 17 at the time of the shootings, had traveled to Kenosha from Illinois to join a far-right “patriot” vigilante militia calling itself the “Kenosha Guard,” which had been mobilized to “defend property” and assist the police with crushing the protests that had erupted two days earlier following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Blake was shot seven times in the back at point-blank range in front of his children, leaving him paralyzed.

The Kenosha shootings occurred in the midst of the reverberations of the largest demonstrations in American history, during which an estimated 15 to 26 million people took to the streets following the murder of George Floyd to protest the epidemic of police killings and official cover-ups.

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The Sound Of His Approaching Step Wakes Me And I See My Land’s Deprivation

On Wednesday, 8 September, party workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling political party, attacked three buildings in the Melarmath area of Agartala (Tripura). These attacks targeted the offices of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the communist newspaper Daily Deshar Katha, and two private media houses Pratibadi Kalam and PN-24. The violence took place in broad daylight as the police stood by and watched. Across Tripura, fifty-four other offices of the communists were attacked.

The Communist Party – CPI(M) – and the media houses had been critical of the BJP-led state government. The CPI(M) and other organisations took to the streets to protest a range of policies; these protests have drawn considerable support from the population.

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‘Coup Pusher’ Bolsonaro Increasingly Isolated In Brazil

The far-right leader did not achieve the tide in his favor that he himself expected to gather to commemorate Independence Day. However, the center of Brasilia, and especially Sao Paulo (125,000 demonstrators), were filled with fervent followers dressed in green and yellow, the national colors.

“Despite his isolation, the president has shown that he is still capable of mobilizing a noisy minority,” wrote journalist Bernardo Mello Franco in the daily O Globo.

The marches saw a heterogeneous mix of far-right activists, pro-gun supporters, evangelicals, bikers, conspiracy and anti-vaccine activists.

The fact that the protesters were non-violent and did not invade the Supreme Court or Congress as feared, in a Brazilian version of the January assault on the Capitol in Washington, came as a relief.

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Combating The Politics And Practice Of Far-Right Influencers

Since the rise of the internet, and especially since the diffusion of the internet through all parts of everyday life, the far right has scattered, diversified and stuck itself back together. The internet has facilitated these tendencies, filtering and contorting familiar forms of activity and ideology, and pushed far-right groups to adapt, causing the decline of some formations and the break-up of others. Despite the lack of formal mass organizations, the far right has not gone away — instead it has produced new configurations of tactics, priorities and goals.

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Intelligence Report Equates Anarchists With Right-Wing Militias

Mainstream Democrats are in a hawkish mood when it comes to “domestic terrorism.” That is bad news for the left.

Immediately upon taking office, President Biden “tasked the director of national intelligence, in coordination with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, with compiling a comprehensive threat assessment on violent domestic extremism,“ according to The Washington Post. This request was prompted by the right-wing attack on the Capitol on January 6.

The resulting report, “Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021,” was submitted on March 1, and its executive summary was released publicly a few days later. 

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Fascist Free 503: Notes On Holding The Streets In Salem

Far-Right groups announced their March 29th car rally event from Sandy to Salem a month ahead of the event. People in Salem began planning a counter-demonstration early on. In January, Proud boys assaulted residents in Salem and also damaged a local business near the capital. Residents knew from prior experience that Salem Police and Oregon State Police wouldn’t do anything to protect them from the potential violence from right-wing fascists. People began to network and organize the basic essentials of a protest: medics, interpreters, legal observers, evacuation routes, maps, volunteers to monitor right-wing accounts and streams. People prepared medical equipment in case protesters were injured by riot munitions or exposed to tear gas.

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Proud Boys Leader Was ‘Prolific’ Informer For Law Enforcement

Washington, DC – Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group, has a past as an informer for federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor and a transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding obtained by Reuters.

In the Miami hearing, a federal prosecutor, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Tarrio’s own lawyer described his undercover work and said he had helped authorities prosecute more than a dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling.

Tarrio, in an interview with Reuters Tuesday, denied working undercover or cooperating in cases against others.

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How The Israeli Flag Became A Symbol For White Nationalists

As thousands gathered in Washington on Jan. 6 for the fateful Donald Trump rally that would end in the storming of the U.S. Capitol, an Israeli flag was spotted in the crowd, flying alongside flags championing the QAnon conspiracy, the III% militia movement, and other popular right-wing causes. “The Bible says, if you bless Israel, you should be blessed,” explained the protestor waving the flag, repeating a Bible verse beloved by the Christian Zionist movement. “So, we’re a nation that supports Israel.” Later, the flag was spotted directly outside the Capitol building during the siege, while another masked protestor sported a black-and-white Israeli flag sown onto his paramilitary vest, beside a pro-police “Thin Blue Line” flag.

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The Capitol Was Stormed Long Ago

There are key flashpoints that define the Trump years. The escalator speech. The “total and complete shutdown.” Charlottesville. But these were not qualitatively dissimilar from the bulk of his Presidential term, during which racism and violence became ubiquitous. These forces were the water we swam in—which was already the case for BIPOC and marginalized communities. But the Trump era saw these social dynamics doused in accelerant.

The aggressive war on the border, the pathological cruelty of social service cuts, or the police siege against social movements are not the only defining facets of the Trump presidency.

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Lessons From The Attack On The US Capitol

What happened Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol was a violent takeover of Congress by a fascist mob, not a “protest by Trump supporters.” And, although five people died and there were more than 50 arrests, it’s obvious to the wide public that these overwhelmingly white lawbreakers were handled much differently than they would have been had they been Black or other people of color.

You can call it an attempted coup. But it was not a sign of imminent fascism. It was a mob egged on by a deranged egomaniac enraged that he has become the only incumbent president in nearly 30 years to be defeated in an election.

Why is this important to say? Because we need to know what we’re up against so we can be prepared to deal with it.

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The Trump Administration’s Parting Outrage Against Cuba

On January 11, in his final days before leaving office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added one parting blow to the series of bludgeons his administration has inflicted on Cuba for four years: putting the island on the list of “state sponsors of terror” that includes only Iran, North Korea and Syria. The designation drew swift condemnation from policymakers and humanitarian groups as a decision widely characterized as “politically motivated.” It comes six years after the Obama administration had removed Cuba from the same list as part of his policy of rapprochement.

In the six years since, Trump’s State Department could not point to a single act of terror sponsored by Cuba.

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Details Emerge Of High-Level State Involvement In January 6 Events

In the aftermath of the January 6 fascist coup attempt in Washington DC, new revelations show that the plot was prepared with the involvement of sections of the military, police and Republican Party. The danger has not passed. Trump remains president for 11 days and is using the White House as the nerve center for his efforts to remain in office. There is every indication that plans for a second putsch attempt on Inauguration Day—January 20—are now underway.

The minimal police presence at the Capitol building on Wednesday was not a mistake or oversight, as the corporate media has claimed, but part of a high-level conspiracy.

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Violent Right Wing Forces Have Been Activated, It Requires Strategic Action To Stop Them

Since the assault on the US Capitol on January 6 by right-wing Trump supporters, the fallout has been rapid. The Democrats, both elected officials and voters, were quick to jump on the impeachment train. Some elected officials are calling for Members of Congress who supported the events to resign and to refuse to seat them in the new Congress. Employers are firing employees who participated or supported the events. And, people on the Left are cheering on social media censorship and calling for stronger laws to go after domestic terrorists.

It is important in times of crisis like this to pause, take a deep breath and think about the ramifications of our responses given the present makeup of the US political structure.

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Upheaval In The Government As US Capitol Riot Fallout Spreads

Washington, DC — Dozens of Legislators led by House Majority Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D), called for the Vice President to remove Executive powers from the President as the country reeled from the Wednesday riots at the U.S. Capitol. Lead Democratic Lawmakers said they would start impeachment proceedings against President Trump on Monday if Vice President Pence did not act quickly to remove the President under provisions of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. Some Legislators are calling the riots an attempted coup while others are demanding those involved be charged with sedition.

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False Equivalencies Re Antifa/Fascism

I read Glenn Greenwald’s latest article titled “Violence in the Capitol, Dangers in the Aftermath” and found myself nodding in agreement with 95% of what he wrote. But there was one big problem with this article that I just couldn’t leave alone – so here I am with a little note on a big problem.

The issue I have comes at the end of his piece where he severely downplays the threats of right-wing violence while simultaneously raising the threat level of left-wing violence. He writes: “there are right-wing activists filled with rage and who are willing to engage in violence. Some of them are dangerous (just as some Muslims in the post-9/11 era, and some Antifa nihilists, were and are genuinely violent and dangerous).”

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