Trump Sends Federal Agents Into Chicago!

by Carl Dix

The fascist in chief, Donald Trump, tweeted, "Crime and killings in Chicago have reached such epidemic proportions that I am sending in Federal help" He has been threatening to send the feds in to fix the violence in Chicago since his inauguration. Now 20 additional agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) have been assigned to Chicago to work with the police to deal with gun violence.

The Trump regime blames Black people for the violence in Chicago. When asked what's driving this violence at a press briefing, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "I think that the problem there [Chicago] is pretty clear that it's a crime problem. I think that crime is probably driven more by morality than anything else." A representative of a president who wakes up in the morning to spew out women-hating tweets and lies on an almost daily basis, and more, has no basis to question anybody's morality.

And even worse, they're blaming Black people for what the system is responsible for. It's the capitalist-imperialist system that creates the conditions that have young Black people caught up in killing each other. The system has segregated Black people into torn-up communities with few legitimate ways to survive and raise families. The system has geared the educational system to fail the youth. And it has given the police a green light to brutalize and even murder Black people. This leaves people with no way to be somebody except to take up the street life and its code of revenge and retaliation.

The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and the order that enforces all this oppression and madness.

Sending the feds into Chicago won't do anything good for Black people, or anybody else. This is the fascist Trump/Pence regime seizing on the way so many Black people are caught up in killing each other to make Chicago ground zero for an overall offensive against Black people. These ATF agents are the advance guard of an overall program that will bring a reign of terror down on Black people. Along with sending in federal agents, the Trump/Pence regime will dole out a few jobs to enlist people as enforcers for their fascist program, destroy the public schools, and send students to schools that will turn them into Christian fundamentalist drones who are unable to think or resist.

This reign of terror will be on top of the centuries of oppression this system has already perpetrated against Black people. This country built up its wealth and power on the basis of enslaving generations of African people. It continued to brutally exploit and oppress Black people for decades as sharecroppers on the same plantations where many had been slaves, subjecting them to Jim Crow segregation and lynch mob terror. In cities like Chicago, Black people have been bled dry thru cruel and perverse new forms of exploitation and oppression. Now Trump has a program that would take all this to a whole other level, speeding up the slow genocide this system has already been inflicting on Black people.

The fascist threats and measures of the Trump/Pence regime have reached epidemic proportions--the Muslim travel ban; deporting even more immigrants than the deporter in chief, Barack Obama; tweets that drip with hatred of women and attacks on women's rights; destroying the feeble measures the U.S. had taken to address the devastation of the environment; military aggression and threats of even more aggression; intensifying the War on Drugs and taking the gloves off the police, who have been getting away with murdering Black people again and again. And now, beginning to send the feds to Chicago. All this calls for resistance that is commensurate to the horrors being perpetrated--resistance that aims to drive this regime from office.

And as part of doing that, everybody who hates injustice has to call out Trump sending federal agents to Chicago for what it really is--part of an overall offensive that aims to beat Black people down so far, they could never do anything about the oppression this system enforces on them. And everybody MUST firmly oppose this!

New Orleans mayor denounces 'false narrative of our history' in speech defending Confederate monument removal

The last of four major Confederate monuments in New Orleans came down on Friday, the final step of a campaign launched in 2015 by Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

While construction workers were taking down the enormous statue of Robert E. Lee, Landrieu delivered a powerful speech about Confederate monuments, the reason they were erected —and why they must come down.

The SPLC joined a number of grassroots organizers including Take 'Em Down NOLA and filed an amicus brief supporting the removal of the monuments. The SPLC has also catalogued the number of publicly supported symbols of the Confederacy around the country and the number of symbols removed since the Charleston massacre. 

Landrieu's speech is, as David Menschel said, "one of the most honest speeches given by a Southern politician." We've printed it in full below:

Watch Mayor Mitch Landrieu deliver his speech here. 

Thank you for coming.

The soul of our beloved city is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way—for both good and for ill. It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans—the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando de Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Colorix, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of France and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese, and so many more.

You see, New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of many cultures. There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum: out of many we are one. But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market, a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were bought, sold, and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor, of misery, of rape, of torture. America was the place where nearly 4000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined “separate but equal”; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp. So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well, what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions, why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans. So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission. There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it.

For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth. As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.” So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other. So, let's start with the facts.

The historic record is clear: The Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This “cult” had one goal—through monuments and through other means—to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity. First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy. It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy, ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone's lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city. Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy. He said in his now famous “corner-stone speech” that the Confederacy's “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us, and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago. We can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and a more perfect union.

Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it. President Obama said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history. … On a stone where day after day for years, men and women … bound and bought and sold and bid like cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history with a plaque, were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.”

A piece of stone—one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored. As clear as it is for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family's long proud history of fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought. So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race.

I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes. Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth-grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it? Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too? We all know the answer to these very simple questions. When you look into this child's eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can't walk away from this truth.

And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics. This is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naive quest to solve all our problems at once.

This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong. Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division and, yes, with violence.

To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past. It is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.

And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans—or anyone else—to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd. Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. Here is the essential truth: We are better together than we are apart.

Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world? We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz, the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures. Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think.

All we hold dear is created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something better; everything a product of our historic diversity. We are proof that out of many we are one—and better for it! Out of many we are one—and we really do love it! And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words. “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

We forget, we deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in historical denial. We still find a way to say, “Wait, not so fast.” But like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Wait has almost always meant never.” We can’t wait any longer. We need to change. And we need to change now.

No more waiting. This is not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain. While some have driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts; not only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver.

Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side. Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.

He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don't respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.” Yes, Terence, it is. And it is long overdue. Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps.

A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond: Let us not miss this opportunity, New Orleans, and let us help the rest of the country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right in the first place.

We should stop for a moment and ask ourselves: At this point in our history—after Katrina, after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP oil catastrophe and after the tornado—if presented with the opportunity to build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces, would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our story?

We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations. And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people. In our blessed land we all come to the table of democracy as equals. We have to reaffirm our commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That is what really makes America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America. Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in … all of the way. It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes. Instead of revering a 4-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy, we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans, and set the tone for the next 300 years.

After decades of public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6–1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments, in accordance with the law, have been removed. So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become.

Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned, and now universally loved Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.” So before we part let us again state the truth clearly.

The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered. As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history.

Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause. Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds … to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

The complete list of American cities where neo-Nazis are known to operate

March 3rd, 2017 — Fascism

Via: Getty Images

By Eric Lutz 4 days ago

The number of neo-Nazi and other radical right-wing hate groups increased during President Donald Trump’s ascent to power, according to a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

From 2015 to 2016, the number of hate groups rose from 892 to 917, as fringe groups worked their way into the mainstream through Trump, whom white nationalists see as an ally to their cause.

“2016 was an unprecedented year for hate,” Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the SPLC and editor of the organization’s Intelligence Report, said. “The country saw a resurgence of white nationalism that imperils the racial progress we’ve made, along with the rise of a president whose policies reflect the values of white nationalists.”

Of those 917 hate groups, 99 of them are classified as neo-Nazi organizations, according to the SPLC’s Hate Map. They exist all across the country, and cities both big and small have experienced neo-Nazi and white nationalistactivity.

Residents of Whitefish, Montana — the 7,000-person town where alt-right poster boy Richard Spencer has a home — said they experienced anti-Semitic trolling and threats from neo-Nazis after the town issued a proclamation denouncing Spencer, the Guardian reported. Business owners in the resort town said they faced messages like, “Your time is up, you leftist faggot” and “Hitler Claus is coming to town.” The Daily Stormer, the neo-Nazi hate site that may have influencedCharleston church shooter Dylann Roof, called for a 200-person armed march through the town to be held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, according to the Guardian. The march did not happen — Standing Rock veterans and anti-fascist demonstrators turned up instead — but the harassment and threats made international headlines and put the small town on edge.

In California and Washington, neo-Nazi literature and recruitment posters have been found on college campuses.

And two Jewish cemeteries — one in Philadelphiaand another in St. Louis — were vandalized in the same week amid a spike in bomb threats against Jewish community centers.

We appear to be seeing a re-energizing of neo-Nazi and other hate groups in the United States.

Here is a complete list of cities home to neo-Nazi groups, according to the SPLC:

A neo-Nazi rally in 2010.Source: Mark Ralston /Getty Images

Alabama

Cullman

Arizona

Phoenix

Tucson

California

Los Angeles

Mountain View

Santa Cruz

Santa Monica

Colorado

Denver

Florida

Brandon

Orlando

Georgia

Villa Rica

Illinois

Bloomington

Canton

Lyons

Taylorville

Wood River

Indiana

Indianapolis

Warsaw

Iowa

Amana

Kentucky 

Louisville

Louisiana

Converse

Maryland

Baltimore

Massachusetts

Cambridge

Lowell

Michigan

Detroit

Grand Rapids

Westland

Wyandotte

Missouri

Grovespring

St. Louis

Nebraska

Fairbury

Lincoln

Nevada

Carson City

Las Vegas

New York

Astoria

New York City

North Carolina

Asheville

Charlotte

Raleigh

Ohio

Columbus

Worthington

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

Pittsburgh

South Dakota

Rapid City

Tennessee

Laurel Bloomery

Nashville

Texas

Austin

Dallas

San Antonio

Wichita Falls

Vermont

Burlington

Washington

Seattle

Spokane

West Virginia

Hillsboro

Wisconsin

Milwaukee

There are also a number of statewide neo-Nazi groups that are not affiliated with a specific city. In addition to the states listed above, there are statewide groups based in Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

Valentine 2017

I'd like to see America fall in love with knowledge and critical reasoning skills again for Valentine's Day this year.

Only You

14 Characteristics of Fascism

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections- Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

A Preview of Incoming Horrors

On December 23, 2016, the United States abstained from voting on and did not veto, a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel. That’s news. For 45 years, the United States has vetoed almost every UN resolution criticizing Israel. This vote (and the U.S. not vetoing it) was greeted with applause by a packed UN Security Council chamber. It reflects serious differences between the Obama administration and Israel, and between what has been Obama’s policy and what Donald Trump threatens to do. And it was seen by some as a hopeful sign that the Obama administration was erecting barriers to what Trump has vowed to do—give uncritical and unlimited support to every crime Israel commits against the Palestinian people. In response, Trump lashed out with the ominous tweet: “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th.”

These events are not a basis for hope. They are not an indication that the U.S. and the UN will now rein in some of Israel’s most egregious crimes against the Palestinian people. They do not prevent, but portend, terrible giant leaps backward that a Trump regime would bring to an already intolerable situation in the Middle East and the world.

Israel’s Settlements and the Role of the U.S.

The Security Council resolution condemns Israel for building “settlements” in areas of Palestine that the UN recognizes as territory that should be administered by Palestinians. Those settlements are highly militarized encampments of heavily armed Israeli settlers engaged in expanding the terrorist ethnic cleansing of sections of Palestine.

The settlements violate international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention—which has been adopted by nearly every country on Earth—prohibits an occupying power from transferring its citizens into the territory it occupies and from transferring or displacing the population of an occupied territory within or outside the territory (See “Occupation Inc.” from Human Rights Watch.)
The wording of the UN resolution condemns “all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character, and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia [among others], the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions.” And it expresses “grave concern that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperiling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines.”1

Every other country represented on the UN Security Council voted for the resolution. Because the U.S. abstained (didn’t vote), and didn’t veto the resolution, it passed.

Trump’s Thuggish Intervention—Even Before He Is Supposed to Take Office

Before the vote, Donald Trump attacked the decision of the Obama administration on Facebook and Twitter and vowed to reverse it. And in a stunning move, Trump called Egypt’s ruler, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and “convinced” him to withdraw the resolution (Egypt was the resolution’s original sponsor). There is no official record of what kind of “offer he can’t refuse” was made in this phone call, but immediately afterward, according to official statements from Sisi’s office, “The presidents [note: presidents plural—even though Barack Obama is the currently elected president of the United States!] agreed on the importance of affording the new US administration the full chance to deal with all dimensions of the Palestinian case...” (“Egypt: Trump convinced Sisi to withdraw UN resolution,” Al Jazeera, December 23, 2016)

Take note: Here you had Trump, before he is even in power, pushing aside supposed foundational rules that have governed how things work in the U.S. (like you don’t get to be president until your predecessor’s term is up!). Consider this thuggish move one more flashing red-light warning sign of how little respect a Trump regime would have for rule of law when he is in power. And if Trump has this little respect for the supposed safeguards of the rule of law, as well as what have been standing precedents of policy, when it pertains to his fellow members of the ruling class, what will he care when these are supposed to protect the masses from the state power he will soon be wielding?

After Trump’s phone call to Sisi, other countries assumed sponsorship of the resolution, and it passed.

What’s Behind the Non-Veto?

As an expression of U.S. financial, military, and diplomatic backing for Israel, the U.S. has vetoed hundreds of UN resolutions criticizing or condemning Israel.2Today’s departure from that policy does reflect increasing strains in the “special relationship” as both sides refer to U.S. backing for Israel. Even more specifically, it reflects real concerns by the Obama administration that Trump is going to throw out the “rule book” when it comes to Israel in a way that, as they see it, U.S. interests around the world will be greatly endangered.

Samantha Power, the U.S. representative to the UN, began her statement on the resolution with a quote: “[T]he immediate adoption of a settlement freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in [peace] talks. Further settlement activity is in no way necessary for the security of Israel and only diminishes the confidence of the Arabs that a final outcome can be freely and fairly negotiated.” She then attributed the quote to its author, Ronald Reagan. She began her speech this way to make the point, especially to those in the U.S. ruling class who were lashing out at Obama, that formal opposition to Israeli settlements has always been a principle of U.S. foreign policy. At the same time, she presented a long defense of Israel and defended the U.S. decision to abstain, rather than vote for the resolution.

As the U.S. has worked to cobble together global coalitions, and patch together motley collections of tyrants to serve its interests in the Middle East and beyond, Israel’s ongoing and escalating crimes against the Palestinians have presented real problems. Including that Israel’s egregious crimes have created real problems for U.S. rulers in their efforts to present themselves as champions of freedom and democracy around the world.
       
At the same time, the rulers of the U.S. are stuck with and sticking by Israel as a unique enforcer and base for the U.S. empire. There is no regime in the Middle East, other than Israel, with anything close to the economic and military power, and (so far) reliable base of support among its own population.
These real contradictions reached unprecedented levels of tension during the Obama administration. But it was always the purpose of Obama’s policies to strengthen Israel, and its relationship with the U.S. He said this over and over and backed it up. In 2014, Obama increased U.S. military aid to Israel at the very time it was bombing hospitals, UN schools, and residential districts in the Gaza-strip region of Palestine, murdering 2,250 people, most of whom were civilians, including more than 500 children.

Israel’s Special Place in the Trumpite Holy War on Islam

The Trumpites have a very different conception of how to defend and expand the U.S. empire, and a very different solution to the current state of tension between the U.S. and Israel. They see what is going on in the world as a continuation of a 500-year conflict between Christianity and Islam. Their vision is for a global holy war of “Judeo-Christian civilization” against Islam and anyone else who gets in their way.

In a presentation that Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor, Steve Bannon, gave two years ago at a conference held inside the Vatican, Bannon quite clearly laid out a “holy war” perspective of “Judeo-Christian capitalism” versus Islam. He traces this back to religious wars of the past and in the process accuses “secularism” of sapping the “strength” of the West. To get more of a sense of this, read the following question/answer from Bannon’s presentation:

Questioner: One of my questions has to do with how the West should be responding to radical Islam. How, specifically, should we as the West respond to Jihadism without losing our own soul? Because we can win the war and lose ourselves at the same time. How should the West respond to radical Islam and not lose itself in the process?

Bannon: From a perspective—this may be a little more militant than others. I think definitely you’re going to need an aspect that is [unintelligible]. I believe you should take a very, very, very aggressive stance against radical Islam. And I realize there are other aspects that are not as militant and not as aggressive and that’s fine.

If you look back at the long history of the Judeo-Christian West struggle against Islam [editor’s note: Islam full stop, not “radical Islam”], I believe that our forefathers kept their stance, and I think they did the right thing. I think they kept it out of the world, whether it was at Vienna, or Tours, or other places... It bequeathed to us the great institution that is the church of the West.

And I would ask everybody in the audience today, because you really are the movers and drivers and shakers and thought leaders in the Catholic Church today, is to think, when people 500 years from now are going to think about today, think about the actions you’ve taken—and I believe everyone associated with the church and associated with the Judeo-Christian West that believes in the underpinnings of that and believes in the precepts of that and wants to see that bequeathed to other generations down the road as it was bequeathed to us, particularly as you’re in a city like Rome, and in a place like the Vatican, see what’s been bequeathed to us—ask yourself, 500 years from today, what are they going to say about me? What are they going to say about what I did at the beginning stages of this crisis?

Because it is a crisis, and it’s not going away. You don’t have to take my word for it. All you have to do is read the news every day, see what’s coming up, see what they’re putting on Twitter, what they’re putting on Facebook, see what’s on CNN, what’s on BBC. See what’s happening, and you will see we’re in a war of immense proportions. It’s very easy to play to our baser instincts, and we can’t do that. But our forefathers didn’t do it either. And they were able to stave this off, and they were able to defeat it, and they were able to bequeath to us a church and a civilization that really is the flower of mankind, so I think it’s incumbent on all of us to do what I call a gut check, to really think about what our role is in this battle that’s before us.

(“This Is How Steve Bannon Sees The Entire World,” BuzzFeed, November 15, 2016)
(For more analysis of how this “holy war” madness fits into the overall package of the Trump-Pence regime, see “As Democrats Still Call for ‘Working With’ Trump... Trump Goes Further with Fascist Team and Fascist Threats.”)

That vision demands a much closer U.S.-Israel relationship. That is the meaning of Trump’s repeated insistence that there will be “no daylight” between the U.S. and Israel under his rule.

Obama’s mix of criticism of Israel, combined with unwavering support, has infuriated not just the Trumpites but other major, powerful sections of the ruling class (including significant players in both the Republican and Democratic parties). His ruling class critics have demanded a much closer and less critical relationship between the U.S. and Israel. And Obama’s approach has infuriated the fanatical Zionists who dominate Israeli society, who disdain almost any acknowledgment of the Palestinian people as human beings.

In the rabid Zionists in power in Israel, the Trumpites find perfect military and ideological partners in a holy war of “Judeo-Christian civilization” against Islam (and anyone else who gets in their way).3
The Trumpites, or at least the dominant core of them, obliterate the real, and important, distinction between fundamentalist Islamic Jihad on the one hand and Islam on the other. And if you follow the logic-of-the-logic of many of their claims and threats, this DOES add up to a holy war against Islam (and all Muslims). Add to this equation Trump’s stance of If we have nukes, why can’t we use them, and the picture assumes genocidal dimensions.4

The Trumpites demand a totally “free hand” for Israel in crushing the Palestinians, and—with its own substantial nuclear arsenal—running amok in the region without the constraints of U.S. diplomatic intervention. In light of how wildly Israel has lashed out at its “neighbors,” with invasions, bombing, and massacres, up to now... the destabilizing and—again—even genocidal implications of “taking the gloves off” Israel under a Trump regime are almost unimaginable.

In that light, the unusual event of Obama having the U.S. ambassador to the UN stand aside and allow a condemnation of Israeli settlements doesn’t mitigate, but highlights, what an extreme departure the Trump regime would be in how the U.S. relates to Israel, to the Palestinians, and to the world. This is what Trump was foreshadowing when he ominously tweeted, after the vote, “As to the UN, things will be different after Jan. 20th.”

The policy of U.S. backing for Israel’s crimes—coupled with restrained objections—has been in effect for nearly 50 years. It has always meant a living hell for the Palestinians. And more and more, the U.S.-Israel partnership has been a factor in fueling all kinds of reactionary violence in the Middle East.

But this status quo would be undone in a much worse way should Trump become president. A Trump regime would uncork a seismic, unpredictable eruption of reactionary violent conflict in the Middle East and beyond, in ways that are hard to imagine, with a substantially greater risk of nuclear war.
It must be stopped before it starts.

1 The “two-state solution” seeks to legitimize the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist settlers with the backing of Western imperialism, and confine the Palestinian people to small, isolated areas within their homeland, subject to Israeli military encirclement and terror. This “two-state solution” has been the official position of the UN and the U.S. government more or less since the establishment of Israel. It is not a just solution to the violent dispossession of the Palestinian people. But even this pretense of providing for the rights and humanity of the Palestinian people has been increasingly pushed off the table by the rulers of Israel and the U.S.  back
2 Among UN resolutions vetoed by the U.S.: many condemning Israel for invading its neighbors; many criticizing the conditions under which the Palestinians live under Israeli occupation; at least one condemning Israel for supplying apartheid South Africa with nuclear weapons technology; one protesting Israel’s closing of Palestinian universities; one condemning the Israeli parliament for formally declaring intent to assassinate the late Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat; several protesting massacres in Gaza; and hundreds of other resolutions even mildly critical of Israel.  back
3 In the symbiotic relationship between the Trumpites and the rulers of Israel, the prominent role of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites in networks of core Trump supporters is not an issue—for either side. Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi who has been promoted by Trump’s closest advisor Steve Bannon, has upheld Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians as a model for the U.S. in relation to immigrants, Black people, and others who don’t fit into the fascist vision of a “white America.” (See “‘Alt Right’ Leader Ties White Supremacy to Zionism—Leaves Rabbi Speechless,” Forward, December 7, 2016.) And the Zionist rulers of Israel have a long history of collusion and active collaboration with anti-Semitic fascists, including negotiating with Hitler, seeking his backing for a “Jewish homeland” outside of Europe; and—after the establishment of Israel—providing military and intelligence aid to the anti-Semitic fascist junta that ruled Argentina in the 1980s (as documented, for example, in Jacobo Timerman’s book, Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number).  back
4 In August, MSNBC reported: “Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can’t we use them.” (“Trump asks why US can’t use nukes”: MSNBC, August 3, 2016)  back