Every so often I’ll look up what certain twentieth-century intellectuals said of Francisco Franco. I’m always struck by how many of them were fooled by him: they swooned, like innocent debutantes, when the blue-shirted Falange marched past. To my mind, this “Franco test” is for the political right what the Stalinist show trials were for […]
Archive for category: #Fascism #Elections #Bonapartism
Trump’s anointment as some type of new Jesus Christ is a symptom of a much larger problem with the Christian right
The 5th Circuit judges nodded approval of a 19th century federal law that was used to ban books and birth control
Jeff Sharlet on how the cult of Trump metastasizes.
David Broder
In the Italian far right’s version of identity politics LGBTQ families, migrants, and women are all targets.
The post Giorgia Meloni’s Government Declares War on Same-Sex Parents appeared first on The Nation.
Former President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday’s edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight that “nuclear warming” is the “biggest problem” facing human civilization.
“This is, look, I’m an environmentalist also, I guess in my own way because I’ve done a good job with the environment,” said Trump, whose administration dismantled hundreds of regulations designed to protect ecosystems and curb excessive pollution by gigantic corporations.
“But nobody talks about nuclear,” the Florida resident continued. “The problem. The problem we have, the biggest problem we have in the whole world, it’s not global warming, it’s nuclear warming, and all it takes is one mad man and you’re gonna have a problem, the likes of which the world has never seen, and it’s only a matter of seconds. You don’t have to wait two to 300 years for it to happen.”
READ MORE: ‘I call it the n-word’: Donald Trump delivers clueless response to question about nuclear weapons
Watch below or at this link.
u201cDonald Trump: “I’m an environmentalist also, I guess, in my own way, because I’ve done a good job with the environment…the biggest problem we have in the whole world, it’s not global warming. It’s nuclear warming.”u201d— Republican Accountability (@Republican Accountability)
1681259083
READ MORE: ‘What a deranged psychopath’: Twitter utterly confused by Donald Trump’s ‘loving Easter message’
In what Palestine defenders and even one mainstream U.S. Jewish group called a perilous provocation, leaders of Israel’s far-right government accompanied thousands of settlers shielded by a heavy military presence on a Monday march to an illegal colony in the occupied West Bank.
Senior officials in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right Cabinet—including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—and numerous right-wing lawmakers joined a crowd of as many as 20,000 pro-apartheid demonstrators who marched to Evyatar in a bid to legitimize the outpost, The Times of Israel reports.
According to Haaretz, 22 Palestinians including residents of the nearby town of Beita were wounded when Israeli occupation forces fired on them with less-lethal weapons including rubber-tipped steel bullets during and after the march. More than 100 people including journalists also suffered from inhaling gas used by Israeli forces to disperse counter-demonstrators. At least two journalists were hospitalized as a result of their injuries.
Meanwhile, marchers brought inflatable bouncy houses and other amusements to entertain children during the demonstration.
u201cThousands of Israeli settlers marched through the northern West Bank today towards the Palestinian village of Beita flanked by Israeli regime forces. nnAmong them were dozens of Israeli regime ministers & lawmakers. nnMeanwhile Palestinians were tear gassed & their roads closed.u201d— Dr. Yara Hawari u062f. u064au0627u0631u0627 u0647u0648u0627u0631u064a (@Dr. Yara Hawari u062f. u064au0627u0631u0627 u0647u0648u0627u0631u064a)
1681137061
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the march as “a dangerous escalation and provocation of the Palestinian people and an extension of the incitement calls of the Israeli right and the fascist right to deepen settlement at the expense of land.”
Yumna Patel, Palestine news director at Mondoweiss, said on Twitter: “The cognitive dissonance is truly astounding. Israeli settlers march on stolen land, in a settler colony that’s given them the land to steal and colonize, alongside an army whose singular goal is to protect them. And yet, somehow, they are the victims in their own narrative.”
The liberal U.S. Jewish group J Street also condemned the march, tweeting that “this is an incendiary and deeply dangerous act by some of the most senior ministers in the Israeli government.”
“Their vision is clear: annexation, endless conflict, and chaos,” the group added.
u201cFar-right Israeli ministers join settler march for illegal Evyatar outpostnnIsraeli settlers marched near Nablus in the occupied West Bank to demand the re-establishment and legalisation of the evacuated illegal outpost of Evyatar (Avitar) near the Palestinian town of Beitau201d— Middle East Monitor (@Middle East Monitor)
1681207188
However, Ben-Gvir—who is a settler—asserted that “we are here, and we are marching toward the future… I hope the entire state of Israel understands this.”
Smotrich told Haaretz while marching that “God willing, we’ll bring here another half-million Jews on top the half-million that are already here.”
United Nations experts say the true number of Israeli settlers colonizing the West Bank and East Jerusalem is closer to 700,000.
Evyatar, an exclusively Jewish community first established in 2013, is built on stolen Palestinian land on Mount Sabih in Beita, south of Nablus. The settlement is illegal under both international and Israeli law and has been repeatedly destroyed by Israeli authorities.
Since 1967, at least 77 Beita residents have been killed by Israeli forces, many of them during protests, according to Patel.
u201cThe Palestinians in Beit have been protesting against the Evyatar outpost since 2021. At least 7 people, including 2 children, from the town have been killed over the course of the protests. We covered Beita’s fight against the outpost back in 2021 https://t.co/Nw4aLS7LzDu201d— Yumna (@Yumna)
1681231625
The last mass eviction of Evyatar took place in June 2021. However, while the Israeli military says the outpost is “flagrantly illegal,” scores of homes have been built there with soldiers’ help and the government has provided the community with electricity, water, and roads.
On February 27—the day after settlers’ deadly rampage through the Palestinian town of Huwara—Ben-Gvir, who leads the Jewish Power party, defiantly organized a rally in Evyatar, where he called for the assassination of “terrorists” who resist Israeli expansion.
Netanyahu’s government is seeking to “legalize” Evyatar as it did for nine other settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem earlier this year.
When asked by Haaretz why Evyatar has not yet been legalized, Zvi Sukkot, an Israeli lawmaker representing the Religious Zionism party, said that “legalizing such an outpost takes time.”
“We’re not afraid of America,” he added. The Biden administration says it opposes settlement expansion, even while lavishing Israel with billions of dollars in annual military aid and diplomatic cover.
A Florida Republican lawmaker compared transgender people to “mutants” from the X-Men while debating yet another bill that would curtail LGBTQ rights.
During a debate Monday about House Bill 1421, which would ban gender-affirming care for minors and prohibit trans people from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender, Republican Representative Webster Barnaby went on a strange and vitriolic rant.
“I’m looking at society today, and it’s like I’m watching an X-Men movie,” he said. “It’s like we have mutants living among us on planet Earth.”
“This is the planet Earth, where God created men, male, and women, female!” he continued. “The Lord rebuke you Satan, and all of your demons and all of your imps who come and parade before us.”
Barnaby ended his rant by urging his colleagues to vote for HB 1421, which would also make it a third-degree felony for doctors to provide gender-affirming care to trans kids.
Republicans across the country have introduced bills targeting a variety of LGBTQ rights, particularly health care for trans and nonbinary people. Most insist they are protecting children by doing so, but Barnaby went right ahead and said the quiet part out loud: they don’t see trans people as human and worthy of care.
If Republicans really wanted to protect children, they would leave gender-affirming care alone. Such treatments decrease the amount of depression and anxiety that trans and nonbinary teenagers feel, and it makes them less likely to consider suicide. But by passing legislation targeting LGBTQ people, lawmakers demonize the community and put people at risk of real harm.
REUTERS/Steve Marcus
- Paul Singer sounded recession alarms and warned of a lengthy period of low returns.
- The hedge fund manager said the US economy is facing an “extraordinarily dangerous and confusing period,” per the WSJ.
- Singer previously called the subprime mortgage crisis and warned of the post-Covid inflation spike.
Billionaire hedge fund proprietor Paul Singer warned investors of a prolonged market cycle of low returns in financial assets as recession risks continue to mount.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, the founder of Elliott Management and one of the world’s most notable money managers said the US economy is facing an “extraordinarily dangerous and confusing period.”
Financial markets are facing a slew of obstacles on top of an already difficult macro environment as the Federal Reserve and other central banks continue to hike interest rates to battle stubbornly high inflation.
“Valuations are still very high. There’s a significant chance of recession,” Singer said. “We see the possibility of a lengthy period of low returns in financial assets, low returns in real estate, corporate profits, unemployment rates higher than exist now and lots of inflation in the next round.”
And if the next recession hits, central bankers will ease monetary policy again, thinking that inflation has been conquered, he added. But inflation will come back, possibly even more than before, meaning rates will have to go higher for longer, he said.
Singer was one of the first to call the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, and warned of high inflation at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In an April 2020 letter to investors, Singer said: “We think it is very unlikely that central bankers will move to normalize monetary policy after the current emergency is over… The world has moved demonstrably closer to a tipping point after which money printing, prices and the growth of debt are in an upward spiral that the monetary authorities realize cannot be broken except at the cost of a deep recession and credit collapse.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
As French workers intensify their fight against President Emmanuel Macron’s deeply unpopular plan to raise the nation’s retirement age from 62 to 64, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
A poll released Wednesday
shows that reactionary lawmaker Marine Le Pen—leader of the far-right National Rally party, the largest opposition force in Parliament—would beat Macron by a margin of 55% to 45% in a head-to-head rematch. The neoliberal incumbent defeated Le Pen in a runoff election last April, but the openly xenophobic and Islamophobic challenger has gained significant ground since their first matchup in 2017.
The new survey was conducted after Macron
advanced his planned retirement age hike through executive order on March 16. The president bypassed the National Assembly once it became clear that his legislative proposal did not have enough support to pass France’s lower house.
“We’re in the middle of a social crisis, a democratic crisis.”
Macron’s blatantly anti-democratic move provoked an uproar. The labor movement had already been staging weekly nationwide strikes and peaceful marches since mid-January. But the president’s decision to circumvent a vote last month has brought more people to the streets, with heightened participation from high school and university students, some of whom have set up barricades on campus.
Progressive lawmakers and union leaders have urged the working class to keep up the pressure, portraying the left’s struggle against Macron’s pension attack as a struggle for democracy in France.
“Either trade unions win this, or it will be the far right,” Fabien Villedieu, a representative of a railway trade union,
told France Info radio on Thursday. “If you sicken people—and that is what’s happening—the danger is the arrival of the far right.”
Laurent Berger, head of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor,
told RTL radio that “we’re still asking for the reform to be revoked.”
“We’re in the middle of a social crisis, a democratic crisis,” he added.
Macron has so far refused to withdraw his proposed pension overhaul, which includes raising the minimum eligible retirement age and increasing the number of years one must work to qualify for full benefits. France’s constitutional council is evaluating the legality of the government’s plans and is set to issue a decision next Friday.
According to The Guardian:
The constitutional council, which has the power to strike out some or even all of the legislation, will assess the pension changes based on a strict interpretation of the law. Constitutional experts say the council is unlikely to strike the legislation down fully.
The government is playing for time, hoping protests and strikes will fizzle out. Unions want to show that the protest movement still has momentum, whatever the council’s decision.
Hundreds of thousands of people have continued to rally across France in recent weeks. The government has responded with an increasingly
repressive crackdown.
An 11th round of strikes on Thursday caused further disruption to schools, public transit, and energy production. In addition, clashes broke out “between demonstrators and police on the edges of protests in cities including Lyon, Nantes, and Paris,”
The Guardian reported.
Workers’ anger is palpable and mounting.
“In the capital, protesters briefly set fire to the awning of the Left Bank brasserie La Rotonde, well known for hosting Macron’s controversial evening of celebrations when he led the first-round vote in the 2017 presidential election,”
The Guardian noted.
Meanwhile, rat catchers threw dead vermin at city hall.
u201cParis has been without trash pickup for weeks. Chaos and garbage everywhere. And rats: lots of rats.nnNow the rat catchers joined the protest against the Pension Reform, and threw the dead vermin in front of the charming Hotel de Ville, Paris City Hall.nnud83dudd25ud83dudd25ud83dudd25u201d— Paul Serran (@Paul Serran)
1680748331
Also on Thursday, striking workers “forced their way into the building that houses BlackRock’s office in Paris Thursday, taking their protest against the government’s pension reforms to the world’s biggest money manager,” CNN reported. “About 100 people, including representatives of several labor unions, were on the ground floor of the building for about 10 minutes, chanting anti-reform slogans. BlackRock’s office is located on the third floor.”
Jerome Schmitt, a spokesperson for the French labor confederation SUD, told reporters: “The meaning of this action is quite simple. We went to the headquarters of BlackRock to tell them: the money of workers, for our pensions, they are taking it.”
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with a nearly $9 trillion portfolio, has not been involved in Macron’s assault on France’s public pension system. But workers targeted the financial institution due to its role in overseeing the private pension funds that they may be forced to rely on.
“The government wants to throw away pensions, it wants to force people to fund their own retirement with private pension funds,” one teacher told Reuters. “But what we know is that only the rich will be able to benefit from such a setup.”
u201cStriking workers storm BlackRocku2019s Paris office to protest the corporate giantu2019s role in privatizing workersu2019 pensions.nnJerome Schmitt, a union spokesperson, said, u201cThe meaning of this action is quite simple. We went to the headquarters of BlackRock to tell them: the money ofu2026u201d— More Perfect Union (@More Perfect Union)
1680789576
Le Pen, for her part, “has kept a low profile, hoping to increase her support among low-income workers, many of whom began their careers earlier and will be more greatly affected by the pension changes,” The Guardian reported.
Earlier this week, left-wing luminaries alarmed by France’s escalating repression of pension defenders as well as environmentalists campaigning against water privatization signed a Progressive International petition.
“We stand with the French people in the face of violent crackdowns on popular protest and the criminalization of dissent by Emmanuel Macron’s government,” it states. “The extreme violence of the police and the criminalization by the interior minister are clearly aimed at suppressing the movement against the pension cuts. This is an unacceptable attack on the democratic freedoms and human rights of French citizens.”