#new McCarthyism

[serious2020]

Congress Revives Cold War Tactics With New Anti-Communism Curriculum

https://popularresistance.org/congress-revives-cold-war-tactics-with-new-anti-communism-curriculum/ By Alan MacLeod, MintPress News. December 14, 2024 Educate! Above photo: A girl tours an exhibition dedicated to the day of new regions’ reunification with Russia at the Victory Museum on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow, Russia. Kirill Zykov | AP. Congress has just passed a new bill that will see…

[alanshemper]

same vibes

[newyorkthegoldenage]

From the shoulders of cheering, singing supporters, Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson make farewell speeches as they prepare to leave Penn Station for Washington, where they were to start serving one-year prison terms for contempt of Congress, June 9, 1950. The "Hollywood 10" had appeared before the House Un-American Affairs Committee in October, 1947, and refused to answer questions regarding their possible affiliations with the Communist Party. After they were released, they were blacklisted by the Hollywood studios.

Photo: Marty Lederhandler for the AP

[autumngracy]

Trump Openly Defies 9-0 Supreme Court Decision, Promises US Citizens Will Be Sent To Gulag

Laughing, Trump tells Bukele he needs to “build about five more [prisons]” to fit all the “homegrowns” (i.e. American citizens) that Trump wants to deport.

Later, in response to a reporter asking if he planned to return one of the wrongly deported Americans swept up in recent ICE raids and sent without trial to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, despite having no criminal record, Bukele laughs, saying “how can I return him to the United States?” while repeatedly calling the man a terrorist and referring to the act of returning him as “smuggling”. “Of course I’m not gonna do it,” Bukele says, “The question is preposterous! How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States!” “Well, they’d love to have a criminal,” Trump says, pointing to the press members (presumably referring to his political opponents as a whole), “They would love it. They’re—these are sick people.” The man in question, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, immigrated to America from El Salvador around 2011. He has a wife who is a US citizen, and three special needs children. He is currently being held in the mega-prison CECOT. Previously, in 2019, an immigration judge, after reviewing Garcia’s case, refused his plea for asylum, but ruled that he could not be deported back to El Salvador due to safety concerns, as gangs had been “targeting him and threatening him with death because of his family’s pupusa business,” saying that Garcia “would more than likely be harmed if returned to El Salvador.”

[nuclearconsole]

some pre-war musings focusing around a certain min wong (the future good doctor) and his younger brother, benji, set right at the beginning of the resource wars

(in my canon, pre-war america is a slow, uneasy crawl from a future shaped by the late invention of the transistor into a curated fantasy of 1950s americana. as the resource wars drag on, the grip of fascism and american exceptionalism tightens.

[millionmovieproject]

NEW EPISODE ALERT!!

In this remarkably glitch-free episode of Social Contract, Nicolette again flies solo while Jared is on his UK tour. In seeing the themes of anti-gay, anti-communist, anti-woman, anti-immigrant, and racism flourish in the government, Nicolette gives a social history of 100 years of the US gov promoting these same things on repeat. Where they once took aim at Hollywood, they now take aim at themselves and the general population. They don't change, but can we?

Watch here:

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[wolrith]

so funny how people haven't commonly made the connection that one of the closest people to the founder of arguably the most violently fascist ideologies the US has ever seen, McCarthyism, tutored Donald Trump personally in politics.

Roy Cohn was right there alongside senator McCarthur in the red scare fanning the flames and faded into obscurity alongside him. Fred Trump chose him to savvy the big Donald up in politics. That whole strategy of adding insults to people's names to make them stick so catchingly like Sleepy Joe and Desanctimonious Ron is a McCarthy token, one that didn't fly for long back in less treasonous times. Making his base fear the 'other side' so much to rile a sense of community and diehard fandom in them is straight up McCarthyism and im willing to bet whatever that when Don wasn't as senile he was extremely well aware of what kinda treasonous bullshit spells he was casting

[alanshemper]

An Israeli diplomat tried to persuade a leading New York college to cancel a course about the growing debate over whether the Jewish state practices a form of apartheid in Palestine.

The Israeli consul for public diplomacy in New York, Yuval Donio-Gideon, took the highly unusual step of contacting Bard College earlier this year to object to the course, Apartheid in Israel-Palestine, on the grounds that it breached the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

When the college defended the course, it came under pressure from pro-Israel groups and from at least one major donor. Robert Epstein, the property developer and co-owner of the Boston Celtics, resigned from Bard’s board of trustees in protest at Bard’s refusal to cancel the subject.

[...]

The course was designed and taught by Nathan Thrall, a Jewish American writer and researcher who lives in Jerusalem.

“The Israeli consulate contacted Bard and said they would like the course to be cancelled. There was mention of the IHRA definition of antisemitism which is the standard means of attempting to silence criticism of Israel,” said Thrall.

“When the consul spoke to Bard they explicitly said that we fear that if we do not make an example out of this class then classes like this are going to sprout like mushrooms all over the US.”

The president of Bard, Leon Botstein, confirmed that Donio-Gideon “called to inquire about the course and to object to it”.

[...]

Drimer wrote to Botstein attempting to link Thrall to Hamas.

“This class is wrong in its inception, and we are ethically compelled to point out why: Nathan Thrall is heavily financed by the government by Qatar, a leading funder of Hamas and other officially designated terrorist groups,” he said.

Thrall previously worked for the International Crisis Group which received a donation from Qatar after he left.

“Must we accept as coincidence Mr Soros finances Mr Thrall and Bard?” Drimer added. “I am compelled to connect the dots.”

Botstein responded to the UCJF letter saying that “as a child of survivors of the Holocaust I am more sensitive than most” to antisemitism.

“There is nothing antisemitic about the course in question. It explores questions that have been the subject of debate in Israel for years. Why should the Jewish community in America be afraid of the same debates and arguments taking place in Israel?” he said.

8 November 2023

[oldshowbiz]

The Hollywood Citizen News, located at Wilcox and Selma, spread Red Scare hysteria throughout Hollywood.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

A youthful Joseph Papp at the box office of the Broadway play Comes a Day, for which he was production stage manager. The picture was taken on November 12, 1958, the day he learned that an arbitrator had ruled in his favor in his complaint against CBS. The network had fired him after he refused to answer questions of a congressional committee probing "un-American activities," i.e., Communism. The arbitrator ordered CBS to re-hire him and pay him $1,500 in back wages (around $16,000 in today's dollars).

Photo: John Lindsay for the AP

[milfygerard]

im sooo obsessed w mark ruffalo hes literally the hulk but also an environmental activist and active communist who posts semi regularly about his activism work on tumblr

[bargainsleuthbooks]

Book Reviews: Audiobook Edition; Q: A Voyage Around the Queen; Gaslight; KLF: Chaos, Magic...; The Christmas Inn; The Christmas You Found Me #NewBooks #BookReviews #Audiobooks #QueenElizabeth #Music #Thriller #ChristmasBooks

#AudiobookReviews Q: A Voyage Around the Queen -unconventional look at Queen Elizabeth II's life Gaslight-fictional story about a cult like NXIVM KFL: Chaos and Magic The Christmas Inn--feel good fiction The Christmas You Found Me #ARCReviews

It’s the busy season at work, and I have been busy at home, too. I’ve found these roundups of my recently read/listened to books less stressful. These books have either recently been published or will be published in the near future. Most books can be found at the affiliate links below or try your local library when they are released! (Amazon US) (Amazon CA) (Amazon UK)  (AbeBooks) (Barnes &…

[helenvaughans]

[...]

The intensity of anger and open desire for using the criminal justice system against Democrats after the verdict surpasses anything seen before in Mr. Trump’s tumultuous years in national politics. What is different now is the range of Republicans who are saying retaliation is necessary and who are no longer cloaking their intent with euphemisms.

Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Mr. Trump who still helps guide his thinking on policy, blared out a directive on Fox News after a jury found Mr. Trump guilty of falsifying financial records to cover up a 2016 campaign hush-money payment to a porn actress. Mr. Miller posed a series of questions to Republicans at every level, including local district attorneys.

“Is every House committee controlled by Republicans using its subpoena power in every way it needs to right now?” he demanded. “Is every Republican D.A. starting every investigation they need to right now?”

“Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe-to-toe with Marxism and beat these Communists,” Mr. Miller said, using the catchall slurs Trump allies routinely use against Democrats.

Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief strategist to Mr. Trump, said in a text message to The New York Times on Tuesday that now was the moment for obscure Republican prosecutors around the country to make a name for themselves by prosecuting Democrats.

“There are dozens of ambitious backbencher state attorneys general and district attorneys who need to ‘seize the day’ and own this moment in history,” Mr. Bannon wrote.

And Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee who is in contention to be Mr. Trump’s running mate, wrote on X that President Biden was “a demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people” and it was now time to “fight fire with fire” — using flame emojis to represent the fire.

[...]

While president, Mr. Trump repeatedly told aides he wanted the Justice Department to indict his political enemies. The Justice Department opened various investigations of Mr. Trump’s adversaries but did not ultimately bring charges — infuriating Mr. Trump and contributing to a split in 2020 with his attorney general, William P. Barr. Last year, Mr. Trump promised that if elected again, he would appoint a “real special prosecutor” to “go after” Mr. Biden and his family.

Now, it remains unclear whether calls for legal retribution will amount to much in the way of actual prosecutions, at least in the short term. Without control of the White House, people close to Mr. Trump are urging district attorneys and attorneys general in red states to start aggressively targeting Democrats for unspecified crimes.

A central tenet of their argument is that the four criminal cases in four different jurisdictions against Mr. Trump are illegitimate and nothing more than political weaponization of the justice system. They continue to put forward the theory, without evidence, that all four cases are the result of a conspiracy by Mr. Biden — implicitly or explicitly rejecting the notion that Mr. Trump has been charged with crimes based on evidence.

But based on their premise that the charges — and now convictions in the fraudulent business records case — are baseless and were invented for political reasons, they are arguing that Republican prosecutors not only should but can do the same thing to Democrats. In short, having accused Democrats of “lawfare” — or using the law to wage war against political opponents — Republicans are saying they should respond in kind.

Some veteran Republican lawyers have sought to dress up the need for such retribution as a matter of constitutional principle. Among those calling for eye-for-an-eye prosecutions is John C. Yoo, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor best known as the author of once-secret Bush administration legal memos declaring that the president can lawfully violate legal limits on torturing detainees and wiretapping without warrants.

“In order to prevent the case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system, Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents,” Professor Yoo wrote in an essay published by The National Review.

He added: “Only retaliation in kind can produce the deterrence necessary to enforce a political version of mutual assured destruction; without the threat of prosecution of their own leaders, Democrats will continue to charge future Republican presidents without restraint.”

[...]

Speaker Mike Johnson went on Fox News and called on the Supreme Court to “step in” and overturn the Manhattan conviction, granting Mr. Trump immunity from prosecution. In the Senate, a group of Trump allies signed a letter declaring that they will oppose major legislation and Biden administration nominees, although they tend not to vote for Biden policies and nominees anyway.

But the more extreme calls for not just oversight scrutiny and political obstructionism but revenge prosecutions are coming from former senior Trump administration officials and people close to the former president who are expected to play even larger roles in a potential second term. Their message is often apocalyptic.

There is no longer any room, they argue, for weaklings who fetishize decency and restraint.

Mike Davis, a former top Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer who is a close associate of Mr. Trump, is calling for an investigation of the investigators, similar to how the Justice Department under Mr. Trump used the special counsel investigation led by John Durham in a yearslong, unsuccessful attempt to find a basis to accuse high-level Obama administration officials of a crime because of the Russia investigation.

“The Republican attorneys general in Georgia and Florida and the county attorney in Maricopa County, Ariz., need to open investigations” into the prosecutors and investigators pursuing the indictments of Mr. Trump and his allies, Mr. Davis said. He added, “Then on Day 1, when he wins, President Trump needs to open a criminal civil rights investigation.”

Jeff Clark, a former Trump Justice Department official who has been indicted in the Georgia election case for his role in helping Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 vote in that state, has offered another suggestion. He has called for “brave” district attorneys in conservative areas to file lawsuits in federal court against people involved in criminal cases against Mr. Trump, under federal laws that allow people to seek monetary damages from government officials who violate their constitutional rights.

His theory is that the cases are a conspiracy to prevent Mr. Trump from effectively running for president. It remains unclear, however, why local criminal prosecutors would have legal standing to go into federal court and bring such lawsuits. A spokeswoman for Mr. Clark’s employer, the Center for Renewing America, a pro-Trump think tank, did not respond to a request for comment.

[...]

[millionmovieproject]

NEW EPISODE ALERT!!

In this remarkably glitch-free episode of Social Contract, Nicolette again flies solo while Jared is on his UK tour. In seeing the themes of anti-gay, anti-communist, anti-woman, anti-immigrant, and racism flourish in the government, Nicolette gives a social history of 100 years of the US gov promoting these same things on repeat. Where they once took aim at Hollywood, they now take aim at themselves and the general population. They don't change, but can we?

Video link:

Like what you see? We're fully independent and could use your support! Follow on:

YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, & Rumble

[plitnick]

Islamophobia, Palestine, and the Presumption of Antisemitism

Sahar Aziz and I sat down with Marc Steiner of the Real News Network to discuss our report, Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes In the Palestine-Israel Discourse. We discussed the findings of the report in the context of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and the attacks on pro-Palestine activism in the US and elsewhere. Listen to the whole conversation here.

[mossadegh]

To discredit Premier Mossadegh, this CIA written propaganda accused him of allying with Communists and poisoning the soul of the nation. “In place of our traditional gentleness…Iranians are becoming noisy and rough and are resorting to physical violence.”

The Mossadegh Project

• CIA Documents on Iran | 1951-1979