The far-right tyranny that is threatening the world continues to advance at pace. As the New York Times has reported:
[T]he Heritage contingent [has been] in Israel, in part, to discuss another contentious policy paper: Project Esther, the foundation's proposal to rapidly dismantle the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States, along with its support at schools and universities, at progressive organizations and in Congress.
Drafted in the wake of Hamas's attack on Israel in 2023 and the mounting protests against the war in Gaza, Project Esther outlined an ambitious plan to fight antisemitism by branding a broad range of critics of Israel as “effectively a terrorist support network,” so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excludedfrom what it considered “open society.”
This is the challenge we now face.
The far-right has been emboldened.
It is already destroying free speech, as even the Washington Post is reporting.
It is destroying the rights, hopes and prospects of millions of Americans, as the Washington Post again reports.
And it is destroying the rule of law, as that same paper also reports, despite its pro-Trump bias.
Now, Israel is beginning a military campaign to eradicate Palestinians from Gaza.
Add this all up, and there is a coup going on in the USA, in Israel, and in Gaza.
It is threatened around the world. The long shadow it is creating is already real and changing lives.
Are we really going to live through an age of tyranny, because that is what these people want?
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Agree that the situation in the US is dire (as I’m well aware of being an MSNBC watcher). And yes, as always the far right – fascists – there are trying to export their ideas, as indeed has been the case with anti abortion, nationalist religious fundamentalism, and book banning.
But on a more positive note, the far right, pro Russian/Trump fascist in Romania just lost the Presidential Election, as it looks likely the right wing/nationalist candidate for President has in Poland. They are two really important wins for Europe. And in Portugal, although the far right party did very well, it still looks most likely that they’ll continue to be a right/centre government.
But back to the US, shortages of products will hit shelves over the coming two weeks as the break in trade with China, caused by Trumps tariff war, finally becomes highly visible. And with that MAGA attacks on more and more US retailers as Trump tries to deflect blame away from himself (he started on Walmart in posts on Friday). So more and more companies and corporations are going to have to “eat” the tariff costs – as Trumps says they should – or have the courage to tell consumers the truth.
And what’s Trump going to do with the courts? Another loss last week with only the two utterly corrupt Justices voting for Trump, which means it’s now apparent that even his three picks for the Court cannot be relied on to side with him, when it comes to making a choice between their interpretation of the law and his attempts at dictatorship.
So who knows which way this goes as the population become more and more anti Trump. Does the boot come down hard (martial law by the end of the year)? “Show” trials of his “enemies” – starting with Comey and all those involved in the Russia investigations and impeachments?
I’m sure that’s what Trump himself would want, and people like Stephen Miller and many others would support. But big cracks are appearing amongst people in the MAGA blogsphere, like Shapiro and Rogan – and they carry a lot of weight. And although Fox News/Propaganda continues to be loyal other parts of the Murdoch empire not so much – Wall Street Journal especially, and even the New York Times.
All we can really say at this point, I think, is that ‘we live in interesting times’.
The New York Times’ detailed expose of the extreme right wing and highly influential Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther plan’s to decimate liberal thought in US academia by withdrawing federal funds on which even rich private universes need to fund publicly oriented medical science and applied technology. Heritage also has implemented draconian plans to c intimidate academics and students into closing down free speech on campus, especially pro-Palestinian solidarity. The way that the US immigration police, ICE, kidnapped recently graduated Palestinian student, Mahmoud Khalil, without a warrant, from his Columbia University residence in Manhattan before flying him to a hell hole jail in Louisiana (just prior to the birth of his first child) is perhaps the most egregious example of deliberate intimidation of brown skinned Muslim scholars by Trump’s goons.
The events in Gaza have been replicated down the ages. 1800s in the USA (if you have the stomach “The English” gives a good view). The difference this time is that we have sound & vision (lacking until very recently) leading to generalised revulsion amongst people. The reaction of Israel & the right whingers supporting it, to this revulsion is to supress it. The usual reaction of genocidists & their handmaidens through the ages.
Sudan & South Sudan.. slightly diff players, the UAE dictatorship significant supplier of weapons – (& soon to be Torygraph owner), same result – lots of dead people – ethnic cleansing, genocide etc etc . On & on it goes. Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv, it’s a nother sunny day & people are heading to the beaches. Bless.
PS: to UAE & Israel – don’t worry I’d rather cut my arm off than visit pariah dog states like yours, & most people I know are looking at where their purchases come from VERY carefully.
The right whingers in UK’s Northern Ireland are now enthusiastically jumping on the censorship bandwagon under the guise of MAGA’s false banner of ‘freedom & democracy’: https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/gordon-lyons-warns-arts-council-about-funding-disrespectful-events-M2HWDPGNKRGB7MBBJOZPIEXTZU/
What could possibly go wrong here ?
Nothing at all…..
Apart from everything
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” – Primo Levi
How many ordinary people are following orders without questioning them so allowing the tyranny to rise? Too many I suspect.
Now that the various outworkings of political Zionism have revealed themselves to the world, I am SLIGHTLY more hopeful that the coup can be stopped, but it will get nastier (domestically) before it gets better.
Nine years ago this was effectively disguised as a movement to oust Corbyn and his “extremist far left antisemitic cult of Putin sympathisers and Iran apologists”. By 2020, Starmer was “saving the Labour Party”, a forensic, realistic, compassionate competent principled leader. What a relief! And Israel/Palestine was a fringe interest of no real interest, and no one even knew what “The Lobby” films were about.
I think we now see it slightly differently, and it is very scary. It is going to change OUR society and it has already eroded OUR freedoms, while it eliminates the Palestinians altogether.
Yesterday I was reading Ezekiel Chapter 47.21-23.
It’s not the last word on covenant theology, and “ha’eretz”, but it merits some attention from those who cite scripture as a justification for genocide. (The apostle John gives it something of a reworking in the last few chapters of his Apocalypse.)
Thanks
Apart from the I was there any mention of the very large pro Palestine march in London on Saturday? Absolutely zero from the BBC. Has the Government issued D notices or why is it that no media report any demonstrations anymore unless there is significant violence? Fascism already arrived.
One of my sons was on that march.
The Independent covered it and Middle East Eye. But i didn’t find any mainstream newspapers.
There is some dispute as to numbers but possibly a couple of hundred thousand.
Thank you, Ali.
There was a brief mention on the BBC’s London news on Saturday evening. A counter-demonstration, involving a couple of hundred, was also mentioned.
I note the BBC was promoting the Israeli entry for Eurovision.
I noted that too
Apologies for posting twice. The results from Romania show that the right-whinge can lose.
https://www.politico.eu/article/romanian-presidential-election-results-nicusor-dan-george-simion
Perhaps the most important point is that the winner – Dan – was major of Bucharest and did good things against – e.g. property speculators. He was/is regarded as an honest chap. This stood him in good stead against his right-whinge opponent. Perhaps what is needed is more honest people – which a track record in local/regional gov and which can then stand in national gov.
I gather his opponent has not conceded.
A true Trump candidate.
Expect years of “I was robbed”.
Thank you, Richard.
One could argue that, with the creeping privatisation here and delegation of so much thinking and even doing to the private sector, a coup is under way here.
Let’s not forget that the Heritage Foundation hosted Lammy and Kinnock just before the election and have provided their ideas to Streeting and Farage on health care.
The Heritage Foundation used the Swiss model, a give away to big pharma, for Romneycare in Massachusetts and Obamacare nationwide.
I imagine Project Esther is coming to the UK.
Fun facts: Esther and her cousin, Mordechai, are reputed to be buried in Iran, per https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/esthers-tomb/. There are over a hundred synagogues in Iran. There are seats reserved for Jews and Christians and other minority religions in the Iranian parliament.
Thanks
While I have no liking for misogynistic and theocratic regimes who indulge in frequent executions, I think the West’s relationship with Iran might have been very different.
At the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war -started by Iraq- nerve gas was used by Saddam Hussein. It is disputed how far the US knew of or even supplied components. But what people believe can be as important as what really happened. Iran ended the war saying the use of nerve gas was ‘un-Islamic.’
In 2001 Iran gave the west assistance to invade Afghanistan and offered a re-set of relations. I heard Jack Straw says this at a book fair and read it since. Bush made his Axis of Evil speech and the offer was withdrawn.
Iran signed the nuclear treaty the JCPOA in 2014. In 2018 Trump withdrew saying it was an awful deal which Obama had agreed to. The IAEA, Russia, China and three European signatories all thought the Iranians were complying.
Trump also imposed damaging economic sanctions on Iran. Atomic scientists working on the civil nuclear program have been assassinated in Iran and cyber attacks destroyed much of their Nuclear power IT system.
A number of American and Israeli politicians have called for attacks on their nuclear facilities.
If I were Iranian I would have prepared for a war. One of their strategies was to arm Hezbollah (they helped to form them in response to the Israeli invasion of 1982) the Houthis (their revolt had begun before Iran was involved ) and Hamas as they see Israel as a western colonial enterprise. Also they moved closer to China -which bought their oil- and Russia who co-operated in weapon production.
Right wing American politicians, and some here, try to portray Iran itching to get a nuclear bomb and being willing to use it. It appears to give weight to demands for military aid from the US to Israel.
Iran’s leaders have pronounced that nuclear weapons are ‘un-Islamic’. That may be so or not. I would expect some some voices in Iran to argue for an Iranian nuclear weapon to deter the Israelis who have their own nuclear system and that dates from the 1960s. JFK was against the spread of such weapons and it seems. David Ben Gurion, lied to him about their intentions.
In 2012 Netanyahu spoke to the UN General Assembly holding up a cartoon of a bomb declaring Iran was only moths away from having nuclear weapons. Yet in 2024 US intelligence told they still do not have one.
After Trump lost the 2020 elections he asked his staff about attacking Iran. Pompeo and Esper? talked him out of it. Woodward descirbes it in his book Peril. General Milley was alarmed enough to visit the people who would fire any US nuks and even call the Chinese to assure them no war was being planned. Miley’s portrait has been removed from the Pentagon by Hegseth.
Trump settled for the assassination of Solemani instead of a war. It was illegal.
Iran has ample reason to fear the US and take steps to secure allies. Frank Gardener and others opine that Iran wants to avoid war.
I can only hope the current talks might find Trump’s administration willing to reduce sanctions and ‘allow’ a civil nuclear power program and not threaten an attack in they don’t shut the whole thing down.
My information is that most people in Iran would welcome closer ties with the west. But The American and possibly British establishment don’t want that and have pushed Iran into an alliance with Russia and China.
Re the fun facts:
Christianity is protected in Iran for indigenous ethnic minorities such as Armenians, who can worship together using Armenian liturgy, and have Armenian bibles but not in Farsi.
It is not permitted for Farsi-speaking Persians to become Christians or to worship together as Christians or have Farsi bibles.
Having said that, Iran is reported to have the fastest growing Christian church in the world with estimates ranging from 300k to over 1m or more (depending on the sources). After years of Islamic theocracy it also has a lot of disillusioned atheists and a major drug problem.
Behind all the politics, an amazing culture, centuries of learning in arts and sciences, beautiful architecture, and a people badly treated by their own leaders and by ourselves for generations, and of course, cursed with fossil fuel reserves so not allowed to have democratic government.
“Fun facts: Esther and her cousin, Mordechai, are reputed to be buried in Iran’.
I can confirm this as I visited the tombs a few years ago.
The Jewish population of Iran who have not been scaremongered into fleeing for their lives to Zionist Israel, are, as far as I can see, living normal lives, unburdened by the kind of Zionist invented racism that we have in the West.
Anecdotally, several years ago my mother in law’s Jewish neighbour asked her to make a chador (Iran’s cloak like hijab) so the family could visit the Imam Reza tomb in Mashad as tourists. As I said, normal lives.
I understand that the definition of antisemitism in the US has been expanded to include any criticism of the state of Israel’s military actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
You can see how King Donald is using antisemitism to cut funding to educational institutions.
The Heritage Foundation is preaching no dissent, nor protests against executive decisions. A path to tyranny.
Hopefully the mass protests by US citizens planned on the 14 June to coincide with King Donald’s birthday parade will show that the US public will not stand for grift and losing their democracy.
We can hope so…
Netanyahu added a “basic law” to the Israeli state in, I think, 2019. It declared that Israel was the state of the Jewish people; only the Jewish people. It also declared that criticism of the State of Israel, as it was the Jewish state, was in itself antisemitic.
And both are complete nonsense, and propoganda.
‘Sovereign is he who makes the exception’.
The extreme right are so good at this. Maybe we should make them the exception in this way instead?
Thank you to Ian and Robert, above.
Further to what Ian and Robert write, Richard and readers may be interested in:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/11/matthew-gould-and-the-plot-to-attack-iran/
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/02/gould-werritty-the-continuing-cover-up/
A friend based in Whitehall and about whom I can’t hint at more was horrified to learn and equally horrified to report of a certain community organising in Whitehall and keeping an eye on policy and personnel not in their communal interest. This said, not all of their community espouse such views.
The rising tyranny of oligarchs is not confined to the US. Since June 2016 there is just so much dodgy legislation being passed in the UK to roll back decades of hardwon human, animal and environmental rights that it impossible to keep up. This is the latest from European Powell: https://europeanpowell.substack.com/p/starmers-silent-brexit-betrayal-how?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true