Sunday, September 13, 2020

An Uneasy Symbiosis: Trump and the Anti-Fascists

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist 

Last week Brian Murphy, a career government worker who had previously been in charge of the intelligence division at the Department of Homeland Security, filed a report with that agency's Inspector General stating that top officials in the agency were routinely forcing career officials to change reports to align with Donald Trump's worldview of certain situations.  Murphy alleged that the long-term "acting director" of DHS, Chad Wolf, and his top assistant, Ken Cuccinelli, both Trump appointees, directed officials in the agency to change intelligence assessments to insure that they line up with misleading and often incorrect assessments made by Donald Trump.

Specifically Whistleblower Murphy said that DHS officials were told to cease providing information regarding US election interference by Russia, and to begin laying the blame for any foreign interference in US elections with China and Iran.  Murphy also alleged that DHS leaders told their underlings to deemphasize the threat of white supremacy to the nation's safety and to put more effort into blaming racial strife and domestic unrest on "Antifa" and "anarchist" groups.

"Antifa," of course, is not an established group of individuals, but rather a loose assemblage of groups and individuals who are opposed to the growing acceptance of fascist ideologies, such as those based in racism or economic privilege, that are cropping up across the United States.  Donald Trump has demonized the term "Antifa" and tries to lay the blame for any civil discord on "anarchists" whom he paints with a wide brush as being members of Antifa.   Trump, and others, conveniently overlook the historical fact that the Allies in World War II - including the Armed Forces of the United States of America - opposed the fascist world leaders like Hitler, Mussolini, and General Tojo.   The anti-fascists (Antifa) won the Second World War.

But Donald Trump, whose father sat out World War II so that he could concentrate on renting houses and apartments in New York City to "whites only," is not a student of history.  Donald is a bully who often gets his way by name-calling and inciting others.

A case in point:

(Clackamas County, Oregon, is a large patch of land southwest of Portland and north of Salem, the state's capital.  US Highway 5, that main artery from San Diego to Seattle, passes through a corner of Clackamas County.)

Thursday a sheriff's deputy in Clackamas County was placed on leave after it was revealed that he had been filmed inciting a group of county residents about Antifa.  The deputy, who knew he was being filmed, was accusing people aligned with Antifa of setting some of the fires that are burning through Oregon.  He declared::  

"Antifa motherfuckers are out here causing hell.  There's a lot of lives at stake and there's a lot of people's property at stake because these guys got some vendetta."  

Rest well, Donald Trump.  Your rage has been heard and taken to heart by the armed members of the police state that you embolden and cherish.  Antifa justifies your law-and-order roar, and your unhinged rage, in turn, justifies the existence of citizen forces to combat your fascist actions.

(Note:  The Oregonian (a major newspaper in the American Northwest) reported this week that theories circulating about a coordinated arson campaign by anti-fascists has been debunked by law enforcement agencies across the state and the FBI as being a "myth.")

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