Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Present Danger Of Fascism In The United States

The rise of Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters has transformed American politics, perhaps more than anything else has since the gathering of forces of the rebellious slave owners in the south, a century and a half ago. His first four years in office were chaotic, uninformed programmatically, and not animated by any kind of cadre of capable administrators. It was, instead, full of his statements and actions that many critics deemed to be racist, sexist and Xenophobic.

He lost the election in 2020, although he received 74 million votes! As he runs for the Presidency again, this time he is talking rather openly about wanting dictatorial authority, if he is elected again.

And this time if he does win, he now has the aid of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which has produced the 900-page “Project for 2025” document on how to radically change our country so as to make it far, far more conservative, providing far fewer rights to the American people, and allowing any president so inclined, to run the country as an authoritarian, a virtual dictator. He has an authoritarian right wing Supreme Court, which in its latest decision, aptly named “Donald Trump versus the United States of America,” has given the presidency carte blanche immunity, placing the president above the law, allowing the president to do almost anything he or she wants to do, as long as it’s deemed to be “an official presidential act”.

Today’s program is the lead off to a series of shows on fascism, how to resist it, and how to defend against it. I will be conducting this series with my co-host, Michael Smith, who cannot be with us today due to illness.

Guest – Chris Hedges, the journalist and author spent two decades as a foreign correspondent serving as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for The New York Times where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of 14 books including War is a Force That Gives us Meaning, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which he co-wrote with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, and The Death of the Liberal Class.

—-

Guantanamo Bay Prison: 30 Suspects Remain

Once a front-page story, the U.S. prison on Guantanamo Bay is seldom in the news these days or, apparently, on the minds of the American people. But it certainly should be. Because the history and on-going operation of Guantanamo Bay Prison, or “GITMO” as it is often called, exposes the lie behind our claim to be a nation governed by the “rule of law”. Condemned by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and many other such groups, it is a permanent stain on the character of the American people.

Since 2002, at the height of its operation, close to 800 captives from many different Muslim nations were held there under tortuous conditions as “suspects” rather than being classified as “prisoners of war”, which they clearly were, and accorded all of the rights they were entitled to as prisoners of war. The youngest was 13 years old! In fact, 21 of the detainees were children. All of the detainees were subjected to barbaric forms of torture. Some committed suicides. Hundreds were convicted in sham trials and in illegitimate military tribunals. Many, if not most suspects, clearly bore no responsibility for combat operations in the Muslim nations where we were waging war.

Today, about 30 suspects remain in the U.S. prison on Guantanamo Bay. Sixteen are “cleared for release”, but it has not yet been made clear to what country they can be released. Three have not been charged, nor have they been cleared for release. And nobody can reasonably predict when, if ever, they will be freed. And in the latest shameful twist, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has now upended a plea deal for the three prisoners accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks. It would have allowed the men to plead guilty and be sentenced to life in prison…and instead, given Austin’s intervention, they will now face the death penalty if they are tried and convicted.

Clearly, GITMO is a consequence of America’s imperialist wars in Muslim countries, wars for those Muslim countries’ oil, and for geopolitical gain. Of course, over the many years of these wars, U.S. presidents have repeatedly claimed that we are not at war with Islam. Well, tell that to the families of the millions of dead and wounded Muslims our bombing and invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan caused; tell it to the thousands of Muslims forbidden to enter America through travel bans; tell it to the countless numbers of Muslim citizens and residents of America, who’ve been discriminated against at work or in public; tell it to the Muslim children attacked on their way to school and called “terrorists;” or, tell it to the Muslim worshipers whose mosques have been infiltrated by government spies.

And…for that matter… tell it, as well, to the Palestinian Muslims. Because America’s desire for Mideast oil is also a big reason why Israel exists in the Middle East. A big reason why the United States has partnered with it in its war on the Palestinian people, and why we’ve sent billions in military aid to Israel over the years to keep Israel secure in its role as our “advanced military force” in the oil rich Middle East.

Guest – Shane Kadidal, a Senior Managing Attorney of the Guantanamo Project, at the famed Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, where he has worked on several significant cases arising in the wake of 9/11, including the Center’s legal challenges to the indefinite detention of men at Guantanamo.

—————————