Students protest Milo Yiannopoulos’ appearance at UC Berkeley Wednesday evening. CREDIT: AP Photo/Ben Margot.
Milo Yiannopoulos calls President Trump “Daddy,” and it seems the relationship might be mutual.
Wednesday evening, UC Berkeley ultimately canceled a speech by Yiannopolous, Breitbart editor and professional provocateur, just two hours before it was to take place. The speech, organized by Berkeley College Republicans, was massively protested, and those demonstrations turned increasingly violent after masked protesters not affiliated with the university started marching on Oakland.
Early Thursday morning, Fox News commentator Todd Starnes railed against the protests:
The birth place of free speech became its graveyard. So here’s what needs to happen: President Trump should immediately issue an executive order blocking Berkeley students from receiving any federal funding. Same goes for any other public university that wants to silence conservative voices. Free speech for all or no federal money! Not a single taxpayer penny, period!
That segment aired around 5:17 am. An hour later, Trump tweeted:
If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view – NO FEDERAL FUNDS?
Then, at the top of the 7 o’clock hour, Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox and Friends to reinforce the tweet. She mocked the students who protested, saying, “I don’t even know if they know what they’re protesting. I would love to do this big survey nationwide and ask everybody outside these airports, on the college campuses: what’s got you so in a lather?”
“Life doesn’t work that way folks,” she said. “You’re going to work with people who disagree with you. You’re going to encounter folks who aren’t just accosting you in this protective environment.”
The students know exactly what they are protesting, Madame Alternative Facts: sexism, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, homophobia, and oh yes, fascism. Pretty much everyone in our now fascist government is someone I disagree with, and they are busy accosting people on every level. We know what that’s like, and so do college students. They aren’t babies, and they aren’t stupid.
Yiannopoulos himself insisted that “the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.”
No, the left and all anti-fascist, anti-nazi peoples are simply exercising their rights, and you don’t like that at all. If anyone wants to shut down free speech, it’s the fascist-nazi people. If you’re shouting in the public square, people have the right to respond.
What Yiannopolous offers is not just speech, but bullying of the most vulnerable. He openly encourages those who are white and male to attack basically anyone and everyone else. Trump, taking his cues from Fox News, is validating his behavior.
Indeed. Yiannopolous has already proved, time and time again, that he’s perfectly willing to endanger the lives of others, while taking exception to any and all criticism. The fact that he has the support of the Tiny Dictator is no comfort.
Police officers patrol at the pyramid outside the Louvre museum in Paris,Friday, Feb. 3, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Thibault Camus.
The Tiny Dictator Trump is busy tweeting about the horror and awfulness of an attempted attack, by knife, at the Louvre in Paris.
An attacker at France’s storied museum the Louvre was shot and seriously wounded Friday morning, and the incident elicited a predictable response (in tweet form no less) from our new Commander-in-Chief.
A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked in Louvre Museum in Paris. Tourists were locked down. France on edge again. GET SMART U.S.
All manner of anti-Muslim idiots have been busy tweeting their little heads off about this, also. What’s interesting is what they are studiously ignoring:
The Louvre attacker allegedly tried to attack security forces outside the museum with a knife. Though details are unclear, some French media reported the attacker yelled “Allahu Akbar”— “God is great” in Arabic — while rushing a soldier. It’s important to note that the attack resulted in a whopping zero deaths.
Rewinding to Monday, a mosque in Quebec, Canada was attacked and six worshipers were killed and others wounded. Trump’s response? Silence.
The attacker, 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, “was known in the city’s activist circles as a right-wing troll who frequently took anti-foreigner and anti-feminist positions and stood up for U.S. President Donald Trump,” the Globe and Mail reported. “His online profile and school friendships revealed little interest in extremist politics until last March, when France’s far-right National Front Leader Marine Le Pen visited Quebec City, inspiring Mr. Bissonnette to vocal extreme online activism, according to people who clashed with him starting around this time.”
Also on Monday, White House Senior Counselor Kellyanne Conway made up an attack in Bowling Green, Kentucky to justify Trump’s recent Muslim ban.
A right-wing troll. Anti-feminist. Trumpoid. We certainly know plenty of people just like Mr. Bissonnette, we get to deal with them every day on the ‘net, and have been for years on end. All of the people busy howling about an attempt which failed are quickly turning their heads and whistling over the six people murdered in Quebec. This too, is a result of the normalisation, and it is a terrible, deliberate misdirection, one which blatantly points out that murdering “those” people is okay. In support of that, the alternative facts lady is busy making up big batches of bullshit to shovel down gullible throats.
Texas high school students (Twitter / @louismccorgilee).
CYPRESS, Texas – Several controversial photos of students from Cypress Ranch High School are circulating on social media.
The pictures show a group of students, some with their hands in the air making what appears to be a Nazi salute.
In an email to KPRC Channel 2, a student who witnessed the incident but asked to remain anonymous said students were shouting “Heil Hitler” and “Heil Trump. The student also said it was at least 70 or so people and, “It was pretty terrifying.”
The photos were taken on Tuesday, picture day for the senior class. One photo was supposed to be serious, the second was supposed to be funny.
But no one is laughing about it now.
The email from the Cypress Ranch student went on to say, “Most people may think it was just kids just joking around but in the current political climate and the fact these kids are seniors in high school, it’s beyond unacceptable.”
I’m very weary of the “funny! joke!” bullshit. No, it’s not funny. No, it’s not a joke. There are people who can do such a thing right, like Mel Brooks, but this is plain old ugly nazism, performed by a bunch of young white men, about ready to launch themselves into the world at large. Not remotely funny.
From a letter written by the principal of the school:
“This letter is to make you aware of a situation that occurred on our campus today while our senior class was taking a large group panoramic picture. Several of our students made the poor choice of displaying inappropriate gestures during this time. Unfortunately, many of these images have been shared on social media. This is extremely disappointing as this is not an accurate representation of our student body.
“We are currently conducting an investigation and those implicated will be punished according to the Student Code of Conduct.
“We ask that you talk to your students regarding the posting and sharing of negative social media as this perpetuates a false image of Cy Ranch HS.
No worry at all about the fact they have a large group of nazis in their school. No, this is all about image. Dammit, nazi boys, we told you, be discreet! This is a disgusting response, to say the least. What’s the punishment going to be, a course in proper nazi etiquette? Going by the Raw Story article, there were teachers present, but not one of them said a word, or told the nazis to knock it off. So normalised already that fully fledged adults turn their heads away from nazi youth. Great sign, ennit?
In the same vein, white supremacy was on view at a basketball game:
Video has surfaced from the controversial Dover and Jefferson basketball game on Friday during which members of the Jefferson crowd shouted racial remarks at an African-American player on the Dover team and “Build the wall” during their pre-game warm-ups.
The incident came to light Monday when Jefferson Superintendent Patrick Tierney apologized after students “allegedly made racist and/or offensive statements directed at the Dover athletes” during Friday’s game. Dover Superintendent Robert Becker issued a statement hours later in which he identified two of those statements, saying Dover students chanted “ashy knees” at a player, as well as, “Build the wall.”
Video obtained by NJ Advance Media shows several instances of members of the Jefferson crowd shouting “ashy knees” when an African-American player steps up to the free throw line for several foul shots. Occasionally, one area would shout “ashy,” and the other area would follow with “knees.”
The theme for the night was American pride, and several people in the video were dressed in clothes featuring the American flag — and one member of the crowd waved a full-sized American flag. Earlier chants combined with the flags, upset some Dover parents.
Michael Moore, a parent of a Dover High School basketball player, told NJ Advance Media he believed the Jefferson crowd’s intent was to disparage Dover — a town with a significant Hispanic and African-American population.
“Their intent was disrespect,” he said. “Not to promote the country as a whole.”
Moore, who was in attendance at the game, said he placed the blame on the adults in the Jefferson group as they “allowed this and put this together.”
If you click on over to the full article, you’ll see the incredibly flimsy, bullshit excuses provided by adults for their little nazis in training. Disgust isn’t strong enough. There’s also video at the link.
Nazis, nazis everywhere. Under every rock, and we are all on extremely rocky ground right now. I skimmed an article about this the other day, but I wasn’t in a state to pay much attention. I’m not feeling much better now that I have paid attention. I don’t think it’s been any sort of secret that policing often attracts less than ideal personalities for the job; nor that many cops are bigoted as all hells. Given all the murders committed by cops every year, most of them against people of colour, handily demonstrate the bigotry and reliance on stereotypes which afflict way too many cops. This is an old, old story, as old as policing itself, and it’s a rare cop shop which truly tries to combat vicious and dangerous bigotry, and where cops with a conscience will stand up and speak out. Unfortunately, the news is worse. Nazis. Nazis who do need a stinking badge, and rely on that badge to recruit.
White supremacists and other domestic extremists maintain an active presence in U.S. police departments and other law enforcement agencies. A striking reference to that conclusion, notable for its confidence and the policy prescriptions that accompany it, appears in a classified FBI Counterterrorism Policy Guide from April 2015, obtained by The Intercept. The guide, which details the process by which the FBI enters individuals on a terrorism watchlist, the Known or Suspected Terrorist File, notes that “domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement officers,” and explains in some detail how bureau policies have been crafted to take this infiltration into account.
Although these right-wing extremists have posed a growing threat for years, federal investigators have been reluctant to publicly address that threat or to point out the movement’s longstanding strategy of infiltrating the law enforcement community.
No centralized recruitment process or set of national standards exists for the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States, many of which have deep historical connections to racist ideologies. As a result, state and local police as well as sheriff’s departments present ample opportunities for white supremacists and other right-wing extremists looking to expand their power base.
That last is such a massive problem, and always has been – the one way to clean up policing is for there to be strict standards, recruitment and otherwise, across the board. None of the individual states doing their own thing anymore. Yeah, I know, ‘merica, land of the stubborn asshole of “independence”. That’s gotten us nowhere except in the bottom of hole, with out of control authoritarian fantasists playing with military gear.
In a heavily redacted version of an October 2006 FBI internal intelligence assessment, the agency raised the alarm over white supremacist groups’ “historical” interest in “infiltrating law enforcement communities or recruiting law enforcement personnel.” The effort, the memo noted, “can lead to investigative breaches and can jeopardize the safety of law enforcement sources or personnel.” The memo also states that law enforcement had recently become aware of the term “ghost skins,” used among white supremacists to describe “those who avoid overt displays of their beliefs to blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist causes.” In at least one case, the FBI learned of a skinhead group encouraging ghost skins to seek employment with law enforcement agencies in order to warn crews of any investigations.
Ghost skins. Regardless of the silly name, I expect most of us have known at least one person who avoids overt displays in public and around people they don’t know, but in private settings allows their bigotry to rage. I grew up with one, and I’ve known too many more.
Reforming police, as it turns out, is a lot harder than reforming the military, because of the decentralized way in which the thousands of police departments across the country operate, the historical affinity of certain police departments with the same racial ideologies espoused by extremists, and an even broader reluctance to do much about it.
“If you look at the history of law enforcement in the United States, it is a history of white supremacy, to put it bluntly,” said Simi, citing the origin of U.S. policing in the slave patrols of the 18th and 19th centuries. “More recently, just going back 50 years, law enforcement, particularly in the South, was filled with Klan members.”
Norm Stamper, a former chief of the Seattle Police Department and vocal advocate for police reform, told The Intercept that white supremacy was not simply a matter of history. “There are police agencies throughout the South and beyond that come from that tradition,” he said. “To think that that kind of thinking has dissolved somehow is myopic at best.”
Stamper said he had fired officers who expressed racist views, but added, “It’s not likely to happen in most police departments, because many of those departments come from a tradition of saying the officer is entitled to his or her opinions.”
When you stop and look, and start paying attention, the sheer magnitude of instances protecting white supremacists is overwhelming. In the States, the nazis still have “good guy” status, putting white, male, christian, and hetero on a pedestal, shot through with the poisonous ideology of superiority.
“This is a fundamental problem in this country: We simply do not take this flexible, and forgiving, and exceptionally understanding approach for combating any other form of terrorism,” said Jones. “Anybody who’s on social media advocating support for ISIS can be criminally charged with very little effort.”
“For some reason, we have stepped away from the threat of domestic terrorism and right-wing extremism,” Jones continued. “The only way we can reconcile this kind of behavior is if we accept the possibility that the ideology that permeates white nationalists and white supremacists is something that many in our federal and law enforcement communities understand and may be in sympathy with.”
That sympathy might just be reflected by the election of a president who was endorsed and celebrated by the KKK, and who has been reluctant to disassociate himself from individuals espousing white supremacist views.
We are years beyond stepping away from the threat of domestic and right-wing terrorism. Too many Americans are intent on erasing the very idea of home grown terrorists. Unlike other countries, America has dealt with one major outside terrorist event, and yes, it was awful. It was also 15 years ago. In that 15 years, pretty much everything has been done in the worst possible way, and the refusal to deal with our rising nazi problem, and the problem of out of control cops continues to not only plague us, but to make every single one of us very unsafe, every day. We need to stop being afraid to face the truth.
A close look at the marker drawings of Ben Biayenda reveals a wide range of direct references from African tribal art to French Post-Impressionism and current pop culture. The Paris-based art student’s work celebrates black beauty in all of its diversity. His sensitive portraits depict black women in moments of intimacy, connection and self-care. His scenes are of beauty parlors and plant-filled bohemian apartments. In girl’s dinner, three black women sit down together to share some sushi rolls. An African mask, a Matisse cut out, and a poster of Angela Davis hang on the wall behind them. One of the guests has vitiligo, perhaps an homage to Winnie Harlow, a Canadian model with the skin condition.
Biayenda started drawing black women two years ago, inspired, he says, by “black femininity, sisterhood, and little moments of beauty.” He is also inspired by black feminist conceptual artists like Adrian Piper and Michèle Magema to interrogate race, gender roles, Western beauty standards, and art itself through his work. Born in Namibia to French and Congolese parents, the artist grew up in France and was exposed to fine art at a young age. He grew to especially love French painters, from Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres to Henri Rousseau. “I was really fascinated by painting and I was going to museums in Paris. I really loved it, but there was some frustration to not see much black representation in famous paintings,” he recalls to The Creators Project over a Skype call. His response was to create his own version of art history through work that reflected his own standards of beauty, while drawing on the poses and atmosphere of the classic works he admired.
But the first few days after pain clinic are rough ones; I should have taken yesterday off. The spinal injection site is very sore and tender, I’m beyond tired and grouchy, so I’m taking the day. Back on Friday, and my apologies.
A member of the Ku Klux Klan who says his name is Gary Munker poses for a photo during an interview with AFP in Hampton Bays, New York on November 22, 2016 (AFP Photo/William EDWARDS).
If you support Trump and/or his “policies”, you might want to check just how much you have in common with the KKK. Obviously, open white supremacist scum love him to pieces, but there are a lot of people who aren’t white supremacist scum who voted for our tiny dictator, and you really should be aware of the company you keep.
Ending illegal immigration, building a border wall and preventing terrorists from coming into the U.S. are a handful of the points on Klu Klux Klan leader Will Quigg’s checklist for “making America great again.” And Quigg, who says the nation was “founded to be free, white and Christian,” feels confident that President Donald Trump’s promises to grow the economy and prevent “illegal aliens” from coming into the U.S. are aligned with the KKK’s visions for America.
Quigg, a Grand Dragon and King Keagle of the Loyal White Knights’ West Coast chapter, isn’t the only KKK member excited by the prospects of a Trump administration. As a high ranking member of an infamous white supremacist organization, Quigg said he sees everyday how the rhetoric of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan is resonating with people who want to join or who have recently been recruited by the Klan.
“We’ve seen a rise in [Klan] membership in the last two years, well, ever since Trump put in his dollar to get into the race. And especially every time he would say something that was not socially acceptable on a mainstream level,” Quigg told International Business Times in a phone interview.
If you think things like ethnic cleansing, genocide, putting people into ovens, and so on are not good things, perhaps it’s time to have a think about your viewpoints. And, if you tell yourself bullshit lies like this:
These days, people join the Klan not because they are racist or supremacists, but because they want to help other white people, he said.
You need to stop lying to yourself and face up to the fact that yes, you are a racist and white supremacist.
