MARGARET KIMBERLEY—Cohen and Buttigieg prove that much of the hand wringing about violence is phony. The same people who may shake their fist at the National Rifle Association, or call Trump the dreaded F- word will shrug their shoulders or openly support killing if it is carried out by someone wearing a U.S. military uniform. Those who steadfastly oppose American imperialism and all of its violence are few and far between.
GLEN FORD—The FBI has always behaved as if armed white supremacists were a potential reserve force to help crush Black rebellions. Last month the Bureau claimed it is abandoning the term “black identity extremism ” as a targeted category. Previously, the FBI had defined “black identity extremists as individuals who seek, wholly or in part, through unlawful acts of force or violence, in response to perceived racism and injustice in American society, and some do so in furtherance of establishing a separate black homeland or autonomous black social institutions, communities, or governing organizations within the United States”.
GARY LEUPP—Those of us who grew up in the 60s recall the right-wing slogan, directed against critics of the Vietnam War, “America—love it or leave it!” The simple logic being that people complaining about the country didn’t belong in what should have been a solid landscape of pro-war nationalism. You’d think the stupidity of that slogan, implicitly a call for slavish devotion to the state, would be obvious in 2019. But no, it’s not. Trump has revived it, testing its resonance.
G H ELIASON—Plavyuk was clearly calling for a nationalist revolution in August 2004. He threatened Ukrainian leaders to get in line with UNR politics or else. The Orange Revolution started 3 months later in November 2004. It was supposed to deSovietize and clean up corruption. All it did was make Nazi rhetoric politically popular in Kiev.Because Plavyuk was a leader in the CYM children’s scout movement (it developed political nationalists) he was able to help develop a robust politics based scouting culture. CYM was brought into Eastern Ukraine where it had no record.
FINIAN CUNNINGHAM—For Trump to then proclaim he is spearheading freedom and liberty for the entire Western hemisphere is a foreboding sign that his megalomania is spectacularly out of control.The prospects of the US military fighting a war in Venezuela, let alone Cuba and Nicaragua as well, are in the realms of impossible fantasy. But with this Commander-in-Chief the fantasy is being entertained.Trump in his Miami speech delivered a mafia-like ultimatum to the Venezuelan military. Either it supports the US-anointed minor opposition figure Juan Guaido who declared himself “acting president” of Venezuela almost a month ago, or the armed forces face obliteration, said Trump.