Texas Republicans are poised to gut higher ed in Texas, purging faculty for their political views and replacing independent academic inquiry with ruling party propaganda.
Today in Labor History May 3, 1937: The May Days began in Catalonia. This was a counterrevolution by the Spanish Republican government against radical workers and anarchists. Prior to this, the communists, socialists and anarchists had been allied against Franco’s nationalists. However, anarchist workers and their militias controlled most industries, which they had collectivized, while the communists controlled the central government and finances. As a result, this brought the various groups into conflict. To make matters worse, the Communist Party of Spain was taking orders from Moscow. And they wanted to separate the two struggles: revolution against the ruling class versus war against the nationalists. In contrast, the POUM and the anarchists saw the two struggles as one and the same. The anarchist faction included the Friends of Durruti Group and the CNT (a confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions).
"Trump is campaigning the way fascists campaign, so how do fascists govern? What is life like in fascist regimes? Not just the broad strokes or big principles — everyday life. ...
What does life look like in Putin’s Russia, in Orban’s Hungary? In nations that have been controlled by autocratic regimes in the past? That's a Trump-assault-on-democracy story that remains largely untold: How will it affect people? It’s a good and important story."
"It’s deeply weird how absent that story is from the national conversation about the Trump/GOP assault on American democracy — both media coverage of it and political responses to it."
This story is absent from corporate media because, I'd submit, at this critical moment, large sectors of media and especially the owning and managerial sectors have shown us repeatedly that they'd be perfectly happy with fascism. They assume it will not affect them, onlly hapless underlings.
"The scenes that played out in Florida this week – the overworked nurses, the crammed schedules, the desperate rush – are themselves an indignity, because they represent something that no American should have to endure: the withdrawal of a right that is fundamental to their citizenship. This is what it looks like when life becomes smaller, crueler, and less free. It is an ugly sight."
Man who bragged that he ‘fed’ an officer to the mob of Jan. 6 Capitol rioters gets nearly 5 years in prison
Jack Wade Whitton, of Locust Grove, Ga., struck an officer with a metal crutch and dragged him — head first and face down — into the crowd. And he wasn't done.
Since Todd Blanche nodded his head yes when #Trump claimed that his right to testify has been taken away because of the #GagOrder, Merchan must start the day tomorrow inquiring of Trump’s understanding AND whether Blanche misadvised him on his 5th Amendment rights.
German university apologises for instructing Palestinian students to register as ‘stateless’
The Department of Student Affairs at the Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg has issued an apology after telling 14 Palestinian students that they would need to change their nationality entry to “stateless.”
The students were notified through email that they would need to change their nationality entry from “Palestinian Territories” to “stateless” due to a revision in the university statistics law (HStatG).
Today in Labor History May 2, 1945: The Nisei 522nd Field Artillery Battalion halted a death march from Dachau to Austria. As a result, the Japanese-American fighting unit saved hundreds of lives. Yet, even while they fought fascists in Europe, many had families in concentration camps within the U.S.
Today in Labor History May 2, 1933: In one of his first acts after coming to power, Adolf Hitler abolished all labor unions. Storm troopers occupied union offices across Germany. Union leaders were arrested, beaten, tortured and imprisoned, or sent to concentration camps. In the coming months, thousands more communists, anarchists and labor activists were arrested and murdered.
Today in Labor History May 2, 1919: Soldiers of the Freikorps murdered Gustav Landauer, anarchist, pacifist, and Education Minister, in the short-lived Bavarian Workers Republic. The Freikorps were right wing veterans of World War I. Many went on to become Nazis. Landauer believed that social change could not be won solely through control of the state or economy, but required a revolution in interpersonal relations. "The community we long for and need, we will find only if we sever ourselves from individuated existence; thus we will at last find, in the innermost core or our hidden being, the most ancient and most universal community: the human race and the cosmos." Landauer’s grandson is the acclaimed film director, Mike Nichols (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Graduate, Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge, Silkwood). British writer Philip Kerr wrote the novel, “Prussian Blue,” in which Hitler is one of the Freikorps militants who murdered Landauer.
I'm a #UCLA professor. Why didn't the administration stop last night's egregious violence? : The university should have anticipated Tuesday night’s chaos — but security personnel were nowhere to be found（Opinion by David N. Myers | Forward, 2024-05-01）
"What makes last night all the more inexplicable was that the university had, over the weekend, seen a haunting warning of what could happen."
"... even they were greeted with insulting words from the other [Pro-Israeli] side, as were members of a small contingent of a local chapter of Standing Together who came bearing signs calling for peace and equality for Palestinians and Jews."
"Before Tuesday ... In the face of immense pressure, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block managed to keep the peace."
"... There has also been increasing pressure on the university from outside forces, including the Jewish Federation, to act more forcefully against the demonstrators."
@adachika192
This reminds me so much of my days in spring of 1979 when the Basij and religious thugs of Khomeini attacked universities as "house if Satan", killing and injuring university and high school high school students who were at university to protest the regime plans to create what became "the culture revolution".
The consequence were brutal crack down, removal of students and faculty, followed by an even bloodier attacks against those if us who opposed the talibanist coup by Khomeini to destroy Iran's secular and independent foundations.
I never thought seeing such scenes in a western county and much less by groups defending a foreign country's "right" to commit genocide. I just hope that this will not lead to the horror we lived through, but the "liberals" are acting almost exactly like those back in Iran and fanatics using these events to gain more power to take over the country.
Glenn Kirschner puts it succinctly and bluntly, regarding #Trump amd his recent #TimeMagazine interview - "Sometimes it feels like we're sleepwalking ... to the end of our Republic ... Do we respond with a collective shrug? What the hell are we doing?"
I’m old enough to remember when politicians tried to hide it when they engaged in viewpoint discrimination but the GOP is totally open about it. #fascism
“I have been reporting on political dissent and violent policing for 15 years, particularly in New York City. Compared to Tuesday night, I have never witnessed, at the scene of a protest, the use of police power so disproportionate to the type of demonstration taking place.”
“Democrats in the #Arizona Legislature made a final push Wednesday to repeal the state’s long-dormant ban on nearly all #abortions, which a court said can be enforced...Senate had the 16 votes it needed to advance the bill.
14 Dems in Senate were joined by two GOP votes in favor of repealing the bill, which narrowly cleared the Arizona House last week and is expected to be signed by Dem Gov. Katie Hobbs” https://apnews.com/article/24578e546b69ca087e01034bcaf4aa01
New York Times business editor Andrew Sorkin seeks an economic boycott on anti-genocide students.
He wrote in a column:
“Many business leaders have told me they are deeply concerned about incidents of harassment against Jewish students that have taken place at and around universities like Columbia”
“Companies could tell universities that they won’t hire their students”
“Wall Street, private equity and venture capital firms may uniquely have [a pressure point]: They could threaten to stop managing the endowments” of the universities.
“Examining D.E.I. policies [Diversity, equity, and inclusion] [...] What would happen if the Wall Street firms also sent such questionnaires to the universities before deciding to work with them as clients?”
“The most common course of action so far has been to pull back on individual donations.”
"U.S. Border Patrol agents freely used the derogatory slur “tonk” to describe unauthorized migrants on government computers, at times while joking about killing or beating them" #fascism#acab
"The new map was challenged by 12 self-described non-African American voters, whose lawsuit said the districts amounted to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering that discriminated against white voters." #whitesupremacy#fascism