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Sadly, it later turns out nobody knows how to build an ark anymore.
Today's News:
Really good piece from Jeff Sharlet (h/t pianomover) on yesterday’s “terror memo,” referenced in my post on elite fecklessness. Sharlet does a close reading of the thing, and it’s extremely ugly:
It’s critical to name this bait-&-switch: Using real acts of violence by a handful of unaffiliated individuals to launch an attack on the much greater strength of liberal / left “organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, [and] funding sources.” This isn’t about a manhunt to stop the next murderer before he can shoot; it’s a “new… strategy,” the deconstruction by state power of far less dramatic efforts to build the very step-by-step systemic rule-of-law resistance that is the opposite of violence.
Note the last item on the list: “predicate actions.” What might be the dark “predicate actions” for the donations of liberal billionaires George Soros and Reid Hoffman—both name-checked by Trump Thursday—to efforts such as MoveOn, America Votes, Media Matters, and and peer-to-peer microlending? Capital Research Center, the far right think tank whose “research” the White House is leaning on for the Terror Memo, cites in particular Soros’ support for the Sunrise Movement. Put that next to Trump’s insistence that climate change is a “con job,” and you begin to see how simply naming the facts of fire and flood and heat deaths could come to be construed as “terrorism” subject to investigation.
The memo continues:
These campaigns often begin by isolating and dehumanizing specific targets to justify murder or other violent action against them. They do so through a variety of fora, including anonymous chat forums, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions.
The to—as in “to justify murder”—does terrifying work. Grammatically, it makes “murder” the alleged intention of critique. If I taught in my “educational institution” that Trump’s attack on rule-of-law is unprecedented—aka “isolated”—by this memo, I could be accused of justifying murder. This post might be fair game. But probably not! The purpose of such sweeping authority isn’t comprehensive prosecution. Rather, like Article 70 in the Soviet Union, it provides authorities with potential cause to prosecute not everyone but anyone; run afoul of the regime, and there could already be a case against you.
To that end, the memo expands the definition of the enemy from “antifa,” which could at least be said to refer to a confrontational protest style, to “anti-fascist.” Are you pro-fascist? You’re not? You may have a case of anti-fascism
Ever used a credit card to donate to a liberal cause? You’ve probably committed an act of terrorism:
The Attorney General shall issue specific guidance that ensures domestic terrorism priorities include politically motivated terrorist acts such as organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder. This guidance shall also include an identification of any behaviors, fact patterns, recurrent motivations, or other indicia common to organizations and entities that coordinate these acts in order to direct efforts to identify and prevent potential violent activity.
These terms bring under the “terrorism” umbrella a nonviolent action as simple as, say, sitting in front of an ICE entrance. Or, for that matter, just chanting from the sidewalk.
Then there’s this instruction:
The [Treasury] Secretary shall provide guidance for financial institutions to file Suspicious Activity Reports and investigate indicia of illicit funding streams to ensure such activity is rooted out at the source and referred for law enforcement action, as appropriate.
Have you ever donated to a left organization with a credit card? Get ready. This doesn’t mean they’re coming for you. It means that if for some reason they want to come for you, you’re already cooked. That little rectangle of plastic in your wallet’s been turned into a weapon to be used against you.
So much of the Terror Memo follows the money:
The Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (Commissioner) shall take action to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism. In addition, where applicable, the Commissioner shall ensure that the Internal Revenue Service refers such organizations, and the employees and officers of such organizations, to the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution.
The plan isn’t so much to kick down doors as to bleed nonprofits dry, a double whammy effect: as the big organizations dwindle, everyday people doubt the potential of organization. Wonks will realize how it works; others will conclude that maybe such efforts to build democracy just aren’t popular. Some will retreat into alienation; others will persuade themselves to get with the new program.
And of course underlying all this is the unspoken but practically explicit claim that overt acts of right wing political violence are of no concern, while acts that can only in the vaguest way, if that, be characterized as emanating from the political left, are not isolated incidents of stochastic violence by disturbed young men, but rather part of a well-funded network of terror, that includes everybody from (((George Soros))) to ActBlue, obscure top 100 political science blogs, and the Democratic party itself.
After Kirk was murdered, video of his death played online unceasingly, becoming what my colleague Zeynep Tufekci called a viral snuff film. An endless stream of content parsed the meaning of the words and symbols on the bullet casings. Anyone who has spent time on TikTok knows when someone finds a formula for capturing mass attention, imitators rush in. It’s the kind of problem we might be able to address if we had a base-line social compact about the speech private platforms should allow and promote. But for now, we’re stuck in a ratchet, where violent losers copy one another, and their deeds become an excuse to oppress the rest of us.
Treating copycat internet losers as if they represent individual tentacles of some sort of vast left-wing conspiracy is just Fascism 101.
And that’s precisely what the second Trump administration is, although who knows how long it will take for this realization to penetrate the consciousnesses of our still largely in denial elites, let alone our narcotized populace as a whole.
The post Rubber glue fascism appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.
