4-12-24
Without good law enforcement, there is no democratic republic. In name only. In reality, a de facto fascist police-state. Fascism, nazism, national socialism defined as the pernicious blend of government, business, and religion. 'Justified' by perversion and bastardization of the latter. The following is a most egregious example of the very worst:
No justice. The Associated Press reports:
"It was in the den that Karen Goodwin most strongly felt her son’s presence: On the coffee table were his ashes, inside a clock with its hands forever frozen at 12:35 a.m., the moment that a doctor had pronounced him dead. As Goodwin swept and dusted the room, she’d often find herself speaking to her son, a soothing one-way conversation that helped her keep his spirit alive. She’d tell him about his nephews and nieces shopping for backpacks for the new school year, or the latest from the Bristol Motor Speedway and her motorcycle ride along Highway 421, one of the most scenic routes in the state. “I wish you had been there,” she’d say wistfully."
The pain of a mother who's lost her son clearly knows no bounds.
"Austin Hunter Turner died in 2017, on a night that Goodwin has rewound and replayed again and again, trying to make sense of what happened. Something just didn’t add up. There was the race to his apartment, the panic of watching her “baby boy” struggle to breathe, the chaos of paramedics in the kitchen. Her feelings of helplessness as she prayed for him to live. Her emotions have been painfully conflicting. There was the deep shame that Turner died of a drug overdose. The doubts when her own memory diverged with the official police narrative. More recently, anger and outrage. She now believes she has spent all these years living with a lie that has tested what was once a resolute faith in the police, paramedics and the legal system."
The truth is devastating. The betrayal an evisceration of trust that has no end.
"Goodwin’s son is among more than 1,000 people across the United States who died over a decade after police restrained them in ways that are not supposed to be fatal, according to an investigation by The Associated Press in collaboration with FRONTLINE (PBS) and the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism. Turner’s case highlights a central finding of the AP investigation: In the aftermath of fatal police encounters involving the use of Tasers, brute force and other tactics, a lack of accountability permeates the justice system. From the police officers at the scene and their commanders to prosecutors and medical examiners, the system shields officers from scrutiny."
Lack of accountability has been a problem for decades. Nothing new. Precisely, why there is such profound lack of faith and trust in law enforcement.
"Goodwin and her family are examples of what can happen when police tactics go too far in such a system: The truth can be lost. Like the Goodwins, hundreds of families have been left to wrestle with incorrect or incomplete narratives that have recast the lives of the dead, and re-ordered the lives of those left behind. Goodwin was in bed when her phone rang. It was her son’s girlfriend, Michelle Stowers. She was frantic. Turner had just collapsed on the kitchen floor. “He’s not moving,” Stowers cried. “I don’t think he’s breathing. What should I do?” The mother’s heart hammered. “Call 911. I’m on my way,” Goodwin said, her mind racing through terrible possibilities. Was her son alive? Dead? He’d had a few seizures, but they were nothing serious. As she sped to Turner’s apartment on that warm humid night in August 2017, Goodwin called and alerted her husband, Brian, and older son, Dustin. She also dialed her sister but could only utter: “Pray for Hunter.”
Imagine the terror.
"When she arrived, Goodwin found her son gasping for breath on the linoleum of his kitchen floor. His eyes were vacant. His body shook. Foam spilled from his mouth. The mother thought her son might die right then. A paramedic arrived, and Goodwin told him that Turner had suffered minor seizures before. “Hunter, this is momma,” she said, kneeling, pressing an oxygen mask to his face. The front door burst open, and police officers and firefighters swarmed into the tiny apartment. Medics had requested help restraining Turner to treat him. They thought Turner was resisting. As the room filled with voices and equipment, Goodwin stepped away, relieved. She and her husband and children had always admired paramedics and police. They were heroes. And she knew they’d do everything in their power to save her son’s life."
Think so? The mother received quite a rude awakening:
"Then an officer shouted: “Get up off the floor!” Goodwin heard another say, “You’re going to get tased if you keep it up.” She felt bewildered. Her motherly instincts kicked in. “Please,” she implored them, “don’t hurt him more than you have to!” The officers were pinning Turner facedown on a recliner. A few minutes later, he was strapped to a stretcher, again facedown. Goodwin followed them to the waiting ambulance. She peered inside: Her son seemed like he was unconscious, with a strange sort of mask pulled over his head. His legs were bound."
His treatment? Appalling. Contraindicated.
"Goodwin felt powerless. That was her son. She’d give her life for him. Goodwin followed the ambulance to the Bristol Regional Medical Center. After a long wait, the emergency room doctor said that “for all intents and purposes” Turner was dead. “Your son is young and strong,” he said. “We’re going to continue working on him for that reason.” He paused, before continuing: “We’ll take you back — if you think you can handle it.” Steps away, she saw a team of doctors and nurses trying to get Turner’s heart pumping again. She stared at her son’s blank face when they used a defibrillator to try to shock him back to life. Nothing worked. “We can keep going,” the doctor said."
The mother's response? Uncommon Valor:
"Goodwin waved her hand. She needed a moment. Her son wasn’t moving. He didn’t respond to her voice, or the life-saving measures. When she’d touched his chest, it felt like Jell-O, because the paramedics, nurses and doctors had crushed everything in there while trying to save him. Goodwin knew what she had to do. “That’s enough,” she said. “My baby needs to rest now.” As she sat in the sterile hospital waiting room, she wondered: Why her son? He’s such a gentle, kind soul, Goodwin thought. Everyone loved him. He was boyishly handsome, with light brown hair and a small goatee and chinstrap of hair along his jawline. A few inches short of 6 feet, Turner had a strong, outdoorsy kind of look. He was outgoing, ready to chat even with strangers.
"The 23-year-old Turner worked odd jobs to help make ends meet — lately it was refurbishing furniture. “I have plenty of time to grow up,” he told his parents. Now, as she sat there, she felt those words reverberating in her head. An overdose? At 4 a.m., Goodwin looked up and saw her husband rushing into the waiting room. She needed him now, more than ever."
Imagine the heartbreak.
“What happened?” he asked. Goodwin said she didn’t know. She said she’d overheard a Bristol police officer declare that Turner had died of a drug overdose. The parents knew their son smoked marijuana. They also knew he got high using Suboxone, a drug used to wean people off opioids. But they didn’t think either drug could lead to an overdose. It didn’t make sense to Goodwin. Why were police saying this, she wondered. They had learned from Turner’s girlfriend that he had seemed fine when she got home from her late shift at Walmart. He hadn’t acted stoned. He had collapsed out of the blue. How could this be an overdose?"
Good question. ... It wasn't.
"After a memorial service, the Goodwins and two dozen of Turner’s friends honored his memory with a procession of motorcycles that climbed the sharp hills of the Appalachians. When they returned to Bristol, the group said their goodbyes. That night, Goodwin felt an emptiness in her soul. It would be a long time before she felt anything else. Brian went back to work after a month. Keeping busy helped him deal with his grief. But Goodwin couldn’t find an outlet. The mother tattooed her left arm with an image of her son’s thumbprint, and a clock set at 12:35. The tattoo artist had mixed traces of Turner’s ashes into the ink. Mother and son had enjoyed a special connection. He was a daredevil, a fun-loving kid. Whenever something went wrong — like the time he hurt himself jumping off a neighbor’s porch, or crashing her car into a utility pole as he tried to teach himself to drive a stick shift — he’d run straight to her. And she was always there to say, “It’s all right, Hunter. It’s all right.” Her son had always been there for her, too. When she had been diagnosed with cancer in 2015 and surgeons had removed one of her lungs and part of the other, her son had been the one to cheer her up. Every morning he’d sit next to his mother on the front porch, covering her with a blanket to keep her warm. Sometimes, he’d hold his mother’s trembling hands and whisper, “I love you. You’ll be OK, Mom. You’ll be OK.” Now, Goodwin wrestled with existential questions. Why did she fight so hard to beat cancer only to have her son die before her?"
Imagine the unrelenting pain she endured at his loss.
"As the years wore on, she found solace in the den, next to her son’s ashes. Sometimes, she’d think about the weeks and months following Turner’s death. When she obtained his autopsy report, it explained that he died of an overdose and repeated the official police version of events — that officers had gone to Turner’s apartment to help the young man, but he had been too stoned to cooperate. He fought them, and in the end, it had cost him his life. During that period, she had heard from police that they had tried to save Turner but couldn’t because of the drugs and his heart."
Think so? Time to wake up:
"A strong supporter of law enforcement, Goodwin desperately wanted to believe that police and paramedics had acted appropriately. But something was gnawing at her. Sometimes, she’d wake up in the middle of the night and hear the police officer threatening to fire his Taser. She’d recall that her son seemed to be having a seizure, and police held him down as he struggled to breathe. She had a hard time squaring those actions with what she knew in her heart was a medical emergency. But she just didn’t trust her recollection. She felt constantly at war — her memory pitted against her deep trust in the police."
Sadly, a big mistake. Trust egregiously unwarranted.
"And more times than not, she ended up pushing her doubts aside. Why would the police lie? She wanted to believe they had done everything they could to save her son."
Not so:
"On Aug. 14, she heard a knock on her door. When she opened it, she found two Associated Press reporters who asked if she wanted to know more about how her son had died. They had videos that the family had never seen. It was not easy for Goodwin to take them up on the offer. She knew it would be painful to revisit the worst night of her life."
She was entitled to the truth. Moreover, there could be no peace without the truth.
"After a week of agonizing, she sat down at her kitchen table and stared at a laptop before hitting play on the videos captured by police body cameras. The house was quiet except for the ping of a wind chime. The videos on her computer screen took Goodwin straight back. Body cameras worn by officers Eric Keller and Kevin Frederick had captured most of the interactions between police, paramedics and Turner. At times, the figures were difficult to make out, but one thing was clear: From the first moment police arrived, Turner was treated as a suspect resisting arrest — not as a patient facing an emergency. Goodwin watched in horror as police officers seemed to ignore the fact they had been dispatched to a medical call. Paramedics tried to force Turner onto his feet. He managed to get to his knees and momentarily stand. He took a single step and toppled over. Officers began screaming that Turner was resisting arrest, being combative and disobeying their commands. But the video seemed to show Turner was having a seizure. During a seizure, the muscles of the arms, legs and face stiffen, then begin to jerk. The videos showed that Turner was not throwing punches. He wasn’t kicking. When Keller bounded into the apartment, the video shows he yelled at the flailing Turner, who was pinned down in a recliner chair, “You’re going to get tased if you keep it up.” Despite paramedics warning him to wait, about 10 seconds later Keller pulled the trigger. Goodwin flinched when she heard the weapon’s loud pop followed by her son’s painful cry, as electricity coursed through his body. “You’re not going to win this battle,” another paramedic said."
Imagine the mother's reaction. Videos don't lie. Don't distort reality. Don't obliterate the truth.
"Goodwin was aghast. “Win what?” she thought. “This isn’t a contest. My son isn’t resisting. He’s dying!” The force didn’t end there. A paramedic sprayed a sedative up Turner’s nose, but most of it ended up on the medic. Police kept restraining Turner — even after he was handcuffed facedown on top of the recliner. They shackled his legs. When police transferred Turner to a gurney, they again put him facedown and strapped him in place. As blood spilled from his mouth, they covered his head with a spit hood. Once inside the ambulance, an officer sat on Turner’s body — even though he was still on his stomach. There was no rush to get him to the hospital. Instead, the body camera showed police officers and paramedics spent six minutes recounting the “battle.”
Getting their cookies off.
"It was only then that a paramedic noticed that Turner wasn’t breathing. Attendants removed the restraints, flipped him over, and began CPR. After about 10 minutes a paramedic walked into the frame. For a moment, he studied his colleagues who were working feverishly to revive Turner. He looked puzzled. “What the hell happened here?” he asked. “Did we cut his damn airway off?” They said no. As medics continued to work on Turner, the quizzical paramedic asked, “Y’all ain’t recording are you?” The officer turned off his body camera. Goodwin’s screen suddenly went blank. The Goodwins were livid. The videos raised disturbing questions. So, they decided to drill down into documents –- the police reports and autopsy –- to try to find answers. They soon became convinced the Bristol law enforcement community had lied about what had happened. Police didn’t include any statements in their reports from Karen Goodwin and her other son, Dustin, who had been in the apartment during the encounter. The events police described were a far cry from what Goodwin and her son had seen, or what was captured by the body cameras. They had made Turner out to be a villain."
Gets worse. Far worse.
"In a report, Lt. Greg Brown said the paramedics told police the young man was reaching for a knife on the kitchen counter. “A damn lie,” Goodwin thought. She’d seen a paramedic clear the counters before police arrived. Keller said he fired his Taser to stop Turner from fighting the medical personnel. Goodwin knew her son was dazed from the seizures. He wasn’t fighting back. They had no reason to stun him. Brown wrote in a report that Turner was fighting with medics when he arrived at the apartment. Goodwin was there. She saw no such thing. The body camera showed the opposite. Using buzzwords that painted the victim as the aggressor, Brown said Turner was “combative,” “agitated,” and had “ignored commands.” Brown noted that Turner had incredible strength like those under the influence of narcotics. Sullivan County District Attorney Barry Staubus had asked the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to examine Turner’s death. The investigator talked to witnesses and collected other details, Staubus said in an interview with AP. But after reviewing the TBI report and the body-camera footage, Staubus concluded that Turner died of a drug overdose. Nothing in the autopsy concluded the force and “restraint techniques” had caused or contributed to Turner’s death. The Goodwins expressed reservations about the state’s investigation and the prosecutor’s decision to shield police from accountability. They noted that state investigators never reached out to two of the most important witnesses: Karen Goodwin and Dustin. The state investigator had sent messages to Turner’s girlfriend and a neighbor at the scene, asking if they’d talk. They said yes. They never heard from the investigator again."
Surprised?
"Tennessee law keeps confidential the state’s investigation files, including those that detail fatal police encounters – unless the death involves a shooting. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation declined to discuss Turner’s death."
Surprised?
"Bristol’s chief of police would not answer questions when reached by the AP. Lt. Brown and officers Keller and Frederick did not reply to requests for comment, and neither did paramedics involved. The Bristol Fire Department did not respond to repeated requests for comment."
Surprised?
"The Goodwins were also perplexed by the autopsy report. Medical Examiner Eugene Scheuerman had declared Turner’s death an accident. He died of “Multiple Drug Toxicity” related to his use of the opioid in Suboxone and the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. An analysis found a “therapeutic to lethal level” of Suboxone in Turner’s system. Scheuerman added that “dilated cardiomyopathy” — a condition that affects the heart’s ability to pump enough oxygen-rich blood — was a contributing factor to Turner’s death. The autopsy report also repeated the police version of events. He didn’t note that police officers had placed Turner facedown and applied their body weight, a tactic that has long been criticized by experts for restricting breathing. The Goodwins wondered if the medical examiner had bothered to watch the police videos. Scheuerman has since died. Three experts who reviewed the documents for AP related to the incident disagreed with the autopsy findings: they said Turner did not die of a drug overdose. Instead, they said the Bristol police made critical errors that contributed to Turner’s death, including placing him facedown in a way that could restrict his breathing. “They didn’t understand the dangers of prolonged restraint and the pressure on his back,” said Jack Ryan, a police training expert and a former police officer and administrator."
Nothing quite like the truth to elicit a desperately needed wake up call.
"Karen and Brian Goodwin said they were still figuring out how to come to terms with the truth. They had blamed their son for his own demise and had felt incredibly guilty about that. They are now convinced he didn’t die from drugs — he was killed by police force. What hurts so much is that many people in town believe Turner died of an overdose. The parents still can hear the whispers in grocery stores and restaurants: Their boy would still be alive if he hadn’t been a drug user. “That’s the stigma that we’ve had to live with, ‘Your son was a dumbass.’ We’ve had to live with that as his legacy,” Brian said. “I want everyone to know the truth.”
Indeed. No question. Desperately needed all across our formerly great country. Clearly, law enforcement is not what it claims to be. Far from it.
"What’s next? A lawsuit? Becoming advocates for holding police accountable in arrest-related deaths so another family doesn’t go through their pain? They wonder how they will react if police pull them over along the road. They still support the police. But will they be respectful? Karen worries she may be running out of time. Her health, fragile from the cancer fight, has been flagging. She is glad she learned the truth, but she fears she won’t live long enough to do anything with it. “My son didn’t do this to himself,” Karen said, fighting back tears. “He didn’t have to die … His death killed a part of us.” She turned and studied the clock on the coffee table. Even with all the new information, the clock’s hands remain fixed, unmoving, stuck forever at 35 minutes past midnight."
Hat's off to The Associated Press. Courageously exposed the truth.
Cowardly fail to financially and/or materially support those fighting for all civil and constitutional rights and liberties at great personal cost and risk? Get what you truly deserve. Forfeiture of liberty. At the hands of outrageously corrupt and abusive government.
1-20-23
The rise of fascism in our formerly great country presents an exigent threat to a democratic republic. Fascism, nazism, national socialism defined as the pernicious blend of government, business, and religion. 'Justified' by perversion and bastardization of the latter. Carefully consider the perspective of a 102-year-old Nazi prosecutor. NBC News reports:
"Ben Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials, answered the phone in bright spirits. “Good morning,” he hollered. “Ask your questions.” Nearly 75 years had passed since Ferencz secured convictions against 22 Nazi death squad commanders responsible for the murder of more than 1 million Jews and others. The trials marked the first time in history that mass murderers were prosecuted for war crimes, and Ferencz was only 27 at the time. He went on to play a crucial role in securing compensation for Holocaust survivors and in the creation of the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Now, at 102 years old, he was sitting at his desk in Delray Beach, Florida, answering a reporter’s questions with wit and remarkable recall. What were his final words to the lead defendant after a judge sentenced the man to death in 1948? “Goodbye, Mr. Ohlendorf.”
Indeed.
"What did he think about the war in Ukraine and the uptick in antisemitic incidents around the globe? “The world has still not learned the lessons of Nuremberg.”
No question. ... Sadly, as we see fascism embraced by a growing number of clueless Republicans here in the United States falsely labeling it 'conservatism.'
"What was described as “the biggest murder trial in history” was in fact Ferencz’s first case ever. The son of Hungarian Jews, he was 10 months old when his family immigrated to the U.S. in 1920 and settled in New York City. He grew up poor on the rough and tumble streets of Hell’s Kitchen, where his father worked as a janitor-turned-house painter. Ferencz attended the City College of New York, which was free for bright immigrants, earned a scholarship to Harvard Law School and enlisted in the Army after graduation as World War II engulfed Europe. He landed on the beaches of Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. With the allied forces closing in on the center of Nazi power in Berlin, he was transferred to a unit responsible for gathering evidence of war crimes. Ferencz traveled to multiple concentration camps — Buchenwald, Mauthause, Flossenburg, Ebensee — often within days and sometimes hours of their liberation. The scenes he witnessed would haunt him for the rest of his life. Skeletal figures with hollow eyes pleading for help — many too weak or too sick to move. Others crawling around garbage piles, digging for scraps of food. And bodies. So many dead bodies — in some cases stacked like firewood in front of the still-burning crematoriums."
Time to wake up. Think history can't, won't repeat itself?
“Grim as hell,” Ferencz said. “I had to refrain from letting it get to me emotionally.” He had a specific job to do. The Nazis were well known for keeping detailed records. Ferencz was tasked with securing them before they were destroyed. “My goal was clear: Grab the documents,” he recalled. “I headed straight to the main office and closed it off. ‘Nobody goes in or out without my permission. No German, no American — nobody. I want complete control of the archives,’ which I got.” Ferencz said it took immense effort to keep his emotions in check. “I knew that what I was seeing was horror,” he said."
Think it can't, won't, couldn't happen here?
"He told himself: “Just get on with the job, Benny. Just get your evidence. And get your ass out of there.” Ferencz and his men collected thousands of documents at the camps and facilities in Berlin. They included detailed reports on the Einsatzgruppen, special SS units that roamed Nazi-occupied Europe and killed more than 1 million people. The Nazis’ studious bookkeeping would soon seal the fate of some of Hitler’s most infamous henchmen. The first and best-known trial in Nuremberg kicked off in November 1945. It ended with the conviction of Herman Goring and 21 other top Nazi lieutenants. The U.S. decided to hold 12 more trials in Nuremberg against Nazi judges, doctors and other top figures. By the time Ferencz found the Einsatzgruppen records, the U.S. had already finalized plans for the other trials. “I knew I had a hot potato,” he said. He flew to Nuremberg and told Telford Taylor, the chief counsel for the prosecutions, that they must add another trial. But Telford said it wasn’t possible. The budget had already been set and the Pentagon wasn’t keen on any more trials. “I got a little bit indignant,” Ferencz recalled. “I said, ‘I have in my hand here the mass murder of a million people. Don’t tell me we can’t put them on trial.’ “He said, ‘Well, can you do it in addition to your other work?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ That’s how I got my first case.”
Think this couldn't possibly happen here?
"The trial began on Sept. 29, 1947. The defendants were imposing figures — middle-aged men who had overseen the mass slaughter of innocent civilians. Ferencz was six months shy of his 28th birthday and stood barely 5 feet tall. He was so short he had to stand on books to reach the courtroom lectern. But he spoke with the power and eloquence of a seasoned litigator. “The defendants were the cruel executioners whose terror wrote the blackest page in human history,” he said in his opening statement. “Death was their tool and life their toy. If these men be immune, then law has lost its meaning and man must live in fear.” Ferencz called only one witness — a man who verified the authenticity of the records that documented the “cleansing” of Jews in cities across Europe. All 22 defendants were convicted, with 14 sentenced to death. But only four were executed, including Otto Ohlendorf, a notorious SS commander."
Get this:
"After the sentencing, Ferencz decided to meet with Ohlendorf in a courtroom holding cell. Not to elicit a confession or probe his mind. Ferencz wanted to extend a favor. Would Ohlendorf like him to deliver a message to his family? “I had in mind that he had a wife and five children,” Ferencz said. “Would he like me to say that he was sorry that he brought disgrace on the family or something along those lines?” But Ohlendorf wasn’t interested. He launched into a diatribe defending the Nazis, saying they were right to resist the “communists” seeking to take over Germany and the rest of the world. Ferencz cut him off midsentence and ended the conversation with three words uttered in German: “Goodbye, Mr. Ohlendorf.” “There was no remorse whatsoever,” Ferencz said. “No regrets.”
Sound remarkably familiar? Republican defense of the Trump nazi since he took office. Even after the clueless, fascist bastard treasonously, traitorously incited the 1-6-21 Capitol insurrection. Time to wake up. Before too late.
"Over the years, Ferencz has received a boatload of awards and honors. Most recently, he was selected in December to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’s highest civilian honor. Ferencz has donated millions to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and other organizations that promote peace, vowing to end his life the way it started — as a “poor boy.” And he traveled the world into his 90s, spreading his motto of “law, not war.” “I was damn lucky to live this long,” said Ferencz, who turns 103 in March. “I hope that I’ve done some good during that lifetime.”
Time for the national socialist, fascist, nazi element in the Republican Party to finally wake up. Before too late. Sadly, we remain a democratic republic in name only. In reality, a de facto fascist police-state. Fascism, nazism, national socialism defined as the pernicious blend of government, business, and religion. 'Justified' by perversion and bastardization of the latter.
Cowardly fail to financially
and/or materially support those fighting for all civil and constitutional
rights and liberties at great personal cost and risk? Get what you
truly deserve. Forfeiture of liberty. At the hands of outrageously
corrupt and abusive government.
6-17-22
The most serious and dangerous rise of nazism in our formerly great country dates back not even a decade after the end of the Second World War. Hundreds of thousands of our best and brightest died fighting the German Nazis and Italian Fascists only to have this fascist curse take hold here in the United States in the early Fifties during the McCarthy Era. The issue goes back even further to the late Thirties when some in our country including the famous aviator Charles Lindbergh sympathized with Adolf Hitler and his ideology. The Washington Post reports:
"The year was 1954, and the Cold War was in full swing. Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) was seeing Soviet spies in every corner of the government. And a young sociologist at Columbia University, Daniel Bell, convened a seminar to come to grips with the menace of McCarthyism. Bell enlisted an academic dream team that included historian Richard Hofstadter and sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset. A year later, the group of seven intellectuals published their findings as an essay collection, edited by Bell. “The New American Right” argued that McCarthy’s conspiratorial anti-communism was here to stay. By then, the Senate had censured McCarthy, and McCarthyism had collapsed. The book looked dead on arrival. But nearly 70 years later, as a congressional committee investigates the far-right attack on the U.S. government on Jan. 6, 2021, the forgotten text has never looked more prescient. The authors wrote that far-right activists who wrapped themselves in the American flag actually posed a grave threat to the country’s core principles. In the name of protecting U.S. democracy, they warned, the radical right would employ the language and methods of authoritarianism. If “The New American Right” seemed obsolete when it was first published, that changed quickly. By the early ’60s, it was obvious McCarthy had spawned a movement with real staying power made up of anti-communist organizations. Take the John Birch Society, which in 1962 counted about 60,000 members and an estimated 9.5 million sympathizers. Its founder, a candy tycoon named Robert Welch, thought “traitors inside the U.S. government would betray the country’s sovereignty to the United Nations for a collectivist New World Order, managed by a ‘one-world socialist government.’” Or take the lesser-known Liberty Lobby, founded by an avowed admirer of Nazi Germany. This white supremacist group prophesied an apocalyptic struggle “between the white and the colored world, of which Russia is the Lord.” Bell’s team of academics revised “The New American Right” and rereleased it in 1963 as “The Radical Right.” It would become a must-read for students of modern American history."
These people certainly understood the exigent threat to liberty:
"The intellectuals held that the radical right not only loathed communism but also liberal democracy and the basic tenets of the U.S. Constitution. As Bell noted wryly, its partisans stood ready “to jettison constitutional processes and to suspend liberties, to condone Communist methods in the fighting of Communism.” They blasted free elections and the peaceful transfer of power, lamented the independence of the judiciary and opposed civil rights. If the Soviets wanted to destabilize the republic, they could hardly have found keener agents than the radical right. Hofstadter called these activists “pseudo-conservatives” (a term borrowed from philosopher Theodor W. Adorno). They posed as conservatives but in truth were authoritarians with a nihilistic urge to watch the world burn. “Followers of a movement like the John Birch Society,” Hofstadter wrote in one of the book’s essays, “are in our world but not exactly of it.” They lived amid what their successors would come to call “alternative facts.”
Precisely, what we see today in the Trump nazi, his henchmen, and supporters.
"Adherents of the movement preached imminent doomsday. In 1963, following the ratification of a nuclear treaty with the Soviet Union, the Liberty Lobby declared that “the United States has, at best, only a few more years.” In a speech denouncing the radical right, Sen. Thomas Kuchel (R-Calif.) labeled them “fright peddlers.” It became the ’60s equivalent of Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables,” a term of derision worn as a badge of honor by the derided. Bell argued that pseudo-conservatives were driven by a fear of modernity. The United States was starting to shift to a knowledge economy dominated by a “technical and professional intelligentsia.” This rattled pseudo-conservatives, who felt, in Bell’s words, the “disquiet of the dispossessed.” This sounds more than a little like the forces that helped elect Donald Trump, spark the QAnon extremist ideology and launch the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The radical right of the 1960s, by contrast, never found its Trump — a leader who could unite the movement and give it real political power. Barry Goldwater, the Republican firebrand who ran for the presidency in 1964, was crushed in a landslide, and subsequent Republican presidents did not embrace pseudo-conservatism. When the radical right first gained strength, it fell to a Democratic president to formulate a counterattack — just as President Biden and his allies in Congress are now attempting. In 1961, John F. Kennedy deplored those who “call for a ‘man on horseback’ because they do not trust the people.” His brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, deemed the John Birch Society “a tremendous danger” and excoriated “those, who, in the name of fighting communism, sow the seeds of suspicion … against the foundations of our government — Congress, the Supreme Court, and even the presidency itself.” To stave off the threat, the Kennedys had the IRS audit extremist groups and the Federal Communications Commission regulate right-wing radio. But these efforts failed to make a dent in the groups’ appeal."
Sadly, it enabled them.
"Pseudo-conservatism only lost relevance in the mid-1960s, after conservatives such as Ronald Reagan disavowed the John Birch Society. Today’s Republicans have yet to follow suit with Trump, QAnon and the Jan. 6 attack. In February, the Republican National Committee declared the insurrection “legitimate political discourse.”
Raw insanity.
"The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack began a series of highly anticipated hearings Thursday. The committee, composed of seven Democrats and two Republicans, has so far stood united in its pledge to uncover the truth about what Biden has called “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” But the ideology behind the attack is nothing new. Bell’s team of academics was already sounding the alarm 67 years ago."
Reagan was no conservative. The national debt approximately tripled during his eight year reign. Largely due to military spending and the instability it created in the world community.
Cowardly fail to financially and/or materially support those fighting for all civil and constitutional rights and liberties at great personal cost and risk? Get what you truly deserve. Forfeiture of liberty. At the hands of outrageously corrupt and abusive government.
Tim Chorney, Publisher
Liberty In Peril