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[Reelya]

Trump has the right grass-roots stuff for fasicsm: aggressive nativist populism, but he lacks the "base-building" that went into 30's fascism: e.g. there aren't any real, properly organized party-loyal Trumpist paramilitaries as such. One of the warning signs is when they discredit the mainstream media and make their own party-controlled media, but you also need e.g. organized party loyal paramilitaries and such, e.g. if Trump also discredited the mainstream military and made his own populist units outside of the normal chain of command that would be a warning sign.

However, there were many more signs of that sort of thing going on in the W. Bush era - 1984-sounding umbrella organizations like Homeland Security, PATRIOT ACT, FREEDOM ACT. And Dick Cheney and his coporate mates basically running private armies on the government paycheck overseas. One of the things was a decree, passed before Bush handed over Iraq to the local interim government that made all foreign mercenaries in Iraq basically immune from prosecution under Iraqi law. This was a huge issue for the Iraqis, since the foreign paramilitaries run by Cheney's company and rubber-stamped by Rumsfeld were in fact committing atrocities, all of which were outside of every nation's laws.

The Bush administration built a scarily Soviet-looking $1 billion dollar "embassy" compound/superfortress for US HQ in Baghdad far larger and more ominous than any palace ever built by Saddam. And you had Abu Graihb / Guantanamo and other US-run torture centers, plus them "outsourcing" torture to morocco and egypt.

Basically, Cheney and Rumsfeld's real plan seems to have been to try and run Iraq as a sort of fascist experiment with a privately-employed army loyal to Haliburton and Blackwater taking over from US national forces. And remember what I said about 1930's fascists wanting to phase out the national army for a "party loyal" paramilitary army (e.g. Hitler Youth and Waffen SS instead of the Wehrmacht). That in fact seems like what Cheney/Rumsfeld were actually planning to set up in Iraq. A local government who take all the blame, but the real power being a Haliburton-controlled private army who are above the law. That's the most recent US experiment with fascism.

For example, Cheney's company Haliburton and its subsidiarie made over $40 billion off Iraq contracts put in place by Rumsfeld.
https://www.ft.com/content/7f435f04-8c05-11e2-b001-00144feabdc0
And here's evidence that the mercs were classified as above the law, but the Iraqi government vehemently fought against that from 2003 onwards, and got it revoked in 2008.
http://www.economist.com/node/11975460

Trump/Cheney would have in fact been the end of America as you know it.

[sluissa]

Trump has the right grass-roots stuff for fasicsm: aggressive nativist populism, but he lacks the "base-building" that went into 30's fascism: e.g. there aren't any real, properly organized party-loyal Trumpist paramilitaries as such. One of the warning signs is when they discredit the mainstream media and make their own party-controlled media, but you also need e.g. organized party loyal paramilitaries and such, e.g. if Trump also discredited the mainstream military and made his own populist units outside of the normal chain of command that would be a warning sign.

However, there were many more signs of that sort of thing going on in the W. Bush era - 1984-sounding umbrella organizations like Homeland Security, PATRIOT ACT, FREEDOM ACT. And Dick Cheney and his mates basically running private armies on the government paycheck overseas. One of the things was a decree, passed before Bush handed over Iraq to the local interim government that made all foreign mercenaries in Iraq basically immune from prosecution under Iraqi law. This was a huge issue for the Iraqis, since the foreign paramilitaries run by Cheney's company and rubber-stamped by Rumsfeld were in fact committing atrocities, all of which were outside of every nation's laws.

The Bush administration built a scarily Soviet-looking $1 billion dollar "embassy" compound/superfortress for US HQ in Baghdad far larger and more ominous than any palace ever built by Saddam. And you had Abu Graihb / Guantanamo and other US-run torture centers, plus them "outsourcing" torture to morocco and egypt.

Basically, Cheney and Rumsfeld's real plan seems to have been to try and run Iraq as a sort of fascist experiment with a privately-employed army loyal to Haliburton and Blackwater taking over from US national forces. And remember what I said about 1930's fascists wanting to phase out the national army for a "party loyal" paramilitary army (e.g. Hitler Youth and Waffen SS instead of the Wehrmacht). That in fact seems like what Cheney/Rumsfeld were actually planning to set up in Iraq. A local government who take all the blame, but the real power being a Haliburton-controlled private army who are above the law. That's the most recent US experiment with fascism.

Trump/Cheney would have in fact been the end of America as you know it.

Cheney and Rumsfeld were making Iraq into Outer Heaven Army's Heaven? 

Edit: I guess it's more likely the obscure evil one than the misguided but good intended one.

[Dunamisdeos]

I did some research on US Mercenary use in general after reading Reelya's post, which interested me greatly.

I had multiple sources and links, but then because Skype is a f**** worthless piece of *** **** *** *** with a chicken and *** ****** itself, it locked up my entire computer and I had to reboot. It was like an hour of work, I don't have time to do it all again.

What I found by looking at sources such as the NYT, CNN, and the Washington Post was that mercenary use in the US had been a problem for a very long time, but that the Bush era took it took an extreme. I did find that Blackwater, who committed the most famous atrocities, was in fact held accountable. After the most famous one where 19+ civilians were gunned down in the street, their right to operate in Iraq was revoked. They were given either life in prison or 30 years. There were also multiple atrocities committed by non-US "private military security" firms during that time, such as one where a british merc gunned down some folks in a bar. Lots and lots of discussion regarding this problem.

Now what I did not expect to find, and this was interesting in context of Reelya's definition of fascist indicators in the media (which I generally agree with) was that there was almost no discussion of further mercenary use during Obama's presidency. The ONLY reference I found was one that did confirm the continued use of mercenaries in general. However, the use of private contractor companies climbed during his administration. Aside from that, it was nothing but constant discussions about how the Blackwater mercs were being sentenced.

Then, in 2017, NYT/CNN/WP is willing to talk about the general subject of mercs abroad again and the dangers thereof. Now I'm also of the opinion that none of this indicates any real red flag for a fascist leader in the US in and of itself. Confusingly, it was actually Obama's admin that fit the fascist mass-media bill (as defined in this thread) most neatly, what with continued atrocity, the use of private paid firms, and a near-utter lack of media coverage thereof.

[Reelya]

Yeah what I was writing was specifically about the Cheney/Rumsfeld era in which there was basically carte blank given to "contractors" in Iraq. The documentary "Daylight Robbery" by BBC Panorama is an eye opener here. For example the worst tortures at Abu Graibh were done by private contractors, and those aren't covered by military justice, nor do they fall under the jurisdiction of Iraqi law. The bringing of those Blackwater guys to justice only kicked off one Bush/Cheney were gone so it doesn't really impact on the implication of what I was writing about. They did in fact give the mercs free reign, and it was only in 2009, after Bush was gone, that the Iraqis finally got back the right to charge American-backed mercs with crimes.

America is still using a lot of private military contractors. That's right, however it's not being done in the context of setting them up as secret armies that are above the laws of the nations they are involved in, with secret torture centres dotted all over the place. That was the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld reality. Hell, remember that the Bush people were kidnapping civilians in Europe, sending them to torture centers in Morocco, Egypt and Afghanistan, and when they realized they had the wrong people, dumping them in random third nations.

There was also the US Army Chaplain who was a Muslim, who was speaking up about mistreatment at Guantanamo. The Bush Administration had him gotten rid off (conveniently just before the 2004 election), and they held him in a military prison somewhere, saying that he was a terrorist. They were kidnapping loyal American Officers and holding them in blacksites, probably to improve their election chances.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://old.seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2002150595_yeechapter9.html

In a small military courtroom, a crush of journalists expected to finally get some clues about the case against Capt. James Yee. ... The most serious counts Yee faced so far were of mishandling classified documents. Today's preliminary hearing was to determine whether there was enough evidence to go to trial on those and other charges of lying to a Guantánamo official, adultery and downloading pornography

The hearing began and, to the surprise of many in the room, the government's first witness was a 36-year-old woman who was there to talk not about secret documents, but a secret affair. ... Karyn Wallace, a Navy lieutenant who had been ordered to testify under grant of immunity, told the court that she and Yee had been friends at Guantánamo in the summer of 2003. They soon became lovers. ... An Army computer analyst told how Yee had used his government computer to search for Internet pornography.
...
 Orlich and Polet still waited. They were there to explain why Yee's documents were considered classified and why they could be a threat to national security. ... But as the first day came to a close, prosecutors still had not called them. ... Prosecutors had a problem. They had no proof the documents were classified.

Polet and Orlich were sent to Southern Command headquarters in Miami, where they joined four other officers. They called themselves a "classification tiger team." They had nearly 700 documents to review, gathered in searches of Yee's residence in Guantánamo and from his luggage the day of his arrest. They included personal log books, literature downloaded from the Internet and notebooks and lists containing references to detainees, their cell locations and the names of their interrogators, according to investigators.

Not one document by itself was classified. But the team was working on what was called the "compilation theory" of classification: One document with a detainee serial number might not be secret, another with a detainee name or cell number might not be, but put them together and they were. Page by page, the investigators spent the next four weeks scrutinizing every line, looking for sensitive material that could threaten the prison, or the country, if it got into the wrong hands.

In other words he was arrested for literally nothing, then they tried to come up with charges that would stick. And even though they had literally nothing they kept threatening him with the death penalty from day one.

[redwallzyl]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/05/562217575/multiple-casualties-reported-after-gunman-opens-fire-in-south-texas-church

Here we go again.

[Frumple]

Yep. Looks like current count is 20-27 dead, somewhere around the same number wounded to some degree, relative to a service that hovered around 50ish (which sounds about right for a small town Baptist joint). Basically would have killed or injured near all of the congregation present. Looks to be the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history, apparently.

Currently wondering why the name sounds familiar, m'self. Been in east-ish Texas visiting sorta' family (cousin's wife-ish thing by marriage's parents) before, but it's been a long damn time and I don't remember exactly where it was, bleh. More than one something- springs in places I'm more familiar with, which is probably what's causing it.

[sluissa]

Yep. Looks like current count is 20-27 dead, somewhere around the same number wounded to some degree, relative to a service that hovered around 50ish (which sounds about right for a small town Baptist joint). Basically would have killed or injured near all of the congregation present. Looks to be the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history, apparently.

Currently wondering why the name sounds familiar, m'self. Been in east-ish Texas visiting sorta' family (cousin's wife-ish thing by marriage's parents) before, but it's been a long damn time and I don't remember exactly where it was, bleh. More than one something- springs in places I'm more familiar with, which is probably what's causing it.

Best I found after a quick search was in 1891 a farmer nearby while plowing a field dug up an iron pot full of Spanish gold coins worth $17,000 in 1891 money.

Everything else is, as far as I can tell, unrelated news tainted by sidebar news of the shooting.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate news site design?

[Frumple]

News from the place prior? You looking for that just take Google or something and search by time period, just put something like this January in the To date and leave the from blank. That usually culls most recent news stuff.* Already forgot but I vaguely remember some stuff regarding some (nearby?) school or somethin'. Generally all you find about one caution light towns unless something like this happens or someone takes the (very often rather rampant) corruption too far.

* Most. I'm not really entirely sure how some places end up with articles showing up as from the 90s or somethin' despite being about modern events.

[misko27]

So is this the Antifa apocalypse I was promised?

News from the place prior? You looking for that just take Google or something and search by time period, just put something like this January in the To date and leave the from blank. That usually culls most recent news stuff.* Already forgot but I vaguely remember some stuff regarding some (nearby?) school or somethin'. Generally all you find about one caution light towns unless something like this happens or someone takes the (very often rather rampant) corruption too far.

I'm not the person who asked, but I just did that and Google is indicating that this town has no distinguishing features. Wikipedia confirms.

[wierd]

That just means that it is fly-over country, and nobody "Important" gives a fuck about them or their town.  I hate to be crass about it, but that is really what that indicates.  That does not mean that there are not local issues to that town that nobody outside that town cares about though--- people who live in that area might feel sufficiently strongly about those local issues to commit acts of violence such as this.

[smjjames]

So is this the Antifa apocalypse I was promised?

News from the place prior? You looking for that just take Google or something and search by time period, just put something like this January in the To date and leave the from blank. That usually culls most recent news stuff.* Already forgot but I vaguely remember some stuff regarding some (nearby?) school or somethin'. Generally all you find about one caution light towns unless something like this happens or someone takes the (very often rather rampant) corruption too far.

I'm not the person who asked, but I just did that and Google is indicating that this town has no distinguishing features. Wikipedia confirms.

Well, they do NOW, though not a distinguishing feature any town would want.

And yeah, no antifa (weirdly, iPad autocorrected that to antifagosta, even though that's not a word in its database. Or maybe it was Antofagasta, either way, spellcheck is wierd sometimes) apocalypse, not even a mention of violence happening. The alt-right is just so trapped in its bubble of conspiracies.

That just means that it is fly-over country, and nobody "Important" gives a fuck about them or their town.  I hate to be crass about it, but that is really what that indicates.  That does not mean that there are not local issues to that town that nobody outside that town cares about though--- people who live in that area might feel sufficiently strongly about those local issues to commit acts of violence such as this.

To a church though? It's Texas, not exactly a hotbed of anti-religion communists. Also, the guy is from a nearby smallish city, or that's his most recent place of residence, the connection to the small town isn't known yet.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Shooter is also ex-military, which unfortunately explains a lot about the bodycount.

[Frumple]

And yeah, no antifa (weirdly, iPad autocorrected that to antifagosta, even though that's not a word in its database. Or maybe it was Antofagasta, either way, spellcheck is wierd sometimes) apocalypse, not even a mention of violence happening. The alt-right is just so trapped in its bubble of conspiracies.

Swear to fornication if this antifa bullshit takes the route of more normal apocalypse predictions I'm going to throw things at other things. I don't know what or who at who or what, but if this turns into eschatology style "the nth+1 time we got the day wrong means nothing" shit, I'm going to figure something out.

[smjjames]

Unless it's some kind of self fullfilling apocalypse fantasy, which speaks a lot about the mindset of the alt-right and far right.

[hector13]

Well you can’t justify genocide without making the other side appear monstrous, I guess.