Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

I hope it is finally clear to everyone that impeachment action as to Donald John Trump is indeed under way (although maybe not – I’m still getting petitions). The substance of the articles will likely be extortion or attempted extortion rather than treason or attempted treason, which is fine – extortion is simply bribery with menaces, and Bribery, like Treason, is specifically cited in the Constitution as a reason to impeach. But there are many reasons that this person is a cancer on our government, most of which are not impeachable, but which are in many ways even more horrendous than the impeachable offenses. I want to remind us of one today.

Tevye is a member of the Daily Kos community (as am I, as well as Nameless and TC), as opposed to a member of the staff. Since he joined in 2014, he has written 89 articles (as Daily Kos calls them, diaries.) I have come to recognize the name, and to realize that if I read it, I will cry, and I will be a better person for it. So of course I always do. He has kindly given me permission to reprint this one, which deals with something that is as much Trump as the guards at Auschwitz and Dachau were Hitler, but for which I do not expect him to be held accountable, any more than Hitler was. If you are up to reading more, you can find all of his diaries at this link. He references the one from July 26. I personally feel the one from March 16 also explains a lot. But here he is.

==================================================================

Whilst Leaving Water And Supplies In The Desert Beyond Our Border, I Found The Body Of A Refugee.

*A trigger warning to my equally sensitive brethren.
There are three pictures, used with permission, at the end of the diary that are disturbing.
Of those that recently died coming here in search of a better life.
I believe them to be pertinent to both the story and to the very real realities of the current situation.*

It was bound to happen.

I’ve been at this for months…every weekend or every other weekend.

As relayed two months back in my diary of May 26 of the reasons why i’m out here in this parched wasteland..

…because of that Polish couple who died trying to protect my ancestors from the nazis almost eighty years ago…

…and because of the pictures and stories of the plight of those desperate brothers and sisters trudging with everything they own on their back, for a better life for themselves and their families.

Why else would they walk through a desert with vulnerable children that they love dearly but for sheer desperation and determination?

Well over 8,000 bodies (!) have been discovered in this area over the last twenty years, and i’ve been going from one area to another so….it was bound to happen.

It never, ever gets easier.

Finding the bodies of once vibrant, thinking and breathing brothers and sisters with hopes and dreams.

Everytime that I have, I think about his/her family…anxiously awaiting the news that their loved ones are safe.

I think about my ancestors, and how they were hunted.

I think of my family….what if it was me?

God, just how many have i found over the decades?

As an international aid/relief worker for so many years…I have found so many.

From the aftermath of war, from violence, from natural disasters, from disease, from starvation.

In this case… this man most probably died from lack of water.

This man, whose hopes and dreams entailed coming here to America for a life of relative prosperity. For clean water and plentiful food…where death squads aren’t breaking down doors and doing what they will too whomever they please.

I’ve concentrated my effort to leaving five gallons of water, 10-15 MRE’s…food, and two space blankets in each location on route throughout this ridiculously hot and dry area of the Sonoran Desert, beyond the Arizona border.

And each one is accompanied by a message, in Spanish, in crayon, often accompanied with drawings, by the very young daughter of an ally and friend.

Telling the reader that they are needed and wanted.

That they are welcome.

And each has a rudimentary map written in the field of their location and its proximity to the border.

Almost 160 locations so far.

Suffice it to say, because of my life experiences and because that Polish couple were executed by the Nazi’s for trying, ultimately unsuccessfully, to protect my ancestors from the flames of the Holocaust, is why I’m here so often, traveling from my Colorado or New Mexico homes, after a week of work.

This last month, I have been accompanied by Father Alex*(not his real first name)…a Jesuit Priest who I first met in El Salvador in the mid- 1980’s, when we were both relatively young men.

Alex was put on a death list along with other priests, many of whom were murdered for trying to protect the meek and weak…he has permanent markings from two particular beatings, and a bullet hole were he had to feign death.

He was a friend of murdered Archbishop Óscar Romero, and with his six fellow Jesuits murdered by the Salvadorian Army’s U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion… and knew Jean Donovan, who’s rape and murder brought attention to the world of the beast that was let loose there.

Though gentle and with his heart on his sleeve….he’s no shrinking violet.

A man of deep conviction and love.

We started off early in the morning, before the sun is at its most intense.

We got word that caches that i had left have been definitively found by Border Patrol and destroyed…..those rat bastards.

So we decided to go to that area once more, to resupply the area.

We supplied two locations, and went back to our vehicle so we could supply two more.

Not more than 200 yards from one location that I had left supplies some months back….i saw in the distance a sight what is now to me unmistakable.

“Oh hell no.”

Alex followed my eyes and he saw what i saw.

We knew what we’d find, but he ran to the figure with a burst of adrenaline which belayed his age.

A young man….late teens or early twenties.

He wasn’t there that long.

Tell-tale signs. The birds and animals of prey, insects, etc had only just begun their work.

His large tattered but undisturbed backpack.

Alex sat in the sand silent next to him for a few minutes, whilst i for some reason walked in circles around the site chanting a Hindu mantra.

I went over to my supplies to get some water and a pair of gloves, and I checked his body…no signs of violence.

Alex located his wallet with i.d. and pictures.

I heard Alex say “So here you are”, and he said it with a strange inflection that it made me turn to him, and i saw that his eyes were wet.

He is a dark man, made darker by the sun, but he appeared almost pale at that moment.

“Our Honduran brother is 20….and his first name is Jesus.”

That revelation… that symbolism…. made me sit in the sand where i had been standing.

Here i was in the desert with a devout Catholic priest and the body of a man named Jesus.

We didn’t speak for probably fifteen minutes.

I silently got up to inspect the site that the Border Patrol destroyed.

Empty plastic jugs, punctured over and again.

There was a good chance that this young man could have found it and wouldn’t be here, dead.

That realization had me in near fury, but that was quelled when i returned to my friend.

He showed me the pictures in the wallet.

It showed a family. His mother? The three pictures of a young lady…his sweetheart? Wife? The four pictures of a young boy, from a baby to age two or three….his son?

Awaiting a message that will never come.

Except from Alex.

A message and news that will devastate them forever.

Alex read me a letter that was in the backpack, from his mother.

How she was worried for him and that she loved him.

‘Te amo.’

All this was swimming in my head, whilst i looked at the pictures and i started to tear up.

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder.

Suffice it to say, we got Jesus out of there, with the help of Mexican friends.

Alex put a stick in the ground before we left, and tied his crucifix necklace around it.

His family will be searched for and if and when they are located, Alex will deliver the news personally, and i have been invited to join him on this….. grim pilgrimage?

I just got home yesterday morning, am a little raw, and am processing my many feelings.

And what to do next.

It’s not business as usual anymore.

It hasn’t been all summer, but now.…

The Border Patrol and Ice are killers.

Their ilk hunted, tortured and murdered my ancestors…

…and so many people in so many countries that i have personally witnessed.

Here, they will send those known to be on death lists right back, to die.

And destroy what gives one life.

No.

Let’s just say, that i am upping my game.

That i’m using what i have learned these past three decades, the contacts of allies and comrades and friends….and i will assist in more tangible ways.

And you can be rest assured that unless i am in transit to or from Honduras….i will be somewhere here in the Sonoran Desert next week.

So no one has to end up like this….due to sadism and brutality.…for closing the border and making legal immigration impossible ….for a sip of water.

What’s taking place NOW.

Please God, no.

No more.

Not whilst i have a will and a way.

And right now…

…I have both.

In memory of Jesus…

…and the family who will never again be able to say to him ‘te amo’.

-Remembrance.

-Solidarity.

-Resistance.

Come what may.
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A word about the destruction of water bottles and other supplies. It’s considered “harboring” and “conspiracy.” I thought I had written about Dr. Scott Warren (just one of many being tried on these charges), but I cannot find an article – possibly in comments.

There are a couple of organizations working in this field. Here are two – neither Tevye nor I have any affiliation with either, but both could use help, if possible.

Dayani Cristal

No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, we can’t all be on the front lines. We can’t all contribute financially. But help us to think about what we can do, even if it is only thoughts and prayers. And supporting impeachment.

The Furies and I will be back.

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) is requesting personal reminiscences from citizens (and probably from anyone and anyone regarding United States National Forests Here’s the email explaining why:

This summer, the U.S. Forest Service proposed a rule change to how it plans and implements projects. The biggest part you need to know is that the proposed change essentially eliminates your ability to voice concerns over projects right in your backyard.

POGO is concerned that the proposed rule to eliminate public comment periods for some projects would erode transparency and accountability by significantly reducing public involvement in and environmental assessments of future projects in our national forests.

Nothing to do with the post. Just s mnemonic pun.

But this isn’t just about the environmental impacts on our national forests—this is about listening to the public and being transparent. That’s why we want you to tell us: why does public input matter to you? Do you have a special connection to our national forests?

In one case, a local community raised concerns over how a proposed project would affect the security of their private property by allowing trespassers on their land. Another raised concerns that a river dredging project would threaten the habitat of an endangered species.

Both of these concerns were originally overlooked by the Forest Service—without the public’s input, homeowners might have feared for their safety in their own backyards, or the U.S. might have lost a valuable species.

And these are just two examples of countless others. That’s why POGO must continue to fight for preserving public input—local communities often have specialized knowledge. That’s why we want to hear from you now: why should we continue to advocate for direct public input in projects like these?

[signed]
Pam Rutter
Community Engagement Strategist
Project On Government Oversight 

I would say that it boggles my mind, or at least flabbers my gast, to think that the National Forest Service, which exists to manage public land (public, you know, belonging to the people) would even consider any policy change or rule change or any change at all without requesting public input. I would say that, except, you know, it’s this administration, and this administration might do anything (except govern).

I personally have spent a lot of time in national forests and related public land, starting in childhood with the Stanislaus and Sierra National Forests, and then after leaving military service I have lived in Colorado, near the Rio Grande National Forest, and now near the Pike National Forest, and have spent happy time in both. But one memory in particular stands out for me.

When I was a young lieutenant in the Marine Corps I was transferred from MCRD San Diego to MCAS Cherry Point. My family then lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I went there first. I had decided to drive. It was July, and I didn’t want to go through extreme heat on the southernmost route, but I did want to see the Grand Canyon on the way. So I took what is now I-80 and made a right at Salt Lake City.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has called that area “the great alkali plain,” and it was a pretty good description. As a lover of forests, I found it bleak. But that all changed when I came to the Kaibab National Forest. This forest includes mostly parts of northern Arizona, but it does extend into Utah, and that is where I entered it.

I have only been there once, but I will not forget it. It was like being embraced by the forest and told by the trees that I was home. It was almost as if I had been holding my breath, and now could breathe again.

I am now old and decrepit, and never expect to get there again, but I cringe to think what could happen to this forest, or any forest, if the Forest Service is allowed to make major decisions, or any decisions, without public input. I would hope that Americans entering this or any other national forest could find the same refreshment I found for many generations to come.

If that sounds a little different in tone from how I generally write here, it’s because that is my comment which I have sent to POGO. But if the tone is different, the sentiment is real.

I’ve linked to their comment site a couple of times as POGO did in the quoted email. But here it is again. I strongly encourage anyone who has any memories to share them with POGO. If, like me, you can remember interactions with national forests of which you have forgotten the names (it’s not like there are only a few of them), here is a Wikipedia article with information on that. Or you can google (or DuckDuckGo) the names by state (And, if you don’t have any strong memories, you can still tell them why decisions made about public lands require public input, for heaven’s sake.

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, besides jogging our memories and helping us to share, I hope you will get on the the Forest Service like ugly on a naked mole rat. They cannot be allowed to do this.

The Furies and I will be back.

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Chauncey DeVega is by his own description an essayist and cultural critic. He has a blog (and a podcast) of his own. He is a staff writer for Salon magazine, and therefore also appears fairly regularly at Raw Story and AlterNet, as well as other sites which reference Salon. He is also a trusted community member of Daily Kos. I have come to expect powerful writing when I see his name, so when I saw it attached to the title Cruelty is Trump’s guiding principle — but Democrats can use it to defeat him, I was interested. Nameless and I have independently come to the conclusion that, for Republicans, Cruelty Is The Point (and maybe you have too.)

Interestingly, I was challenged on that point this week, by a Disqus user who replied to one of my comments at Raw Story with “Domination is the point. Cruelty is just a perk.” Well, maybe. It’s also possible that cruelty is the point and domination is just the means. I’m not sure the distinction greatly matters, or whether it is even possible to unravel – and it probably differs slightly from Republican to Republican anyway. What is clear is that Republican cruelty is a recognized fact.

DeVega’s article was in response to the threat to deport any non-citizen who is in the United States specifically as a recipient of health care. This category includes many children, and many of those with fatal diseases/conditions, who will quite literally die quickly if forced to leave the United States. For all that is wrong with our health care, it does include access to techniques, procedures, drugs, and just a lot of possibilities which are not available in other nations, and particularly not to the nations to which these children are likely to be deported. Removing then from United States healthcare thus means removing them from any health care at all, and they will quickly die.

Not every child (or adult) who is here to receive health care is here solely for the benefit of the patient, either. A substantial chunk of these patients are here because the doctors desperately want to be able to work with them, treat them, and learn through them, how better to treat the diseases/conditions from which they suffer, with the ultimate goal of saving many thousands of lives. That dream too is destroyed by the deportation process. So – why? Why do this?

Because of public outrage at the wanton cruelty of sending sick people — including many children — back to their home countries to die, USCIS announced a temporary pause in the deportations….

This should be no comfort for the people who are in the United States under the “deferred action” program. Moreover, the safe and reasonable assumption should be that the Trump regime will resume its efforts to deport immigrants receiving lifesaving medical care once the controversy and resulting public and media attention subsides. This is part of the Trump regime’s fascist strategy of creating controversy through its “shocking” and “surprising” assaults on democracy, the rule of law and human decency. Predictably, the public and news media react to the outrage of the day, week or month. In response, the administration then appears to back down.

Testing the limits of societal norms is one of the primary ways through which fascists and other authoritarians break a democracy and in so doing train the public into a state of constant distraction, exhaustion and learned helplessness. (emphasis mine)

As a sidebar here, cruelty to others, and notably to the sick and injured, is not a phenomenon limited to non-citizens, or children, or brown people. You may have missed the story that Fox News Ed Henry (and the fact that Fox employs an individual with enough human feeling to do this points up the tightness of the job market that he would choose to stay employed there) recently underwent surgery to donate part of his liver to his ailing sister.

Mr. Henry has recovered enough to be able to make an appearance on Fox and Friends to discuss the experience, but he still has an incision several inches long in his chest which has not healed. He came to the studio the night before his scheduled appearance to greet colleagues, including Hannity’s staff.

He said on the show the next morning, “You won’t believe what happened.”

One of Hannity’s staffers guessed exactly what their boss had done.

“One of them said, Kristin, she said, ‘He punched you,’” Henry said, as co-host Steve Doocy grinned and Ainsley Earhardt covered her mouth and smiled. “I said yeah, because Sean does that.”

“You’ve been Hannitized!” Doocy said.

Henry laughed, and admitted the punch nearly knocked him over.

I also find it noteworthy that it was not just Henry who laughed – the Fox and Friends hosts found the story amusing to the point of laughter.

But this blatant cruelty to people considered “lesser” – be they brown or just paid a little less – hurts far more people than just the immediate, obvious victims. Back to DeVega:

Donald Trump and his policies are literally making the American people sick. Mental health professionals and other researchers have shown that the Age of Trump is a public health crisis characterized by high rates of anxiety, sleep disorders, stress and a generalized sense of fear and worry, as well as the other negative health outcomes (heart attacks and strokes; an increase in interpersonal violence such as mass shootings) that accompany such a diminished state of well-being.

In July of this year the Washington Post reported that “a Gallup poll recently documented an increase of stress, anger and worry among all Americans, which match or top the highest levels since it began tracking these negative feelings in 2006. Those who disapprove of Trump’s performance were significantly more likely to experience each of those negative emotions, the survey found.”

DeVega goes on to discuss possible ways in which Democrats might stress the cruelty of Trump, his regime, and Republicans in general on order to maximize Democratic wins in government now and in 2020 (and for as long as we have to.) I consider that not only a legitimate strategy, but also a moral imperative (as does DeVega:)

Whoever the Democrats nominate to run in 2020, the party faces a great task. It must force a moral reckoning in America in order to defeat Donald Trump.

But I am not going to filter his specific strategy ideas through my own head here – because I firmly believe that everyone has his or her own style, and that something that works for one candidate may very well not work for another.

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, please encourage anyone who is working any election in any capacity, from the actual candidates down to the lowliest envelope-stuffer (if such exist any more), to read Chauncey DeVega’s article, especially the part about how to use the deliberate, wanton cruelty to good effect, and learn from it what they need to succeed. It sounds easy, doesn’t it? But sometimes it’s harder to get people to read and think than it is to get them to arm and fire.

The Furies and I will be back.

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Today I want the Furies (and us) to look at a trend that is not new, but which has always been, and continues to be, largely missed.

We get so accustomed to “conservatives” being opposed to “conservation” that we are in danger of missing the fact that fascists want everything, and “everything” includes the environment.

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White nationalists’ extreme solution to the coming environmental apocalypse

Alexandra Minna Stern, University of Michigan

White nationalists around the world are appropriating the language of environmentalism.

The white nationalist who allegedly massacred 22 people in El Paso in early August posted a four-page screed on the chatroom 8chan. In it, the shooter blames his attack on the “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and the impending “cultural and ethnic replacement” of whites in America.

The shooter also refers directly to the lengthy manifesto written by the man who allegedly murdered 52 in March in attacks motivated by Islamophobia on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The Christchurch shooter called himself an “ecofascist” who believes there is no “nationalism without environmentalism.” The El Paso shooter titled his rant “An Inconvenient Truth,” apparently in reference to Al Gore’s 2006 documentary warning about the dangers of climate change. He also praised “The Lorax,” Dr. Seuss’ classic story about deforestation and corporate greed.

The prominence of environmental themes in these manifestos is not an oddity. Instead, it signals the rise of ecofascism as a core ideology of contemporary white nationalism, a trend I uncovered when conducting research for my recent book, “Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right Is Warping the American Imagination.”

The roots of ecofascism

Ecofascists combine anxieties about the demographic changes they characterize as “white extinction” with fantasies of pristine lands free of nonwhites and free of pollution.

Ecofascism’s roots trace back to early 1900s when romantic notions of communion with the land took hold in Germany. These ideas found expression in the concept of “lebensraum” or living spaces, and in attempts to create an exclusive Aryan fatherhood in which “blood and soil” racial nationalism reigned supreme. The concept of lebensraum was integral to the expansionist and genocidal policies of the Third Reich.

There is a long thread that ties xenophobia to right-wing environmentalism. In the U.S., strains of ecofascism appeared in the incipient environmental movement, espoused by racialists like Madison Grant, who in the 1920s championed the preservation of native flora including California’s redwood trees, while demonizing nonwhite immigrants.

After World War II, in the name of protecting forests and rivers, nativist organizations opposed to arrivals from non-European countries stoked fears of overpopulation and rampant immigration.

A meme popular online among the far-right and ecofascists is “save trees, not refugees.” Often ecofascist memes take the form of emojis like the popular Norse rune known as Algiz, or the “life” rune. This rune, favored by Heinrich Himmler and the SS, is one of many alternative symbols to swastikas that circulate online to dog whistle neo-Nazism allegiances.

Deep ecology

Many ecofascists today gravitate toward “deep ecology,” the philosophy developed by the Norwegian Arne Naess in the early 1970s. Naess wanted to distinguish “deep ecology,” which he characterized as reverence for all living things, from what he viewed as faddish “shallow ecology.”

Jettisoning Naess’ belief in the value of biological diversity, far-right thinkers have perverted deep ecology, imagining that the world is intrinsically unequal and that racial and gender hierarchies are part of nature’s design.

Deep ecology celebrates a quasi-spiritual connection to the land. As I show in my book, in its white nationalist version only men – white or European men – can truly commune with nature in a meaningful, transcendent way. This cosmic quest fuels their desire to preserve, by force if necessary, pure lands for white people.

White nationalists today look to the Finnish ecofascist Pentti Linkola, who advocates for stringent immigration restriction, “the reversion to pre-industrial life ways, and authoritarian measures to keep human life within strict limits.”

Reflecting on Linkola’s ideas, the white nationalist webzine Counter-Currents impels white men to take ecofascist action, saying that it is their duty to “safeguard the sanctity of the Earth.”

Why partisan labels don’t apply

This background helps to explain why the Christchurch shooter called himself an “ecofascist” and discussed environmental issues in his rambling screed.

The El Paso shooter offered more specific examples. In addition to mentioning the “The Lorax,” he criticized Americans for failing to recycle and for wanton waste of single-use plastics.

Their crusade to save white people from erasure through multiculturalism and immigration mirrors their crusade to preserve nature from environmental destruction and overpopulation.

The conventional wisdom in the public is that environmentalism is the province of liberals, if not of the left, with its commitments to environmental justice and carbon neutrality.

Yet the ubiquity of environmental concerns among white nationalists shows that distinctions between liberal and conservative are not necessarily germane when assessing the ideologies of the far-right today.

If current trends continue, the future will be one of intensified global warming and extreme weather patterns. There will be an increase in climate refugees, often seeking respite in the global north. In this context, I think that white nationalists will be primed to merge the prospect of climate calamities with their anxieties about white extinction.

Census projections indicate that around 2050 the U.S. will become a majority nonwhite country. For white nationalists, this demographic clock ticks more loudly each day. Both the Christchurch and the El Paso shooters invoke the “Great Replacement” theory, or the distorted idea that whites are being demographically outnumbered, to the point of extinction, by immigrants and racial others.

Given the patterns I see emerging, I believe that the public needs to recognize ecofascism as a dangerous cloud gathering on the horizon.

[ Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day. ]

Alexandra Minna Stern, Professor of American Culture, History, and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, Help us to recognize the pitfalls implicit in this turn of events. And help spread this information, which needs to be more widely known.

The Furies and I will be back.