Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Ezra Klein, Gavin Newsom, and the Death of American Liberalism

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We live in an age of absurdity when a fascist like Charlie Kirk is hailed as a champion of free speech and open debate. Free speech advocates don’t create databases of people they disagree so that they can be harassed, get death threats and have their career’s ruined. This is what Kirk’s Turning Point USA’s did to professors across the United States by creating the “Professor Watchlist.”

Kirk hated free speech, as evidenced by the watchlist and by his own rancid record of punching down on college students who objected to his rhetoric. His “debates” were merely opportunities for public mockery and the platforming of fascist ideas. And these professors, who generally taught the real history of the United States, represented an existential threat to his supremacist ideology.

He didn’t deserve to be shot, but the posthumous honorifics and performative mourning following his murder are beyond absurd. And it isn’t just Magaland that is responsible for that. Vacuous liberals like Ezra Klein have contributed to this kabuki theatre of wailing ninnies.

Klein is a particularly odious example. He penned a nauseating eulogy for the New York Times immediately following Kirk’s demise, claiming Kirk “did politics right.” Would this correct way of doing politics include the professor watchlist? Or paying for busses to the January 6th attempted coup? Klein’s intellectual rot is indicative of the nature of American liberalism, which usually plays handmaiden to fascism by pretending to be a foil while never obstructing its rise in meaningful or material ways.

Gavin Newsom is another problematic character in this regard. His gushing of grief for Kirk seems almost endless. Apparently, the two shared a warm moment on his show in their shared hatred of transgender athletes that Newsom still cherishes. And yet, we are told that he is the only viable opposition to Trumpian fascism. To many older, white liberals, Newsom charms with his use of memes to “own Trump.” It is a classic case of spectacle over substance.

If nothing else, Charlie Kirk’s death signals the death of American liberalism. An ideology that has always acted as a fortress to protect and save capitalism from itself. Presented as the only rational alternative to leftism, liberalism borrowed the left’s most palatable and inoffensive values and made them central to its ethos, all but ignoring the material concerns of the working class.

Championing equality and human rights ring hollow in a society where the working poor continue to see their status decline. And this is also how liberalism has provided cover for every brutal excess of American imperialism, from war, coups, up to and including the genocide of Palestinians by Israel, the empire’s most important colonial asset. Like so many Americans, white liberals are largely apathetic when it comes to foreign policy.

The result has inevitably been the rise of fascism. Like a ravenous vulture unobstructed from liberalism’s ashes, it ascends while liberals bask in self absorbed revelry, trample on the left for even modest demands, and pander to the very worst elements in society. What is tragically ironic is that figures like Klein and Newsom are busy throwing wood on its funeral pyre.

Kenn Orfanos, September 2025

Fascists Love Registries

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Last week, US Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., gave his first address to the public in that role. His focus was autism. In his speech, which has received enormous backlash, he said people with autism “will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go on a date.” He also made unfounded speculations as to the cause.

From chemtrails to HIV denialism to raw milk to anti-vax quackery, RFK is no stranger to conspiracy theories. And they are far from harmless. Over 70 people died in Samoa thanks to his disinformation about the measles vaccine. He also speculated that Covid-19 was engineered and that Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews were mostly immune.

There is something about RFK that chills the soul. A deadness behind his eyes. An icy countenance that betrays any compassionate words he might utter. It is hard to put ones finger on what it is exactly, but if you could you would probably have to scrub it with bleach.

Stories from family members about his penchant for mutilating dead animals abound, from grinding up chicks and mice in a blender for his pet falcon to beheading a beached whale and tying it to the roof of his car. The stories lend credence to those uneasy, unsettling feelings one gets when you see him on a stage talking about health and wellness.

RFK’s new role appears to be in keeping with this lifelong legacy. And he is keeping pace with the general madness and misanthropy of the regime. His idea for “wellness farms” and “reparenting” for people who deal with drug addiction or who are taking psychiatric medications unsurprisingly sparked controversy for its similarity to communist “reeducation camps.” Now, RFK is planning a new registry to track people with autism.

What makes this all so chilling was the ease in which RFK diminished the value of human beings. These disabled people are “deficient.” They cannot work and pay taxes. By characterizing autistic people as unproductive members of society, he has already set them up as a problem. A drain on resources. A burden. A registry will only industrialize this otherization and make it easier for experimentation, institutionalization and disposal.

Fascists adore registries. They relish in categories and lists for people. Especially people who do not conform to their idea of normal. Whom they deem weak and that make them feel uncomfortable. Like the others in this diabolical regime, he is merely copying a dark page from history verbatim.

Kenn Orphan, April 2025

Fascism is a boot.

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This cannot be overstated. The myth of American democracy is now officially dead. The Trump regime openly and boldly defied the federal courts to return a person they disappeared to El Salvador. A person with the legal right to live in the United States. An action they agreed was an “administrative error.” Checks and balances, the safety valve to prevent authoritarian overreach, have been effectively rendered irrelevant.

This is not merely a “constitutional crisis” or even a coup. This open defiance to the rule of law is the establishment of a fascist dictatorship. And we don’t have to see it completely take over all aspects of society to understand how grave this moment is.

In addition to this, the regime has openly stated that it intends to disappear American citizens and send them to foreign gulags. It has already done so with legal residents, visa and green card holders, asylum seekers. Now, literally anyone is at the mercy of ICE thugs.

If you speak Spanish in public or have a tattoo, it can say you are a gang member or criminal. Don’t like the economic turmoil caused by Trump’s erratic tariff policy, and it can label you a “Marxist” (a term it views as derogatory). If the regime dislikes your political opinions, the protests you attend, your criticism of Israel, or for merely posting a funny meme making fun of Trump, it can deem you a “radical leftist,” antisemitic or a terrorist threat. Trump has said repeatedly that he believes the biggest threat is the “enemy from within.” With the dissolving of due process as a safeguard, he can make good on his promise to deal with that so-called enemy.

Of course, the regime is not going to arrest everyone who differs from them. The point is the fear it generates. By promoting this in conjunction with defying the courts, the regime is trying to create an atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion. It knows that a people who are afraid will be easier to manipulate. They will comply in advance.

Already universities are towing the line by ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Media companies are paying out huge settlements to Trump to the avoid legal costs of a trial. Lawyers are refusing some cases that may raise the ire of the regime. Comedians are rewriting their acts. And people are purging their social media accounts of anything that might draw unwanted attention. This is how it begins.

Fascism is the end of societies. The final iteration of late capitalism. Its goal is the protection of wealth for a tiny minority of oligarchs through sheer violence and endless intimidation. It not only stamps out dissent. It can plunge entire communities into perpetual fear and dread.

Fascism strips education of its curiosity, the arts of its colour, journalism of its pen and spirituality of its wonder. And it replaces it all with mindless nationalism. It exalts bigotry by scapegoating and dehumanizing the vulnerable. It disdains the intellectual and the scientist with ethics. It cannot be reasoned with. You cannot have a dinner party with it and think it was moved by your polite banter. Fascism is a boot. And its only reason for existing is to stand on the neck of decency, empathy and kindness.

This is not to promote defeatism. But there is no benefit in participating in a Pollyanna-like fantasy where the Democrats, after sucking up to corporations for years and cheering on a genocide, will somehow become courageous avengers and “save American democracy.” The most they will do is post a terse scolding on social media, give 25 hour speeches that block nothing and amount to little more than political spectacle, or listen to focus groups for their strategy to win the midterms.

The only hope now is for ordinary people to see things for what they are. To see this regime for the fascist death cult it is. For vulnerable people to take immediate action to protect themselves and their families. To leave the country, if possible, or make contingency plans. And for everyone else to do what they can to protect those people, while throwing wrenches into the gears of its machinery at every turn.

Kenn Orphan, April 2025

*Photos are of El Salvador president Nayib Bukele with Donald Trump at the White House (top) and the concentration camp Bukele runs in his country with US dollars (bottom).

Fascism has Arrived

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“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” – misattributed to Vladamir Lenin

The above quote, which has been misattributed to Lenin, has been repeating in my head a lot these past three+ months. It describes the whirlwind of changes we have since the Trump regime was swept into power. From an endless stream of executive orders to the near complete dissolution of the old world order, it indeed feels like decades have already gone by. And this is perhaps what makes the next few weeks so harrowing.

When Trump took the seat of the American imperium, one of his first executive orders was to declare a national emergency at the southern border. With this, he demanded that the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security advise him on if and how he could invoke the Insurrection Act. That report is due on the 20th of April, which is incidentally Hitler’s birthday.

In section 6B of the executive order it reads:

“Within 90 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.”

Trump wanted to do this during his previous role as president, but was stymied by the Secretary of Defense at the time, Jim Mattis. He also openly pondered if protestors could be shot. This time around, he has stacked his cabinet with yes men and women. Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and JD Vance would never defy the dictates of the president. And they are the ones who will deliver him his options a few weeks from now.

The Insurrection Act would allow the president to use the military on domestic soil to quell “civil unrest.” And this vague terminology could be applied to anything from campus protests to demonstrations like on Saturday of this past weekend to bake sales at your local progressive church. He could fulfill his campaign promise of sending troops into “Democratic” cities which he has painted as being filled with “illegals,” criminals and “leftist radicals,” rounding up anyone he deems a threat. Painting them as “terrorists,” gang members, communists or perverts. No protests. No rallies. No gatherings. It would be a move directly out of the fascist playbook.

If he is advised on April 20th that the US is under threat, it would not be inconceivable for him to crackdown on the press, social media and on anyone who opposes the regime, from scientists to college professors to librarians. It would become a matter of “national security.” And corporations will almost always comply. Just recently, American historian Heather Cox Richardson was all but purged from Facebook as she openly criticized Trump.

The regime has already implemented breathtaking actions at stifling dissent on university campuses. Professors have fled to Canada. Border police continue to harass tourists and visiting delegates. Ice has already disappeared people for simply expressing opposition to US support for a genocide. It has also detained and deported hundreds without due process. And it has done all of this while boasting about it and promising even more.

If this regime is gleeful about sending people to a forced labour camp in El Salvador (see: concentration camps) and the complete annihilation of the Palestinian people, does anyone really think they would have a problem implementing the Insurrection Act and brutally repressing American citizens? As Trump decimates the economy, unrest would certainly grow. Does anyone really think he would not want to suppress this with every tool he has? And If he is comfortable saying undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our nation,” does anyone think he would not broaden that to everyone who opposes him?

To say time is running out would be an understatement. Fascism has arrived. And as Democrats hide, align themselves with them, or make meaningless 25 hour speeches that block nothing, it grows unchecked. It may have been decades in the making, but it has only taken a few weeks for it to establish itself. It isn’t in complete control… yet. But if there is no mass movement to stop it, it will proceed toward a full takeover. 

Kenn Orphan, April 2025

Stay Woke

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Many Americans are planning to go to protests tomorrow. And I applaud their desire to do something, anything, in a time of growing barbarism. But I would also caution those who think they are “saving democracy” by attending these events.

The American Empire is dying. Like all empires, its descent is not linear. It is erratic and may take a few decades for its final dissolution. But its prognosis is terminal. And the Trump regime is speeding this process up with idiotic tariffs and blind imperialistic fever dreams. It may be difficult, if not impossible, for many Americans to realize this. After all, the US has one of the most propagandized populations on the planet. But the signs are glaring.

For years, most white Americans have been drunk on a false shibboleth of supremacy. Believing that they live in the “greatest nation on earth” despite not having healthcare or basic labour protections. Most who espouse this notion haven’t traveled beyond the borders of their state, let alone country. Few possess a passport. But this delusion has permeated every cell, every fibre of the culture. Facts to the contrary (and there is a mountain of them) be damned.

They have been inured to the rot that has been allowed to spread through the halls of power. Fed a steady diet of Hollywood pablum where impoverished people have a chance to rise to riches. Where white heroes save Black and Brown people in the Global South. When the reality is that their leaders have been raping, pillaging and bombing them to smithereens for over 80 years. There is always a meticulously scripted “happy ending” to every unnecessary nightmare. Those who don’t fit in that narrative are disappeared, both figuratively and literally.

As the edifice of empire crumbles, its true nature is revealed. Standing there for everyone to see is a sepulcher filled with the bones of the innocent, the vulnerable. Anyone who stood in the way of capital. The tomb is ceremoniously draped in a red, white and blue shroud, but even those threads are beginning to fray. The tatters of nationalism cannot withstand the hard fist of betrayal.

As the late Howard Zinn once said, “there is no flag big enough to cover the crime of killing innocent people.” After more than a year and a half of supporting, funding and arming a genocide, the worst crime of this century, the US has demolished its reputation forever. The world understands this, even if most Americans do not. This one thing stands firmly in the way of any meaningful change. Unless it is reckoned with, platitudes and promises will continue to ring hollow.

You cannot save a democracy that no longer exists. And this is due to decades of political chicanery, where billionaires and corporations hold more sway than ordinary citizens. A protest is powerless unless it disrupts this arrangement of power. Not on a weekend, but during the week. When the gears of the machine are at full speed. The event planned for tomorrow will act as a vent. Letting off the steam of frustration, despair and hopelessness. And that is a good thing. But it would be foolish to think it will stop a regime that cannot be negotiated with.

Rallies and 25 hour speeches that do not block fascist legislation or executive orders, or stand non-violently in the path of the regime’s thugs, represent little more than political spectacle which can create the dangerous illusion of a mass movement. A kabuki theatre of clever signs and merchandise. But in the end, far more is needed. We are literally staring down the barrel of a gun. Our angry climate cares not about pithy speeches and signs. It requires a wrench thrown into the gears of death while there is still time.

If you go to the protests, consider these things. And instead of believing that Democratic politicians will save the republic, connect with real people. Build relationships that foster mutual aid and protection at the local level and outside of the institutions that are under attack. Above all, be careful. This regime has demonstrated it has no intention of listening to or working with anyone not in its cult of death. Knowing this might just save your life or the life of someone in a community that is now being ruthlessly targeted.

As Black residents of the American south once said to each other to encourage vigilance when faced with the violence of racist authoritarians, “stay woke.”

Kenn Orphan, April 2025

*Art is Hope by Syrian street artist Abu Malik al Shami. 

A Warning for those of us on the Margins of Empire

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Last nights atrocious spectacle was a wake up call. And we may not have many of those left. The speech Trump gave before the US Congress was a glimpse into the madness he has in store for all of us. The United States is rapidly falling into the maw of fascism before our very eyes and there is little organized political opposition from the anemic Democratic Party to stop any of it.

For those of us on the margins of American Empire, we cannot afford to ignore this. Trump’s imperialistic fantasies are not only disgusting, they are serious. He is demolishing the current arrangement of power on the global stage, not to empower the people, but to consolidate even more power and wealth into the hands of a few oligarchs and despots.

Like all US presidents, he has opened the coffers for Israel to continue its apartheid and genocidal project. When he shared a vulgar AI-generated video of a Trumpified Gaza, complete with casinos and an enormous gold statue of himself, he gave us insight into his depraved narcissism. He has no capacity for empathy or grace.

This was also on display with the shameful shakedown of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office by him and his sniveling side kick. His admiration for dictators and war criminals, from Putin to Netanyahu, should be seen as the cruel template he plans to implement against his neighbours in the Americas.

For those of us here in Canada, Trump’s continued ridicule and threat of making our sovereign country the 51st state is no joke. As in Greenland, he is eyeing Canada’s rich resources, from petrol to timber to minerals to water. He sees the imperial benefit of a melting Arctic Sea. And no matter how unhinged these threats may seem, he intends to make good on this by attempting to collapse the Canadian economy with draconian tariffs.

If there is any silver lining in any of this, it is that there is still some time to resist. The Trump regime is not all powerful. Fascism is gaining ground, but has not taken complete control… yet. And they have demonstrated a striking aversion to facts which will likely lead to their downfall.

In addition to this, the American Empire is in steep decline. Its economy is no longer the only dominant one on the world stage. Its infrastructure is crumbling. Its military is over-extended as its soft power around the world wanes. All while others rise, namely China and the BRICS coalition of nations. Most of its leaders are fatally corrupted, duplicitous and stupid. And its populace is struggling while a wealthy minority blames them for their plight and laughs in their faces. They are getting more and more angry, and things are likely to boil over soon.

For the world, the downside of all of this is a that we inhabit a very different portion of human history now. One with the looming existential behemoth of climate chaos on the horizon, the specter of artificial intelligence, and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. As it descends, the American Empire will lash out even more violently to regain its former glory, even if it is merely a myth. And this makes the next few years the most dangerous in all human history.

Like all empires, the American variation will eventually collapse. We can only hope that when it does, it won’t take everyone down with it as it goes.

Kenn Orphan, March 2025

It is What it Is

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Apparently, Donald and Melania Trump tested positive for Covid-19. Part of me wonders if this is a publicity stunt meant to downplay the virus even more. But it is unlikely, since Trump does not possess the acumen for that level of scheming. But regardless of that, it is hard to muster up sympathy for a man who said “it is what it is” when asked about the death toll from Covid-19. Or for his wife, who wore a jacket to an immigrant child detention centre that was emblazoned with the words “I really don’t care, do you?”

This president’s administration threw out the handbook on how to deal with pandemics. He spent the first crucial month of the pandemic downplaying its seriousness. He then continued to lie about it even after he knew how deadly it was. He admitted this to Bob Woodward. He then proceeded to blame China for it and said “I don’t take responsibility at all” when asked about a lag in testing for the virus. He has never expressed empathy for the millions of Americans who contracted the disease or the families who lost loved ones to it. He peddled the drug hydroxychloroquine despite the fact that there is no evidence it does anything to cure or even treat Covid-19 and can have serious side effects. He talked about injecting disinfectant as a cure. And he was just on national television mocking his opponent for wearing a mask.

There is no reason to express any sympathy for Trump or his wife. Like other leaders who downplayed the pandemic, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Boris Johnson of Britain for instance, it is certain they will receive the best treatments and healthcare available. The same cannot be said for the citizens under them.

212,869 Americans have died so far from Covid-19. 1,029,094 worldwide. 7,505,074 Americans are infected with Covid-19. 34,578,919 worldwide. Most of them are the working poor. Most of them are Black, or Indigenous, or Latinx. Most of them lack access to adequate healthcare. Most of them will suffer in other ways beyond the virus itself, from losing income or housing. Or from poor mental health.

Our solidarity, not sympathy, should be with them. As for Donald and Melania Trump? It is what it is.

Kenn Orphan October 2020

The Power That Must Be Resisted

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“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” – Ursula Le Guin

 

When the outright fascist Jair Bolsonaro won the Brazilian presidency in October, it wasn’t just the poor, people of colour, LGBTQ, or indigenous peoples that lost. Indeed, the earth’s weakened biosphere and imperiled climate lost even bigger. The president elect of the world’s 4th largest democracy has vowed to open up vast swaths of the iconic rainforest to multinational logging, cattle, mining and agricultural industries. With this one political victory the world’s ruling capitalist elite saw more dollar signs than in their wildest dreams, and the earth’s “lungs” were given a terminal prognosis.

Bolsonaro’s rise to power bears a strong resemblance to that of Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, Rodrigo Duterte and Viktor Orban. All of them have employed the techniques of classic fascism: demonizing political opponents and the media, rhetoric endorsing violence, stoking chauvinistic nationalism, scapegoating marginalized people. All them possess a disgruntled, demoralized, yet loyal base of supporters, and regularly connect with them through rallies that ridicule or bully those who dissent or disagree from their position. All of them manipulate information to spread confusion, false information or to obfuscate facts. But the most important thing these men share in common is their eagerness to wed corporate and state power, the hallmark of fascist governance. All of them sit atop treasure troves of “exploitable resources” and it is for this reason alone that they are lauded among the global capitalist elite.

Case in point, Bolsonaro received a lavish endorsement from the Wall Street Journal, the essential mouthpiece for the 1%. This should come as no surprise since their primary readership is the moneyed elite whose coffers only stand to burst with more spoils of the earth from this latest political disaster. But there are similar sentiments elsewhere. The financial newspaper Handelsblatt reported that German business leaders are “unfazed” by Bolsonaro’s election and are even “hopeful.”

Even the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), a media outlet that is supposed to be public, had the gall to suggest that this victory might be just what the Canadian economy needs. Of course, this “Canadian economy” is comprised of the wealthy mining and logging sectors alone which have already devastated vast swaths of Central and South America. Indeed, there are scores of multinational companies that must be salivating over the prospect of legalized looting they will be allowed to do under a Bolsonaro government. And they understand that they will likely get a pass for inevitable disasters. Companies like BHP, the Anglo-Australian mining company that is responsible for a massive dam break on the Doce River in 2015 that killed at least 17 people, displaced thousands, and polluted the river and beaches along the Atlantic coast. It was one of biggest environmental disasters in Brazil’s history.

To the 1% Bolsonaro’s sexism, racism and homophobia are a non-issue. His pining for the days of military dictatorship, endorsement of torture, or the slaughter of political opponents aren’t of concern either. On the contrary, these are minor footnotes on their blood soaked ledgers. While they might prefer a more polished figurehead to give inclusive sounding speeches that preserve the status quo of global capitalism with a pleasing face, they are completely fine with an outright fascist at the helm too. Look at the corporate leaders who have met with and gushed over India’s Modi to get an idea how this works. Given this, why would the complete destruction of the Amazon rainforest give them pause? To them this region of astounding biodiversity is a treasure trove of capital investment and extraction.

The Amazon rainforest loses an area the size of Costa Rica every year due to deforestation from the palm oil, soy, logging and beef industries. Illegal extraction activities, too, have defiled river ways and assaulted indigenous peoples on their ancestral lands. Indeed, the neoliberal economic policies of prior governments and championed by the liberal status quo had not prevented the ongoing destruction of the region or protected indigenous peoples. In fact they aided corporations who sought profits over the planet or people. But Bolsonaro stands to step up the carnage and open indigenous lands and areas that are now protected from the incursions of big industry. This will amount to genocide against those who live there and ecocide against the living biosphere itself.

From the Athabasca to Standing Rock to the Niger Delta to the Amazon and beyond, the earth and its peoples are under attack. Those who are leading this assault are without conscience or rationality. They are apathetic to the existential crisis we face as a species because they sincerely believe they can buy their way to higher ground; and they are virtually untouchable by the rule of law which in most cases has been constructed to protect their interests. They are a supranational capitalist class whose power lies in the dictatorship of money. But while they wield great power, they are not all powerful.

As the late Ursula LeGuin reminded us, “any power can be resisted,” and this truth is no more urgent to understand and take hold of than at this moment in history. But resistance cannot come from the status quo establishment. After all, this is the same machine that produced fascists like Trump and Bolsonaro in the first place. Resistance must be radical and it must be global because, given the circumstances and our collective predicament, only a radical paradigm shift offers a chance of creating a different world than the dystopic one we are seeing unfold before us.

 

Kenn Orphan   November, 2018

Humanity vs. The Rule of Law

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It was back in my early undergrad years when I first came to understand the broad reach of US foreign policy. I completed a social work internship in Los Angeles at a safe house in east LA in a largely immigrant community whose goal was economic justice and solidarity with working families. One morning I came down to the kitchen to find two sisters from the Missionaries of Charity sitting at the table with our house administrators. They had a similar home just down the street from us and they were well known for opening it up as a sanctuary for refugees. That day they greeted us with a choice.

A family of refugees from Central America were en route to LA and needed housing since the sisters home was already filled to capacity. Our house admins had already agreed to do this but we would be permitted to go to another program, without judgement, if we were not comfortable with this decision. This was the late 80s and providing sanctuary for people from certain nations in Central America was both controversial and illegal. We were nervous, but young and very eager to do something that seemed radical. Over the following month we learned that the risk we had taken paled in comparison to theirs. Nothing could remotely compare with the horrors they had endured or narrowly escaped; threats of rape, violence and being abandoned to die in agony in the desert, or the uncertain future they faced in a country hostile to their very existence.

I remember the backlash I and others received from several in my class. In their eyes we were subverting the rule of law. But what rule of law were they speaking of? Was it the one that informs virtually all of American foreign policy? The one that trains mercenaries at infamous places like the School of the Americas? The same one that fueled the genocide of 250,000 Mayans in Guatemala in 1954 at the behest of the United Fruit Company? Or the rule of law that created a brothel for US corporate interests in Havana? Or backed the genocide in Indonesia done by rabid fascists? Or supported coups that upended a democratically elected government in Chile? Or the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Or Iran? Was it the one that carpet bombed Cambodia, napalmed North Korea or tested nukes on US soldiers and the unsuspecting inhabitants of the Marshall Islands? Would that rule of law include Indian Removal? Or Jim Crow? Or state sponsored lynchings? Or internment camps for Japanese Americans during WW2? When it comes to the American Empire what rule of law is there outside of that which pertains to the rights of corporations, or the ruling Capitalist class, or the military industrial elite? How many crimes has the global north committed against the global south; and how many of them have been explained away using the sanctimonious parlance of the rule of law?

I fast forward to today and wonder what has changed? US foreign policy certainly hasn’t. It continues to punish Cuba and has not stopped its war mongering against Venezuela. It still promotes the racist “drug war” that makes life a misery for countless people. It still defends industries that pollute the waters and the soil that indigenous peoples depend on, like in the Amazon in Ecuador by Chevron. It still backs rightwing coups like the one recently championed by Hillary Clinton in Honduras which installed a government that terrorizes its population and is ultimately responsible for the murder of scores of Indigenous and environmental activists, like Berta Cáceres who understood well the reach, ramifications and scope of American foreign policy, especially its impact on the lives of those who live on the margins of empire.

And what has changed at the border? The same people terrorized by American foreign policy are still dehumanized, traumatized, deported and even murdered in cold blood when they manage to arrive there hoping for a better life. Even Hillary Clinton advocated for sending undocumented people back as a solution, and Obama is on record for deporting more immigrants than other presidents. But if there is anything that has changed in recent days it is the deepening depravity of such policies. Thanks to Trump’s inhuman policy of separation of children from their parents, the breathless cruelty of the US Border Patrol and ICE produce a virtual Sophie’s Choice every day. Even showing human kindness toward these children is grounds for termination from employment.

So the outrage I have today is not dissimilar to the outrage I felt years ago.  I still see the faces of those refugees I stood in solidarity with several years ago from Guatemala. And when I read about the migrants being detained and sent to cages with foil blankets or hear the recordings of inconsolable cries of children torn from their mother or father, I see their eyes peering through me. And I think of that “rule of law” argument waged by my classmates years ago. The same argument made by Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee-Sanders who then buttressed it with Biblical references. Such a rationale only exists in the minds of those whose humanity has long been gutted. It’s one that has been used generously by scoundrels throughout time to ignore their complicity in creating the turmoil in the first place, and then defending the cruelest of policies against the human beings affected by that misery. And my response to such barbarity remains the same as it was back then: to hell with their rule of law.

 

Kenn Orphan   June 2018

 

 

Solidarity on the Eve of the Nakba

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Make no mistake, the spectacle that took place in Jerusalem today was repugnant. In a nod to Trump’s conservative evangelical Christian base, rightwing lobbies and think tanks, and wealthy donors like Sheldon Adelson, and with the support of prominent Democrats like Chuck Schumer, the US Embassy was finally moved to this city in defiance of both Palestinian civil society and international law. But as diplomatically destructive as this action was, it was what happened in Gaza that constitutes a crime against humanity. At least 52 unarmed civilians were massacred by Israeli forces for protesting the ethnic cleansing decades ago that has led to their imprisonment and collective punishment today in what amounts to the world’s largest open air prison.
Today is the eve of the Nakba, or the Catastrophe, where thousands of Palestinians were massacred in their villages by Zionist militias and at least 750,000 were expelled from their ancestral lands in years leading up to 1948. It should not be seen as a mistake then that this was the date that was chosen. History has demonstrated that the oppressor uses demoralization as a weapon in much the same way as torture and outright massacres. So there juxtaposed to this great crime of the elite celebrating a glitzy new US embassy on occupied, stolen land, the Gaza Health Ministry declared it is on the brink of collapse due to a slaughter not seen since the carpet bombing of Gaza in 2014.
The UN said months ago that the enclave of millions of people, half of which are children, will become uninhabitable by 2020 thanks to the crippling blockade that has devastated water resources, restricted food and other services, and has driven thousands to the brink of suicide from despair.  All this does not even reflect the ongoing decades long occupation and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank where millions of Palestinians, many of whom are children, are subjected to military rule and tribunals, night raids, house demolitions, daily humiliation, settler violence and systematic displacement.
And where is the media? In most cases they are playing their part in advancing official narratives which serve to dehumanize the colonized and the oppressed. The dehumanization of Palestinians is one of the worst abuses I’ve seen in my lifetime. But it serves a purpose. To dehumanize anyone is worse than rendering them invisible because it justifies every act perpetrated against them or their communities. The theft of their land, their history, and their dignity, collective punishment, random raids, torture and imprisonment. All of it can be rationalized once someone is stripped of their humanity. And this almost always leads to expulsion or genocide.
And where is the international community? Throughout history people of conscience realized they could never count on the leadership of the so-called “international community” to take a stand against inhumanity and genocide. While millions of Jews, communists, Roma, the disabled and gay people were being gassed by the Nazis they were silent. When South Africa was brutally enforcing racist apartheid they were making deals with the ruling regime. But people of conscience always stood apart because retaining what is left of our humanity demands nothing less than standing shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with the oppressed and persecuted. And this is a truth which applies to any era we might inhabit.
Kenn Orphan, 14th May, 2018