Tag archieven: racism

Mail Astrid Essed to the Chinese Media Xinhua Net dd 31 december 2023/PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy

Geert Wilders woensdagavond op de partijbijeenkomst van de PVV in Scheveningen.  Beeld  Daniel Rosenthal /de VolkskrantGeert Wilders woensdagavond op de partijbijeenkomst van de PVV in Scheveningen.

Beeld Daniel Rosenthal /de VolkskrantGeert Wilders stunned by his PVV's impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023

Geert Wilders stunned by his PVV’s impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023 – Credit: Geert Wilders/PVV / Twitter – License: All Rights Reserved

HTTPS://NLTIMES.NL/2023/11/22/DIVISIVE-WILDERS-STUNNED-PVV-VICTORY-PLEDGES-GOVERN-DUTCH-PEOPLE

MAIL ASTRID ESSED  TO CHINESE MEDIA XINHUA NET DD 31 DECEMBER 2023/PVV VICTORY AT DUTCH ELECTIONS DISASTER TO DEMOCRACY/

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy

Astrid Essed

From:astridessed@yahoo.com

To:xinhuanet_english@news.cn

Sun, Dec 31 at 3:13 PM

LettertotheEditor

Dear Editor,

A Horror Day for Democracy.

That’s how I call the monster victory of anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders, who won with his Party for Freedom [PVV] 37 seats in Parliament at  the recent 22 november Dutch General elections.

In the opinion polls before the elections Wilders scored high.

But this tsunami of seats was a big surprise for almost everyone, including

the political analysts.

For various reasons this PVV victory is a big disaster.

Firstly because of their points of view:

The PVV of Wilders is a far right wing party, which wages for about

17 years a hate campaign against the Islam as a religion, muslims,”non western” migrants in the Netherlands and refugees, and all those groups are blamed by Wilders for almost everything that goes wrong in the Netherlands.

According to Wilders they are all criminals.

He also dehumanizes migrants, by comparing them with ”hyena’s in

a parliamentary speech.

And as known, comparing human beings with animals is fascistic rhetoric.

He also mentioned male Syrian refugees ”testosterone bombs”, branding

them as rapists of western women….

That’s the man who won the Dutch elections with an overwhelming majority!

The same Wilders who spoke of ”Fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands and was therefore

convicted by the judge.

And to add insult to injury:

His colleague PVV politician Markuszower speaks regularly in Parliament about

African refugees as ”intruders” or ”infiltrators”

However, the great problem with Wilders is not his referring to criminality in

connections with migrants/of course there is criminality under migrants-

Problem is, that according tothe Wilders rhetoric, non-western migrants,

muslims, Moroccans and other ”non-white” people are criminals as

a collective, as if there are no ”white” criminals.

The ironic thing is, that during the last Dutch election campaign Wilders

wanted to give the impression, that he was prepared to strike a more

milder tone regarding Islam and even ”’put in the fridge” fanatical anti-Islam

points of view like banning Mosques and Islamic schools.

He even declared to be ”prime minister of all Dutch people regardless

belief or etnicity”.

How ”mild” he really was just showed his recent visit toan anti-refugee 

protest at Kijkduin, repeating he wants a total stop on refugees coming to

the Netherlands”

How mild!

Wilders didn’t become ”mild”, but is as extreme as he ever was

His Party Election Program: ”Dutch people on the first Place again”

is still existing, full of xenophobia and racism.

Therefore it would be super dangerous if the PVV, violating values

of equality and freedom of religion, would lead a government.

As dangerous if the Ring of Power, described by writer Tolkien in

the famous ”Lord of the Rings”, would return tothe Hand of the

Evil Lord Sauron.

Astrid Essed

Amsterdam 

The Netherlands

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Mail Astrid Essed to the Chinese Media Xinhua Net dd 31 december 2023/PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy

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Mail Astrid Essed to the Washington Post dd 30 december 2023/PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy/Letter to the Editor


Geert Wilders woensdagavond op de partijbijeenkomst van de PVV in Scheveningen.  Beeld  Daniel Rosenthal /de VolkskrantGeert Wilders woensdagavond op de partijbijeenkomst van de PVV in Scheveningen.

Beeld Daniel Rosenthal /de VolkskrantGeert Wilders stunned by his PVV's impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023

Geert Wilders stunned by his PVV’s impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023 – Credit: Geert Wilders/PVV / Twitter – License: All Rights Reserved

HTTPS://NLTIMES.NL/2023/11/22/DIVISIVE-WILDERS-STUNNED-PVV-VICTORY-PLEDGES-GOVERN-DUTCH-PEOPLE

PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy


Astrid Essed

From:astridessed@yahoo.com

To:letters@washpost.com

Sat, Dec 30 at 3:21 PM

LettertotheEditor

Dear Editor,

A Horror Day for Democracy.

That’s how I call the monster victory of anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders, who won with his Party for Freedom [PVV] 37 seats in Parliament at  the recent 22 november Dutch General elections.

In the opinion polls before the elections Wilders scored high.

But this tsunami of seats was a big surprise for almost everyone, including

the political analysts.

For various reasons this PVV victory is a big disaster.

Firstly because of their points of view:

The PVV of Wilders is a far right wing party, which wages for about

17 years a hate campaign against the Islam as a religion, muslims,”non western” migrants in the Netherlands and refugees, and all those groups are blamed by Wilders for almost everything that goes wrong in the Netherlands.

According to Wilders they are all criminals.

He also dehumanizes migrants, by comparing them with ”hyena’s in

a parliamentary speech.

And as known, comparing human beings with animals is fascistic rhetoric.

He also mentioned male Syrian refugees ”testosterone bombs”, branding

them as rapists of western women….

That’s the man who won the Dutch elections with an overwhelming majority!

The same Wilders who spoke of ”Fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands and was therefore

convicted by the judge.

And to add insult to injury:

His colleague PVV politician Markuszower speaks regularly in Parliament about

African refugees as ”intruders” or ”infiltrators”

However, the great problem with Wilders is not his referring to criminality in

connections with migrants/of course there is criminality under migrants-

Problem is, that according tothe Wilders rhetoric, non-western migrants,

muslims, Moroccans and other ”non-white” people are criminals as

a collective, as if there are no ”white” criminals.

The ironic thing is, that during the last Dutch election campaign Wilders

wanted to give the impression, that he was prepared to strike a more

milder tone regarding Islam and even ”’put in the fridge” fanatical anti-Islam

points of view like banning Mosques and Islamic schools.

He even declared to be ”prime minister of all Dutch people regardless

belief or etnicity”.

How ”mild” he really was just showed his recent visit toan anti-refugee 

protest at Kijkduin, repeating he wants a total stop on refugees coming to

the Netherlands”

How mild!

Wilders didn’t become ”mild”, but is as extreme as he ever was

His Party Election Program: ”Dutch people on the first Place again”

is still existing, full of xenophobia and racism.

Therefore it would be super dangerous if the PVV, violating values

of equality and freedom of religion, would lead a government.

As dangerous if the Ring of Power, described by writer Tolkien in

the famous ”Lord of the Rings”, would return tothe Hand of the

Evil Lord Sauron.

Astrid Essed

Amsterdam 

The Netherlands

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Mail Astrid Essed to the Washington Post dd 30 december 2023/PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy/Letter to the Editor

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NO TO FASCISM!/My Letter to the Editor/PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy

Geert Wilders woensdagavond op de partijbijeenkomst van de PVV in Scheveningen.  Beeld  Daniel Rosenthal /de VolkskrantGeert Wilders woensdagavond op de partijbijeenkomst van de PVV in Scheveningen.

Beeld Daniel Rosenthal /de VolkskrantGeert Wilders stunned by his PVV's impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023

Geert Wilders stunned by his PVV’s impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023 – Credit: Geert Wilders/PVV / Twitter – License: All Rights Reserved

HTTPS://NLTIMES.NL/2023/11/22/DIVISIVE-WILDERS-STUNNED-PVV-VICTORY-PLEDGES-GOVERN-DUTCH-PEOPLE

PVV VICTORY AT DUTCH ELECTIONS A DISASTER TO DEMOCRACY

Dear Readers,

Of course you’ve learnt from the desastrous PVV victory at the Dutch elections,

pushing the Dutch political climate to the fascist far right, towards the abyss.

UNLESS WE PREVENT THAT

I, in my small way, try that and happily with me there are still others,

who resist!

I wrote a number of articles and posts, In Dutch and English

See among else

Recently I wrote a Letter to the Editor, which is spread over the world!

The first I wrote was the Ghana report on 10 december

And due to some other writing business about the Elections in Dutch [1], I wrote

the other Letters to the Editor on 29 and 30 december, just in the

Old Year 2023!

See two examples:

AND

And see for my Letter to the Editor underlying!

Readers, enjoy the last Days of 2023 and we continue to enjoy and fight

the Good Fight in 2024!

ON WITH THE FIREWORKS!

ASTRID ESSED

[1]

MY DUTCH ARTICLE ABOUT THE ELECTIONS

[THE BBB OF CAROLINE VAN DER PLAS HAD AN ELECTION

VICTORY ALSO AND UNTILL NOW THE ONLY POLITICIAN/PARTY 

WHICH IS EAGER TO GOVERN WITH WILDERS’ PVV]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_van_der_Plas]

CAROLINE VAN DER PLAS AAN FOUTE KANT/PRO ISRAEL

EN FELLOW TRAVELLER FASCISME

ASTRID ESSED

23 DECEMBER 2023

[ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

CAROLINE VAN DER PLAS ON THE WRONG SIDE/DEFENDER

OF ISRAEL AND FELLOW TRAVELLER OF FASCISM]

MY LETTER TO THE EDITOR

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

PVV VICTORY AT DUTCH ELECTIONS A DISASTER TO DEMOCRACY

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

A Horror Day for Democracy.

That’s how I call the monster victory of anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders, who won with his Party for Freedom [PVV] 37 seats in Parliament at  the recent 22 november Dutch General elections.

In the opinion polls before the elections Wilders scored high.

But this tsunami of seats was a big surprise for almost everyone, including

the political analysts.

For various reasons this PVV victory is a big disaster.

Firstly because of their points of view:

The PVV of Wilders is a far right wing party, which wages for about

17 years a hate campaign against the Islam as a religion, muslims,”non western” migrants in the Netherlands and refugees, and all those groups are blamed by Wilders for almost everything that goes wrong in the Netherlands.

According to Wilders they are all criminals.

He also dehumanizes migrants, by comparing them with ”hyena’s in

a parliamentary speech.

And as known, comparing human beings with animals is fascistic rhetoric.

He also mentioned male Syrian refugees ”testosterone bombs”, branding

them as rapists of western women….

That’s the man who won the Dutch elections with an overwhelming majority!

The same Wilders who spoke of ”Fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands and was therefore

convicted by the judge.

And to add insult to injury:

His colleague PVV politician Markuszower speaks regularly in Parliament about

African refugees as ”intruders” or ”infiltrators”

However, the great problem with Wilders is not his referring to criminality in

connections with migrants/of course there is criminality under migrants-

Problem is, that according to the Wilders rhetoric, non-western migrants,

muslims, Moroccans and other ”non-white” people are criminals as

a collective, as if there are no ”white” criminals.

The ironic thing is, that during the last Dutch election campaign Wilders

wanted to give the impression, that he was prepared to strike a more

milder tone regarding Islam and even ”’put in the fridge” fanatical anti-Islam

points of view like banning Mosques and Islamic schools.

He even declared to be ”prime minister of all Dutch people regardless

belief or etnicity”.

How ”mild” he really was just showed his recent visit to an anti-refugee 

protest at Kijkduin, repeating he wants a total stop on refugees coming to

the Netherlands”

How mild!

Wilders didn’t become ”mild”, but is as extreme as he ever was

His Party Election Program: ”Dutch people on the first Place again”

is still existing, full of xenophobia and racism.

Therefore it would be super dangerous if the PVV, violating values

of equality and freedom of religion, would lead a government.

As dangerous if the Ring of Power, described by writer Tolkien in

the famous ”Lord of the Rings”, would return to the Hand of the

Evil Lord Sauron.

Astrid Essed

Amsterdam

The Netherlands

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Mail Astrid Essed to Malaysia Now dd 29 december 2023/PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy/Letter to the Editor


Geert Wilders woensdagavond op de partijbijeenkomst van de PVV in Scheveningen.  Beeld  Daniel Rosenthal /de VolkskrantGeert Wilders woensdagavond op de partijbijeenkomst van de PVV in Scheveningen.

Beeld Daniel Rosenthal /de VolkskrantGeert Wilders stunned by his PVV's impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023

Geert Wilders stunned by his PVV’s impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023 – Credit: Geert Wilders/PVV / Twitter – License: All Rights Reserved

HTTPS://NLTIMES.NL/2023/11/22/DIVISIVE-WILDERS-STUNNED-PVV-VICTORY-PLEDGES-GOVERN-DUTCH-PEOPLE

PVV VICTORY AT DUTCH ELECTIONS A DISASTER TO DEMOCRACY

PVV VICTORY AT DUTCH ELECTIONS A DISASTER TO DEMOCRACY

Van: Astrid Essed <astridessed@yahoo.com>
Verzonden: vrijdag 29 december 2023 11:59
Aan: editor@malaysianow.com
Onderwerp: PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

A Horror Day for Democracy.

That’s how I call the monster victory of anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders, who won with his Party for Freedom [PVV] 37 seats in Parliament at  the recent 22 november Dutch General elections.

In the opinion polls before the elections Wilders scored high.

But this tsunami of seats was a big surprise for almost everyone, including

the political analysts.

For various reasons this PVV victory is a big disaster.

Firstly because of their points of view:

The PVV of Wilders is a far right wing party, which wages for about

17 years a hate campaign against the Islam as a religion, muslims,”non western” migrants in the Netherlands and refugees, and all those groups are blamed by Wilders for almost everything that goes wrong in the Netherlands.

According to Wilders they are all criminals.

He also dehumanizes migrants, by comparing them with ”hyena’s in

a parliamentary speech.

And as known, comparing human beings with animals is fascistic rhetoric.

He also mentioned male Syrian refugees ”testosterone bombs”, branding

them as rapists of western women….

That’s the man who won the Dutch elections with an overwhelming majority!

The same Wilders who spoke of ”Fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands and was therefore

convicted by the judge.

And to add insult to injury:

His colleague PVV politician Markuszower speaks regularly in Parliament about

African refugees as ”intruders” or ”infiltrators”

However, the great problem with Wilders is not his referring to criminality in

connections with migrants/of course there is criminality under migrants-

Problem is, that according to the Wilders rhetoric, non-western migrants,

muslims, Moroccans and other ”non-white” people are criminals as

a collective, as if there are no ”white” criminals.

The ironic thing is, that during the last Dutch election campaign Wilders

wanted to give the impression, that he was prepared to strike a more

milder tone regarding Islam and even ”’put in the fridge” fanatical anti-Islam

points of view like banning Mosques and Islamic schools.

He even declared to be ”prime minister of all Dutch people regardless

belief or etnicity”.

How ”mild” he really was just showed his recent visit to an anti-refugee 

protest at Kijkduin, repeating he wants a total stop on refugees coming to

the Netherlands”

How mild!

Wilders didn’t become ”mild”, but is as extreme as he ever was

His Party Election Program: ”Dutch people on the first Place again”

is still existing, full of xenophobia and racism.

Therefore it would be super dangerous if the PVV, violating values

of equality and freedom of religion, would lead a government.

As dangerous if the Ring of Power, described by writer Tolkien in

the famous ”Lord of the Rings”, would return to the Hand of the

Evil Lord Sauron.

Astrid Essed

Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Mail Astrid Essed to Malaysia Now dd 29 december 2023/PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy/Letter to the Editor

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Mail Astrid Essed to The Guardian dd 30 december 2023/PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy/Letter to the Editor

PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy

Astrid Essed

From:astridessed@yahoo.com

To:guardian.letters@theguardian.com

Sat, Dec 30 at 1:07 PM

LettertotheEditor

Dear Editor,

A Horror Day for Democracy.

That’s how I call the monster victory of anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders, who won with his Party for Freedom [PVV] 37 seats in Parliament at  the recent 22 november Dutch General elections.

In the opinion polls before the elections Wilders scored high.

But this tsunami of seats was a big surprise for almost everyone, including

the political analysts.

For various reasons this PVV victory is a big disaster.

Firstly because of their points of view:

The PVV of Wilders is a far right wing party, which wages for about

17 years a hate campaign against the Islam as a religion, muslims,”non western” migrants in the Netherlands and refugees, and all those groups are blamed by Wilders for almost everything that goes wrong in the Netherlands.

According to Wilders they are all criminals.

He also dehumanizes migrants, by comparing them with ”hyena’s in

a parliamentary speech.

And as known, comparing human beings with animals is fascistic rhetoric.

He also mentioned male Syrian refugees ”testosterone bombs”, branding

them as rapists of western women….

That’s the man who won the Dutch elections with an overwhelming majority!

The same Wilders who spoke of ”Fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands and was therefore

convicted by the judge.

And to add insult to injury:

His colleague PVV politician Markuszower speaks regularly in Parliament about

African refugees as ”intruders” or ”infiltrators”

However, the great problem with Wilders is not his referring to criminality in

connections with migrants/of course there is criminality under migrants-

Problem is, that according tothe Wilders rhetoric, non-western migrants,

muslims, Moroccans and other ”non-white” people are criminals as

a collective, as if there are no ”white” criminals.

The ironic thing is, that during the last Dutch election campaign Wilders

wanted to give the impression, that he was prepared to strike a more

milder tone regarding Islam and even ”’put in the fridge” fanatical anti-Islam

points of view like banning Mosques and Islamic schools.

He even declared to be ”prime minister of all Dutch people regardless

belief or etnicity”.

How ”mild” he really was just showed his recent visit toan anti-refugee 

protest at Kijkduin, repeating he wants a total stop on refugees coming to

the Netherlands”

How mild!

Wilders didn’t become ”mild”, but is as extreme as he ever was

His Party Election Program: ”Dutch people on the first Place again”

is still existing, full of xenophobia and racism.

Therefore it would be super dangerous if the PVV, violating values

of equality and freedom of religion, would lead a government.

As dangerous if the Ring of Power, described by writer Tolkien in

the famous ”Lord of the Rings”, would return tothe Hand of the

Evil Lord Sauron.

Astrid Essed

Amsterdam 

The Netherlands

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Mail Astrid Essed to The Guardian dd 30 december 2023/PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy/Letter to the Editor

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Mail/Letter to the Editor dd 10 december 2023 to the Ghana Report/PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy

Geert Wilders woensdagavond op de partijbijeenkomst van de PVV in Scheveningen.  Beeld  Daniel Rosenthal /de VolkskrantGeert Wilders woensdagavond op de partijbijeenkomst van de PVV in Scheveningen.

Beeld Daniel Rosenthal /de Volkskrant

Geert Wilders stunned by his PVV's impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023

Geert Wilders stunned by his PVV’s impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023 – Credit: Geert Wilders/PVV / Twitter – License: All Rights Reserved

HTTPS://NLTIMES.NL/2023/11/22/DIVISIVE-WILDERS-STUNNED-PVV-VICTORY-PLEDGES-GOVERN-DUTCH-PEOPLE

PVV VICTORY AT DUTCH ELECTIONS A DISASTER TO DEMOCRACY

PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy

Astrid Essed

From:astridessed@yahoo.com

To:info@theghanareport.com

Sun, Dec 10 at 12:03 PM

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

A Horror Day for Democracy.

That’s how I call the monster victory of anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders, who won with his Party for Freedom [PVV] 37 seats in Parliament at  the recent 22 november Dutch General elections.

In the opinion polls before the elections Wilders scored high.

But this tsunami of seats was a big surprise for almost everyone, including

the political analysts.

For various reasons this PVV victory is a big disaster.

Firstly because of their points of view:

The PVV of Wilders is a far right wing party, which wages for about

17 years a hate campaign against the Islam as a religion, muslims,”non western” migrants in the Netherlands and refugees, and all those groups are blamed by Wilders for almost everything that goes wrong in the Netherlands.

According to Wilders they are all criminals.

He also dehumanizes migrants, by comparing them with ”hyena’s in

a parliamentary speech.

And as known, comparing human beings with animals is fascistic rhetoric.

He also mentioned male Syrian refugees ”testosterone bombs”, branding

them as rapists of western women….

That’s the man who won the Dutch elections with an overwhelming majority!

The same Wilders who spoke of ”Fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands and was therefore

convicted by the judge.

And to add insult to injury:

His colleague PVV politician Markuszower speaks regularly in Parliament about

African refugees as ”intruders” or ”infiltrators”

However, the great problem with Wilders is not his referring to criminality in

connections with migrants/of course there is criminality under migrants-

Problem is, that according to the Wilders rhetoric, non-western migrants,

muslims, Moroccans and other ”non-white” people are criminals as

a collective, as if there are no ”white” criminals.

The ironic thing is, that during the last Dutch election campaign Wilders

wanted to give the impression, that he was prepared to strike a more

milder tone regarding Islam and even ”’put in the fridge” fanatical anti-Islam

points of view like banning Mosques and Islamic schools.

He even declared to be ”prime minister of all Dutch people regardless

belief or etnicity”.

How ”mild” he really was just showed his recent visit to an anti-refugee 

protest at Kijkduin, repeating he wants a total stop on refugees coming to

the Netherlands”

How mild!

Wilders didn’t become ”mild”, but is as extreme as he ever was

His Party Election Program: ”Dutch people on the first Place again”

is still existing, full of xenophobia and racism.

Therefore it would be super dangerous if the PVV, violating values

of equality and freedom of religion, would lead a government.

As dangerous if the Ring of Power, described by writer Tolkien in

the famous ”Lord of the Rings”, would return to the Hand of the

Evil Lord Sauron.

Astrid Essed

Amsterdam 

The Netherlands

Reacties uitgeschakeld voor Mail/Letter to the Editor dd 10 december 2023 to the Ghana Report/PVV victory at Dutch Elections a disaster to democracy

Opgeslagen onder Divers

Astrid Essed’s First reaction on the PVV 22 november 2023 Dutch Elections Winner/[To be continued]

Geert Wilders stunned by his PVV's impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023

Geert Wilders stunned by his PVV’s impressive victory in the 2023 General Election. 22 November 2023 – Credit: Geert Wilders/PVV / Twitter – License: All Rights Reserved

HTTPS://NLTIMES.NL/2023/11/22/DIVISIVE-WILDERS-STUNNED-PVV-VICTORY-PLEDGES-GOVERN-DUTCH-PEOPLE

POLITICS

Geert Wilders woensdagavond op de partijbijeenkomst van de PVV in Scheveningen.  Beeld  Daniel Rosenthal /de Volkskrant

MY FIRST REACTION ON THE PVV DUCH ELECTIONS WINNER

[TO BE CONTINUED]

I AM BLOODY, BUT UNBOWED!

Dear Readers

This is my first reaction on fascist PVV [1A] winning of the Dutch november 2023 elections.

Molre to come!

I quote from a Letter to a Good Friend and true Fighter for Justice inPalestine [2A]

and anti-racism in the World

READ AND ENJOY!

ASTRID ESSED

A BLACK DAY FOR DEMOCRACY!

This is a Black Day for Democracy, now PVV fascism break through the dam

and try to flood the country!

https://nltimes.nl/2023/11/22/exit-poll-puts-far-right-pvv-largest-party-dutch-parliament-defiant-win [1]

It’s frightening also

Horror

Not only to muslims, non-western migrants [2] and ”western migrants”

[remember his ”Meldpunt Polen”[Reporting Point Polish people] [3], but

also regarding white people, who voted on Wilders, thinking he

gives them safety against ”the others” [not white people]

QUOD NON! [4]

https://www.astridessed.nl/wilders-heilstaat-voor-wit-nederland-paradijs-op-aarde/ [5]

People will find out the true intentions of Wilders soon or late

enough, but against what price?

And than that talking of Wilders, that he wants to be prime-minister

for ALL people with a Dutch nationality!

https://nltimes.nl/2023/11/22/divisive-wilders-stunned-pvv-victory-pledges-govern-dutch-people

LIES AND NONSENSE

You can’t be a fascist for 17 years and now make a sudden change!

But happily there is resistance against this PVV victory Horror

https://www.politico.eu/article/frans-timmermans-eyes-opposition-after-far-right-win-in-dutch-elections-vogte-pvv-geert-wilders/ [6]

Volt leader mr Dassen and D’66 leader mr Jetten also [7]

Time will tell whether Jetten and Dassen are true allies against

Wilders

But I do believe that

I know for certainty, that D’66 was always a fighter against Wilders! [8]

Denk leader van Baarle showed character also! [9]

TO BATTLE!

There is a proverb that says that true character shows itself

when Times are Dark.

I WILL CONTINUE THE BATTLE FOR JUSTICE AND EQUALITY!

I AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD!

I WILL CONTINUE THE FIGHT, WHETHER IN THE NETHERLANDS

OR ELSEWHERE!

They will not bring me down!

In that Spirit and Bloody, but Unbowed I continue!

AN ASTRID, WHO GOES ON BATTLE!

NOTES

NOTES 1A AND 2A AT INTRODUCTION

NOTES AT COMMENT ASTRID ESSED

NOTE 1

NOTE 2

NOTE 3

NOTE 4

NOTE 5

NOTE 6

NOTE 7

NOTE 8

NOTE 9

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To be remembered by all descendants of African slaves/John Brown, a great freedom Fighter/His last speech

John Brown Mural

John Brown Mural

JOHN BROWN’S LAST SPEECH

I have, may it please the court, a few words to say.

In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted, the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter, when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.

I have another objection; and that is, it is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case), had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.

This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that “all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them” [Matthew 7:12]. It teaches me, further, to “remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them” [Hebrews 13:3]. I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!

Let me say one word further.

I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all the circumstances, it has been more generous than I expected. But I feel no consciousness of guilt. I have stated from the first [day] what was my intention and what was not. I never had any design against the life of any person, nor any disposition to commit treason, or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of that kind.

Let me say, also, a word in regard to the statements made by some of those connected with me. I hear it has been stated by some of them that I have induced them to join me. But the contrary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regretting their weakness. There is not one of them but joined me of his own accord, and the greater part of them at their own expense. A number of them I never saw, and never had a word of conversation with, till the day they came to me; and that was for the purpose I have stated.

Now I have done

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)#Last_words,_death_and_aftermath
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)

”I have fought a good fight.I have finished my course.I have kept the faith. [2 Timothy 4:7][213]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)#Funeral_and_burial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)

”Other black leaders of the time—Martin DelanyHenry Highland GarnetHarriet Tubman—also knew and respected Brown. “Tubman thought Brown was the greatest white man who ever lived”,[238] and she said later he did more for American blacks than Lincoln did.[239]

Black businesses across the North closed on the day of his execution.[240] Church bells tolled across the North.[12] In response to the death sentence, Ralph Waldo Emerson remarked that “[John Brown] will make the gallows glorious like the Cross.”[241] In 1863, Julia Ward Howe wrote the popular hymn the Battle Hymn of the Republic to the tune of John Brown’s body, which included a line “As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free”, comparing Brown’s sacrifice to that of Jesus Christ.[12]

According to W. E. B. Du Bois in his 1909 biography, John Brown. Brown’s raid stood as “a great white light – an unwavering, unflickering brightness, blinding by its all-seeing brilliance, making the whole world simply a light and a darkness – a right and a wrong.”[242]

According to his friend and financier, the rich abolitionist Gerrit Smith, “If I were asked to point out the man in all this world I think most truly a Christian, I would point to John Brown.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)#Contemporaries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)

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[Article from Naomi Wolf]/TEN STEPS TO CLOSE DOWN AN OPEN SOCIETY

photograph of gray clouds

TEN STEPS TO CLOSE DOWN AN OPEN SOCIETY

NAOMI WOLF

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695

It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy — but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

By 

Naomi Wolf, Contributor

Bestselling author, ‘The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot’

Apr 24, 2007, 01:07 PM EDT|Updated May 25, 2011

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy – but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree – domestically – as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government – the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens’ ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors – we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don’t learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of “homeland” security – remember who else was keen on the word “homeland” – didn’t raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable – as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.

1 Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

After we were hit on September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. We were told we were now on a “war footing”; we were in a “global war” against a “global caliphate” intending to “wipe out civilisation”. There have been other times of crisis in which the US accepted limits on civil liberties, such as during the civil war, when Lincoln declared martial law, and the second world war, when thousands of Japanese-American citizens were interned. But this situation, as Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda has noted, is unprecedented: all our other wars had an endpoint, so the pendulum was able to swing back toward freedom; this war is defined as open-ended in time and without national boundaries in space – the globe itself is the battlefield. “This time,” Fein says, “there will be no defined end.”

Creating a terrifying threat – hydra-like, secretive, evil – is an old trick. It can, like Hitler’s invocation of a communist threat to the nation’s security, be based on actual events (one Wisconsin academic has faced calls for his dismissal because he noted, among other things, that the alleged communist arson, the Reichstag fire of February 1933, was swiftly followed in Nazi Germany by passage of the Enabling Act, which replaced constitutional law with an open-ended state of emergency). Or the terrifying threat can be based, like the National Socialist evocation of the “global conspiracy of world Jewry”, on myth.

It is not that global Islamist terrorism is not a severe danger; of course it is. I am arguing rather that the language used to convey the nature of the threat is different in a country such as Spain – which has also suffered violent terrorist attacks – than it is in America. Spanish citizens know that they face a grave security threat; what we as American citizens believe is that we are potentially threatened with the end of civilisation as we know it. Of course, this makes us more willing to accept restrictions on our freedoms.

2 Create a gulag

Once you have got everyone scared, the next step is to create a prison system outside the rule of law (as Bush put it, he wanted the American detention centre at Guantánamo Bay to be situated in legal “outer space”) – where torture takes place.

At first, the people who are sent there are seen by citizens as outsiders: troublemakers, spies, “enemies of the people” or “criminals”. Initially, citizens tend to support the secret prison system; it makes them feel safer and they do not identify with the prisoners. But soon enough, civil society leaders – opposition members, labour activists, clergy and journalists – are arrested and sent there as well.

This process took place in fascist shifts or anti-democracy crackdowns ranging from Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s to the Latin American coups of the 1970s and beyond. It is standard practice for closing down an open society or crushing a pro-democracy uprising.

With its jails in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, of course, Guantánamo in Cuba, where detainees are abused, and kept indefinitely without trial and without access to the due process of the law, America certainly has its gulag now. Bush and his allies in Congress recently announced they would issue no information about the secret CIA “black site” prisons throughout the world, which are used to incarcerate people who have been seized off the street.

Gulags in history tend to metastasise, becoming ever larger and more secretive, ever more deadly and formalised. We know from first-hand accounts, photographs, videos and government documents that people, innocent and guilty, have been tortured in the US-run prisons we are aware of and those we can’t investigate adequately.

But Americans still assume this system and detainee abuses involve only scary brown people with whom they don’t generally identify. It was brave of the conservative pundit William Safire to quote the anti-Nazi pastor Martin Niemöller, who had been seized as a political prisoner: “First they came for the Jews.” Most Americans don’t understand yet that the destruction of the rule of law at Guantánamo set a dangerous precedent for them, too.

By the way, the establishment of military tribunals that deny prisoners due process tends to come early on in a fascist shift. Mussolini and Stalin set up such tribunals. On April 24 1934, the Nazis, too, set up the People’s Court, which also bypassed the judicial system: prisoners were held indefinitely, often in isolation, and tortured, without being charged with offences, and were subjected to show trials. Eventually, the Special Courts became a parallel system that put pressure on the regular courts to abandon the rule of law in favour of Nazi ideology when making decisions.

3 Develop a thug caste

When leaders who seek what I call a “fascist shift” want to close down an open society, they send paramilitary groups of scary young men out to terrorise citizens. The Blackshirts roamed the Italian countryside beating up communists; the Brownshirts staged violent rallies throughout Germany. This paramilitary force is especially important in a democracy: you need citizens to fear thug violence and so you need thugs who are free from prosecution.

The years following 9/11 have proved a bonanza for America’s security contractors, with the Bush administration outsourcing areas of work that traditionally fell to the US military. In the process, contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been issued for security work by mercenaries at home and abroad. In Iraq, some of these contract operatives have been accused of involvement in torturing prisoners, harassing journalists and firing on Iraqi civilians. Under Order 17, issued to regulate contractors in Iraq by the one-time US administrator in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, these contractors are immune from prosecution

Yes, but that is in Iraq, you could argue; however, after Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security hired and deployed hundreds of armed private security guards in New Orleans. The investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill interviewed one unnamed guard who reported having fired on unarmed civilians in the city. It was a natural disaster that underlay that episode – but the administration’s endless war on terror means ongoing scope for what are in effect privately contracted armies to take on crisis and emergency management at home in US cities.

Thugs in America? Groups of angry young Republican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers, menaced poll workers counting the votes in Florida in 2000. If you are reading history, you can imagine that there can be a need for “public order” on the next election day. Say there are protests, or a threat, on the day of an election; history would not rule out the presence of a private security firm at a polling station “to restore public order”.

4 Set up an internal surveillance system

In Mussolini’s Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China – in every closed society – secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbours to spy on neighbours. The Stasi needed to keep only a minority of East Germans under surveillance to convince a majority that they themselves were being watched.

In 2005 and 2006, when James Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote in the New York Times about a secret state programme to wiretap citizens’ phones, read their emails and follow international financial transactions, it became clear to ordinary Americans that they, too, could be under state scrutiny.

In closed societies, this surveillance is cast as being about “national security”; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their activism and dissent.

5 Harass citizens’ groups

The fifth thing you do is related to step four – you infiltrate and harass citizens’ groups. It can be trivial: a church in Pasadena, whose minister preached that Jesus was in favour of peace, found itself being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, while churches that got Republicans out to vote, which is equally illegal under US tax law, have been left alone.

Other harassment is more serious: the American Civil Liberties Union reports that thousands of ordinary American anti-war, environmental and other groups have been infiltrated by agents: a secret Pentagon database includes more than four dozen peaceful anti-war meetings, rallies or marches by American citizens in its category of 1,500 “suspicious incidents”. The equally secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (Cifa) agency of the Department of Defense has been gathering information about domestic organisations engaged in peaceful political activities: Cifa is supposed to track “potential terrorist threats” as it watches ordinary US citizen activists. A little-noticed new law has redefined activism such as animal rights protests as “terrorism”. So the definition of “terrorist” slowly expands to include the opposition.

6 Engage in arbitrary detention and release

This scares people. It is a kind of cat-and-mouse game. Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, the investigative reporters who wrote China Wakes: the Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power, describe pro-democracy activists in China, such as Wei Jingsheng, being arrested and released many times. In a closing or closed society there is a “list” of dissidents and opposition leaders: you are targeted in this way once you are on the list, and it is hard to get off the list.

In 2004, America’s Transportation Security Administration confirmed that it had a list of passengers who were targeted for security searches or worse if they tried to fly. People who have found themselves on the list? Two middle-aged women peace activists in San Francisco; liberal Senator Edward Kennedy; a member of Venezuela’s government – after Venezuela’s president had criticised Bush; and thousands of ordinary US citizens.

Professor Walter F Murphy is emeritus of Princeton University; he is one of the foremost constitutional scholars in the nation and author of the classic Constitutional Democracy. Murphy is also a decorated former marine, and he is not even especially politically liberal. But on March 1 this year, he was denied a boarding pass at Newark, “because I was on the Terrorist Watch list”.

“Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that,” asked the airline employee.

“I explained,” said Murphy, “that I had not so marched but had, in September 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the constitution.”

“That’ll do it,” the man said.

Anti-war marcher? Potential terrorist. Support the constitution? Potential terrorist. History shows that the categories of “enemy of the people” tend to expand ever deeper into civil life.

James Yee, a US citizen, was the Muslim chaplain at Guantánamo who was accused of mishandling classified documents. He was harassed by the US military before the charges against him were dropped. Yee has been detained and released several times. He is still of interest.

Brandon Mayfield, a US citizen and lawyer in Oregon, was mistakenly identified as a possible terrorist. His house was secretly broken into and his computer seized. Though he is innocent of the accusation against him, he is still on the list.

It is a standard practice of fascist societies that once you are on the list, you can’t get off.

7 Target key individuals

Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don’t toe the line. Mussolini went after the rectors of state universities who did not conform to the fascist line; so did Joseph Goebbels, who purged academics who were not pro-Nazi; so did Chile’s Augusto Pinochet; so does the Chinese communist Politburo in punishing pro-democracy students and professors.

Academe is a tinderbox of activism, so those seeking a fascist shift punish academics and students with professional loss if they do not “coordinate”, in Goebbels’ term, ideologically. Since civil servants are the sector of society most vulnerable to being fired by a given regime, they are also a group that fascists typically “coordinate” early on: the Reich Law for the Re-establishment of a Professional Civil Service was passed on April 7 1933.

Bush supporters in state legislatures in several states put pressure on regents at state universities to penalise or fire academics who have been critical of the administration. As for civil servants, the Bush administration has derailed the career of one military lawyer who spoke up for fair trials for detainees, while an administration official publicly intimidated the law firms that represent detainees pro bono by threatening to call for their major corporate clients to boycott them.

Elsewhere, a CIA contract worker who said in a closed blog that “waterboarding is torture” was stripped of the security clearance she needed in order to do her job.

Most recently, the administration purged eight US attorneys for what looks like insufficient political loyalty. When Goebbels purged the civil service in April 1933, attorneys were “coordinated” too, a step that eased the way of the increasingly brutal laws to follow.

8 Control the press

Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the 30s, East Germany in the 50s, Czechoslovakia in the 60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the 70s, China in the 80s and 90s – all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists. They threaten and harass them in more open societies that they are seeking to close, and they arrest them and worse in societies that have been closed already.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says arrests of US journalists are at an all-time high: Josh Wolf (no relation), a blogger in San Francisco, has been put in jail for a year for refusing to turn over video of an anti-war demonstration; Homeland Security brought a criminal complaint against reporter Greg Palast, claiming he threatened “critical infrastructure” when he and a TV producer were filming victims of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Palast had written a bestseller critical of the Bush administration.

Other reporters and writers have been punished in other ways. Joseph C Wilson accused Bush, in a New York Times op-ed, of leading the country to war on the basis of a false charge that Saddam Hussein had acquired yellowcake uranium in Niger. His wife, Valerie Plame, was outed as a CIA spy – a form of retaliation that ended her career.

Prosecution and job loss are nothing, though, compared with how the US is treating journalists seeking to cover the conflict in Iraq in an unbiased way. The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented multiple accounts of the US military in Iraq firing upon or threatening to fire upon unembedded (meaning independent) reporters and camera operators from organisations ranging from al-Jazeera to the BBC. While westerners may question the accounts by al-Jazeera, they should pay attention to the accounts of reporters such as the BBC’s Kate Adie. In some cases reporters have been wounded or killed, including ITN’s Terry Lloyd in 2003. Both CBS and the Associated Press in Iraq had staff members seized by the US military and taken to violent prisons; the news organisations were unable to see the evidence against their staffers.

Over time in closing societies, real news is supplanted by fake news and false documents. Pinochet showed Chilean citizens falsified documents to back up his claim that terrorists had been about to attack the nation. The yellowcake charge, too, was based on forged papers.

You won’t have a shutdown of news in modern America – it is not possible. But you can have, as Frank Rich and Sidney Blumenthal have pointed out, a steady stream of lies polluting the news well. What you already have is a White House directing a stream of false information that is so relentless that it is increasingly hard to sort out truth from untruth. In a fascist system, it’s not the lies that count but the muddying. When citizens can’t tell real news from fake, they give up their demands for accountability bit by bit.

9 Dissent equals treason

Cast dissent as “treason” and criticism as “espionage’. Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalise certain kinds of speech and expand the definition of “spy” and “traitor”. When Bill Keller, the publisher of the New York Times, ran the Lichtblau/Risen stories, Bush called the Times’ leaking of classified information “disgraceful”, while Republicans in Congress called for Keller to be charged with treason, and rightwing commentators and news outlets kept up the “treason” drumbeat. Some commentators, as Conason noted, reminded readers smugly that one penalty for violating the Espionage Act is execution.

Conason is right to note how serious a threat that attack represented. It is also important to recall that the 1938 Moscow show trial accused the editor of Izvestia, Nikolai Bukharin, of treason; Bukharin was, in fact, executed. And it is important to remind Americans that when the 1917 Espionage Act was last widely invoked, during the infamous 1919 Palmer Raids, leftist activists were arrested without warrants in sweeping roundups, kept in jail for up to five months, and “beaten, starved, suffocated, tortured and threatened with death”, according to the historian Myra MacPherson. After that, dissent was muted in America for a decade.

In Stalin’s Soviet Union, dissidents were “enemies of the people”. National Socialists called those who supported Weimar democracy “November traitors”.

And here is where the circle closes: most Americans do not realise that since September of last year – when Congress wrongly, foolishly, passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 – the president has the power to call any US citizen an “enemy combatant”. He has the power to define what “enemy combatant” means. The president can also delegate to anyone he chooses in the executive branch the right to define “enemy combatant” any way he or she wants and then seize Americans accordingly.

Even if you or I are American citizens, even if we turn out to be completely innocent of what he has accused us of doing, he has the power to have us seized as we are changing planes at Newark tomorrow, or have us taken with a knock on the door; ship you or me to a navy brig; and keep you or me in isolation, possibly for months, while awaiting trial. (Prolonged isolation, as psychiatrists know, triggers psychosis in otherwise mentally healthy prisoners. That is why Stalin’s gulag had an isolation cell, like Guantánamo’s, in every satellite prison. Camp 6, the newest, most brutal facility at Guantánamo, is all isolation cells.)

We US citizens will get a trial eventually – for now. But legal rights activists at the Center for Constitutional Rights say that the Bush administration is trying increasingly aggressively to find ways to get around giving even US citizens fair trials. “Enemy combatant” is a status offence – it is not even something you have to have done. “We have absolutely moved over into a preventive detention model – you look like you could do something bad, you might do something bad, so we’re going to hold you,” says a spokeswoman of the CCR.

Most Americans surely do not get this yet. No wonder: it is hard to believe, even though it is true. In every closing society, at a certain point there are some high-profile arrests – usually of opposition leaders, clergy and journalists. Then everything goes quiet. After those arrests, there are still newspapers, courts, TV and radio, and the facades of a civil society. There just isn’t real dissent. There just isn’t freedom. If you look at history, just before those arrests is where we are now.

10 Suspend the rule of law

The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. This means that in a national emergency – which the president now has enhanced powers to declare – he can send Michigan’s militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state’s governor and its citizens.

Even as Americans were focused on Britney Spears’s meltdown and the question of who fathered Anna Nicole’s baby, the New York Times editorialised about this shift: “A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night … Beyond actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any ‘other condition’.”

Critics see this as a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act – which was meant to restrain the federal government from using the military for domestic law enforcement. The Democratic senator Patrick Leahy says the bill encourages a president to declare federal martial law. It also violates the very reason the founders set up our system of government as they did: having seen citizens bullied by a monarch’s soldiers, the founders were terrified of exactly this kind of concentration of militias’ power over American people in the hands of an oppressive executive or faction.

Of course, the United States is not vulnerable to the violent, total closing-down of the system that followed Mussolini’s march on Rome or Hitler’s roundup of political prisoners. Our democratic habits are too resilient, and our military and judiciary too independent, for any kind of scenario like that.

Rather, as other critics are noting, our experiment in democracy could be closed down by a process of erosion.

It is a mistake to think that early in a fascist shift you see the profile of barbed wire against the sky. In the early days, things look normal on the surface; peasants were celebrating harvest festivals in Calabria in 1922; people were shopping and going to the movies in Berlin in 1931. Early on, as WH Auden put it, the horror is always elsewhere – while someone is being tortured, children are skating, ships are sailing: “dogs go on with their doggy life … How everything turns away/ Quite leisurely from the disaster.”

As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded. Something has changed profoundly that weakens us unprecedentedly: our democratic traditions, independent judiciary and free press do their work today in a context in which we are “at war” in a “long war” – a war without end, on a battlefield described as the globe, in a context that gives the president – without US citizens realising it yet – the power over US citizens of freedom or long solitary incarceration, on his say-so alone.

That means a hollowness has been expanding under the foundation of all these still- free-looking institutions – and this foundation can give way under certain kinds of pressure. To prevent such an outcome, we have to think about the “what ifs”.

What if, in a year and a half, there is another attack – say, God forbid, a dirty bomb? The executive can declare a state of emergency. History shows that any leader, of any party, will be tempted to maintain emergency powers after the crisis has passed. With the gutting of traditional checks and balances, we are no less endangered by a President Hillary than by a President Giuliani – because any executive will be tempted to enforce his or her will through edict rather than the arduous, uncertain process of democratic negotiation and compromise.

What if the publisher of a major US newspaper were charged with treason or espionage, as a rightwing effort seemed to threaten Keller with last year? What if he or she got 10 years in jail? What would the newspapers look like the next day? Judging from history, they would not cease publishing; but they would suddenly be very polite.

Right now, only a handful of patriots are trying to hold back the tide of tyranny for the rest of us – staff at the Center for Constitutional Rights, who faced death threats for representing the detainees yet persisted all the way to the Supreme Court; activists at the American Civil Liberties Union; and prominent conservatives trying to roll back the corrosive new laws, under the banner of a new group called the American Freedom Agenda. This small, disparate collection of people needs everybody’s help, including that of Europeans and others internationally who are willing to put pressure on the administration because they can see what a US unrestrained by real democracy at home can mean for the rest of the world.

We need to look at history and face the “what ifs”. For if we keep going down this road, the “end of America” could come for each of us in a different way, at a different moment; each of us might have a different moment when we feel forced to look back and think: that is how it was before – and this is the way it is now.

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands … is the definition of tyranny,” wrote James Madison. We still have the choice to stop going down this road; we can stand our ground and fight for our nation, and take up the banner the founders asked us to carry.

From “The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot,” Chelsea Green Publishing, Sept 2007

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Rishi Sunak, UK Prime Minister/A Blessing and a Curse

New Prime Minister of the UK, Rishi Sunak, enters Downing Street for the first time, London, UK

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The New Prime Minister of the UK, Rishi Sunak, enters Downing Street for the first time, London, UK

RISHI SUNAK NEW UK PRIME MINISTER/A BLESSING AND A CURSE

”I will bring that same compassion to the challenges we face today.

The government I lead will not leave the next generation, your children and grandchildren, with a debt to settle that we were too weak to pay ourselves. 

I will unite our country, not with words, but with action. 

I will work day in and day out to deliver for you.

This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.

Trust is earned. And I will earn yours.”

From the first speech of Rishi Sunak as a 

Prime Minister [1A]

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/prime-minister-rishi-sunaks-statement-25-october-2022

What I secretly hoped for, happened:

On 25 november 2022, Rishi Sunak was appointed by king Charles III

as UK prime minister, making him the first British Asian prime minister

in the British history! [1]

I call it a Blessing and a Curse.

Why I call it a Blessing, the reader will soon know.

Why I call it a Curse, likewise.

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE

Rishi Sunak, who had made career in the Conservative Party from

2014 [2] became UK’s Prime Minister after the former Conservative Prime

Minister, Liz Truss, made a mess of her prime ministership

with her ”cutting taxes for the riches” plan [together with

her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng], which even was

criticized by the IMF [3] and

had to resign after 45 days! [4]

AND ironically, Sunak initially lost the UK prime minister

race from Liz Truss…….[5]

And then, dramatically SHE vanished and HE won

CONSERVATIVE, RICH, AGAINST POOR AND REFUGEES

Look, I am not naive or either a Fool and I know exactly,

where the Conservative Party, which leader Rishi is now,

stands for:

This is the Party of the anti refugee ”pushbacks” [6] and other migration

regulating plans like the Rwanda deal and the favouritism for the ”Australian refugee system [7], from which human rights organisation Human Rights

Watch called ” abusive offshore processing policy” [8]

This is the Party, that wages war on the poor, not

just by the Kwarteng taxes advantage for the super-rich [9], but in general and decennialong.

By welfare cuts, driving poor people on the edge

of hunger [10], which, yet apart from the fundamental violation of social rights [11], reveals

contempt for the Poor [12]

And so was it in the Tory past….

Prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the ”Iron Lady” [13] destroyed the welfare state [14] and eventhough that’s a time ago, it’s worth remembring.

But back to Sunak:

That he is no Friend of the Poor, is obvious

Wasn’t it Sunak, who said [presently, in this year 2022, during the energy crisis], that it would be “silly” for the government to provide more help to struggling families now. Despite households across the country facing an average £700 ($879) increase in their gas and electricity bills immediately after April, with another 50 percent spike expected in October, Sunak said he won’t act before “knowing what the situation will be in autumn”…….[15]

YEAH, that’s easy for him to say, since his Family

income is worth more than £700 million ($879 million……..[16]

Some say, that Sunak is richer than the British Royal Family! [17]

Yet I don’t think this comparison is fair:

The British Royal Family was born into this wealth,

built his own Empire [18] and regardless men’s few

about capitalism [I certainly am NOT a fan of those

astronomic differences between the riches and

the poor, as my loyal readers should know] [19], I think it is an accomplishment

of a son of Indian immigrants, whose Indian grandparents migrated to East Africa firstly and

then to Great Britain, building up a newlife again. [20]

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Yet there is another side to this Story.Because however true, that the Conservative Party and it’s new leader, Prime Minister Sunak, is noFriend of the poor and refugees [the most neglectedgroups in society], this is different,For whatever Tory Hardliner [Sunak is in favour ofthe infamous ”Rwanda deal” against refugees] [21],Sunak is also the first Indian UK Prime Minister.The first Man of Colour, who ever had the highestpolitical Office in England. [22]That means something.It is a Historical Achievement and made myskin crawl and not only me, but thousandsand thousands people of colour in England anddoubtless over the world! [23][Now that I write it, I feel that crawling again….]
BUT WHY IT GAVE ME THAT SKIN CRAWLINGAND IS THE SUNAK ELECTION SUCH A GRAVE ACHIEVEMENT
Because in a way, it is a Victory against the century long Western colonial oppression, not onlyof India [24], but all Asia, Africa, parts of South America and other parts of the World.It is ”The Empire strikes back” againstWhite Supremacy, against the White Man’s Burden doctrine [25]
And it is not just the colonial White Supremacy policy:Along came all the British colonial atrocities inIndia, in Africa, in the West Indies [26]Admitted:That is history, but it still has it’s consequences:It still bears bitter Fruits in institutional racism,in opression, in poverty and uneqality [27],not only in England, in all Western countries,once colonial Powers.And of course not all is due to colonialismand racism:Hardline capitalism plays it’s ugly part too.And affects many poor white people too.I don’t close my eyes to that.
Back to Rishi SunakThe Bitter Fruits of racism, stemming from colonialism and the Western slavery ridden”concept of race” [28], were tasted by Rishi Sunakhimself:I quote him:

“I was just out with my younger brother and younger sister, and I think, probably pretty young, I was probably a mid-teenager, and we were out at a fast food restaurant and I was just looking after them. There were people sitting nearby, it was the first time I’d experienced it, just saying some very unpleasant things. The ‘P’ word.” 

“And it stung. I still remember it. It seared in my memory. You can be insulted in many different ways.” [29]

Painful indeed and reading this, one must realize what a 

great achievement it has been, descended from Indian immigrants and tasting racist experiences, not only relatively

”silly” remarks from stupid people in a restaurant, or store, or neighbourhood, but also in real challenges like discrimination in

the job market and in other cases, important in someone’s life,

to climb up in a Party like the Conservative Party and eventually:

Reaching the highest political position in the former Colonial

Motherland:

England.

A Motherland, which had in her clubs in India the rule

[this is NO joke, but real]

‘Dogs and Indians not allowed” [30]

EPILOGUE

I wrote it in the title of this article:”

RISHI SUNAK NEW UK PRIME MINISTER/A BLESSING AND A CURSE”

and that’s just the way I feel it, and with me, others also, as well rejoicing that a man of colour has the highest UK political position, as pointing out  the fact, that although an Indian man of colour, he defends Conservative Tory interests, which are clearly not advantageous to the poor Indian community, black community or the communities of other people of colour [31]

BUT YET:

From ”’Dogs and Indians not allowed” [32] tothe Rishi Sunak first speech as a UK PrimeMinister [33], is a great step and an achievementthat crawls my skin.

A sort of Poetical Justice

ASTRID ESSED
NOTES

NOTES 1A T/M 33

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