US Authoritarianism
- theintercept.com Beirut Suburbs or “Hezbollah Stronghold”? U.S. Media Parrots Israeli Propaganda to Justify Bombing Civilians
Calling south Beirut a militant “Hezbollah stronghold” makes it sound like a giant military base, rather than a dense and vibrant urban area.
Last Friday, Israel attacked a meeting of Hezbollah leaders in the southern Beirut neighborhood of al-Qaem. It was an assassination operation following the detonation, days before, of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies that had been packed with explosives.
In al-Qaem, the Israeli military boasted of a “precise strike” in the “heart of Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut.” The language conjured images of a brazen operation against a well-protected military compound, a Pentagon of its kind, a wholly valiant endeavor.
In reality, this was a massive strike that completely leveled a residential building, one that killed Hezbollah leaders just as much as it did countless families inside. Many of those families remain under the rubble, with others still missing.
Almost every time news emerges from south Beirut, the Western news media parrots the language of the Israeli military, as if “Hezbollah stronghold” is part of the neighborhood’s name.
Defenders of this kind of language may point to the usage of “strongholds” to describe bases of support for the Democratic Party or U.K.’s Labour, but these are usages in a Western context, a use nobody is confused by. In Lebanon, the connotations are obvious. And they directly serve Israeli interests.
- Summer’s Over: A Note on Politics and the Campus Movementwww.nplusonemag.com Summer’s Over | The Bad Side
The tableau was sickening and, of course, telling. On one side, a congressional representative and mouth-frothing agent of the religious right. On the other, a liberal cosmopolitan and leader of an Ivy League, and in this case, an Egyptian baroness and former VP at the World Bank. Two distinct and s...
- I hear Europeans gain Weight when they come here and lose it when they leave, with no change in eating habits.
Yeah no guys this is a modern food nutrition thing. Paired with -I would say- a rather mild jab at how American education has a bit of a nonsensical ‘Stalin bad’ attitude towards educating its population about the history and impact of the USSR.
Gj 👍
- Reminder that Hamas is in Control Because Israel Doesn’t Want to Negotiate with a Moderate Government in Palestine
They want to have a terrorist group they can fight, rather than a different type of government. Like George Bush and the original Iraqi Army before we betrayed them and turned it into ISIS.
- 'There is unfair amount of focus on Israel in UN,' says US envoy
“There is no other country in the world that has a monthly meeting on the (Security) Council’s agenda going back decades,” the US envoy said, describing the “unfair amount of focus on Israel in the UN” as “problematic”.
Asked about recognising the Palestinian State, Thomas-Greenfield gave an evasive response as she claimed that “a state has certain responsibilities for its people, and I do not believe the Palestinians, as they exist right now, have all of the elements to give it statehood.
She also bluntly responded to a question about the arrest warrant issued for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, by the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor, Karim Khan, and said: “We have been clear that we have a problem with the Court’s ruling.”
“Well, let me be clear: We will not arrest him,” she stressed.
- Ethel Rosenberg was Executed for Being a Communist
Read the article here: https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/09/12/newly-declassified-document-reveals-that-us-knew-that-ethel-rosenberg-was-not-a-spy-long-before-her-execution/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0e7b9OQWoFqNEPKPd5uAQ7rfCVH9fYLDWH5Xtilzqf7e6DppNPl_ezB5c_aem_f2LSaKuMoFN41fjU-79Xlg
- For My Local Town it’s Almost Exactly 55% to 45% cop Funding to Everything Else. What’s Yours?
That does include parking enforcement. Which is done through that half of Townhall. Oh yeah, that’s the other part. They get literally half the real estate of town hall which is delightfully unsubtle.
But yeah, remember specifically that freaking the cops taking on all of these duties, or having these duties thrust upon them outside of their control whatever version of this that you buy into,. Having a whole bunch of unrelated social functions being addressed under the regions of the police forces is the criticism, it’s not some separate part. Why, does parking enforcement or local security or non union road crews get organized and paid from the police department instead of the local government?
- Multiple Life Sentences for Minor in Police Shooting He did not Participate in.
LINK TO THE PETITION
https://www.change.org/p/district-attorney-cj-robinson-free-lakeith-smith
Source: https://www.tumblr.com/iguanodonwildman/661968148678017024/please-sign-the-petition-so-i-checked-up-on~~___~~
- Updated States List for Bans on Trans Youth
I’m fully just calling the “gender affirming care bans” what they are, bans on trans minors, because somebody on the main subReddit pointed out that the child brides in all of these red states do not have restrictions on ‘their’ boob jobs.
- I mean like.Obviously,. States Rights and All That
The alternative being.., a Mexican or Brazilian style federal system?
- www.theguardian.com We each have a Nazi in us. We need to understand the psychological roots of authoritarianism | Gabor Maté
Neuroimaging studies have shown that the amygdala, the tiny almond-shaped brain structure that mediates fear, is larger in people with more rightwing views
- www.theguardian.com Why fascists hate universities | Jason Stanley
Authoritarians and would-be authoritarians are only too aware that universities are primary sites of critique and dissent
- Former Aurora cop charged with raping daughter remains free as mom is sent to jail
>courtesy of Reddit user “NoMoreProphets”
This is a wild read. I would recommend reading the entire thing but here are the main snippets.
The 17-year-old daughter claims her father, Hawkins, raped her when she was almost six years old and continually molested her throughout her childhood despite her protestations that he stop, according to court documents. The two adopted daughters also claim they were sexually abused, those documents state.
The oldest son also told a forensic interviewer he felt like his father tried to drown him in a pool in 2018 in Costa Rica, using police control tactics and holding him under water until he began to black out. The boy said he believed his father was vengeful because the boy woke up one night and confronted his father whose hand he claims he saw down the under garments of his sister.
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Though the divorce judge found there was evidence that Hawkins had physically abused the oldest son, the judge said in his ruling that was “one instance that does not involve either of the two children at issue.”
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A criminal case alleging child sexual abuse was filed against the father on July 29 in the 18th Judicial District following nearly two years of investigation by the Castle Rock Police Department and a prosecution investigator. Hawkins, 55, was charged with seven felony counts of sexual assault of a child by a person in a position of trust and a single count of misdemeanor child abuse. The alleged incidents extended from 2002 to 2021, according to the charging document.
The allegations span Hawkins’ tenure at the Aurora Police Department between 2005 and 2018. The daughter who claimed she was raped when she was of elementary school age told a forensic investigator the rape occurred in 2012. She said it occurred the same year that her father experienced post-traumatic stress disorder after he responded to the 2012 mass shooting at an Aurora movie theater in which 12 people were killed and 70 wounded.
Hawkins received national attention in the wake of the Aurora theater attack after he testified about carrying a dying 6-year-old girl out of the theater that night.
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In 2017, a woman sued Hawkins and the Aurora Police Department, alleging she was brutalized by Hawkins and three other officers. Video of the incident showed Hawkins stomping on the woman’s head while she was on the ground. The woman claimed in her lawsuit that she was falsely accused of assaulting Hawkins and spent a week in jail, including over Christmas. Her criminal charges were dismissed. Aurora paid $335,000 to settle the lawsuit.
Hawkins medically retired from the police department in 2018 after he failed a fit-for-duty exam and was placed on medical leave.
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Pickrel-Hawkins denied any manipulation on her part and pointed out that prosecutors in the 18the Judicial District Attorney’s Office believe the allegations. She said she fears the reunification therapy is harming her boys, whom she described as crying uncontrollably, having explosive outbursts and expressing thoughts of self-harm after attending Bassett’s reunification sessions with their father.
“They can’t sleep before and after,” Pickrel-Hawkins said. “It causes major anxiety. It exacerbates their PTSD symptoms. It has absolutely been devastating to them.”
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She said a domestic violence advocate has filed an allegation of abuse with child-protective services against the therapist, Bassett, for allegedly grabbing and squeezing her 10-year-old son’s arm roughly during one reunification therapy session when he declined to pick up a piece of trash. She said her sons also complained that the therapist won’t give them any water unless the children first provide water to their father during their reunification sessions. She said the therapist also has barred the children from bringing watches so they can monitor how long a therapy session will last.
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The reunification therapist, Bassett, is conducting the therapy at Lighthouse Christian Counseling in Fort Collins, which advertises itself on the internet as “integrating faith into the counseling process.”
“We believe that, as we push into the hard and painful things surrounding us, God meets us with both grace and truth,” the website for Lighthouse Christian Counseling states. “It is our delight to extend that grace and truth to others, regardless of their faith journey.”
- Oh 🤔 So Most Elections in the US … Aren’t.
https://ballotpedia.org/Analysis_of_uncontested_elections,_2024
Please consult my comments section for the mainstream explanation for why the US is totally a democracy and ever was. All I have for you in the meantime is communism. Liberal democracies are fake as a rule.
- www.newyorker.com The Haditha Massacre Photos That the Military Didn’t Want the World to See
When U.S. Marines killed twenty-four people in an Iraqi town, they also recorded the aftermath of their actions. For years, the military tried to keep these photos from the public.
When U.S. Marines killed twenty-four people in an Iraqi town, they also recorded the aftermath of their actions. For years, the military tried to keep these photos from the public.
The killings came to be known as the Haditha massacre. Four Marines were charged with murder, but those charges were later dropped. General James Mattis, who went on to become Secretary of Defense, wrote a glowing letter to one of the Marines, dismissing his charges and declaring him innocent. By 2012, when the final case ended in a plea deal with no prison sentence, the Iraq War was over, and stories about the legacy of the U.S. occupation rarely got much attention. The news barely registered.
The photos are graphic. They show men, women, and young children in defenseless positions, many of them shot in the head at relatively close range.
- Police Officers Are Dogs
The Sacramento Bee https://www.facebook.com/share/bndN19oNXQb2ecPG/?mibextid=LQQJ4d
