Skip to main content

DEMONSTRATIONS AND JOURNALISM IN THE AGE OF TRUMPIAN MENDACITY AND RIGHT WING DECEPTION



Bill Lee

June, 8, 2020

The president of the USA, D.J. Trump, has been twittering (some would say blithering) on about members of Antifa and the "Radical Left" instigating the recent riots that have emerged out of the well organized and quite orderly demonstrations against Police violence against racialized people. He has even suggested he will label Antifa as a "terrorist organization[1]". As usual with the twaddle that the man brays forth it is a completely unsubstantiated charge. Indeed, Trump is, as usual, misinformed, or lying (it may be that he is no longer, or maybe never was, able to discern the difference between the two). As for the “Radical Left”, Trump's words amount to the usual vague, unsubstantiated diversionary codswallop that he has been spewing, and so the same arguments apply.  Antifa is intent on confronting the Fascist Right and did not organize any protests on, or infiltrations of, this issue that I’ve heard of. I’m not a fan of all their tactics, but it is quite unlikely its members are going to insert themselves into protests about the epidemic of police violence against racialized communities. 

But I do believe that the “outside agitator" claim may make some sense. But it is right wing outsiders that concern me. Some of my friends on the left seem to feel obliged to reject almost any notion[2] that would seem to displace all the agency for the destruction away from the Black participants. I do not feel that need. It is not that I cannot understand the justifiable built up rage in racialized and oppressed groups that could be a part of the action. It is unfortunately very valid. Nor am I suggesting that Black or Indigenous, or other racialized or colonialized groups, should not be cheered on and supported when they take to the streets in public protest against injustice. Neither am I against disruption when the situation warrants[3]. I am among those, like columnist Rosie DiManno (2020) who, saw the burning of the Minneapolis police station as a blow for justice. "I say the fires that engulfed the Third Precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department were a furnace of sanity amidst the derangement of a nation." A clear statement, that suggests a legitimate target for action, though I understand that it is very troubling for some. But it increasingly seems likely, given various reports (Bloom, 2020; Parton (2020), Zadrozni & Saliba, 2020; Parton (2020), that some of the "outsiders" who are involved in the riots that have been erupting are members of  the Trump supported alt-right neo-Nazi and White Supremest groups, or both.[4] It is logical to posit the idea that there could be an intent to try to distract from, and/or discredit, the real issues of inequality and racism that have brought on the protests in the first place.

Unfortunately, the media often falls into the trap set by far right infiltrators. Whoever is responsible for the rioting and destruction they seem to find it very difficult not to focus on the excitement of a building on fire, smoke clouds of tear gas that sometimes are floating around, the images of people running to and fro or the sound of flash bombs going off. The same applies to the showing of looting when they can video it. Up to a point it is understandable, even reasonable, to report on carnage, if it exists, or how the people there are acting and reacting.[5] However, if that is the major focus, and there is not much digging into things such as who is participating in the event, why are they there, to what groups, if any, they belong to it is not thorough journalism, it is simply description without context. 

Admittedly having the most prolific and venial liar in the world pumping out totally unsubstantiated charges at all hours of the day, or night, can make it challenging to maintain a critical and analytical stance. But, it is precisely because Trump is such a malign mendacity machine that requires the media to keep digging and presenting facts. We, particularly whitestream citizens, must demand that the news media does a lot more digging and analysis as to who is throwing the first brick and setting the first fire and why. And finally, that they focus on the issue of White Supremest racist violence in society at large, and by police in particular; and the fact that D.J. Trump is 'gaslighting' the population of the USA, and the world, again.

Resources

Adams, B (2020) "Masked white man smashing Minneapolis AutoZone windows in viral video raises suspicion". The Giro. May 29.
  https://thegrio.com/2020/05/29/masked-white-man-smashes-minneapolis-autozone-windows/

Bloom, M. (2020) "Far-Right Infiltrators and Agitators in George Floyd Protests: Indicators of White Supremacists". Just Security .May 30. https://www.justsecurity.org/70497/far-right-infiltrators-and-agitators-in-george-floyd-protests-indicators-of-white-supremacists/?fbclid=IwAR2u-82Av25unpgw0dAsbs9QLIfPdOCCJ82iohBNvlm528lmJ5sVhoi1pg0

Bogel-Burroughs, N. and Garcia, SE (2020). "What Is Antifa, the Movement Trump Wants to Declare a Terror Group?" in The New York Times. May 31 Updated June 6. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/us/what-antifa-trump.html

Collins, Zadrozni, B., Saliba, E. (2020). " White nationalist group posing as antifa called for violence on Twitter". NDCNews. June. 1. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/twitter-takes-down-washington-protest-disinformation-bot-behavior-n1221456?fbclid=IwAR1YS_7Tz2in6vcZ_xuyg5pj3LR1wVcV8PnVKt1Gar5q8hVEX3hfQnjeW-w

DiManno, R, (2020). "Racism killed George Floyd". The Star. May 29. https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2020/05/29/racism-killed-george-floyd-in-an-america-where-one-in-1000-black-men-can-expect-to-die-at-the-hands-of-police.html.

Gowan P. (2020). "No, We Should Not Condemn Uprisings Against Police Murders Like George Floyd’s". Jacobin. May 28.

Parton (2020). "Minnesota Officials Link Arrested Looters to ‘White Supremacist’ Groups". Courthouse News Service. May 31. https://www.courthousenews.com/minnesota-officials-link-arrested-looters-to-white-supremacist-groups/amp/?fbclid=IwAR3LQ3QfqSIfURU4N5LwRsS_1qJIEllKNyb1fnLaHIxEtnnpSarTA120yW0.


[1] Antifa which stands for "Anti Fascist", is a  loosely knit group of left wing individuals in the USA and Canada. As far as I or anyone else knows it is not and organization. Thus Antifa is more of a movement of activists whose followers share a philosophy and approach to tactics. They have made their presence known at protests around the country in recent years, including the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

[2] I've heard a few people and have seen some posts that reject any notion that "outsiders" could be involved in engendering any destructive behaviour. Some, among them Black activists, are not unreasonably concerned that admitting such a possibility will somehow detract from understanding the legitimacy of the  anger and protests themselves. Others (who seem to be a relatively small group) hope that they see in the riots a harbinger of a revolutionary rising of the racialized and proletarian oppressed. An interesting article from the very thoughtful journal, Jacobin, opined at one point: "In the Red Summer of 1919, racist violence hit America as a pandemic ravaged the country. With mass protests against police murders sweeping the pandemic-plagued United States, it appears we might be now living in a Red Spring." (Gowan, 2020) Personally, and sadly, I have seen too many "crisis moments" not to have serious reservations that they often lead to serious long term ferment. We need to make ourselves aware what the cries are about and support the people in the streets.

[3] See my blog post of March 16, 2020, INDIGENOUS BLOCKADE TACTICS AND THE FICTION OF RECONCILIATION.

[4] There was a story that there could have been agent provocateur police involvement in the Minneapolis protest (Adams, 2020) but that has yet to be clearly verified and was flatly denied by the St. Paul Police Department.

[5] The danger from the extreme right has been relatively ignored for too long. There have been, as my citations suggest, some recent media reporting specifically in respect to the recent demonstrations, but these reports are not widespread and some seem to only appear in social media like FB. On the other hand, they do seem to be  growing and perhaps the danger of the extremist Right will gain more traction.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HOW THE COVID PANDEMIC HAS CHANGED PANHANDLING by Jim Ward

Panhandling, i.e., begging for small change on the street, has been under considerable threat since the coming of Covid. Of course, the practice has been under threat before whenever the good burgers of some city find that the poor have resorted to “inconveniencing” the public and they feel the “moral” need to criminalize it. But Covid is causing different constraints. In these times very few people carry cash with them. In fact, many retailers will not accept cash, since it may well be ‘dirty money’. The term panhandling had its origins, so I’m told, during an economic depression in the United States in the late 19th century. That depression hit the panhandle area of northern Texas particularly hard and it caused many workers to head to New York City, where the ‘Buddy can you spare a dime?’ request was given birth. The practitioners of this art became known as the panhandlers. Back in the early 1970s I conducted studies of panhandling approaches in six North American cities, one of th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bleak Times for Trump’s USA? by Bill Lee

“If we don’t put a stake into the heart of this administration, there  may not be an election in 2028.” Gavin Newsom, Governor of California The news from the US of A about the wild and weird pronouncements and actions of the abhorrent individual sitting in the most powerful seat in the land, DJ Trump, is bleak. There is his destructive mania for imposing tariffs on every nation in the world: his corrupt attempt to block public knowledge of the truth of the sordid matter of the Epstein files; his racist hatred of Brown and Black people and his inhumane policy of arresting them willy nilly and illegally deporting many; his war on the hard won rights of women and other minorities; his ignoring of court orders (he owns a more or less corrupt Supreme Court); his impossible and unhinged comments on wanting Canada to become the 51st state of the USA; and his increasingly wacky and garbled speech, are only the most recent concerns. But probably the most dangerous of his right-wing campaig...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gun Violence and Bigotry, Due South & in Canada

Bill Lee August 24, 2019 Trump in his Florida speech asked how “these people” could be “stopped”. Someone among the crowd shouted, “Shoot them!” At first laughing, Trump responded, "That's only in the [Florida] panhandle, can you get away with that statement. [1] Given the obscene number of deaths from mass shootings in the USA recently it is probably not surprising that some of the old "rationales" have been taken off the shelf and dusted off. One GOP “legislator” has opined that there is a link to the spread and consumption of violent video games. Leaving aside that this is an exceedingly tired trope that has never been proven, there are a couple of others that clearly have much greater power as explanations. It is not, for example a fanciful notion that high capacity automatic weapons are a more likely link. [2] But there is another issue that really deserves much more full attention. When, oh when will the denizens political class, the media, a...
Post a Comment
Read more