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| Robert Burns |
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
(And would some Power give us the gift
To see ourselves as others see us!)
(And would some Power give us the gift
To see ourselves as others see us!)
Rabbie Burns, "To a Louse, on Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church
Two news items caught my attention yesterday, one from
Britain, one from Germany. The British
piece, available on YouTube, is a recording of the three-hour debate in
Parliament over whether the Trump visit to Britain should be downgraded from a
“state visit” to an “official visit.” Or
cancelled outright, for that matter, given the despicable abuse of refugees and
immigrants reflected in Trump’s executive order this week.
The irony is inescapable, to listen to British MPs talking
about the beauty of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and all that followed,
and how those noble notions are being trampled on by the new
administration. Brits, like citizens of
all modern countries, long ago gave up their royalist and imperialist cultural
values and took on the values of the humanist project reflected in the
American Revolution. So maybe calling
this ironic is overly dramatic. But the
point is the voices you hear in this debate beautifully articulate the
agonizing dismay at the takeover of America by the radical right. To listen to this three-hour long debate (I
must come clean and admit I’ve only heard about half) is to understand the
emotional impact on progressive people from all around the world who complain,
“You Americans get to elect the head of the Western World. We don’t have a voice in your elections. But what you do affects us personally and
directly. Please get it right!”
The second piece, also available on YouTube, is from the German news organization Der Spiegel, generally recognized as one of the leading
magazines not just in Germany or in Europe but world-wide for hard-hitting
investigative journalism. The Economist wrote of it back in 2002:
In a country where journalism,
particularly in the past, tended towards the pompous and docile, it had the
most lucid prose, the best investigative reporting, the widest foreign
coverage, the sharpest political analysis, and the most insightful social
commentary. Its legendary archive, people said, only half-jokingly, was bigger
than that of Germany's security service, and a darn sight more reliable.
Its circulation now exceeds one
million. With 80 full-time fact checkers, they have been called (by the Columbia Journalism
Review) “most likely the world’s largest fact-checking operation.” They began producing Spiegel TV in 1988.
That said, my gut response when first viewing this online
article on American Nazis and other white supremacist fringe groups is that
there is something wrong with even bringing this up, because it leads to the
impression that Trump voters are Nazis.
That’s obviously not true, and I can certainly understand why
highlighting a groups of wackos that number as few as 500 members (The
Indiana-based Traditional Workers Party ) and no more than 5000 (the KKK) would
make you wonder if this isn’t just another tabloid getting its jollies from
sensationalist journalism. That suspicion increased as I took note of editorial
comments throughout the piece like “not for the moment” when discussing the
right to wear the KKK uniform openly.
But in the end, I think it is what it is, and there is no
reason to editorialize the information out of the big picture, either. The article makes the point that Trump is a
right-winger and he has encouraged the rats to come out of the woodwork. It doesn’t mean that every fear-driven
American who voted against the establishment, which Hillary so clearly
represented, is a rat or a fascist. But
it does mean that there are rats running loose that were once fearful of
demonstrating their racism, sexism, ethnocentrism and homophobia quite so
openly. Take it for what it’s worth, if, for no other reason, to see how America
looks these days through the eyes of some Europeans.
The article is in German.
I have provided an unauthorized translation, i.e., any errors are mine.
Published on Jan 29,
2017
Intro: For a week,
reporter Andreas Lünser
interviewed people advocating the extreme right take on American power,
propagating white supremacy and claiming national socialism is now
mainstream. People for whom the words “Sieg
Heil” and Lügenpresse trip lightly off the tongue. [Lying
press – a term regularly used by the Nazis to refer to a critical press, and
now used again in Germany by the radical right.]
Trump is our man
Spiegel.tv video
Washington, D.C. Last
Friday. Warm-up for the inauguration of
Donald Trump.
Never before had a president polarized things like this
before taking office.
(voice in crowd): Death
to the Fascists. Death to white
supremacy.
Many people in America are afraid. Of new and old racists and of the far right.
Three hours by plane to the southwest, not far from New
Orleans, is the town of Walker. Many
people here are unemployed, and those who do have work are underpaid. Walker voted for Donald Trump. The local KKK lives here. In this trailer, the Imperial Wizard receives
his followers. Carl Dupres has been the
leader of the Klan for several years now.
His concern is the supremacy of the white race.
(Carl Dupres): When we lived out here in the country when I
was growing up, there weren’t many blacks.
They kept to themselves and the whites kept to themselves. There wasn’t much mixing and everybody kind
of knew their place.
The Klan is the chief pride of the 56-year-old. And his friends. Shirley Sarmento had radical right friends in Germany, as
well.
(Shirley Sarmento): Whites should only be with whites. Everybody who doesn’t have any pigment in
their skin. No Muslims. No gays.
In the swamps behind the trailer the men have regular
shooting practice. The KKK admits openly
that they are racists. The White Race
can only survive if it defends itself.
Particularly against the blacks who, according to the Klan take
advantage of social welfare programs.
CD: They don’t work.
They just hang around and sell drugs, make babies, and the government
has to pay for that. And I have to pay
for it. I work and the n****r gets my
money. They take almost half of our
paychecks and give it to the government.
All the men of the Klan think like Dupres. Trump has given them courage. That’s why they all voted for him. The main thing is Obama is gone.
third person: I think anybody can do better than Obama.
fourth person: Trump knows how to run a business. If he runs America the way he runs his own
businesses, it will be great.
The highpoint of the training, Dupres shows how to load a
blasting charge. Then comes the shot.
The men show off their robes and masks. They are not allowed to display them openly
in the state of Louisiana. Not at the
moment.
CP: That is our official Klan insignia. It shows that you’re an imperial
officer. And our Dixie Ranger
insignia. The Confederate flag. Klan symbol.
And this here for the inner hierarchy.
Even during Obama’s presidency, the number of klan members
were growing. Now, under Donald Trump
that number could increase. That’s the
hope, anyway.
CP: He’s got a lot of good ideas that I like. Many people didn’t like the way things were
going up till now. The majority of
Americans voted for him. And they share
his ideas. They’ve had enough of the
others, and they don’t want the government running their lives.
All together, the number of KKK members in the U.S. is
estimated to be around five thousand.
From here we go to Paoli, in the state of Indiana. Here is the headquarters of the so-called
Traditional Worker’s Party of America.
Its leader, Jeff Matthew Heimbach, receives like-minded visitors in his
trailer. They want to see his latest
video, shot a few days ago at a demonstration in Chicago.
MH: We are not afraid of the left. We are not afraid of the black gangs. Not afraid of the worst gangs, the leading
politicians. Hail Victory.
Heimbach’s party is directed at whites exclusively. It’s anti-capitalist, but it is especially
opposed to globalization. Also part of
their program is respect for Russia’s president Putin.
MH: I’m happy that Trump was elected. I hope we will have a better relationship
with Russia, question NATO, get our jobs back, and solve the immigration
problem. For a long time now we’ve been
spit on, pushed aside. The Supreme Court
allows for discrimination against whites in the university, for example. We will soon be a minority. In our own country.
This video shows the way Heimbach goes about showing his
support for Trump. During a
demonstration he pushes a black woman who wanted to demonstrate, filmed by a
local TV broadcaster.
MH: Look at the whole video.
Naturally the “lugenpress” (sic German: Lügenpresse – „the lying press“) only shows a small part of what went
on. The woman came at me and I only help
her get outside. Helped her on her way.
Heimbach is in
contact with the NPD (German Nationalist Party) and other European radical
right parties. Here he shows off the
new party T-shirts. One of them shows
the English fascist party leader Oswald Mosley.
MH: He led the
most successful fascist movement in the English-speaking world. A very brave man. He sacrificed everything for his politics and
tried to persuade his people to stay out of World War II. A great example for us.
Heimbach founded
his brown party only two years ago. It
has grown now to 500 members. So that
his son will have a future in white America, he is in favor of setting apart
special areas for the different races in the land.
Our journey
through Trump’s radical right country continues. The once great industrial city of Detroit
stands in for the economic collapse of the USA.
Where once automobiles were produced for the world market, there are
only ruins that look like the aftermath of a bomb attack. Detroit is also the home of the U.S. Nazi
Party. Jeff Schoep is the leader of the
national socialists of America. For him,
the election of Donald Trump meant the beginning of something great.
JS: We do hope
that Trump changes things. He talks
about basing things on our national values.
He talks about getting our jobs back, about draining the swamp, about
building a wall, many of the things we’ve been saying for years.
Here Trump is in
good company. The NSM (National
Socialist Movement) is one of the oldest nazi movements in the USA.
NSM rally: Sieg
Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!
Schoep has led
the admirers of Hitler since 1995. But
things have never been better.
JS: National
Socialism now has the potential to become a majority. We’re being discussed in the mainstream
media. It’s no longer a question of
being a fringe group. People have known
for years now what we stand for. We’re
now in the middle of the society.
Since Trump’s
election, they have gotten rid of the swastika.
The US Nazis want to be part of the mainstream. They have replaced it with the odal
rune. The Viking symbol – also
forbidden in Germany.
JS: We think this
better expresses the political middle of American society. The old symbol helped us in a lot of ways,
but I think we’re in a new era now.
Nazis they are,
all the same. One day they’ll be able to
use the swastika again. At least that’s
the hope.
Washington,
D.C. One day before the
inauguration. A day that incorporates
the longings of radical right. Included
among these is radical right worker’s party leader, Matthew Heimbach.
MH: We’re here
not just because of the historical event, but to meet with members of the
radical right white supremacists. In
2016 we defeated Hillary. 2017 has to be
the year of action.
Members of the
local Antifa (German term for „anti-fascist“) discover Heimbach in the
street. Not a problem for Heimbach.
MH: Hey! Be glad it’s Trump. When we take over it will be way worse.
MH Group: Hasta
la vista, anti-fascista
But Heimbach
isn’t finished with his opponents. He
seeks out a confrontation.
MH: Let me ask
you something. Why do you fight against
the interests of the working class?
Antifa: The
working class? Or the whites?
What Heimbach is
really after in Washington is allies. He
wants to put together a large rightwing network. That means he is not afraid to come in
contact with the much hated establishment.
He meets with Republicans sympathetic to the ideas of the worker’s
party.
Man in Trump hat:
Gott mit uns (God is with us – the motto German soldiers wore on their belt buckles
in WWII.)
Trump supporters
among themselves. They invite Heimbach
to lunch at the exclusive Republican Capitol Hill Club.
And that’s how
things look these days in the new America.
Rightwing. And Radical.
photo credit: Robert Burns
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