How fascists silence critics
Tennessee statehouse expels Democrats for gun control protest – BBC
Hundreds of protesters have flooded the State Capitol since a school shooting. The 27 March attack at Nashville’s Covenant School killed six, including three children.
“The Republican move has left 70,000 people in one of the state’s most diverse districts without representation”, said Justin Jones. “extreme republican supermajority, almost completely a white caucus” had expelled the “two youngest black lawmakers because we stood demanding action on gun violence. The nation and the world are surprised and should be shocked because what they said was that democracy does not matter in Tennessee.” – BBC
Nikki Fried among dozen arrested while protesting Florida abortion ban – The Hill
Trump and his allies have publicly criticized Judge Merchan and his family, including his adult daughter. Trump judge and his family receive threats after New York arrest.
Why Putin deliberately uses Novichok to poison his enemies, even though it often fails to kill them – Insider
There is a pattern here. See some of the other nasty ways fascists silence their critics with this infographic.
America is now in fascism’s legal phase
“Toni Morrison’s 1995 address to Howard University, entitled Racism and Fascism, which delineated 10 step-by-step procedures to carry a society from first to last. Morrison’s interest was not in fascist demagogues or fascist regimes. It was rather in “forces interested in fascist solutions to national problems”. The procedures she described were methods to normalize such solutions, to “construct an internal enemy”, isolate, demonize and criminalize it and sympathizers to its ideology and their allies, and, using the media, provide the illusion of power and influence to one’s supporters.
The contemporary American fascist movement is led by oligarchical interests for whom the public good is an impediment, such as those in the hydrocarbon business, as well as a social, political, and religious movement with roots in the Confederacy.
Republicans do not want you to read Toni Morrison! Florida district removes novel by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison
Free speech is the lifeblood of democracy
In December of 1966, the United States Court unanimously decided a case called Bond v. Floyd. Julian Bond was a Black man, elected to the Georgia legislature. Several months after the election in June 1965 a civil rights organization that Mr. Bond belonged to issued an anti-war statement about Vietnam, which he subsequently endorsed in statements to the press. White members of the Georgia House challenged Bond’s right to be seated, charging that his statements aided our enemies, violated the Selective Service laws, discredited the House, and were inconsistent with the legislator’s mandatory oath to support the Constitution.
The unanimous Supreme Court decision in Bond’s favor relied upon a famous First Amendment case, New York Times v. Sullivan, holding that although a State may impose a requirement that legislators take an oath of allegiance, it cannot limit their capacity to express views on local or national policy.” “[D]ebate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,” the Court wrote, citing the decision in Sullivan.
The Court’s opinion in Bond concluded with these words: “Legislators have an obligation to take positions on controversial political questions so that their constituents can be fully informed by them, and be better able to assess their qualifications for office; also so they may be represented in governmental debates by the person they have elected to represent them. We therefore hold that the disqualification of Bond from membership in the Georgia House because of his statements violated Bond’s right of free expression under the First Amendment.” – Joy Vance in Civil Discourse
TakeAway: Fight fascism and attempts to silence free speech.
Deepak
DemLabs
DISCLAIMER: ALTHOUGH THE DATA FOUND IN THIS BLOG AND INFOGRAPHIC HAS BEEN PRODUCED AND PROCESSED FROM SOURCES BELIEVED TO BE RELIABLE, NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED CAN BE MADE REGARDING THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, LEGALITY OR RELIABILITY OF ANY SUCH INFORMATION. THIS DISCLAIMER APPLIES TO ANY USES OF THE INFORMATION WHETHER ISOLATED OR AGGREGATE USES THEREOF.
Reposted by Democracy Labs with permission.
