'A really scary feeling': Private security firm accused of using force against UCLA protesters

Connor Sheets
May 23, 2024

Private security guards with Apex Security Group and Contemporary Services Corporation patrol UCLA on May 7, following days of protests on campus. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)


When authorities launched the first of many flash-bang-style devices early on the morning of May 2, it shattered the relative calm of UCLA’s pro-Palestinian encampment and drove a stream of protesters running toward makeshift barricades that blocked the exits.

Two students said they witnessed a student protester standing near Powell Library attempt to move a metal barrier to accommodate the people fleeing. Instead, he was met with force by members of Apex Security Group, according to the witnesses, who were interviewed together and requested anonymity in fear of retaliation by the university or law enforcement.

“Members of the security team started attacking him. I think it was around five to seven of the security guards,” one of the students said. “Two or three of them were trying to hit him on the head, and the others were trying to restrain him.”


The protester broke free from the private security guards and fled. Within minutes, a deep bruise materialized on the young man's face where one of the guards had punched him, the second student witness said. The student who was allegedly hit was not identified and could not be reached for comment.

“It was really unwarranted. He just, like, moved back a little bit and then they attacked,” the second witness said. “It was a really scary feeling. I’d never seen someone get beat up like that in person before.”



The incident was the first of at least two that witnesses said involved Apex Security Group guards acting aggressively at UCLA in recent weeks. Witnesses who spoke with The Times accused the guards of assaulting and accosting demonstrators who posed no threat and leaving the scene at a key moment on May 1, as counterprotesters escalated violence that left at least 30 people injured.

Read more: 'Shut it down!' How group chats, rumors and fear sparked a night of violence at UCLA

Apex and its parent company, the Northridge-based security giant Contemporary Services Corporation, did not respond to requests for comment. Apex's website says it employs "off-duty and retired law enforcement officers who provide supplemental services for clients that require support above and beyond standard event security and crowd management services.”

Hired guards are increasingly ubiquitous at college protests, with Apex and CSC contracted for security on campuses from Los Angeles to New York. The guards perform crowd control and many of the duties traditionally carried out by police officers, and can carry weapons if properly licensed. They can detain people, but typically as private citizens, not sworn law enforcement, which means they enjoy fewer of the legal protections afforded police. Entry-level private security guards — who in many cases receive just a few days of training — are often directed by those who hire them to use force only as a last resort.

It's unclear what instructions Apex had from UCLA.

Security guards with Apex Security Group and Contemporary Services Corporation stand by at UCLA as pro-Palestinian activists demonstrate in front of Dodd Hall on May 6. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Ryan King, a spokesman for the office of the University of California's president, Michael V. Drake, said in an email that Drake announced on May 7 "an independent investigation" into what led to the violence on April 30. The university did not respond directly to questions about its relationships with Apex and CSC or the incidents with the firms on campus.

"The University awaits the findings of that investigation," King said. He added that the 10 UC campuses each have their own police departments "that have control and jurisdiction on their respective campuses and may request local law enforcement support or contract for additional security assistance as necessary. Each campus coordinates their response to conditions on the ground with their respective leadership."

Some protesters at UCLA and beyond have questioned why universities and law enforcement agencies increasingly rely on private security firms when cracking down on overwhelmingly nonviolent protests.

But contracting with security companies is “a common and reasonable practice,” according to Rick Santoro, a New Jersey-based security expert with more than 30 years of experience.

“Typically, public law enforcement agencies do not have the resources to provide security services on a long-term basis in situations such as labor actions [and] civil unrest,” he said via email. “It’s practical and necessary in many cases for colleges and universities to use private security contractors either exclusively or to supplement” police in such situations.

At UCLA, while Apex guards were accused of getting physical with some students on May 2, they were also filmed standing by the previous night as some pro-Israel protesters tore down barricades and incited violence.

The Apex guards, who appeared to have been unarmed, were brought in at the behest of former UCLA Police Chief John Thomas, who was removed from the post this week as he faced withering criticism over his handling of the protests.

University leaders had repeatedly directed Thomas to create a safety plan, three sources told the Los Angeles Times this month. He was told, the sources said, to spend whatever was necessary to maintain peace and order. Thomas developed a plan, the sources said, to deploy private security who would not be authorized to arrest anyone and who were told to contact the UCLA police if the situation on the ground escalated. Whether Apex personnel received directions to leave the scene in the event of violence remains unknown.

But a group of Apex security guards posted at the perimeter of the encampment ultimately left without intervening, according to witnesses and video from the scene. Mayhem ensued, with clashes between the opposing groups of protesters lasting until police in riot gear arrived more than two hours later.

Apex Security Group guards stand by as protesters clash on the UCLA campus the day before the pro-Palestinian encampment was dismantled. (Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)

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Allegations of physical altercations between Apex personnel and student protesters did not stop with the dismantling of the camp.

On May 15, a 2023 UCLA graduate returned to the campus to participate in a pro-Palestine demonstration. The alum, who uses the pronouns "they" and "her," said they had scrawled messages including “Free Palestine” and “How many people did you kill today?” in chalk on sidewalks and school buildings as the marchers made their way across the Westwood campus.

As the procession wound down near the university’s Shapiro Fountain, about 10 Apex guards gathered around the 5-foot-tall protester, who asked to remain anonymous, citing concerns about retaliation by law enforcement.

Three men wearing black windbreakers with APEX SECURITY GROUP emblazoned in white letters across the back and light khaki pants can be seen grabbing them by the arms in videos of the incident reviewed by The Times. Several CSC guards are visible in the background of one of the videos.

“Let them go. You’re not a f—ing cop," an onlooker yelled at one of the Apex guards. "What are you doing to them? Why are you grabbing them?”

The alum was released moments later as a guard took their tote bag and opened it up on a nearby ledge.

“Give me back my bag you f—ing pig,” they yelled as the guard rifled through the bag's contents before pulling out a red pen and holding it up in the air.

Read more: For two young journalists, showdown at UCLA camp was baptism by fire

“Come here, Miss, here’s your bag back. I have her marker that you graffitied with. Here you go,” the guard said loudly. The alum yelled back that it was a pen, not a marker. “Hold on. So she graffitied, so everybody knows. And you can’t graffiti. Here you go. Here’s your bag back.”

The alum maintained they were drawing in chalk, not making graffiti.

Apex did not respond to questions about the incident.

There have been other recent instances of protesters accusing the company of harsh tactics. In January, Apex sent dozens of guards to Berkeley, where they assisted in the clearing of tents and makeshift homes erected in People’s Park a few blocks from UC Berkeley in an attempt to block the redevelopment of the landmark site.

Columbia University used the firm as part of its controversial response to a pro-Palestinian protest movement last month.

“One security guard said the university’s contractor, Apex Security Group Inc., was recruiting more workers for its 7 p.m.-to-7 a.m. shift at a rate of $240 a day,” the New York Post reported.

The company has branches in more than a dozen cities and regularly works high-profile gigs, including Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas, L.A. Rams and Chargers games, and other major events.

Apex's parent company, CSC, was founded in 1967 by Damon Zumwalt, then a student athlete at UCLA. Unlike the off-duty and retired officers hired by Apex, the larger firm recruits security guards who have varying backgrounds, using a screening process that is less stringent compared with law enforcement agencies.

California requires a few dozen hours of training to become a licensed security guard. Many police departments, including the LAPD, require officers to complete a six-month stint in a police academy, followed by additional months of field training.

As a result, there's a vast pay gap between low-end private security personnel and sworn law enforcement officers. Most security guards make little more than minimum wage versus well over $100,000 a year plus government benefits for experienced cops.

It’s cheaper for a university to bring in minimally trained private security guards when needed than to hire permanent, full-time police officers, but “you get what you pay for,” according to Norman D. Bates, a security expert, attorney and founder of the Massachusetts-based security consulting firm Liability Consultants.

“The downside is lack of training, lack of experience,” he said. “The ultimate result is people are victimized, and they end up suing.”

Contemporary Services Corporation guards patrol UCLA. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Law enforcement veterans like those Apex hires tend to be more calm and efficient in high-stress situations than their civilian counterparts, according to James F. Pastor, an attorney who runs a security consulting firm in Florida.

Many who contract with the company are looking for a higher level of service and capacity than a more all-purpose firm like CSC can provide. But there can be a flip side to years of experience, said Pastor, a former Chicago police officer.

“There’s a lot of good security officers out there that can manage people, that have experience in de-escalation techniques and communication techniques and just frankly using a level of professionalism to get the job done without getting too physical,” he said, but “there’s a lot of cops who lose that ability either through frustration or burnout over the years.”

Read more: Police report no serious injuries. But scenes from inside UCLA camp, protesters tell a different story

Public universities in California have paid millions to CSC in recent years. In 2023 alone, UC San Francisco paid the firm more than $3.5 million, while UCLA paid the company nearly $185,000, according to California state spending records compiled by openthebooks.com, a project of the nonprofit open government organization American Transparency.

Since 2017, according to the spending records, several other state universities and colleges have also hired CSC, while no other state agency has.

In California between 2021 and 2023, the records show, less than $330,000 of state funds were paid directly to Apex Security Group, all by Cal State East Bay and San Francisco State. It’s unclear whether payments made to CSC can cover services rendered by Apex.

King, of the UC president's office, said via email that information about how much money UCLA and other UCs have paid Apex and CSC and what contracts they have with the security firms was not "immediately available."

Even with incidents like those alleged at UCLA, private guards are here to stay at concerts, sporting events and on college campuses.

“What I see now is a driving towards private security,” Pastor said. “I think post-George Floyd, the reality is police are having a much more difficult time recruiting and keeping trained police officers. So I think that tide is turning where they’re seeing the value of having a private security officer next to them.”

An Iowa basic income project gives low-income residents $500 a month. They say it helps them make rent and buy food.

Kenneth Niemeyer
Sun, June 2, 2024 


A basic income program in central Iowa says people mostly spend the $500 monthly payments on food.Jacob Boomsma/Shutterstock


Iowa recently passed a law banning local governments from providing basic income programs.


But one providing $500 a month to low-income residents says it will continue using private funds.


Most participants said they spent the money on food and housing in the first year.

Conservatives in Iowa voted to ban local governments from sponsoring basic income programs earlier this year. But one program in the middle of the state says it's seeing successful results — and will keep going.

The "UpLift" program in central Iowa provides up to $500 a month for 110 low-income residents. Though the legislation could threaten its future, its organizers say it will continue — for now — using private funding. They said the program is showing similar results to other basic income programs around the country: Residents are mostly spending the money on food and shelter.

Ashley Ezzio, a senior project coordinator at The Tom and Ruth Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement, which is conducting the study, told The Des Moines Register that most participants are spending the money on essentials.

A study of the program, which started last May, found that food and groceries made up about 42% of costs in the first year, Ezzio said.

Uplift tracks spending categories and asks participants to take periodic surveys through the University of Pennsylvania and Des Moines University. About 80% of the participants completed the first survey, Uplift said.

Last month, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law that bans county and city governments from providing basic income programs. State Rep. Steve Holthave called for the bans, calling basic income programs "socialism on steroids" and "an attack on American values."

Guaranteed basic income programs typically offer no-strings-attached monthly payments between $500 and $1,000 to specific groups, like new moms, Black women, or trans people, all low-income residents. They differ from their idealistic cousin — a universal basic income. UBI, made famous by Andrew Yang during the 2016 presidential election, would provide a monthly payment to all citizens.

UpLift's findings in Iowa mirror those of basic income programs across the country.

In Austin, one study found that residents in a program that received $1,000 monthly payments for a year spent the no-strings-attached cash mostly on housing and food.

Still, conservatives in Texas are also pushing back against such programs. The state Supreme Court temporarily blocked a Houston-area program in April that gave low-income residents $500 a month after the state attorney general called it "unconstitutional."

New Mexico experimented with a basic income program that gave $500 a month to immigrant families. They used the money to pay rent and secure jobs.

Allie Kelly
Wed, May 29, 2024


New Mexico's basic income pilot provided $500 monthly to 330 immigrant households.


Pandemic relief excluded many immigrants, leading to economic hardship for undocumented families.


The pilot showed improved employment and education outcomes for participants.

New Mexico's basic income pilot set out to fill a gap in America's financial safety net: many immigrants aren't able to access help.

Pandemic-era relief was largely restricted to US citizens, leaving undocumented households and families with mixed citizenship status without stimulus, rental assistance, or unemployment checks.

With growing economic need, community leaders in New Mexico decided to try a different strategy — no-strings-attached cash payments.

"Mixed-status immigrant families don't always enjoy the same public benefits that other families and workers do because of their status," Marcela Díaz, executive director of economic justice organization Somos Un Pueblo Unido, told Business Insider. "What does it look like for them to have an extra $500 a month? How does it affect food security, their health, their well-being, and educational outcomes?"

Beginning in February 2022, the guaranteed income program served 330 mixed-immigration status households. Participants received $500 a month, no strings attached, for a full year. Fifty randomly selected households had their payments extended for an additional six months.

The New Mexico Economic Relief Working Group — a coalition of community organizations and nonprofits, including Somos Un Pueblo Unido, New Mexico Voices for Children, and UpTogether — administered the program, and funding came from private donors and philanthropy.

The pilot joins the ranks of over 100 basic income pilots that have launched across the US since 2019. In contrast to traditional social services, the programs allow families to choose how they spend the money. Participants have told BI they have used cash payments to pay rent, afford groceries, pay off debt, and support their families.

New Mexico's program is among the first basic income programs to operate at the state level and to specifically serve immigrant households.

The pilot's success has also provided momentum for future basic income programs in the region. A new state-funded pilot cash program for people enrolled in workforce training programs passed in the New Mexico House in February. The $1 million project, which seeks approval in the state Senate, would help participants cover housing, food, and transportation for three years.

"People use the money to feed themselves and to keep a roof over their head," Javier Rojo, senior research and policy analyst with New Mexico Voices for Children and author of the pilot report, told BI. "They use it very wisely to put themselves in a better position economically in the future."
With basic income, participants saw improved employment and education outcomes

The New Mexico pilot served mixed-status households in 13 counties across the state. The program's state-level scope allowed participants in both rural and urban areas to benefit.

Almost all pilot participants were families with children. Ninety-five percent reported having to use household savings to pay bills, 85% reported being housing insecure, and 74% lacked health insurance.

Before the pilot began, participants in rural areas experienced higher housing and food insecurity than urban participants but also saw better employment incomes after the program concluded. Basic income reduced the amount of urban participants who skipped basic necessities to pay for housing by 13% by the end of the pilot.

The children of participants were also more likely to be learning at their grade level and on track to graduate than before the basic income.

A woman in Doña Ana County also said her job security improved because she was able to buy a cell phone.

"I clean houses. At the beginning of the pandemic, I didn't have a phone, so it was very difficult for me to connect with potential clients," she told researchers, "With the help of my new phone, I've been able to set up more appointments and create a more stable work schedule."

Republican legislatures continue to seek to ban basic income across the US, saying it will make low-income Americans too reliant on government assistance.

Rojo, however, said the New Mexico pilot results show that participants became more active in the labor market with the support of cash payments. Some families reported using their basic income to secure the transportation or childcare they needed to support a full-time work schedule.

Going forward, he would like to continue seeing basic income used at the city, state, and federal level to support low-income families.

"People know best what their needs are and people know how to use their money to better themselves," he said. "Trust them."

NEWFOUNDLAND

MHAs set aside political stripes to remove time limits for survivors of child abuse

CBC
Wed, May 29, 2024 

Newfoundland and Labrador Justice Minister John Hogan, pictured here in 2023, received praise Tuesday from opposing MHAs or engaging with them to pass changes to the Limitations Act. (Terry Roberts/CBC - image credit)

In a rare act of cohesion, all members of Newfoundland and Labrador's legislature came together on Tuesday to pass a piece of legislation that removes time limits for survivors of child abuse, and ends the provincial government's practice of fighting their compensation claims based on statutes of limitations.

Opposition members praised Justice Minister John Hogan for engaging with them after they lobbied the government for months to change the law.

The province's longstanding Limitations Act placed a two-year time limit on non-sexual abuse claims, which prevented people from holding their abusers and those liable for their treatment to account for physical or psychological abuse they endured as children.

"This day is a very important day. and it's going to be very important for many people in our province," said Progressive Conservative justice critic Helen Conway-Ottenheimer.

The bill passed third reading Tuesday afternoon. Once it receives royal assent, it will immediately affect at least two cases currently before the courts in which the government is being sued for the mistreatment of children.

Jack Whalen built a replica of the solitary confinement cell where he estimates he spent about two years of his life. He drove it to Ottawa, and parked outside the national human rights monument.

Jack Whalen built a replica of the solitary confinement cell where he estimates he spent about two years of his life. He drove it to Ottawa and parked outside the national human rights monument. (Christian Patry/CBC)

In the most publicized case, former St. John's resident Jack Whalen sued the province over its use of solitary confinement at a youth detention centre in Whitbourne. He estimates he spent more than 700 days in solitary as a teenager at the Whitbourne Boys' Home in the 1970s. Lawyers for the provincial government didn't deny it happened, but said Whalen was out of time to come forward with his claim.

Whalen has spent the past year protesting the law, with the unanimous support of all non-Liberal MHAs.

The government committed to amending the law in April, however its first pass limited the changes to survivors of assault causing bodily harm. That wouldn't have applied to Whalen's case.

"That was sort of restricted to being able to prove the harm, like with marks upon the body," said NDP MHA Lela Evans. "So for us, that was a huge concern."

A draft of the changes made its way to the media before it was tabled in the legislature, causing uproar in the House of Assembly. Opposition MHAs insisted they should be allowed to consult outside experts before debating a bill in the legislature, and asked Hogan to take a committee approach to the bill.

Tumult leads to teamwork

Over the ensuing days, MHAs from all parties said Hogan worked with them to craft an amendment to the bill that was acceptable to everyone.

In the end, an amendment, put forward by Evans and seconded by Conway-Ottenheimer, included the phrase "trespass of a person," which covers assault, battery and false imprisonment. It's believed this section will apply to Whalen's case.

The amendment was accepted by the government and will become part of the bill.

NDP MHA Lela Evans says the latest criticism of the province's largest penal institution amounts to an abuse of human rights.

NDP MHA Lela Evans says the changes will allow survivors of various forms of abuse to access justice. (Mike Simms/CBC)

"I will never be able to speak about this act, the Limitation Act, without thinking about Jack Whalen," Evans said after it passed. "Jack Whalen was showing us what he and others have gone through and have been failed by the justice system. We were given the opportunity to correct that."

Evans also commended Independent MHAs Eddie Joyce and Paul Lane for using their limited time in the House of Assembly to repeatedly bring up Whalen's case and the petition to overhaul the Limitations Act.

Joyce used his time Tuesday to address Whalen, who was watching at home in Ontario.

"Not only is this going to help you, but this is going to help a lot of people you will never meet. But because of you, they'll be much better off. They'll be able to get the services that they need and they'll be able to actually get closure, if there's any way to get closure."

Bill also removes limits for domestic violence

The new act also includes a pair of changes for survivors of domestic abuse.

The NDP amendment gave the same protections to people in intimate partner relationships as it did to minors, meaning a victim of domestic violence could sue their abuser without worrying about time limits.

The government's proposed changes also removed limitation periods for cases of sexual assault in intimate partner relationships.

That closed a loophole left behind by sweeping changes in the 1990s that were intended to allow survivors of sexual abuse at the Mount Cashel Orphanage to sue over their treatment.

Those changes applied only in situations where a person was dependent on their abuser or under their care.

Evans said the NDP were happy to see those changes and hope to see more in the future.

Hogan said the province still needs to amend a separate piece of legislation: the Proceedings Against the Crown Act, which prevents the government from being sued for its liability in sexual abuse cases before 1973.

"We didn't really have the time and we weren't prepared to rush and amendment to the Proceedings Against the Crown Act," Hogan said Tuesday.

He wouldn't give a timeline for the changes but promised the government will get it done.

Panama prepares to evacuate first island in face of rising sea levels

Matías Delacroix And Juan Zamorano
Sat, June 1, 2024 at 1

GARDI SUGDUB, Panama (AP) — On a tiny island off Panama’s Caribbean coast, about 300 families are packing their belongings in preparation for a dramatic change. Generations of Gunas who have grown up on Gardi Sugdub in a life dedicated to the sea and tourism will trade that next week for the mainland’s solid ground.

They go voluntarily — sort of.

The Gunas of Gardi Sugdub are the first of 63 communities along Panama’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts that government officials and scientists expect to be forced to relocate by rising sea levels in the coming decades.

On a recent day, the island’s Indigenous residents rowed or sputtered off with outboard motors to fish. Children, some in uniforms and others in the colorful local textiles called “molas,” chattered as they hustled through the warren of narrow dirt streets on their way to school.

“We’re a little sad, because we’re going to leave behind the homes we’ve known all our lives, the relationship with the sea, where we fish, where we bathe and where the tourists come, but the sea is sinking the island little by little,” said Nadín Morales, 24, who prepared to move with her mother, uncle and boyfriend.

An official with Panama’s ministry of housing said that some people have decided to stay on the island until it's no longer safe, without revealing a specific number. Authorities won’t force them to leave, the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue.

Gardi Sugdub is one of about 50 populated islands in the archipelago of the Guna Yala territory. It is only about 400 yards (366 meters) long and 150 yards (137 meters) wide. From above, it’s roughly a prickly oval surrounded by dozens of short docks where residents tie up their boats.

Every year, especially when the strong winds whip up the sea in November and December, water fills the streets and enters the homes. Climate change isn't only leading to a rise in sea levels, but it's also warming oceans and thereby powering stronger storms.

The Gunas have tried to reinforce the island’s edge with rocks, pilings and coral, but seawater keeps coming.

“Lately, I’ve seen that climate change has had a major impact,” Morales said. “Now the tide comes to a level it didn’t before, and the heat is unbearable.”

The Guna’s autonomous government decided two decades ago that they needed to think about leaving the island, but at that time it was because the island was getting too crowded. The effects of climate change accelerated that thinking, said Evelio López, a 61-year-old teacher on the island.

He plans to move with relatives to the new site on the mainland that the government developed at a cost of $12 million. The concrete houses sit on a grid of paved streets carved out of the lush tropical jungle just over a mile (2 kilometers) from the port, where an eight-minute boat ride carries them to Gardi Sugdub.

Leaving the island is "a great challenge, because more than 200 years of our culture is from the sea, so leaving this island means a lot of things,” López said. “Leaving the sea, the economic activities that we have there on the island, and now we’re going to be on solid ground, in the forest. We’re going to see what the result is in the long run.”

Steven Paton, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s physical monitoring program in Panama, said that the upcoming move “is a direct consequence of climate change through the increase in sea level.”

“The islands on average are only a half-meter above sea level, and as that level rises, sooner or later the Gunas are going to have to abandon all of the islands almost surely by the end of the century or earlier.”

“All of the world's coasts are being affected by this at different speeds,” Paton said.

Residents of a small coastal community in Mexico moved inland last year after storms continued to take away their homes. Governments are being forced to take action, from the Italian lagoon city of Venice to the coastal communities of New Zealand.

A recent study by Panama’s Environmental Ministry’s Climate Change directorate, with support from universities in Panama and Spain, estimated that by 2050, Panama would lose about 2.01% of its coastal territory to increases in sea levels.

Panama estimates that it will cost about $1.2 billion to relocate the 38,000 or so inhabitants who will face rising sea levels in the short- and medium-term, said Ligia Castro, climate change director for the Environmental Ministry.

On Gardi Sugdub, women who make the elaborately embroidered molas worn by Guna women hang them outside their homes when finished, trying to catch the eye of visiting tourists.

The island and others along the coast have benefitted for years from year-round tourism.

Braucilio de la Ossa, the deputy secretary of Carti, the port facing Gardi Sugdub, said that he planned to move with his wife, daughter, sister-in-law and mother-in-law. Some of his wife’s relatives will stay on the island.

He said the biggest challenge for those moving would be the lifestyle change of moving from the sea inland even though the distance is relatively small.

“Now that they will be in the forest their way of living will be different,” he said.

___

Juan Zamorano reported from Panama City.

Matías Delacroix And Juan Zamorano, The Associated Press




















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Panama prepares to evacuate first island in face of rising sea levels

The Associated Press

Kangaroos, Tigers and Other Animals Are Thriving 5 Years After Being Rescued from Uncredited Canada Zoo

Nicholas Rice
Sun, June 2, 2024 

"They will never face cruelty again," said Sue Tygielski, senior director of Black Beauty Ranch, part of the Humane Society of the United States

Christi Gilbreth/The HSUSTiger Theodora and lion Douala at the Black Beauty Ranch

A group of former zoo animals are continuing to live their best lives at a Texas ranch.

Five years ago, various zoo animals were rescued from the St. Edouard Zoo, an unaccredited facility in Canada, by the Humane Society International. They are now living at the Black Beauty Ranch in Murchison.

Among the animals are tigers Serenity and Theodora, Douala the lioness, a zebra named Zuko and Wolfgang the wildebeest.

Kangaroos Ross, Rachel and Joey are also living happily at the Texas establishment.

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Christi Gilbreth/The HSUSZuko the Zebra

At the St. Edouard Zoo, the animals were living in filthy and unfit conditions, the Humane Society International detailed in a press release obtained by PEOPLE.

The kangaroos were found in an indoor area "huddled together with no sunlight," the lion was discovered "showing signs of stress like pacing," and Zuko the zebra lived among "urine and feces," the zoo said.

Now, in their new habitat, the animals have adapted and are living life to the fullest.

Tigers Serenity and Theodora, for example, play with water in their area, "splashing and swimming without a care in the world," while the wildebeest, whom the zoo described as being "one of the most stressed animals in the zoo barn," now enjoys having Zuko as his neighbor on the other side of his fence.

Christi Gilbreth/The HSUSJoey the kangaroo

Related: Animal Rescues in California Are Treating More Than 100 Starving Pelicans: 'We Urgently Need Donations'

“Five years ago these animals were rescued from deplorable conditions, some in chewed-up, dark, dungeon-like stalls where they could barely move, while others were trying to dig out of their habitats," Sue Tygielski, senior director of Black Beauty Ranch, part of the Humane Society of the United States, said in a statement.

"Here at Black Beauty, their lives changed in every way. They are receiving exceptional care, having their needs met and are given the freedom to exhibit their natural behaviors and be the animals they deserve to be," she added. "They have become confident individuals able to flourish under our care. They will never face cruelty again.”

Paradise lost: The fate of Nova Scotia’s final palm trees revealed

Nathan Coleman
Wed, May 29, 2024 


Paradise lost: The fate of Nova Scotia’s final palm trees revealed

In 2018, the City of Halifax, N.S., embarked on a pilot project to plant palm trees that would put milder winters to the test.

The municipality planted nine palm trees in total throughout the region to bring diversity to park spaces. Park staff even boxed them up during the winter months to insulate their bases and trunks in an effort to maintain warmth.

And now we fast forward to 2024.

This year’s harsh winter produced the snowiest February on record in Halifax.

As a result, it put the nail in the coffin for the final two palm trees that remained, even after they were just been replanted in 2022. The trees simply couldn’t adapt to the cold that comes with a typical Nova Scotia winter.

"We were able to keep trees alive for nearly four years, but their health slowly declined over time due to the winters here," said Ryan Nearing, Halifax Regional Municipality public affairs advisor, in a statement provided to The Weather Network. "They were not replaced by palm trees, but rather, more hardy, ornamental trees. We have no plans to plant additional palm trees at this point."

After the storm, bald eagles ‘Nick’ and ‘Nora’ left desperately searching for their eaglets

Ed Lavandera, CNN
Sun, June 2, 2024 

The squawking cries from a pair of bald eagles pierce the treetops of an urban jungle on the edge of a popular lake in Dallas.

The beloved eagles are perched 75 feet high over their nest, damaged by a violent storm system that ripped through North Texas on Tuesday. Inside the nest were the bald eagle’s two 9-week-old eaglets, thrown from their sanctuary by hurricane-strength winds.

The mother and father have spent the days since the storm circling and searching for their offspring on the ground below. The scene has been heartbreaking to watch for Chris Giblin, an amateur photographer who has spent three years documenting the eagles.

“It hurts,” said Giblin. “It hurts to see them hurting. Nothing is promised when these storms come through.”

This bald eagle family has developed a legion of followers and admirers since they made this spot around White Rock Lake in East Dallas their home nearly three years ago. They came to be known as “Nick” and “Nora” after the husband-and-wife detective characters in the 1930s film “The Thin Man.”

Their every move has been documented in neighborhood Facebook groups and by a devoted and highly protective contingent of photographers. The eagles have so intensely captured the imagination of the neighbors below them that residents speak of these raptors in mystical terms and their presence as “divine intervention.”

The eagle’s nest sits in a sycamore tree at the end of Krista de la Harpe’s street. She describes the relationship between the birds and the neighborhood as a “three-year love story.”

As the storm hit the city, she could only think about the eagles and their babies surviving the fierce winds and falling trees.

“I was in my closet all through the storm, just praying for them,” de la Harpe said as she watched the eagles sitting in the trees this week. “It’s so heartbreaking.”
‘I found one’

After the storm passed, neighbors raced out to check on the nest and the eagles. Water was rushing over the banks of the creek below the nest. The fierce winds toppled a mix of large oak, cedar and American elm trees, and the eaglets were nowhere to be seen.

Brett Johnson, an urban biologist and conservation manager for the City of Dallas, raced to the park after the storm. He saw half the nest was gone and that the two eaglets were missing.

Later that morning, Bryna Thomson searched the creek area with neighbors when she heard her friend shouting, “I found one. I found one. I found one.”

The video she captured shows an eaglet shivering and soaked in rain but seemingly not severely injured, even eating a fish it had caught in the floodwaters.

“They were healthy babies,” Thomson said.

The neighbor called in to report what they had found. Johnson says he collaborated with state game wardens and US Fish and Wildlife Services to get permission to handle the federally protected bird and move it to a rehabilitation facility that specializes in treating bald eagles. The facility did not respond to CNN’s request for an interview.

Sunday morning, specialists with the Blackland Prairie Raptor Center brought the surviving eaglet back to its nesting area around White Rock Lake in hopes it will quickly reunite with its parents. Nick and Nora were seen flying around the area and specialists say they hope the parents will hear the eaglet squawking and return to care for it.

The second eaglet has not been found and officials say it’s likely the bird did not survive. Downed trees have made it impossible for searchers to safely access the spots where the eaglet might have fallen. The area is also home to bald eagle predators like coyotes and bobcats.

The raptor specialists brought the recovered eaglet to the wooded area in a large crate. The bird’s face was covered in a hood to keep it from seeing and experiencing this confusing environment.

Officials with the Blackland Prairie Raptor Center carry a crate holding the surviving eaglet on June 2, 2024. - Courtesy Chris Gilbin

Hailey Lebaron, a rehab specialist with the Blackland Prairie Raptor Center, secured the eagle and carried it up the stairs and placed it in a makeshift nest that was made just for this moment.

Lebaron removed the hood from the eagle’s head and the bird immediately extended its wings and rustled around the nest. It reacted just the way the specialists wanted it to when the bird realized there was a strange creature – a human – so close to it.

“Luckily, it was not happy,” Lebaron said. “The feathers raised up, which is their, ‘Look at how scary I am.’ It’s a great sign for us.”

After the eaglet was recovered Tuesday, rehab specialists gave the raptor a full exam which included x-rays and blood work. The bird was deemed healthy enough to return to the wild after it was monitored for several days.

By Friday afternoon, the rehab team knew it was racing against the clock. After a week of separation, it’s more likely the parent eagles would abandon their offspring.

“We had to jump into action,” Lebaron said. “It’s really, really time sensitive if we wanted it to work. Otherwise, the baby would be rejected by the parents.”

Rehab facility volunteers will now work in two-hour shifts until Monday evening to monitor the eaglet from about 100 yards away. If the parents do not return to the eaglet by then, officials say the bird will likely be brought back to the Blackland Prairie Raptor Center.

If that happens, facility officials say they will then protect the bird until it can properly fly and learn how to hunt and take care of itself. At that point, the bald eagle would be released into the wild but in a different location, away from its territorial parents.

Earlier in the week, Scott Meril, a retired medical doctor, came to the nesting area to capture photographs of the mourning eagle parents. The images show one of the eagles squawking into the sky with its head tilted back in a pose that seemed to capture the bird’s desperation.

Meril said he was struck by the eagle’s majestic and powerful stare as they scanned the urban landscape looking for the eaglets.

“To see them in Texas, it’s wild,” Meril said.

The White Rock Lake bald eagles 'Nick' and 'Nora' care for their two young eaglets in East Dallas. The eaglets were born around March 20 and were just a week or two away from being able to fly on their own. - Courtesy Chris Giblin

‘You can’t fight this stupid Texas weather’

This isn’t the first time tragedy has struck Nick and Nora’s quest to bring a successful clutch of eggs into the world.

In February 2022, the mating bald eagles built a nest in the same area near White Rock Lake. Residents came from across the city to catch a glimpse of the new stars of the neighborhood, waiting for the babies to hatch. But a severe storm with fierce winds ripped the nest and the tree branches apart. The eggs fell to the ground.

“They have been through a lot,” said Johnson.

In 2023, Nick and Nora built a second nest around White Rock Lake but abandoned it and never laid eggs. Johnson says the nest was built in an area that was probably too close to the crowds of people who use the lake for recreation.

This year, residents thought the eagles had finally succeeded. The eaglets were just a week or two away from being able to fly on their own. At that point, Nick and Nora would teach them how to hunt for their own food.

The day before the storm Giblin captured stunning images of the small birds “branching” out of their nests – the first attempts to jump from their nests onto nearby tree branches.

The cycle of natural life seemed so close to becoming complete, but again nature intervened in a tragic way.

“They just can’t catch a break,” Thomson said. “They were good parents, and it’s just that you can’t fight this stupid Texas weather.”

Yellowstone comes to Dallas

While bald eagles can often be found near large cities, it remains rare for eagles to nest and mate in busy urban areas. This is why Giblin and a group of photographers have spent countless hours documenting the couple.

Giblin, who works for a merchandising company, estimates he has snapped more than 20,000 pictures of the eagles since they started appearing regularly here three years ago. He’s so dedicated, he once spent 7 hours waiting to capture a single shot of the eagles flying from their nest. He equates the bald eagles’ presence in Dallas to having Yellowstone National Park in the city

“In this metropolis, they chose to nest right here. It’s absolutely crazy,” Giblin said.
“That’s why I’m down here every weekend. I don’t take it for granted.”

Thomson, a middle school science teacher, says the bald eagles have brought her neighborhood closer together. She often sets up a spotting scope connected to an iPad, which she calls “Eagle TV,” so children can watch the eagles up-close.

“They’re the coolest birds ever,” Thomson said. “I’m not really a bird person, but apparently I am. Because I sure do like the bald eagle.”

These Dallas eagle lovers worry years of disappointment might convince Nick and Nora to abandon their lives around their neighborhood lake and look to build a nest elsewhere. The majestic birds don’t realize they’re the main characters in a love story their neighbors don’t want to end.

Egyptian casualty along Gaza border puts strain on the landmark Israel-Egypt peace accord

Nabih Bulos
Wed, May 29, 2024 

Egyptian trucks carrying humanitarian aid bound for the Gaza Strip queue outside the Rafah border crossing on the Egyptian side March 23. (Khaled Desouki / AFP/Getty Images)


It was another close call. When a clash between Egyptian and Israeli soldiers near Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip left one Egyptian dead, it raised the specter — yet again — of a spark that would set off a conflagration across the Middle East.

Both countries moved swiftly to contain the fallout, a sign of the durability of their decades-long diplomatic ties. Egypt’s military spokesman talked about a “shooting incident” but did not mention Israel, while the Israeli military said “dialog was taking place with the Egyptian side.”

But Monday’s skirmish was the latest in a string of events underscoring the region’s volatility since Oct. 7, and the risk that the Israel-Hamas war will rattle long-standing peace agreements — nurtured by Washington for decades — between Israel and its neighbors.

Relations between Egypt and Israel have been strained for months, with Cairo intent on stopping any Israeli effort to drive Gaza residents onto Egyptian territory.

Tensions only worsened after Israel pushed into the south Gazan city of Rafah this month — where an estimated 1.4 million of Gaza’s residents had taken refuge — and seized the Palestinian side of the crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor, an almost 9-mile-long and 300-foot-wide path along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

Read more: Israeli army says it used small munitions in Rafah airstrike, and fire was caused by secondary blast

In response, Egypt shut down humanitarian deliveries via Rafah, insisting administration of the crossing return to Palestinian control and that Israel was violating decades-old security arrangements that limited the number of soldiers and equipment on either side of the border.

But Monday’s shooting, the first deadly clash between Egyptian and Israeli forces since the war began, illustrates the risks of spillover in the fighting as Israel presses its offensive into Rafah and operates in close proximity to Egyptian units, not to mention Egyptian civilians living close to the border.

“This will happen again,” said Samir Ragheb, an Egyptian analyst and chairman of the Cairo-based Arab Foundation for Development and Strategic Studies.

“Committees [are] investigating the incident and [there’s] dialogue between the two sides,” he said. “All that’s fine. But there’s no guarantee for what comes later. ... This is dealing with the symptom not the disease: which is that Israel is in Rafah and on the border where it shouldn’t be.”

Israel says the crossing and the corridor must remain in its hands if it is to choke off arms supplies to Hamas through the Sinai, whether through the crossing or the cross-border tunnel network Hamas operates.

Read more: Is Zionism patriotism or racism? Big disagreements over a word in use for 125 years

On Tuesday, in response to questions about tanks appearing on the streets of Rafah for the first time in the war, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said troops had “detected tunnels running along the Philadelphi Corridor ... going to Sinai.”

Egyptian officials have repeatedly dismissed Israeli accusations of allowing smuggling as “groundless,” adding that it has destroyed thousands of tunnels, created a buffer zone and built a barrier to prevent weapons transfers.

Details of exactly how the clash occurred remain murky. Initial Israeli reports said the Egyptian side was the first to open fire, while Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News said preliminary investigations indicated a skirmish had started between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters, with shots fired in multiple directions. That led an Egyptian security team member to take protective measures and “deal with the source of fire,” the news agency said.

“This is what Egypt has warned against for months,” an unnamed Egyptian security official told Al Qahera on Monday. “The Israeli attack on the Philadelphi Corridor creates field and psychological conditions that are difficult to control and liable to escalate.”

The killing of the soldier has ratcheted up anti-Israel sentiment in a country that has never managed more than a so-called cold peace with its neighbor, despite being the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

“There are 115 million Egyptians who are not happy with what’s happening in Gaza,” Ragheb said. “They’re watching it every day on television screens. The Egyptian soldier stationed at the border is seeing massacres in real time before his very eyes. So this will be a provocation.”

Some of that anger could be seen on Tuesday, when dozens gathered in the central Egyptian village of Agameyin for the burial of the slain soldier, 22-year-old Abdullah Ramadan. Thousands left comments on his Facebook page, calling him a martyr and a hero, and excoriating the government for tamping down the matter.

Though the Egyptian government says it aims to preserve the peace treaty, popular rage against Israel may force it into taking measures it would rather not take.

Read more: 'Are you a Zionist?' Checkpoints at UCLA encampment provoked fear, debate among Jews

“The problem for Egypt is that public opinion is already at a boiling point because of what’s happening in Gaza,” said Mouin Rabbani, an analyst and nonresident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies. “If you now add dead Egyptians to the mix, that makes it all the more combustible. Should government officials get to a point where they have to do something to defuse discontent, then they may feel Israel’s conduct has created such public pressure on them that they have no choice but to do something more significant.”

A wider Israeli assault on Rafah could very well be that tipping point. On Sunday, hours before the shooting, Israeli warplanes attacked what they said were Hamas high-level targets in Rafah, killing 45 people in the process, Palestinian authorities say, and spurring a tsunami of international anger.

The wider destruction, meanwhile, has reached unprecedented proportions, aid groups say, with more than 36,000 people killed in Gaza, according to the Gazan Health Ministry, including many women and children. In the three weeks since Israel began what it called a limited operation in Rafah, around 1 million people have had to flee, many of them displaced before by the violence, according to the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

“This happened with nowhere safe to go and amidst bombardments, lack of food and water, piles of waste and unsuitable living conditions,” UNRWA said on X on Monday. “Day after day, providing assistance and protection becomes nearly impossible.”

The war was sparked after Hamas operatives killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and saw 250 others taken hostage. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, along with the bodies of more than 30 others.

Few believe the Israel-Egypt peace treaty — a mainstay of Egypt’s foreign policy that brings in roughly $1.3 billion every year in military assistance from the U.S. — is at serious risk. But there’s little doubt the situation is affecting coordination between the two nations, said Rami Dajani, project director of Israel and Palestine with the International Crisis Group.

“The cumulative effects of these events impact how these agreements are functioning and the practical, real-life channels of communication on intelligence and security,” he said.

Read more: Spain, Norway and Ireland formally recognize a Palestinian state as EU rift with Israel widens

It also raises questions about how both sides will manage the border area in the future.

“For both sides, it’s not a question of walking away from the treaty,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Arab-Israeli negotiator.

But with Israel seeking greater control over Gaza through the Philadelphi Corridor while Egypt insists it won’t reopen the crossing without Palestinians in control, matters are likely to be fraught for a long time.

Said Miller: “All of this poses an enormous amount of problems for the proverbial day after.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Here's why you're seeing the 'All eyes on Rafah' image shared across social media

Over the weekend, Israel launched airstrikes into Rafah, killing over 60 people.

Katie Mather
·Internet Culture Reporter
Wed, May 29, 2024

A Palestinian flag beside a sign saying "All eyes on Rafah!" in Warsaw, Poland.
(Neil Milton/SOPA Images/LightRocket)

Following the recent Israeli attacks on Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, millions of social media users have shared an image with the message “All eyes on Rafah” across various platforms.

The image, primarily shared on Instagram Stories, highlights how crucial social media is to how people consume and understand news stories — despite the platform’s attempts to limit the amount of political content its users are exposed to.
🗣️ Where did the phrase come from?

In February, Richard “Rik” Peeperkorn, director of the World Health Organization’s Office of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said, “All eyes are on Rafah” after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Rafah’s 1.4 million residents to evacuate ahead of planned attacks.
🌎 What to know about Rafah

As Israel started launching attacks, starting from the northernmost part of the Gaza Strip, citizens began moving south to Rafah, which is by the Egyptian border. By February, more than half of Gaza’s population had been displaced to Rafah.

On May 24, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to stop any attacks on Rafah. Two days later, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 45 people in western Rafah, which had previously been declared a safe zone. Then, on Tuesday, another attack killed an additional 21 people in Rafah.

Netanyahu called the Rafah airstrikes a “tragic mistake.”

Read more about the conditions in Rafah from the Associated Press.

📱 Why is the phrase picking up steam on social media right now?

Peeperkorn’s phrase started going viral on social media following the recent attacks. The viral image accompanying the phrase appears to be generated by artificial intelligence, and shows an encampment with tents that spell out “All eyes on Rafah.”

Support groups like Save the Children, Americans for Justice in Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign have helped circulate the image and message on social media. NBC reported that the image has been shared over 37 million times on Instagram in less than 24 hours — predominantly on people’s Instagram Stories, which expire after 24 hours.

👀 Social media users are noting which celebrities have shared it

Celebrities like Gigi and Bella Hadid, Bridgerton actress Nicola Coughlan, Mark Ruffalo, Jenna Ortega, Rosie O’Donnell, Dua Lipa, Priyanka Chopra and Aaron Paul have all shared the image.

Their participation comes in the aftermath of the #Blockout movement, a campaign encouraging social media users to block celebrities and creators who have not spoken out against the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

🇺🇸 Are political figures getting involved?

President Biden told CNN in early May that the U.S. will withhold military assistance if Israel launches an attack on Rafah.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gone in Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah,” Biden said.

However, on Tuesday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a briefing that while the U.S. is not going to turn a “blind eye” to Israel’s attack on Rafah, the Biden administration did not believe the recent attacks violated Biden’s warning.

Nikki Haley is one of the political figures who criticized the Biden administration for temporarily withholding weapons from Israel in an attempt to prevent any attacks on Rafah. The former South Carolina governor visited Israel over Memorial Day and was photographed writing “Finish Them!” on an artillery shell.

❓ Is there a countercampaign that’s going viral?

There is another image circulating in response to “All eyes on Rafah” that says, “If your eyes are on Rafah, help us find our hostages.” An estimated 121 hostages remain missing after being kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

 

Fascism: What’s in a Word?

by Greg Godels / June 1st, 2024

The word “fascism” is a lightning rod. No one wants to be called a fascist. Everyone is ready to call someone else a fascist.

Like many highly charged words, the more common its usage becomes, the more inexact its meaning becomes.

Today, Trump is a fascist, Putin is a fascist, Modi is a fascist, Radical Islam is Islamofascism, the House and Senate members who passed the FISA renewal are fascists, Ukraine is a fascist country, political correctness is fascism, anti-Zionists are fascists, Zionists are fascists, and so on….

Clearly, the word “fascism” in these contexts is most often an expression of extreme disapproval– a kind of expletive.

A problem arises when the claimant– the person using the word– has something more definite in mind, something more exacting. A problem arises when the user of the word intends to draw an association with the real, historically concrete phenomena of fascism that emerged in the aftermath of World War I and rose tragically to ravage and terrorize nearly the entire world.

The idea that people or organizations are preparing to organize Blackshirts, Brownshirts, Silver Shirts or whatever to intimidate or overthrow conventional political processes is understandably reprehensible. But to conjure such an image in order to influence the political process, though without sufficient warrant, is misleading.

In a highly charged political context, it is not only misleading, but also unhelpful, and even incendiary.

Even a policy as sanctified by much of the left as the New Deal has been called fascist, proto-fascist, or fascist-tinged by commentators from across the political spectrum. And the “sainted” FDR has been labeled fascist by many. Critics from both left and right have seen parallels between elements of the New Deal and Mussolini’s corporatism. Still others have found similarities between the Rooseveltian Civilian Conservation Corps and Hitler’s German Labor Services. Since the New Deal was a mish-mash of trial-and-error pragmatism, it is a disservice to wed it with any particular ideology.

Of course, “fascism” depends on how we define it. Problems of definition arose immediately after World War II and the defeat of the major fascist powers. The emerging Cold War led to the US and its allies accepting a narrow definition when it came to new-found allies among former Nazis and Nazi collaborators. In its conflict with the Soviets, US leaders relied on Germans and Eastern Europeans with dubious, fascist ties to advance weapons programs, utilize intelligence, and bolster anti-Communism. Vetting of fascists by ideology was a haphazard process at best.

On the other hand, attempts to link fascism to Communism was an ongoing project. Determined efforts to find common features to justify anti-Communism led to a construct called “totalitarianism.” Popularized by Hannah Arendt, Cold Warriors wanted and got a tally of supposed similarities that served their purposes and served to generate a common definition of two disparate ideologies.

Thus, the Cold War created both a narrow and broad interpretation of fascism– one for practical purposes, the other for propaganda purposes.

As the Cold War warmed in the 1980s, academics like Stanley Payne (Fascism, Wisconsin, 1980), made attempts at more independent, nuanced, and objective definitions of “fascism.” Payne engaged in comparative historical analysis and arrived at his typological description of fascism. Unfortunately, it suffered somewhat from raw empiricism and a failure to properly weigh the factors disclosed. To its credit, it undercut the Cold War conflation of Communism and fascism by emphasizing anti-Communism as a common feature of fascism, and not conflating it with Communism.

Further, Payne in 1980 recognizes the historically met concept of “liberal authoritarianism” — a form of illiberal liberalism– that might serve to explain much of the confusion of our anti-Trump left today, who are anxious to dispense with the Bill of Rights to save “our” democracy.

In a recent essay regarding the “fascism is eminent” fashion of today, noted liberal commentator, Patrick Lawrence, riffs on the concept of “liberal authoritarianism.” Lawrence declares in his article “This Isn’t Fascism,” posted on Consortium News, that “I cannot quite tell what people mean when they speak of fascism in our current circumstances. And [as] far as one can make out, a lot of people who use the term, and maybe most, do not know what they mean, either.”

Unfortunately, while Payne still serves as a keystone for contemporary Western academic scholarship, the old Cold War conflation of Communism and fascism has resumed, particularly under a new wave of retro-Cold Warriors like Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder.

But more consequentially, the charge of fascism — invoked irresponsibly — has served as a weapon in electoral politics. Specifically, many in the Democratic Party — bereft of an appealing program — charge that a vote for Biden is a vote against fascism. Given that Biden’s failure on inflation and his bloody war-mongering are rejected, especially by youth and the Party’s left wing, portraying Trump as a fascist is an act of desperation, but an act that will ultimately do little to forego the rise of Trump and his ilk.

Again, invoking Lawrence:

Much of this, let’s call it the pollution of public discourse, comes from the liberal authoritarians. Rachel Maddow, to take one of the more pitiful cases, wants us to think Trump the dictator will end elections, destroy the courts, and render the Congress powerless. The MSNBC commentator has actually said these things on air.

One-man rule is the theme, if you listen to the Rachel Maddows. The evident intent is to cast Donald Trump in the most fearsome light possible, as it becomes clear Trump could well defeat President Biden at the polls come Nov. 5.

We can mark this stuff down to crude politicking in an election year, surely. There is nothing new in it. But this is not the point.

Opportunistic voices on the left will often draw a crude analogy with the rise of Nazism. They argue the simplistic and false case that disunity on the left opened the door for Hitler’s ascendency to the Chancellorship of Germany in 1933. They repeat an old whitewash of history — dismissing Hitler’s backing by the German capitalists, the perfidy of the weak government, and the betrayal of the Social Democrats. They ignore the economic crisis, the rulers’ failure to address the crisis, and the peoples’ desperate search for a radical answer to that failure. An unquestionable sign of that desperation was the continuing growth of the votes for the Communist Party, along with the decline in votes for the Social Democrats, and other centrist parties.

Nazism was not inevitable, but ushered in on a fear of revolution, of workers’ power, by a despairing ruling class. That was the reality wherever fascism seized power in twentieth-century fascism.

Today, the answer to a deepening crisis of capitalist rule that is losing its legitimacy in the eyes of the masses is not rallying support around the failed policies that created and deepened the crisis. The answer is not to cry wolf or remind the people that matters could get worse. They know that!

The answer is to develop real answers to the despair facing working people– reducing inequality, raising living standards, guaranteeing health care, increasing social benefits, improving affordable public transportation, protecting the environment, improving public education, and so on. These issues have existed for many decades, worsening with each passing year. There is no mystery. We are offered only two parties and they are determined to evade these issues.

Lawrence makes a similar point:

I suppose it might make America’s many-sided crisis — political, economic, social — more comprehensible if we name it [fascism] to suggest it has a frightening antecedent. But this is profoundly counterproductive. So long as we, some of us, go on persuading ourselves we face the threat of fascism or Fascism, either one, we simply obscure what it is we actually face.

We name it wrongly… I do not see fascism in any form anywhere on America’s horizon. To call it such is to render ourselves incapable of acting effectively.

But that still leaves us with the question: What is fascism? Is there no cogent definition?

Indeed, there is one that springs forth from a deep and thorough study by the late Marxist thinker, R. Palme Dutt. Published in 1934, soon after Hitler’s rise to power, Fascism and Social Revolution (International Publishers) locates fascism in the cauldron of the rise of Communism, a deep economic crisis, and the collapse of capitalist class legitimacy.

Dutt, unlike servile academics weaving a bizarre, historically challenged link between Communism and fascism, discovers direct ties between capitalism and fascism (p. 72-73).

Fascism manufactures its ideology around its practice. Dutt explains:

Fascism, in fact, developed as a movement in practice, in the conditions of threatening proletarian revolution, as a counter-revolutionary mass movement supported by the bourgeoisie, employing weapons of mixed social demagogy and terrorism to defeat the revolution and build up a strengthened capitalist state dictatorship; and only later endeavoured to adorn and rationalize this process with a “theory” (p. 75).

Dutt’s operational definition contrasts favorably with the failed attempt by writers like Payne who attempted to engage comparative studies in order to arrive at a superficial typography of fascism.

Dutt further adds the class dimensions, absent in nearly all non-Marxist definitions:

Fascism, in short, is a movement of mixed elements, dominantly petit-bourgeois, but also slum-proletariat and demoralized working class, financed and directed by finance-capital, by the big industrialists, landlords and financiers, to defeat the working-class revolution and smash working-class organizations (p. 82).

Elegant in its simplicity, robust in its comprehensiveness, Dutt’s explication of fascism aptly characterizes historic fascism from the march on Rome to the Generals’ coup in Indonesia and Pinochet’s regime in Chile. When social conditions deteriorate drastically and workers and their organizations threaten the capitalist order, the rulers throw their support behind counter-revolutionaries prepared to defend and strengthen the capitalist order, even at the expense of bourgeois democracy.

These institutions and organizations fester within bourgeois society as latent counter-revolutionary forces ready to be unleashed at the right moment by a desperate capitalist ruling class.

Clearly, Dutt’s study and elucidation of fascism clears the muddy waters stirred by today’s alarmists and opportunists. There is no imminent threat of revolution; the revolutionary left and the workers’ organizations currently pose little threat to the capitalist order, unfortunately.

There is no emergent organized mass movement responding to a counter-revolutionary call. The mass movements of the right — the Black Legions, the KKK, the Proud Boys, the militias, etc. — do exist, should conditions ever ripen for a mobilization against the working class; but for today, they remain unacceptable to most of the ruling class.

For the most part, the capitalist class, especially its dominant monopoly sector, is satisfied to conduct its business within the confines of bourgeois democracy. “Finance-capital… the big industrialists, landlords and financiers…” defend and protect the two-party system because they regard it as functioning adequately, though the “lawfare” attacks piling up on Trump and the rabid media attacks against him show that an important section of the ruling class considers his unpredictability to be a threat to stability.

Others think that his buffoonery and bluster serve as a safety valve for the discontent infecting the citizenry, much as Berlusconi’s clown-act pacified and entertained Italians unhappy over their political fate for three decades.

In any case, Trump does not pose the threat of fascism that many would like us to believe.

We need to find other words to describe the deep crisis of bourgeois legitimacy that we are enduring, words that do not force us into a frenzied defensive posture that deflects us from finding real solutions to a real and profound problems facing working people.Facebook

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Greg Godels writes on current events, political economy, and the Communist movement from a Marxist-Leninist perspective. Read other articles by Greg, or visit Greg's website.