Florida House passes bill restricting talk of sexual orientation in school

People attend the Sunday Pride Parade & Festival in Miami Beach on September 19. The Florida House on Thursday passed a bill restricting public schools discussion of gender and sexual orientation. Photo by Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/ EPA-EFE

Feb. 24 (UPI) -- The Florida House on Thursday passed a bill to regulate public school teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity. Critics call it the "don't say gay" bill.

The bill now on its way to the Florida Senate bans gender and sexual orientation discussions in grades K-3 and restricts public school discussions on these topics to "age appropriate" grades.

The bill also prohibits schools from withholding information from parents bout a student's "mental, emotional or physical health."

State Rep. Joe Harding sponsored the bill. It passed with Republican support on a 69-47 vote.

RELATED Texas push to remove LGBTQ books spotlights partisanship on school boards

Harding said on the House floor that the bill is about "empowering parents."

Critics of the bill say it pits parental rights against the rights of LGBTQ students.

"This bill goes way beyond the text on its page," Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democrat who is gay, said on the Florida House floor. "It sends a terrible message to our youth that there is something so wrong, so inappropriate, so dangerous about this topic that we have to censor it from classroom instruction."

The Florida House on Thursday also passed HB 7 restricting education about race. Republicans called that bill "Individual Freedom."

The proposals in Florida are the latest in a string of controversial action in conservative states.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday ordered state agencies to investigate gender-affirming care for transgender children as "child abuse."

The White House said called the directive dangerous and said families should be able to seek "the appropriate healthcare for their transgender children from doctors without the threat of prosecution."

As Russia menaces Ukraine, Crimea's Tatars turn to Turkey

Complex ties stretch across centuries and continents, but Turkey's affinity for its ethnic kin is taking a backseat to global relations with Russia.

Participants gather with Ukrainian flags and flags of Crimean Tatars before riding in their cars through Kiev to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the deportation of the indigenous population of the Crimea by the Soviet Union, on May 18, 2020. 

- GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images

Amberin Zaman
TOPICS COVERED
Russia-Ukraine crisis
February 3, 2022 —

KYIV, Ukraine — Ilmi Umerov, a Crimean Tatar political leader, was lying on a hospital bed in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea in his pajamas when Russian secret service agents carted him off to the airport and put him on a plane to Ankara with fellow Crimean Tatar political detainee Ahtem Chigoz.

The dissidents were freed on Oct. 25, 2017, in exchange for a pair of Russian operatives held in a Turkish jail for their alleged role in the murders of seven Chechen dissidents between 2000 and 2015. The swap was engineered by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “He is such a sultan,” Umerov said of Turkey’s authoritarian leader, whom he met the day after his release. “I mean in a good way.”

Erdogan came together with Ukraine’s president Volodymr Zelensky for three and half hours in Kyiv today offering to mediate once again between its Black Sea neighbor and the Kremlin. Speaking at a joint news conference, Erdogan stressed the importance of diplomacy in defusing the crisis between the two countries. “Rather than pouring oil on the flames, we are acting with the logic of how can we cool tensions,” he said.

The two leaders signed a long-delayed free trade agreement and another to expand production of Turkish-made drones that Ukraine used against Russian-backed forces in the Donbas for the first time last year. The plight of Crimean Tatars, who form “a historical bridge of friendship between our two countries,” had also been raised. “We continue to support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea. Common projects involving our ethnic [Crimean Tatar] kin were evaluated in detail,” Erdogan said.

As expected he received leaders of the Crimean Tatar parliament in exile, known as the Majlis, including the legendary Mustafa Jamilov.

Turkey has firmly backed Ukraine over Crimea since Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014, despite fierce resistance from its indigenous Tatars. The Sunni Muslim group who speak a dialect of Turkish have been reduced to minority status following centuries of repression and mass expulsions. Turkey does not recognize the annexation and has repeatedly called for Crimea to be returned to Ukraine. It treats leaders of the Majlis, which was banned by Russia, as formal interlocutors.

“For Turkey, Crimea is Ukraine, and Crimean Tatars are citizens of our state. Thanks to Turkey, several political prisoners have been released from Russia’s illegal detention. Turkey has co-authored an array of UN General Assembly resolutions that urge Russia to get away from Ukraine’s Crimea, condemn Russia’s human rights violations in the occupied territories and call it to immediately halt and remedy them,” said the Ukrainian foreign ministry in a written response to Al-Monitor’s request for comment. The ministry added that in 2021, Turkey became one of the founding members of the Crimea Platform, devised to drum up diplomatic support for the Crimean question and that held its first summit in August last year.

The potential showdown over Ukraine is a further test of Erdogan’s trademark brinksmanship, which triggered US sanctions through his acquisition of Russian S-400 missiles and Moscow’s simmering wrath with the sales of combat drones to the Ukrainian military.

But amid the shows of solidarity, Ankara’s Crimean stance illustrates like few other the limits of Turkey’s willingness, let alone ability, to cross Russia in its own back yard.

Turkish officials argue that neutrality is what enables Ankara to pull off deals like the 2017 prisoner trade and may allow for Turkish mediation to avert conflict. The Kremlin announced that Russian president Vladimir Putin was expected to travel to Ankara on an official visit some time after the Beijing Olympics.

On Tuesday, Turkey’s defense minister, Hulusi Akar, stressed Ankara’s commitment to the 1936 Montreux Convention, which limits the passage of US and other non-Black Sea nations’ warships through the Turkish straits in and out of the Black Sea. His comments were seen as a bid to reassure Moscow that Turkey had no plans to change the rules to suit any Western military plans to counter Russia, ahead of Erdogan’s visit.
Image

Ilmi Umerov at the Majlis headquarters in Kyiv, Jan. 19, 2022 

(Amberin Zaman/Al-Monitor)

Tensions over the Black Sea hark back to when the Crimean Khanate was the vassal of the Ottoman Empire, along with much of southern Ukraine. Its holdings included Odessa, the port city known as Hacibey until Russian imperial forces seized it in the Russo-Turkish war of 1787-1791, a defeat that heralded the decline and gradual collapse of the Ottoman Empire, said Dymtro Bily, an Ottoman historian. Crimea had already fallen to the Russians in 1783.

“From the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca in 1774 through the end of the Cold War, the Black Sea was an important theater for Russian-Turkish rivalry. Crimea repeatedly served as a flashpoint, most famously in the Crimean War, but also with the 1914 naval raid that precipitated the Ottoman entry into World War I,” noted Nicholas Danforth, a Yale-trained historian and author of “The Remaking of Republican Turkey: Memory and Modernity since the Fall of the Ottoman Empire.”

Caution has prevailed on both sides, for the most part, ever since.

Turkey’s multi-layered ties with Russia, spanning billions of dollars in trade and a mix of adversity and collaboration in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, take precedence over Crimea’s beleaguered Tatars. That reality was driven home when Erdogan refused to join US and EU sanctions on Russia over Crimea.

“I asked Turkish leaders for three things,” recalled Jamilov, the veteran leader who was received by Erdogan today. “I asked Turkey to participate in the sanctions, to seal the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits to Russian ships and to blockade them in the Black Sea. I was told ‘No,’ that this would damage Turkey very badly.”
Image

Legendary Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Jamilov at the Majlis headquarters in Kyiv, Jan. 19, 2022 (Amberin Zaman/Al-Monitor)

Refet Chubarov, the Majlis president and former lawmaker in the Ukrainian parliament who was present in those meetings, said that a high-ranking official "had a notebook and threw it on the table. He said, ‘Listen for almost 60 years we have been trying to join the EU club. We were doing everything they wanted. If we were an [EU] member you would not be here asking us to join in the sanctions.’”

He added, “If Crimea remains occupied for another five to ten years, we will be completely destroyed.”

It was Sergei Aksyonov, Crimea’s pro-Kremlin leader, who halted sea and air traffic between Turkey and the peninsula when Turkish forces shut down a Russian Sukhoi SU-24M fighter jet over Syria in November 2015. Moscow meanwhile cancelled tourist flights, banned Turkish fruit and vegetable imports and threatened to expose Turkey’s alleged ties to the Islamic State.

In October 2017, the Turkish Chamber of Shipping issued a vaguely worded circular advising local ports to refuse vessels arriving from or departing for Crimea. Yet as Istanbul-based geopolitical analyst Yoruk Isik observed, Syrian ships connected to President Bashar al Assad continue to carry construction materials from Turkish ports to Crimea and Abkhazia, and to bring back scrap metal to Turkey and wheat to Syria. Turkish authorities are turning a blind eye to the illicit trade, Isik told Al-Monitor.

Erdogan was meant to be among the star guests at the Crimean Platform’s inaugural summit last August. He dispatched his foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, instead.

Jamilov said he had sent emissaries to Ankara to persuade Erdogan to change his mind. “He didn’t,” Jamilov said during an interview at the Majlis’ headquarters at a luxury Kyiv apartment complex, all paid for by Ankara.

While pundits frenziedly second-guess Putin’s moves, Jamilov has no doubt over his intentions. “He plans to come all the way to Kyiv, and Turkey won’t get involved in this war,” he predicted between cigarette puffs. Had the famously tobacco averse Erdogan not told him to quit? “Yes, numerous times,” Jamilov acknowledged with a laugh.

The conversation conducted in Turkish is interrupted by a staccato of dog barks. It’s the ringer tone on Jamilov’s mobile. He says it reminds him of Dulber or “beautiful”, his pet alabai, a giant Central Asian shepherd breed known as the “wolf crusher” that he was forced to leave behind in Crimea when Russia muscled in. (Putin owns an alabai gifted by Turkmenistan strongman Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, called Verni which means "loyal" in Russian.)

An undated image of an Alabai (Twitter)

Jamilov is no stranger to adversity. He was six months old when Stalin deported the Crimean Tatars en masse from the peninsula in 1944. Like many Crimean Tartar activists, he spent long years in Soviet labor camps. He was among the estimated 250,000 Crimean Tatars who began returning to their native land following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

That was Turkey’s cue to rekindle kinship ties. Turkey’s then-president, the late Suleyman Demirel, pledged to build 1,000 houses for the returnees and to restore Crimea’s ruined mosques. He sent planes packed with Qurans and imams to Crimea, Azerbaijan and the former Soviet states in Central Asia in the hopes of creating a "Turkic belt" stretching all the way from the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China. An estimated three million ethnic Tatars who live in Turkey cheered him on.

Historian Mehmet Kirimli, an ethnic Crimean Tatar whose ancestors fled to Turkey, said that prior to 1783, Crimea was 98 percent Tatar, and there were 1,500 mosques. By 1914, there only 750 mosques left. The Soviets, using dynamite and bulldozers, demolished much of what remained, Kirimli told Al-Monitor.

Demirel’s ambitions proved elusive, however, and successive Ukrainian governments viewed Turkey’s efforts with suspicion. Kyiv’s attitude changed after losing Crimea, but it’s too late for Turkey to do anything inside Crimea.

Russia expelled staff of Turkey’s state-run Religious Affairs Directorate, the Diyanet, and retained a loyalist as the peninsula’s mufti. The Majlis appointed its own man, Ayder Rustamov, in a countermove.

In the Donbas, home to the majority of Ukraine’s estimated 400,000 Muslims, pro-Russian separatists have followed the Kremlin’s lead. “In 2018, they closed down our mosque and put our imam under house arrest,” said Said Ismagilov, former imam of the Donetsk mosque in the Donbas, who now leads the Muslim Brotherhood leaning Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine, also known as the “Ummah.”
Image

Mufti of the Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine Said Ismagilov, Kyiv, Jan. 18, 2022 (Amberin Zaman/Al-Monitor)

In the rest of Ukraine, Turkey is quietly expanding its religious footprint, and Ukrainian authorities don’t seem to mind. Ukraine’s richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, recently donated land for the Turkish government to build a mosque behind the glitzy Ocean City shopping mall in Kyiv with the full blessing of the city’s mayor, former boxing champion, Vitaly Klitschko.

Turkey is also financing the construction of 500 houses for some 20,000 Crimean Tatars who fled the peninsula in 2014, scoring political points with its own Tatars and creating further business opportunities for Turkish contractors. The bulk will be built in the Gherson region adjacent to Crimea “because Zelensky wants the Crimean Tatars to see them,” Jamilov explained. He would prefer they be built in Kyiv, where his compatriots can make a better living, but Zelenksy, citing the lack of cheap land in Kyiv, has granted permission for only 100 to be built in the capital.

“Erdogan is popular among the Muslims here. The Diyanet sends imams and translations of the Quran but most of the help goes through the [Crimean Tatar] Majlis,” Ismagilov said.

Rustamov confirmed this. “Allah be praised the biggest help came to us from the Turkish state,” he told Al-Monitor.

Ozturk Aydin, a Turkish entrepreneur who moved to Kyiv in 2013, sells halal meat to restaurants serving the city’s 50,000 Muslims, including some 10,000 fellow Turks and Muslim students from across the Arab world. Aydin is better known for his yogurt and watery yogurt drink, ayran, which now lines shelves in the country’s top supermarkets.

Aydin insisted that Turkey’s image “is better here than America’s” in an interview in Kyiv’s historic Podil district, where he runs a small shop stocked with Turkish goods.

Aydin's shop in Kyiv, Jan. 20, 2022. (Amberin Zaman/Al-Monitor)

But Crimean Tatar leaders are aware that the support of the United States remains critical in any confrontation with Russia. “If it were not for the United States we would still be under Soviet occupation,” Jamilov said. “America is our biggest guarantor.”

Turkey’s battered ties with Washington, primarily because of Erdogan’s refusal to give up the S-400s, is therefore an abiding source of concern. “From our point of view, Turkey is a NATO member and the United States is at the core of it. So it’s not smart to have bad relations,” Chubarov said.

“The tensions between Turkey and America are having a negative impact on us,” Jamilev concurred. “We, the Crimean Tatars, feel squeezed in the middle.”

Iraqi Kurdish LGBT rights activist Zhiar Ali says local authorities do nothing to discourage killings

The murder last month of a transgender woman in Iraqi Kurdistan by her brother in a so-called honor killing underlines the impunity faced by the LGBT community in Iraq’s Kurdistan region and beyond. Community activists say the government does nothing to protect them and that security officials who are responsible for their safety are among those who endorse violence against them. Zhiar Ali, a leading advocate for the community, was forced to flee to Europe after facing repeated threats. With no laws to protect him and hostility against LGBT people deeply engrained they face an uphill struggle. But they won’t give up.

Episode Number

91

 

Egyptians outraged over movie depicting gay couple

An Egyptian-German-Lebanese-produced movie recently screened at the 72nd Berlin Film Festival has sparked outcry in Egypt for depicting homosexuality.

A scene from the film "Bashtaalak Sa'at"

 ("Shall I Compare You to a Summer's Day?"). - Twitter

Ahmed Gomaa
TOPICS COVERED
Art and entertainment
February 23, 2022 —

CAIRO — “Bashtaalak Sa'at” ("Shall I Compare You to a Summer's Day?") was screened at the 72nd Berlin Film Festival Feb. 11-20.

The movie stirred huge outcry among the public and critics in Egypt, as it delves into homosexuality in Arab societies.

According to the official Berlin Film Festival website, the movie was written and directed by Egyptian director Mohammad Shawky Hassan through a joint Egyptian-Lebanese-German production. It stars a number of Egyptian artists such as Ahmed El-Gendy and Donia Massoud.

In the movie, Hassan used a mixture of Arab folk tales and heritage stories to portray a love story between two men.

In statements to Al-Watan newspaper Feb. 15, Omar Abdel Aziz, head of Egypt’s Federation of Artistic Syndicates, lashed out at the movie for contradicting the values ​​of Arab societies.

In the midst of the controversy, Fi al-Fan website quoted sources as saying that “the film will not be screened in Egypt for several reasons. The first is the unwillingness of production authorities to [cooperate] with the regulatory agencies in Egypt, especially since the film includes a large number of intimacy and sexuality scenes between male actors, which is inconsistent with Egyptian censorship laws. The second reason is that the film was primarily made for screening at film festivals.”

Tarek al-Shennawy, a professor of art criticism at the Higher Institute of Art Criticism - Academy of Arts, denounced the attack on the film that was not screened in Egypt. “No one can judge a work of art without seeing it first. It is unacceptable to take any stance on a movie based on talks on social networking sites or newspaper articles,” he told Al-Monitor.

Shennawy, who participated in the 72nd Berlin Film Festival, explained, “The official documents of the festival indicated that the film is Egyptian because of the nationality of its director, but the film is technically attributed to its production entity, which is an Egyptian, Lebanese and German production. This was the case of the film 'Al-Qadisiyah,' which was produced by Iraq’s Cinema and Theater Department in 1981. Although featuring a large number of Egyptian artists and directed by Egyptian director Salah Abu Seif, 'Al-Qadisiyah' was considered an Iraqi film based on the nationality of its production entity.”

He pointed out that “Bashtaalak Sa’at" raised controversy in Egypt because some view this type of film through an ethical lens; others, he added, fear that there is a plot to promote films featuring homosexuality. In all cases, he said, "To be fair, a movie must be seen before being criticized.”

Shennawy noted that there is an increase in the production of films that deal with homosexuality. “Some productions on Netflix deal with this issue, but there is no plan to promote sexuality.”

He added, “In the Arab world, films discussing homosexuality are judged from a moral angle, away from the content of the artwork, while in the European world this would not raise such a fuss. The issue would not be discussed from a religious aspect. This is due to the difference between the two cultures.”

Some of the hostile reactions to “Bashtaklak Sa’at” went too far. Egyptian lawyer Ayman Mahfouz demanded Egyptian authorities strip director Hassan, who lives in Germany, of his Egyptian nationality for promoting homosexuality.

“The demand to revoke the Egyptian nationality of the film’s director is somewhat strange, as the movie was not even shown in Egypt. Judging a movie without seeing it reflects a cultural vacuum in Egyptian society,” Nader Adly, an art critic for several Egyptian newspapers, told Al-Monitor.

Adly added, “Some extremist currents are trying to undermine all the great strides achieved in the art world. Weeks ago, the Arabic version of the film "Perfect Strangers" ("As-hab wala A'az") stirred outrage in Egypt, especially the role played by artist Mona Zaki. This was blown out of proportion. Artwork must be judged objectively.”

The uproar over "Bashtaalak Sa'at" flared up even as the national controversy stirred by "As-hab wala A'az" has yet to subside. The latter was bombarded with accusations of promoting homosexuality and departing from the conservative values ​​of the Arab world.

Journalist and film critic Magda Khairallah concurs with Adly. “Egyptian authorities do not have the right to censor 'Bashtaalak Sa'at' since it is not an Egyptian production and is not shown inside the country,” she told Al-Monitor.

Khairallah argued that the fierce attack on the film in Egypt without watching it is a manifestation of extremism. “The film does not represent Egypt officially at the Berlin Festival. The only issue is that it has an independent Egyptian director. This film does not affect Egyptian society and its morals,” she concluded.

Iraq unveils restoration work at ancient city ravaged by IS

A view of Iraq's ancient city of Hatra in the northern region of al-Hadar, 105 kilometers south of Mosul, during a ceremony to unveil restored sculptures which were vandalised by jihadists of the Islamic State group - 

Zaid AL-OBEIDI
Agence France-Presse

February 24, 2022 — Hatra (Irak) (AFP)

Iraq unveiled three monumental sculptures in the ancient city of Hatra Thursday, newly restored after being vandalised by militants of the Islamic State group during their brief but brutal rule.

The jihadists released video footage in 2015 of their orgy of destruction at Hatra in which they took guns and pickaxes to the once extensive remains of what was one of the leading trade entrepots between the Roman and Parthian empires in the first and second centuries AD.

A Roman-style sculpture of a life-size figure and a series of reliefs of faces on the side of the great temple were among the restored pieces shown off to journalists.

"IS destroyed everything that was important in this city," senior antiquities official Ali Obeid Sholgham told AFP.

The restoration is being carried out by Iraqi experts in collaboration with Italy's International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies

Provincial antiquities chief Khair al-Din Ahmed Nasser said works of art were "ripped out and shattered -- we found fragments all over the site".

"We recovered some pieces, Others which were missing we replaced with the same type of stone."

The restoration work at Hatra is being carried out by Iraqi experts in collaboration with Italy's International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies with funding from the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas.

IS filmed similar acts of destruction by its militants in Mosul Museum, 100 kilometres (65 miles) northeast of Hatra, and in Palmyra in neighbouring Syria.

Iraqi government forces retook Hatra in 2017, several months before claiming victory over the jihadists who swept through much of the north and west of the country three years earlier.

Iraq's ancient heritage had already been hit by a wave of looting of museums and ancient sites in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of 2003.

Trove of embalming tools unearthed in ancient Egyptian burial pit

Hundreds of pottery vessels were discovered inside a burial pit south of the pyramids of Giza dating back to the 26th Dynasty.

Items from an archaeological find, part of the discovery of a 3,000-year-old lost city, are displayed on April 10, 2021, in Luxor, Egypt. - Mahmoud Khaled/Getty Images

Hagar Hosny
February 24, 2022 —

CAIRO — The Czech archeological mission of the Czech Institute of Egyptology announced on Feb. 9 the discovery of a cache of embalming materials during the excavation of burial pits dating to the 26th Dynasty (about 2600 BC), located in the western part of the Abusir necropolis (south of the Giza pyramids and north of Saqqara).

Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Waziri said in a press statement, “This cache was found inside a pit measuring 5.3 by 5.3 meters, and more than 14 meters deep, containing unique embalming materials including 370 large pottery vessels.”

Waziri added, “These pots contain remains of materials that were used during the embalming process. In [one] group of pots, four empty limestone canopic jars were found, with a hieroglyphic inscription bearing the name of their owner, Wahibre.”

Imad Mahdi, a member of the Egyptian Archeologists Union, told Al-Monitor, “The discovery indicates the presence of an embalming site in this area. Although archeologists and Egyptologists are fully aware of the materials used by the ancient Egyptians in this process, including resin oils and natron salt, the analysis of utensils may reveal other unrecognized materials.”

He explained, “The canopic pots that were found were used to preserve the innards of the dead that are extracted before the embalming process, and each utensil is used for a specific organ.”

He noted that the materials the pots were made of — pottery, alabaster and gold — vary according to the social class and wealth of the deceased.

Mahdi said that it's unknown why the utensils had been stored in the pit, whose depth suggests it was likely designed for burial purposes.

In a press release, head of the Czech mission Miroslav Barta explained, “The 2021 season was part of a long-term project aimed at uncovering antiquities dating back to an era when ancient Egyptian society was looking for new ways to preserve the unique Egyptian identity. The tombs of Abu Sir, which were built in a similar way to the famous pyramid of Djoser, the most famous king of the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, played a major role in showing the unique Egyptian culture.”

Egyptology researcher and tour guide Bassam el-Shammaa told Al-Monitor that the pots' presence in the pit raises questions. “I think the purpose was storage for a nearby embalming site, one of which is likely to be found in the vicinity.

Shammaa said the discovery will put the 26th Dynasty on the tourism map. “This dynasty was credited with the renaissance of the ancient Egyptian civilization and the revival of nationalism and patriotism after the political and social turmoil witnessed by the 23rd, 24th, and 25th dynasties.”

Deputy director of the Czech mission Mohammed Mujahid said in a press statement that excavations in the area will continue in 2022, and the contents of the new discovery will be studied using modern scientific methods.

However, Shammaa said it's unlikely that the analysis will reveal new information about the materials used in the embalming process, as they have been well documented, but it could reveal more about the process itself.

The distorted 'freedom' of the truck convoys: 'A huge number of Americans want a dictatorship'

Chauncey Devega, Salon
February 24, 2022

A protester walks in front of parked trucks as demonstrators continue to protest the vaccine mandates implemented by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on February 8, 2022 in Ottawa, Canada 

Dave Chan AFP

The Republican-fascists and other "conservatives" have convinced themselves and their followers that freedom is the same thing as license.

Real freedom involves a sense of responsibility to others, obligation to the common good and respect for reason and the truth. Moreover, as historian Timothy Snyder presciently warned in 2017, "to abandon facts is to abandon freedom" and "post-truth is pre-fascism."

License is a belief that one can act without consequences — and that any attempts to limit that dangerous behavior and its negative impact on others is some type of "tyranny" or "dictatorship" or "oppression." This crude and debased version of "freedom" as embraced by fascists and other members of today's right wing and "conservative" movement also emphasizes the importance of force and the ability of the powerful to force their will on the less powerful with impunity.

Here social dominance behavior is taken as ultimate proof of the merits of one's freedom claims instead of as evidence of how anti-social and other anti-human behavior undermines and ultimately destroys the types of bonds, relationships and mutual respect for human rights and human dignity that are foundational for real freedom in a healthy polity.

Liberals, progressives, Democrats, "traditional" conservatives and others who believe in the liberal democratic tradition are committed to abstract principles and ideals. The Republican-fascists and other members of the global neofascist movement are goal-oriented nihilists and pragmatists who live in the realm of the here and now and where might ultimately makes everything right.

This is the focal point where the battle for the future of American and Western democracy is being fought. To this point, the Republican-fascists and the global right are winning. Their opponents are crying about "principles" and "the rules" and "the norms" while being bowled over.

In all, the Republican-fascists and other elements of the global right are involved in a revolutionary program of destruction where the language and rhetoric of "freedom" is being used to undermine and eventually destroy and then replace pluralistic multiracial democracy with white minority apartheid rule.

The American neofascists and other elements of the global right are transparent and direct about their goals.


To wit.

Earlier this week, former Trump senior adviser and leading right-wing propagandist Stephen Bannon told the millions of people who listen to his podcast that, "We have a chance, once in our lifetime, to destroy the Democratic Party as an institution. We cannot let this slip from our grasp ...That is everyone's maniacal focus. We're in a war."

The American neofascist and larger "conservative" movement's attempt to overthrow the country's pluralistic multiracial democracy is not new; it is the result of a decades-long plan.

That poison fruit is being harvested all around us. Here are a few examples.

In America and elsewhere, the refusal to support vaccinations, wearing masks and other common sense public health measures are an attack on basic principles of human respect, human dignity, the common good and the general welfare. In reality, taking the necessary short-term steps in a responsible manner in a democratic society to end a lethal pandemic will expand the long-term possibilities for freedom and not limit them.

Trump's coup attempt and the Republican-fascists' and larger white-right's embrace and encouragement of terrorism and other forms of political violence is an attack on democratic norms, institutions, the future and progress, the rule of law, freedom, civil rights, human rights, safety and security, pluralism, prosperity and multiracial democracy.

Neofascist truck convoy(s) recently laid siege to Ottawa and Toronto, and also interfered with travel across the U.S. - Canada border. Similar convoys are now threatening to disrupt life in the United States and other countries as well. In total, these convoys are an attempt to stop freedom of movement.

As a practical matter, they will cause economic harm, disproportionately impacting Black, brown, poor, working class, the disabled, and other already vulnerable communities. They will also limit the ability of all people in a targeted community to enjoy equal access to public space. And because of the noise and spectacle and total chaos, the neofascist truck convoys will also have a negative impact on the emotional and physical health of the people who live in the cities and other locales that are besieged.

Of note: these attempts at society-wide disruption are also acts of violence and intimidation modeled on the tactics of insurgency and asymmetrical warfare as seen in failing and failed democracies and other societies in crisis.

Semi-trucks can easily be made into deadly weapons; the threats of violence by these convoys are both explicit and implied. To that end, the convoys are part of a larger pattern of behavior where the Republican-fascists and the larger white right are encouraging their followers to deploy vehicles as weapons to injure and kill liberals, progressives, Democrats, and other members of "the left" (especially "Black Lives Matter" supporters and antifascists) who they deem to be "the enemy." Republican governors and other lawmakers are passing laws to that effect.

In a recent essay at The Atlantic, Stephen Marche described his experience in Toronto as it was besieged by the neofascist "anti-vaccine" "freedom" convoy.

He explained how:
Now the rage has come for me. The anti-vax trucker convoy has made it up close and personal.
Three weeks ago, truckers formed a convoy to protest the cross-border COVID-vaccine mandate. Last weekend, they rolled into my Toronto neighborhood, near Bloor Street and Avenue Road. I went down to bear witness to the spectacle. The scene was not surprising to me: The same sort of people I'd seen at Donald Trump rallies and prepper conventions were there, with their hollowed-out faces intimate with pain, and their perpetually misspelled signs, and their sense of belonging to a community of the excluded. I confess that they disgusted me. I found myself stopping several people on the street and telling them to go home, that they weren't wanted here.

The truckers want "freedom" from mandates and have called for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign. They won't achieve either of these goals, so what they're doing now amounts to disruption for disruption's sake….

Marche continued:
The truckers matter principally as an example of an American political proxy conflict spilling over our border, and as a harbinger of more such conflicts….This episode is no doubt just the beginning of the nightmare of living next to the United States in its time of breakdown. As American politics enters a state of complete toxicity, veering into insurgency, its violence and misinformation networks will inevitably spread across the border….

Stephen Marche is an essayist, cultural commentator, and author. His most recent book is, "The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future."

Marche's essays and other writing have also been featured in such leading publications as The New York Times, Esquire, and The New Yorker.

In this conversation Marche reflects on his experiences in Toronto with the neofascist truck convoy and how he managed to maintain his sympathy and human concern for a group of people he views as very lonely and in pain. Marche also shares how loneliness and pain and a desperate need for community and belonging motivate the American neofascists and others attracted to such politics.

Marche explains how America is on the brink of a second Civil War and why so many of the country's political elites — especially the pundit class and commentariat — are in deep denial about that fact and refuse to treat such an existential threat with the attention it merits because to confront such a reality would be too emotionally and intellectually painful for them.

At the end of this conversation, Marche warns that there are many Americans who, instead of enthusiastically opposing and resisting a Trumpian or other fascist dictatorship, actually are yearning for one.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

You personally experienced the right-wing truck convoy that laid siege to Toronto. You have spent years talking with Trumpists, other white supremacists, right-wing militia types and related extremists. What are they looking for? What is their emotional journey? Those questions and answers are a very neglected part of the

I believe they are looking for what we are all looking for: Recognition of our pain. People talk about how difficult it is to sympathize with them. I never find it difficult to sympathize with them. They are in a quest for some type of what they see as freedom — but the freedom that they want is impossible. It's an inconceivable freedom, a messianic vision of freedom, that also comes out in its nastiest angle. It manifests as a feeling of impunity. That they are allowed to do whatever they want. To them real freedom is being allowed to do whatever you want to anybody.

Donald Trump is a pain entrepreneur. Fascists are experts at manipulating pain. In terms of the truckers you wrote about in The Atlantic essay, you express sympathy for them. You are remarkably humane in your approach to their behavior. Why? How did you manage that?

I believe that sympathy is a very good instinct to have all the time. I also believe that compassion is never wrong, but there is government and structure to society. They need to be preserved.

Again, I have a great deal of sympathy for these truckers. I think they're in a lot of pain, but they are going to have to be punished for their law-breaking.

If I were to describe with one word, the people in the trucker convoy I saw and likewise the people I met at prepper conventions and Trump rallies, that one word would be "lonely." These look like lonely people who do not have a lot of love in their lives. I don't think you're dressing up in a Canadian flag and driving to Toronto if you've got a lot going on.

What are the roots of America's democracy crisis and this larger unsettling and disruption in Western democracies more generally?

The term I use in the book is a "complex cascading system." It's several things that are happening at once, and they feed into each other. The obvious variable is that there is a decline of faith in societal and governmental institutions. This decline is incredibly intense. I believe that we are now at a point where there may not be an election ever again in American history where both sides accept a winner. This is getting much worse and not better.

That skews, of course, to rural, white, non-college educated men. America is also now what democracy experts describe as an "anocracy." This is not really autocracy; it's somewhere in between. This is when the threat of civil war is greatest. There are other elements as well such as hyper partisanship, social media misinformation and other crises and they all feed into each other. So many things are happening at once and it is an incredibly toxic brew.

What was your approach to balancing the fictional writing in "The Next Civil War" and the hard empirical facts and other research?

I did speak with certain experts where I couldn't sleep afterwards. The fiction element was really a way of giving meat to the bones of the dry abstract research. I did not put anything in the book that I could not footnote.

Charlottesville will play a large role in any history written about the Age of Trump and how America's democracy crisis escalated to where it is now with Jan. 6 and perhaps even a second American Civil War and right-wing insurgency. How are you making sense of that moment as a huge type of "what if?" in this unfolding American story?

Charlottesville was the moment where the Trump administration was shown to not be just a nastier version of Reagan. The Trump administration was actually involved in hard-right politics.

The United States is now being forced to confront not just racist, or not just so-called country club Republicans, but people who actively want a white state, to create something that is very different than what the United States of America currently is. January 6 as I see it was like the first World Trade Center bombing. It is a type of pre-echo of what's to come. On January 6 they were taken by surprise at their own success. The next time they will be much more organized and much better armed. I think all of these things are building into a blossoming hatred that is continuing to grow.

How are you processing the denial and other hostility being directed at your book and the work of others who are trying to sound the alarm about a second American Civil War?

The book grew out of a magazine article from a few years ago. At the time my editor said basically, "You're absolute out of your mind." Every step of the way, even the publisher was saying, "I don't think you're right." Then January 6 happens.

The book was released at a moment when people were finally starting to think, "OK, this might actually happen." To my eyes, the reaction to the book has not been full-on denial. It was more like, "You shouldn't actually say this stuff because you're going to make it happen." Such a response is crazy.

Clarity is required at these moments. What we need now more than anything else is actual clarity about what is going on in this country.

Again, I wouldn't say that I encountered a lot of denial. I would say it has been more of don't say those things, they're too ugly.

What of the country's political class, and larger chattering class and commentariat, who are stuck in a state of denial about America's democracy crisis and the escalating disaster? They are part of a system that is collapsing, and they cannot admit it. So much of their writing and analysis describes an America and world that no longer exists.

It's genuine nostalgia. They have been taught their whole lives that America is the solution to history. And that its institutions are the greatest institutions the world has ever known. And that its politics is the definitive politics of the world. In Canada, we never believe that. In Europe, certainly, they never believe that. But in America, you meet a lot of people who really believe such a thing. To be specific I mean the New York Times commentary-type people.

And so, it's very hard under of those conditions to accept that America is just another country and one that has the same nightmares as other countries have. America is vulnerable to the same kind of crises that other countries are vulnerable to. There is definitely a large group of people who really genuinely worship American institutions. On a fundamental level, they just believe in them the way that a Catholic believes in the Church. For such people, the idea that their America is going to fall apart — and that is breaking apart — they can't accept it. They can't accept this truth even when they see it right in front of their eyes.

What will these members of the commentariat and larger political class do when the painful facts literally roll over them? What do they do when it all comes undone?

As T.S. Eliot said, "human beings cannot bear very much reality." But that's true for all of us. Nobody wants to face what's coming. It's very easy to look away from history even when it's staring you right in the face.

I receive many emails and other messages from readers of my essays and folks who listen to my podcasts where they say some version of "Please stop! You are scaring me!" You must receive many similar communications. Such people seem to believe that denying reality will save them. What do you tell such sad and desperate souls?

I'm in this business to say what I see. I don't come to fool anybody. I don't get cute. I don't want to play games. That's what I get out of this. That's what I owe my readers. That's what I owe myself. And I never apologize for saying things that are hard truths. We all need the hard truth.

America was perilously close to Donald Trump and his cabal's coup plot succeeding. They have not stopped their attempt to overthrow American democracy. If the Trump cabal had succeeded America would be under a state of military rule with him as a de facto fascist dictator. Yet, the American people and their mainstream media and other opinion leaders are largely still in denial of how close the country came — and is — to disaster. Is there anything that the alarm-sounders, the truth-tellers such as yourself can do to help the American people understand this dire reality?

As I see it, the basic problem is that a huge number of Americans want such a dictatorship. I think it could happen in 2024. People, like nations, actually make huge mistakes. And they do this while being fully informed. The important question is why does a huge portion of America want to end democracy? That is a very challenging answer. You don't get to feel good about yourself when you come up with an answer to that one.

America's trucker convoy struggles to reach goal of shutting down the DC Beltway

Sarah K. Burris
February 23, 2022


Americans who supported the Canada trucker protest in Ottawa have decided to create a convoy of their own, but it isn't quite working out as they'd hoped.

Earlier this morning, one Scranton trucker, Bob Bolus, desperately waited for others who promised they'd join him. No one came. Then he found out he had two flat tires. Finally, once the tires were changed he did a "parade" with his truck in downtown Scranton. Once he took off for Washington he was able to collect at least 7 others to join with the convoy to the Capitol.

Bolus is well known to the Scranton community. He has run for mayor frequently, even as a write-in candidate.
He's was also charged with insurance fraud.

Meanwhile, in the western United States, it became clear that those leaving California for Washington weren't going to arrive for the movement Wednesday. In fact, they estimate that it will take them a week to get to DC, which means that they'll also miss protests of the State of the Union address.

Over 1,000 vehicles met at Adelanto Stadium for the California convoy. Most of them aren't staying with the convoy all the way across the U.S. As Reuters reported, even the leading live-streamer plans to stop in Arizona.

The low numbers could be a problem if the intent is to lockdown the Beltway, which is 64 miles long.

In an exchange with a person claiming to be from Montana fought with a person talking about the time for praying is over. "GET OFF YOUR ASS AND FIGHT!!???" the person said. Bragging about building ARs and posting photos of a gun cabinet, the "Montana Patriot" said that they were heading to DC to "fight."

Utah has many cars as part of their convoy, though claims of a "thousand" vehicles appears exaggerated. While there might be "six miles" of the convoy, there are quite a few large spaces between each vehicle.

"The People’s Convoy will abide by agreements with local authorities, and terminate in the vicinity of the DC area, but will NOT be going into DC proper," they said in a press release, according to WJLA news.

Washington, DC has laws about the constant movement of traffic. As the Capitol city, Washington has many areas with heavy security perimeters around them. The narrow neighborhood streets and constant battles for parking means the city isn't a friendly place for anyone stopping on the streets. In fact, DC DOT regulates "through truck travel" the website says. "Few streets in the District of Columbia are completely restricted to trucks. Except for a few locations near sensitive federal structures, a truck restriction means that the street is closed to through truck traffic, but open to trucks making local deliveries."

The laws also say, "no trucks are permitted on the Roosevelt Bridge entering/exiting Washington DC and Virginia." they also say, "trucks are prohibited on I-66 east of I-495."

While both Maryland and Virginia have Republican governors, blocking highways in their states isn't likely to go over well. The Beltway is the route typically taken for Pentagon workers, NSA staff, CIA staff, Andrews Air Force Base, and others.

One trucker linked the orbit of Pluto to their overall goals of the convoy. It was supposed to be about protesting vaccine mandates, which have been struck down by the Supreme Court. Given the lighter Omicron variant more and more cities have begun to eliminate most mandates.

As the news and videos of the small convoys spread, they've become the butt of the joke for those living in the DMV metro area.


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