OPINION

Someone's head is in the clouds, but it isn't LeBron'

Charita M. Goshay
The Repository Canton Ohio

Because we all could use a break from the nonstop drama, may I present the Rev. Sheila Zilinsky and her theory that LeBron James is secretly a wizard and card-carrying member of the Illuminati who conjures up demons by way of his pregame “chalk toss.”

No, really.

Someone - it wasn’t me - pointed out that James has that kind of power but he can’t regrow his fast-fading hairline?

If it truly is the case that James has the ability to conjure the Underworld, how then, to explain his leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers, not once but twice, when he simply could have used his hoo-doo to win-win?

Plus, with James being a faithful Northeast Ohioan, it only seems fair that he should have sprinkled a little magic dust on home plate at Progressive Field, and in the end zones at Cleveland Browns Stadium, commonly known as “the Factory of Sadness.”

At the very least, he could have prevented Hue Jackson from becoming the head coach in 2017, resulting in a historic 0-16 season, or are Cleveland sports teams so cursed that not even Beelzebub wants a piece of the action?

In 2016, James did carry the Cavs to the NBA World Championship, but what self-respecting wizard pulls only one rabbit out of the hat?

Zelinsky charges that James is engaging in black magic.

Well, he is Black, and he is pretty damned magical, even after 17 years.

James does have superpowers that have nothing to do with chalk.

His mantra is no spell, it’s simply this: “Nothing is given. Everything is earned.”

He has used his powers for good from the moment he was handed a cape.

Earlier this year, he used some of those powers to create More Than a Vote, an organization designed to help Americans to cast their votes.

More Than a Vote has secured Dodgers Stadium as a voting venue and is paying fines for some former felons in Florida, which has imposed a type of poll tax in the form of unpaid court fines.

Before you say that sounds reasonable and fair, ask yourself many Florida millionaires who have welched and dodged on their taxes and child support will be prevented from voting.

Now, does evil exist? Your answer probably depends on your belief system, your culture, even your politics.

If you believe in it, there’s no need to search for it in clouds of chalk.

Zilinsky, whose website describes her as a former top Canadian government official in the area of environmental policy, writes books and runs a podcast which she uses to spread her particular brand of Chrisitanty.

Among her other contentions are accusations that the Freemasons are fanboys of Satan, and that the Disney Co. uses “ Illuminati mind control” which has contributed to America’s spiritual demise. By positioning itself as a positive source of entertainment, Disney, Zilinsky argues, is manipulating Americans in plain sight.

Zilinsky has every right to worship and believe as she pleases. What she doesn’t have the right to do is impugn another person with baseless and scurrilous accusations.

There is a saying in evangelical circles that can be so spiritual that you are no earthly good.

James has used his power to ensure that hundreds of kids in Akron can attend the University of Akron tuition-free, and his LeBron James Family Foundation has helped numerous Akron families acquire safe and decent housing.

He and his business partner, Maverick Carter, have launched a media company to produce positive stories about the Black experiences which might not otherwise see the light of day.

He could just shut up and dribble as some have suggested he do. Instead, he has exercised his celebrity to speak truth to power.

October is around the corner, that time of year when the horror stories start to ramp up.

Clearly, we’re ahead of schedule.

An Illuminati Conspiracy Theory Captured American Imaginations in the Nation’s Earliest Days—And Offers a Lesson for Now

John Fea,
Time•September 24, 2020

  

Timothy Dwight circa 1795: Reverend Timothy Dwight IV (1752 - 1817) Credit - Getty Images

In the final weeks before the 2020 election, the outsize role of conspiracy theories in American politics has become unmistakable. For some Trump supporters in particular, campaign-season news is filtered through the powerful idea that hidden forces are at work, that the “deep state”—a supposed secret, shadowy and sinister group of leftist politicians, government bureaucrats, Chinese scientists, journalists, academics and intellectuals—is seeking to destroy American values. Seen through that lens, COVID-19, which has killed nearly 200,000 Americans, is a “hoax”; some even believe that Anthony Fauci is a “deep state doctor.”

But while the particulars of these theories may be new, the dynamics are not. In fact, they go all the way back to America’s earliest years: In the late 1790s, Jedidiah Morse, the congregational minister in Charlestown, Mass., and a well-known author of geography textbooks, drew national attention by suggesting that a secret organization called the Bavarian Illuminati was at work “to root out and abolish Christianity, and overturn all civil government.” Today, such an idea sounds both eerily familiar and like a relic of a less sophisticated time—but the lessons of that episode are decidedly relevant.

With the ratification of the Constitution fresh in the minds of most Americans, and upheaval ongoing across the Atlantic in the form of the French Revolution, the late 18th century was a volatile time. In that environment, Morse became convinced that this group of atheists and infidels were behind the secular Jacobin movement in France that sought to purge the nation of organized religion. He believed that the Illuminati group was pursuing the same clandestine agenda in America and was working closely with Thomas Jefferson-led Democratic Republicans, the Federalists’ political rivals, to pull it off.-

Morse, a Federalist himself, read about the Bavarian Illuminati in books published by European religious skeptics, which described a network of secret lodges scattered across the continent. In a 1798 fast day sermon, he appealed to the worst fears of those evangelicals who remained concerned with the moral character of the new republic. He described the Illuminati’s ominous attempts to “abjure Christianity, justify suicide (by declaring death an eternal sleep), advocate sensual pleasures agreeable to Epicurean philosophy…decry marriage, and advocate a promiscuous intercourse among the sexes.”

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

The presence of the Illuminati in America, Morse believed, should cause Christians to “tremble for the safety of our political, as well as our religious ark.” In another sermon on the subject, Morse printed a list of secret societies and Illuminati members currently working their sinister schemes in his Christian nation.

Soon Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale College in New Haven, Conn., expressed similar fears about the Illuminati and used his pen to sound the alarm. In a Fourth of July discourse entitled The Duty of Americans, at the Present Crisis, Dwight quoted from Revelation 16 to caution his listeners and eventual readers about “unclean teachers” who were educating innocent people in “unclean doctrines.” Such teachers were spreading throughout the world to “unite mankind against God.” As they performed their malicious work, the Bavarian Illuminati took cues from previous opponents of Protestant America–the Jesuits, Voltaire and the Masons, to name a few.

Dwight called Americans back to God. This, he believed, was the only effective way of resisting such subversive threats to social virtue. “Where religion prevails,” he wrote, “Illuminatism cannot make disciples, a French directory cannot govern, a nation cannot be made slaves, nor villains, nor atheists, nor beasts.” Dwight reminded his readers that if this dangerous society succeeded in its plans, the children of evangelicals would be forced to read the work of deists or become “concubines” of a society that treated “chastity” as a “prejudice,” adultery as virtue, and marriage as a “farce.”

By the turn of the 19th century, theories about the Illuminati had traveled up and down the Eastern Seaboard and as far as the Caribbean islands. Elias Boudinot, a former president of the Continental Congress, and John Jay, a Federalist statesman, also bought into this conspiracy theory.

Critics of these evangelical Federalists argued that Morse and Dwight, both clergymen, spent too much time dabbling in politics instead of tending to the souls of the Christians under their spiritual care. Others accused these conspiracy theorists of having “overheated imaginations”—and it soon became clear that, while the political forces at work in the 18th century U.S. were very real, this last group of critics was simply correct. There were no Illuminati forces at work in American politics. The conspiracy theory spread by these respected men was just that.

Eventually, Morse’s accusations against Democratic-Republican societies were unable to withstand the weight of evidence and he stopped talking about the Illuminati. As historian Jonathan Den Hartog has written, evangelical Federalists concerned about the preservation of a Christian nation “overplayed their hand” by propagating the Illuminati scare. In the process, they “called their standing as societal authorities into question, and ultimately weakened their position” as shapers of American culture. Within two decades the Federalist Party had faded from the political landscape, but their fears about the collapse of evangelical culture in the United States would persist well into the 21st century.

Today, many evangelical Christians, living with anxiety about perceived threats to what they believe to be the decline of a Christian nation, have turned toward conspiracy theories. Whether it is a “deep state” working secretly with the intelligence community to weaken the Trump administration, an Internet prophet called “Q” or demonic forces seeking to thwart God’s plan for America, we have seen this all before.

In 1790, truth, evidence and reason prevailed, but not before evangelical leaders embarrassed themselves and tarnished their Gospel witness. The comparisons with 2020 are not perfect. No historical analogies are. But sometimes, as we like to say, history rhymes.


John Fea is Distinguished Professor of American History at Messiah University and author of Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2007/03/origin-of-american-conspiracy-theories.html

Locked-up computer systems only part of 'terrifying' ransomware scourge

© Provided by The Canadian Press

TORONTO — A shadowy group of cyber criminals that attacked a prominent nursing organization and Canadian Tire store has successfully targeted other companies with clients in governments, health care, insurance and other sectors.

Posts on their NetWalker "blog" indicate the recent infiltration of cloud-services company Accreon and document company Xpertdoc, although only the College of Nurses of Ontario has publicly acknowledged being victimized.

Experts say NetWalker surfaced about a year ago but its attacks took off in March as the criminals exploited fears of COVID and people working remotely. The ransomware, like similar malware, often infiltrates computer networks via phishing emails. Such messages masquerade as genuine, prompting users to provide log-in information or inadvertently download malware.

Earlier ransomware attacks focused on encrypting a target's files — putting them and even backups out of reach. Increasingly, attackers also threaten to publish data stolen during their "dwell time," the days or weeks spent inside an exploited network before encryption and detection.

The intruders promise to provide a decryption key and to destroy stolen records if the organization pays a ransom, often based on what the attackers have learned about its finances, by a given deadline.

To underscore the extortion, NetWalker criminals publish tantalizing screen shots of information they have, such as personnel, financial, legal and health records.

"The data in these cases is extremely sensitive," said Brett Callow, a Vancouver Island-based threat analyst with cyber-security firm, Emsisoft. "Lots of companies choose not to disclose these incidents, so the individuals and (third-party) organizations whose data have been compromised never find out."

In an interview, Richard Brossoit, CEO of Montreal-based Xpertdoc, said this month's attack was a "little terrifying" at first. Fortunately, he said, damage was limited and no confidential client or personal information was compromised, although some records might be permanently lost.

"Once we were able to isolate the problem and knew it was minimal — that our customers weren't really affected at all — obviously it was a very big relief," Brossoit said.

With new computers, his several dozen employees were back up and running within days, he said. Still, Xpertdoc did hire specialists to deal with the cyber-criminals.

"We were able to negotiate a very low ransom," Brossoit said. "They didn't ask too much and we were able to actually negotiate much lower than what they were asking."

Morneau Shapell, one of dozens of potential third-party victims, said it accepted Xpertdoc's assurances no sensitive information had been compromised.

Accreon, which has until the first weekend in October to pay up, would not discuss its situation.

NetWalker did recently publish gigabytes of internal data from a Canadian Tire store in Kelowna, B.C. In response to a query, Canadian Tire Corporation said store computers were hit and authorities were investigating.

"This incident has not affected the Canadian Tire Corporation computer networks that process customer information or purchases," the company said, adding store employees were told their personal information had been compromised.

The nurses' college, which angered members by taking more than a week to publicly admit the attack discovered Sept. 8, did say it was getting back on its feet, although some services remained down.

"We share our members' distress and frustration that this has happened," college CEO Anne Coghlan said in a statement. "Members can rest assured that we will notify them directly if we identify any risk to individuals."

The consequences of ransomware can go beyond the financial and reputational. This month, for example, a hospital in Duesseldorf, Germany, was unable to admit a patient for urgent treatment after an apparent cyber-attack crippled its IT system, authorities said. The woman died.

Such attacks have become increasingly frequent. Earlier victims in Canada include municipalities — among them Stratford and Wasaga Beach in Ontario and the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen in B.C. — health-care organizations and charities. Cloud storage companies, with troves of third-party data, have also become attractive targets.

This year, the University of California San Francisco paid US$1.14 million to regain access to its data. The encrypted information, the school said, was "important to some of the academic work we pursue as a university serving the public good."

Just how often victims pay — and how much — is hard to know. One analysis by New Zealand-based Emsisoft, using available data, estimates ransomware losses for Canadian enterprises could run up to US$1.7 billion this year.

"It's really difficult to get accurate statistics," said David Masson, a director with cyber-security company Darktrace. "Those who pay won't be telling you. If you do pay, you're probably going to be attacked again because very quickly...you're going to get a reputation that you paid."

Those behind NetWalker appear to be Russian speaking. They provide the malware for a cut to "affiliates," who promise not to attack Russian or Russia-friendly targets.

"Their attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated," Callow said. "These groups are using the exact same tools as nation-state actors. In some cases, they may actually be nation-state actors."

Experts say up-to-date anti-virus software, segmenting networks and keeping separate backups are among critical protective measures. In addition, Masson said knowing what is going on within a network is crucial, while Brossoit advised hiring specialists should an attack happen.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Sept. 27, 2020.

Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press

Feds promise free, automatic tax returns — a change that could send benefits to thousands

John Paul Tasker
  

© Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press The federal Liberal government promised in its speech from the throne that it would introduce free, automatic tax filing through the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

The federal government says it will soon introduce a free, automatic tax filing system for simple returns — a policy change meant to provide government benefits to qualified people who don't collect them now because they skip filing their taxes.

The promise — a one-line commitment buried in the 6,783-word speech from the throne — could help hundreds of thousands of low- and fixed-income Canadians access benefits that are only paid to people who file tax returns.

By law, and in most cases, only people who owe taxes are required to file a return each year with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).


Many people — notably those on government assistance — don't expect to owe the federal government anything, so they seldom file.

Under the proposed changes, the CRA itself would draw up the paperwork for such simple returns each year — using data they already have on hand about individuals' income — to eliminate a bureaucratic burden that stands in the way of financial support.

Experts in tax policy have long said that the CRA already has enough personal information to automatically fill out tax returns for many infrequent filers. Much of the needed figures are electronically transmitted to the agency by employers and government agencies alike.

Thirty-six countries, including Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, already permit return-free filing for some taxpayers.
Many Canadians missing out on federal money

On average, 12 per cent of working-age adults in Canada don't send in a return each year — a number that jumps to 15.9 per cent in Ontario, according to figures compiled by researchers at Carleton University.

As a result, many would-be recipients miss out on some federal programs like the Canada child benefit (CCB), the Canada workers benefit and the carbon tax rebate — money that could give a significant leg-up to low-income families.

Fewer than 3 per cent of homeless Canadians collect the GST/HST credit, according to research done by the Calgary Homeless Foundation.

Research from Prosper Canada, published in 2018, suggests as many as 40 per cent of eligible First Nations families aren't collecting the CCB — a monthly cheque paid to people with kids who fall below a certain income bracket.

A 2017 CBC News report documented internal government concerns about the slow uptake of the CCB among First Nations, Métis and Inuit people.

The Liberal government reworked the benefit, which was introduced by former prime minister Stephen Harper, and tightened eligibility to send more money to low- and middle-income Canadians — but many of the neediest were still left out.

Employment and Social Development Canada, the department responsible for sending the cheques to families, cited "a mistrust of the federal government and its programs and a resistance to taxation" as reasons why so many Indigenous people were leaving thousands of dollars unclaimed.

Lindsay Tedds is a professor of fiscal and economic policy at the University of Calgary. She said tying benefit eligibility to a tax filing is bad policy because it leaves out many eligible recipients who, for whatever reason, don't file returns.

Tedds said that for too long, tax filing and tax software lobby groups have been actively discouraging the CRA and its U.S. equivalent, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), from implementing automatic returns for fear it could put a dent in profits.

"I find it really disturbing that someone with a very simple tax return is going to a provider to pay $60 to have them fill out something that the CRA already can do," Tedds told CBC News.

"If we're going to deliver benefits through the tax system then we absolutely have to rethink our tax structure that was set up in 1918. A significant number of vulnerable people are missing out."

She said that while the change looks like a simple fix, it could go a long way toward achieving poverty reduction objectives.

A spokesperson for National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier said the government is committed to making the tax process easier and more affordable for Canadians.

"In fact, in 2018, we introduced 'File my Return' where low and fixed-income Canadians were invited to file their tax returns through a simple and free telephone service," the spokesperson said in a statement.

But Tedds said that program — which involves CRA agents proactively reaching out to people by phone or mail to encourage them to file in order to collect benefits — isn't all that useful because there's a great deal of mistrust out there, especially among Indigenous people.

"We have a colonial and institutional system whereby the interaction they have with the state is solely the state coming to take their kids away, so proactively reaching out is not going to overcome these fundamental barriers," she said.

Tedds said many within the CRA see the institution as just a collection agency and not a purveyor of benefits — and are blind to the agency's grim reputation.

"The CRA is not known as being a loving, caring, nurturing organization to deal with," she said. "When we look at the data, CRA is not doing a fantastic job here.

"There are those in CRA and the Department of Finance who just don't fundamentally understand that the tax system is actually a barrier to achieving other objectives."

People of Praise: Barrett pick draws attention to small religious group CULT

By Gregory Krieg, Em Steck and Daniel Burke, CNN

© University of Notre Dame



President Donald Trump's nomination of federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court has drawn new attention to her association with a Christian group called People of Praise.

Barrett has not spoken publicly about her relationship to the religious community, which was founded in 1971 and includes "Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians and other denominational and nondenominational Christians," according to its website.

Interest in Barrett and her background has been intensified by the condensed timeframe Republicans have laid out for her potential confirmation. That she would be replacing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon and supporter of abortion rights, has only heightened the tensions surrounding the nomination process.

Barrett's religious beliefs came up during 2017 confirmation hearings to her current seat on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals. California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein questioned whether the nominee could separate her faith from her legal opinions. At issue then, as it is now, is how her faith would inform her approach, especially on legal challenges to abortion rights.

Barrett said at the time that her personal views would have "no bearing on the discharge of my duties as a judge" -- on abortion or any other question before the court. She did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

But Barrett's association with People of Praise was not mentioned during the 2017 hearing and only became widely known, and the subject of speculation, when the New York Times published a report on Barrett and the group that September, after she took senators' questions but before her confirmation in the Senate.

Barrett has frequently appeared in a "Vine and Branches," the People of Praise magazine. Those mentions included birth and adoption announcements for some of her children and other passing mentions and images. A number of online versions of the issues that include her appear to have been removed from the website -- though it is unclear why that action was taken. The magazine's website no longer has issues for May 2006, July 2008, December 2008, March 2010, Winter 2011, Summer 2012 and Fall 2012, which all contained references to Barrett, her husband or children.

The references were scrubbed between January 2017 and June 2017. Barrett was announced as the White House's nominee as a circuit judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in May 2017.

In the questionnaire submitted to the Judiciary Committee when she was nominated by Trump to her current judgeship, Barrett disclosed that she served on the board of trustees of the Trinity School from 2015 to 2017. People of Praise founded the school in South Bend, Indiana, in 1981.

It opened two more -- one in Eagan, Minnesota, in 1987 and other in Falls Church, Virginia, in 1998. While students who attend the schools are not necessarily members of People of Praise, the group's communications director Sean Connolly said membership is a prerequisite to serving on the school's board.

People of Praise also removed a blog post from September 2015 announcing that Barrett had been elected to the board of trustees of the Trinity School. It is unclear when or why it was taken down.

Connolly declined to comment on why the post had been taken down. He would not discuss Coney Barrett's affiliation with People of Praise, citing official policy.

"Like most religious communities, People of Praise leaves it up to its members to decide whether to publicly disclose their involvement in our community. And like most religious communities, we do not publish a membership list," Connolly told CNN.

People of Praise counts 1,700 members spread across 22 cities in North America and the Caribbean, including South Bend, Indiana, where Barrett lives. The group's members make a "covenant," or "lifelong promise of love and service to fellow community members," according to its website, which distinguishes the commitment from an "oath" or "vow."

It recently dropped its use of the term "handmaids," which described a woman acting as a spiritual leader in the group and was taken from a Biblical description of Mary.

"We have chosen to rely on male leadership at the highest level of our community based on our desire to be a family of families," Connolly said. "We follow the New Testament teaching that the husband is the head of the family, and we have patterned our community on this New Testament approach to family life."

Connolly added that women "take on a variety of leadership roles within People of Praise, including serving as heads of several of our schools and directing ministries within our community."

"Christian leadership always involves service and sacrifice, and in no way involves superiority or domination among spouses," he said.

Barrett has charted a meteoric rise in academic and legal circles. Her colleagues at Notre Dame, where she was hired nearly two decades ago and still teaches, wrote an effusive letter of support when she was first nominated to the federal bench.

"As a scholarly community, we have a wide range of political views, as well as commitments to different approaches to judicial methodology and judicial craft," they said. "We are united, however, in our judgment about Amy. She is a brilliant teacher and scholar, and a warm and generous colleague."

She was confirmed to the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017 with 55 votes in the Senate. Among the Democrats to cross party lines: Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016.

False 'thug' narratives have long been used to discredit movements

© Provided by NBC News

President Donald Trump has developed a harsh vocabulary list for those involved in the Black Lives Matter protests, calling those in the streets everything from “terrorists” and “anarchists” to “thugs.”

Since the protests erupted in the wake of the death of George Floyd on May 25, a Black man who died while held down under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, the president has used “thug” to describe those protesting his death and police brutality nearly a dozen times on Twitter and often on the campaign trail.

“They are not “peaceful protesters”, as Sleepy Joe and the Democrats call them, they are THUGS - And it is all taking place in Democrat run cities. Call me and request Federal HELP. We will solve your problems in a matter of minutes - And thanks to the U.S. Marshalls in Portland!,” Trump tweeted last week.

Trump's adoption of the word "thug" isn’t a new trope for politicians. The narrative of violence has been used to delegitimize racial protest movements throughout the nation’s civil rights history, largely in an effort to undermine the message and diminish support, political experts say. The use of the word thug is a part of that history and continuum.

It's all part of an effort to rewrite the history of peaceful movements, tarnishing legitimate protests with the specter of violence. Often, as in the case of Black Lives Matter, it is notably false.

Of the more than 7,750 Black Lives Matter demonstrations held across the country in the last several months, 93 percent have been peaceful, according to a report by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a nonprofit organization that tracks global political protest and violence, and Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative published in September.

Between May 26 and Aug. 22, “more than 93 percent of all demonstrations connected to the movement, demonstrators have not engaged in violence or destructive activity. Peaceful protests are reported in over 2,400 distinct locations around the country. Violent demonstrations, meanwhile, have been limited to fewer than 220 locations — under 10 percent of the areas that experienced peaceful protests,” the report stated.

“Violent demonstrations include “acts targeting other individuals, property, businesses, other rioting groups or armed actors” among others. In areas where protests did turn violent, the demonstrations were "largely confined to specific blocks, rather than dispersed throughout the city ” the report added.

Despite the numbers, the overarching portrayal of the protests by those opposed to the movement have been that they are violent, unruly and destructive. That's a strategic choice, said Trimiko Melancon, a professor of African American and American literary and cultural studies at Rhodes College.

Melancon noted that acts of violence that have been the exception and not the rule are propped up and seized upon to justify suppression of an entire movement that has been largely peaceful.

EVOLUTION OF THE VIOLENT NARRATIVE

As the civil rights movement gained momentum in the mid-20th century, there was a reflexive impulse from those opponents of the movement in the West Wing to the FBI to often refer to civil rights activists as “subversives,” a label that often implied violent intent and designs, noted Brett Gadsden, professor of political history at Northwestern University.

He added that the charge of ‘subversive,’ leveled by officials who opposed concerted challenges to racial inequalities and inequities, also served to cast activists’ demands as outside the mainstream current of reputable politics and diminish their claims to rights owed to citizens of the republic.

“Civil rights activists were demanding the recognition of their rights as citizens of the republic and the core of their movement looked toward the 14th and 15th Amendments as milestones.”

One of the most glaring examples was in 1963 during the Birmingham protests against the Jim Crow laws that had long legalized racial segregation, he said. When protesters mounted nonviolent direct action campaigns challenging unjust laws, authorities often cited the violence that resulted in property damage as examples of militant rage as a way to purposefully diminish and distract the nation from the original claims of protesters.

“I think we see variations of that going on in American cities today. The Trump administration cites the kinds of late-night violence and destruction of private property as a way of purposely distracting from the original complaints about rioters, which is abuses of power by police.”

Protesters asking for justice for a man who died as a result of a police officer putting his knee on his neck for almost 8 minutes, have been cast as some kind of threat to the social fabric of society, he added.

The Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s faced similar discrediting. Their demands for equity and equality were portrayed as threatening and dangerous, said Todd Shaw, a professor of political science and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina.

Shaw said that that perceived threat then became the basis of an aggressive “law and order” response by President Richard Nixon.

That tactic intentionally projected aspects of the civil rights movement, the Black power movement and the racial unrest that emerged around questions of police brutality as violent, he said. Nixon seized upon that narrative telling white suburban women, for example, they would have to remain in his camp for protection, otherwise the violence would seep into their neighborhood, Shaw added.


Nixon homed in on violence and crime implicitly and explicitly linking both to race during his campaign and as president. On one occasion in 1972, after reviewing one of his campaign television ads on crime, he remarked that it “hits it right on the nose. It’s all about law and order and the damn Negro-Puerto Rican groups out there.”

Nixon's appeal to law and order and protection has had echoes this summer.

“I am your President of law and order, and an ally of all peaceful protesters,” Trump said in a speech given at the White House in June. “We are ending the riots and lawlessness that has spread throughout our country.".

HIDDEN MEANING OF “THUG”

While civil rights protesters have been characterized as violent in the past, “thug” has become the modern racialized iteration to describe these individuals today.

The term originated in India to describe gangs of thieves who swindled and lied and was eventually co-opted in the West over the last century with the same criminalized connotation through books, music and movies.

“‘Thug’ is a coded and racialized term that people use instead of Black or brown. These labels and monikers have particular layers and certain things already embedded in them, so when people hear that they know who it means,” Melancon of Rhodes College said.

Melancon said these words paint protesters not not as peaceful demonstrators, law-abiding people or patriots who are exercising their first amendment rights, but as an enemy of the state.

“None of this is new or novel, you see particular iterations of this over time,” she said. “It's not history repeating itself, but more moving along a similar kind of continuum.”

But the term has not been linked to Trump or the right wing alone, it was also used by President Barack Obama and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in 2015 to describe those participating in riots after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody.

Both faced significant backlash for carelessly using the loaded and racialized term that many feel is akin to the worst racial slurs, John McWhorter, associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, said in an interview with NPR.

“IF YOU SAY THERE IS A THREAT, THEN YOU HAVE TO BACK IT UP”

During a conference call last week, Attorney General William Barr advised federal prosecutors across the country to consider bringing several aggressive federal charges against people arrested at protests, including the highly unusual charge of sedition, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Sedition charges can carry up to 20 years in prison and are brought against those who plot to overthrow the government.

“This is not innocuous and it's not by accident. It's deliberate and strategic and used to undermine the very movement for racial justice and civil rights by creating a particular narrative of resistance, disturbance and even criminality,” Melancon explained. “No one feels comfortable siding with violence, so when people hear this, even well-intentioned people, this creates a particular type of fear and hysteria.”

And using the term “thug” is part of the tactic, she added

Part of the narrative of violence is written with optics and playing up a threat, Shaw of the University of South Carolina added. If you say there is a threat, then you have to back it up, he said.

Many times, the rhetoric around threats creates a disproportionate force in action.

That means, despite the fact that demonstrations associated with the BLM movement have been overwhelmingly peaceful, “more than 9 percent or nearly 1 in 10 — have been met with government intervention, compared to 3 percent of all other demonstrations,” the report by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project said. “Authorities have used force — such as firing less lethal weapons like tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray or beating demonstrators with batons — in over 54 percent of the demonstrations in which they have engaged. This too is a significant increase relative to one year ago.”

“Of course, there are some law enforcement concerns given some degree of violence, but there are ways by now that American policing and law enforcement are aware of what inflames violence and protests and what ratchets it down.”

“We see the deployment of the military when it's a war zone,” Melancon said. “When you see them with demonstrators, we automatically think they are the ones participating in un-American acts.

The narrative is also employed to detract support and sympathy, she explained.

“Early on, people are sympathetic because they see images of people being shot in the streets with impunity. So, initially, they are empathic, and then what has to happen is that you have to change that narrative. You encounter it by showing that they are not innocent and they are not demonstrators,” she said.

People say, “Well, that’s what the consequence is if they weren't acting peacefully, therefore, they were met with these consequences,” she said.

DISAGGREGATING VIOLENCE AND THE MOVEMENT

Experts like Gadsden noted that when there is violence, it is important to distinguish those episodes from protests organized as purposefully nonviolent direct action campaigns.

Distinguishing between the acts is both crucial and something that civil rights leaders in the past, like Martin Luther King Jr., tried to maintain, he said. These leaders made special efforts to ensure discipline among the ranks of marchers in places like Birmingham to prevent rioting and destruction of public property that would diminish their claims in the public sphere.


Several Black Lives Matter chapters have condemned violence taken place during protests.

T. Sheri Dickerson, leader of the Oklahoma City chapter of Black Lives Matter, condemned violence that occurred in the aftermath of a protest in June, and stressed that the movement encourages peaceful protests. “I never disparage my community members for choosing however they decide they want to express themselves, however, this was not something that was promoted by us. It certainly was not condoned by the Black Lives Matter-OKC chapter.”

In response to mass looting in Chicago last month, Amika Tendaji, executive director of the groups Chicago chapter said, “organizationally, we certainly don’t have anything to do with — or condone — illegal activity that, you know, really frightens and, quite frankly, pisses off a lot of Black folks.”

This isn’t new. After a lone attacker ambushed Dallas police officers at the end of a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in 2016, organizers said "Black activists have raised the call for an end to violence, not an escalation of it.”

When people see direct action campaigns like those protesting in the streets, opponents of reform cite any incident of “illegal behavior” as part and parcel of that main movement itself and those expressions of violence get cited at the expense of the very legitimate claims of the original movements themselves, Gadsden said. He noted that when some protesters have resorted to violence, it is essential to never lose sight of the persistent institutional racism that serves as the structural foundations of popular discontent.

There is also a level of “infiltration” within these movements, Melancon said. You have well-intentioned protesters who are not participating in violence and then you have outside agitators whose very specific role is to make it as though those demonstrators are looting and burning.

Since May, Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project has recorded more than 100 events in which nonstate actors actively engaged in demonstrations, including counterdemonstrations. The vast majority of those counters were in response to demonstrations associated with the BLM movement, the report stated.

WILL THE “THUG” NARRATIVE STICK AROUND THIS TIME?

There is a notable difference between Black Lives Matter as a movement and the civil rights movement that preceded it: leadership. In 2020, there is no central leadership. In the past, notable leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. were characterized as radical at times in order to put their following in a bad light.

Further, this particular movement has also garnered a massive multiracial and multicultural coalition. Many Americans have also demonstrated sympathy to the central organization tenets that Black lives matter and are critical of these extraordinary forms of policing. That doesn’t mean Black Lives Matter is immune from those opposing the movement, including the president, from using violence as a narrative and thug as an adjective. Undoubtedly, the "thug" narrative will continue to be ramped up as the election draws near, experts said.

“A creation of these narratives is really central to our understanding of social protest movements and the government's reaction to them,” Gadsden said. “That is the case whether it is civil rights, suffrage, environmental justice, that there are always forces of opposition trying to create counternarratives that purposefully misrepresent and caricature these movements to delegitimize them.”

VIDEOS

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/us/false-thug-narratives-have-long-been-used-to-discredit-movements/ar-BB19tfHc?ocid=msedgntp

Protests in Madrid before partial lockdown widened

AFP

© OSCAR DEL POZO Demonstrators are angry about uneven lockdowns across the Spanish capital region

Protesters hit the streets of Madrid against virus restrictions on Sunday, a day before a partial lockdown is extended to more areas of Spain's capital region try to curb a surge in coronavirus cases  

.  

© OSCAR DEL POZO One sign at the Madrid protest accused authorities of "segregation"

The city with its surrounding region is at the epicentre of a second wave of infections sweeping Spain.

Covid-19 has already claimed more than 31,000 lives among more than 700,000 cases nationwide, the highest infection rate in the European Union.



Some 850,000 people in 37 mainly densely-populated low-income districts in southern Madrid have since September 21 been confined to their neighbourhoods, unable to leave except for work, school or medical reasons -- although they are able to move freely within their own areas.

 

© PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU Madrid hospitals are again coming under strain

Parks in the affected neighbourhoods are closed and restaurants and other businesses must shut at 10 pm in a country with a tradition of eating late.

The regional government of Madrid, which is responsible for health, will from Monday extend the restrictions to eight more districts home to another 167,000 people.

Its latest move falls short of a recommendation from Spain's leftist central government that the partial lockdown should cover the entire city.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the Madrid regional parliament in southern district Vallecas, one of the neighbourhoods under partial lockdown since last week, to protest against the restrictions.

Many complained of discrimination by the authorities.

"It's not lockdown, it's segregation!" the crowd chanted as they briefly blocked a road in front of the assembly.

"They don't confine the rich," was among one of the signs on display at the protest, which drew groups of young people, retired couples and young parents pushing baby strollers.

- 'Makes no sense' -

Similar smaller demonstrations were held in other parts of the city, including in front of city hall and at the seat of Madrid's regional government in the central Puerta del Sol square.

"It makes no sense that you can go to work in a wealthier area but can't go have a drink," Marcos Ruiz Guijarro, a 27-year-old electrician who like many of his neighbours travels to the centre of Madrid every day to work, told AFP.

"Infections are rising everywhere, the rules should be the same for everyone."

Many demonstrators complained that the regional government was failing to improve public healthcare or doing anything to reduce overcrowding in the transport system, where they said the virus could easily spread.

The protesters clapped in unison while calling for the resignation of regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso, under fire for saying that the "lifestyle" of people in the affected neighbourhoods was partly to blame for the rise in Covid-19 cases.

The regional government says it has targeted areas where the contagion rate is above 1,000 cases per 100,000 people.

- Hospitals overrun -

But national Health Minister Salvador Illa on Friday called on the regional government to extend its restrictions to the entire city as well to surrounding areas with more than 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

He warned that hospitals in the region of around 6.6 million people are already overrun with coronavirus cases, and it should prepare for some "hard weeks" ahead.

In a tweet on Sunday he once again urged the regional government of Madrid to "review the measures it announced and follow the recommendations of scientists and health experts".

Since the central government ended its state of emergency on June 21, responsibility for managing the pandemic has been transferred to Spain's 17 autonomous regions.

Over the past week, Spain has registered the highest number of new cases within the EU with a rate of nearly 300 per 100,000 inhabitants -- but in the Madrid region, the figure is currently more than 700 per 100,000.

ds/tgb

Lincoln Project mocks Lindsey Graham's fundraising lag with Sarah McLachlan-themed video

BY MARINA PITOFSKY - 09/25/20 

The Lincoln Project, a conservative super PAC opposed to President Trump and several incumbent GOP lawmakers, released a new ad Friday mocking Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican said he was “getting killed financially” by his Democratic challenger, Jaime Harrison.

“Every single hour in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham is violently out-fundraised,” the ad states, playing Sarah McLachlan’s song "Angel" over various images of Graham. The song has been featured in a number of television commercials for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

“Lindsey Graham won in 2014,” the ad states. “But this year, it might be too late.”

“For just pennies a day, you can save Lindsey Graham’s Senate race,” the ad continues, urging viewers to call a phone number. A site promoted by the ad redirects to a fundraising page for the super PAC.

The ad includes audio of Graham's interviews on Fox News earlier this week when he said he was "getting killed financially" by Harrison. Graham said on the network that "this money is because they hate my guts.”

“My opponent will raise $100 million in the state of South Carolina,” Graham said. “The most money ever spent in the history of the state on a Senate race was by me in 2014 when I spent $13 million.”

Harrison raised approximately $28 million as of the last Federal Election Commission filings in June, compared to Graham’s $29 million. The GOP lawmaker also held a cash advantage over Harrison in June, reporting $15 million in reserves compared to Harrison’s $10.2 million.

However, the Democratic candidate has reported a surge in recent financial support for his campaign, saying he raised $2 million with 48 hours after a poll showed him and Graham tied in the state.

Harrison taunted Graham over his remarks on Fox News this week urging supporters to boost his campaign, calling it an "Oscar-winning performance" in a tweet on Friday.

The Cook Political Report rates the race between Graham and Harrison as “lean Republican.”

VIDEO https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/518394-lincoln-project-mocks-lindsey-graham-fundraising-lag-with-sarah

SUPERSPREADER EVENT

Thousands Attend Rev. Franklin Graham's Prayer March in DC

Faithful followers of Franklin Graham march from the Lincoln Memorial to Capitol Hill, during the Prayer March at the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. (Jose Luis Magana/AP)


By Tauren Dyson | Saturday, 26 September 2020 03:09 PM


Thousands of Christians showed up to the National Mall on Saturday for the 2020 Washington Prayer March organized by the Rev. Franklin Graham.

The prayer march "focused solely asking God to heal our land," according to the organizer's website.

The two-hour event was designed to stop at seven locations on a nearly two-mile route where attendees would be asked to "pray silently using the focus and prompts for each location."

One of those locations included the World War II memorial, where participants prayed for the military, police, and their families, along with peace in the United States.

Vice President Mike Pence appeared at the event along with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Liberty University President Jerry Prevo tweeted:

"These buses are filled with Christians committed to prayer and to God's best for this nation. They're college students today – and the leaders of tomorrow. They’re Champions for Christ."

At the Washington Monument, the attendees prayed for families, for the salvation of the lost, and an end to abortion.

SMACK DOWN 

Dwayne Johnson backs Biden in first public presidential endorsement

DO YOU SMELL WHATS COOKING

BY ZACK BUDRYK - 09/27/20 

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Sunday morning, calling the November election “critical.”

“I’ve got friends in all parties, but the one thing we can always agree on is the conversation and the dialogue, and where that conversation lands is always the most critical part,” Johnson said in a video he tweeted Sunday.

The actor and former wrestler described a conversation on political issues he recently had with Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).

“I thought it was a great and extremely productive conversation that we had, and as a registered Independent for years now with centrist ideologies, I do feel that Vice President Biden and Sen. Harris are the best choice to lead our country, and I am endorsing them to become president and vice president of our United States,” Johnson said.

The video includes a clip of the remote conversation between the three, in which Johnson noted he has never made a public presidential endorsement before.

“You guys are both experienced to lead. You’ve done great things. Joe, you’ve had such an incredible career, and you’ve led with such great compassion, heart, drive and soul,” Johnson said. “Kamala, you have been a district attorney, a state attorney, a U.S. senator. You are smart and tough. I have seen you in those hearings.”

Johnson has been largely politically neutral in public in the past. He spoke at the 2000 Republican National Convention and the same year appeared at a nonpartisan World Wrestling Entertainment voter registration event at the Democratic National Convention. He told Rolling Stone in 2018 that he voted for former President Obama twice but did not vote in the 2016 election.