Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books available on this site.)
COMMENT: The far-right, Nazi-linked WikiLeaks is back in the news, with the same coterie of front-runners celebrating their actions.
When we last saw Our Heroes, the WikiLeaks crowd (Pirate Bay/Pirate Party/Anonymous) were in the process of being utilized to further the covert operation popularly known as “The Arab Spring,” aimed at bringing “corporatism” (as Mussolini termed his system) to the Middle East and Muslim worlds.
Never ones for learning from experience, the WikiLeaks crowd is celebrating the actions of Eddie the Friendly Spook [Snowden]. “Snowden’s Ride” has all the earmarks of a U‑2 Incident-style destabilization of Obama, and beyond that, the U.S. and U.K.
Under the circumstances, it may prove instructive to revisit “The Muslim Brotherhood Spring,” as we call it.
A major theme of the so-called “Arab Spring” was the belief that by allowing the Muslim Brotherhood unfettered access to the reins of political power, the resulting regimes would resemble the “modern,” “democratic” government of Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey.
(The For The Record series on the “Muslim Brotherhood Spring” runs from FTR #733 through FTR #739.)
In FTR #‘s 737, 738, 739, we noted that Erdogan’s government was a direct outgrowth of the Bank Al-Taqwa complex and an extension of the Islamic fascism of the Muslim Brotherhood. In addition, Erdogan’s regime has strong links to euro-fascists and the Underground Reich.
As civic unrest stemming from popular dissatisfaction with Erdogan’s governance have spread, he has responded with tactics and rhetoric precisely and eerily echoing the rhetoric of classic fascism. Borrowing from the rhetorical arsenal of Hitler and Mussolini, Erdogan has staged mass rallies of rabid supporters, used verbiage conflating the state and “the people” with himself, accused the opposition of being part of an amorphous conspiracy involving “foreign interests,” “speculators,” and the media–translation “Da Joos.”
Morsi has responded to opposition in a similar fashion, both tactically and rhetorically.
In a brutally ironic way, the “Arab Spring” operation has indeed resulted in the realization of Erdogan-style governance in the Middle East.
EXCERPT: The Turkish authorities widened their crackdown on the antigovernment protest movement on Sunday, taking aim not just at the demonstrators themselves, but also at the medics who treat their injuries, the business owners who shelter them and the foreign news media flocking here to cover a growing political crisis threatening to paralyze the government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
After an intense night of street clashes that represented the worst violence in nearly three weeks of protests, Mr. Erdogan rallied hundreds of thousands of his supporters on Sunday–many of them traveling on city buses and ferries that the government had mobilized for the event–at an outdoor arena on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. . . .
. . . . In at least two strongholds of support for Mr. Erdogan, the nature of the confrontation seemed to take more dangerous turn, as antigovernment protesters clashed with his civilian backers. In Mr. Erdogan’s childhood neighbor hood in Istanbul, a group of government supporters joined the police with sticks and fought against protesters, according to one witness. . . .
. . . Even before Mr. Erdogan took the stage to deliver his nearly two-hour-long speech, the master of ceremonies had bashed the foreign news media, which the prime minister has suggested is part of a foreign plot, along with financial speculators and terrorists, to topple his government.
“CNN International, are you ready for this?” shouted the announcer to the sea of people waving flags bearing Mr. Erdogan’s face and the yellow and white logo of his Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials as A.K.P.
Mr. Erdogan then singled out BBC, CNN and Reuters, saying, “for days, you fabricated news.”
“You portrayed Turkey differently to the world,” he continued. “You are left alone with your lies. This nation is not the one that you misrepresented to the world.”
At least 400 people were detained on Sunday, according to the Istanbul Bar Association, with local news reports saying that some journalists had been among them. One foreign photographer documenting the clashes Saturday night said a police officer had torn his gas mask off him while in a cloud of tear gas, and forced him to clear his memory card of photographs.
Some doctors and nurses who treated protesters were detained by security forces on Sunday, according to the legal offices of the Istanbul Chamber of Doctors. Lawyers have been held by the authorities in recent days. Mr. Erdogan said Sunday that even the owners of luxury hotels near Taksim Square who had provided refuge to protesters fleeing the chaos of the police raid were linked to terrorism.
“We know very well the ones that sheltered in the hotels those who cooperated with terror,” he said at the rally. “Will they not be held accountable? If we do not hold them accountable, then the nation will hold us accountable.” . . . .
. . . . At Mr. Erdogan’s rally on the seashore, near the walls of the ancient city, enthusiastic government supporters voiced anger at its opponents. Walking up to the rally grounds, people chanted, “Go gas them, Captain! Break their hands!” A helicopter overhead to provide panoramic footage for state television. . . .
EXCERPT: . . . . Naive Europeans hailed the 2010 ‘Arab Spring’ as promising a new era in the Middle East. Yet it seems more likely that those nations — Tunisia, Egypt and Libya — will merely be ruled by new autocrats.
The truth is that democracy is ailing — not least here in Britain. Many people despise and distrust politicians. . . .
. . . . Earlier this month, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, adopted one of the notorious phrases of the old fascist dictators: ‘My patience is exhausted.’
He then committed thousands of riot police with batons and tear gas to remove peaceful protesters from Istanbul’s Taksim Square.
Erdogan has said that democracy is an instrument to be exploited only as long as it is useful. He is thought to aspire to changing Turkey’s constitution to make himself an elected dictator.
Most educated urban Turks are appalled by his desire to break with the country’s century-old tradition of secularism and to once more put Islam at the heart of law.
He has restricted alcohol sales and attempted to criminalise adultery. More journalists are in prison in Turkey than in China.
Erdogan has been able to act despotically because as prime minister, he has delivered economic growth. He has won three elections through the votes of the small business class and rural peasantry, who value stability and traditional values far above personal freedom.
He can claim popular support, even though his style of rule is a travesty of democracy. Turkey is only the latest example of a nation bent on rolling back personal freedoms or resisting demands for it. . . .
Well this is predictably depressing: The Brazilian right-wing is trying to take over the protests:
And now Bulgeria appears to have a growing anti-oligarch/anti-corruption movement. A big focus of the protest is the recent appointment of a politician with a history of corruption to a newly empowered “security czar” post. The new security czar is also a member of the ethnic Turkish party and a frequent target of the far-right nationalist Ataka party. Ataka is of the “anti-capitalist”/“anti-corruption” strain of the far-right universe and has seen its popularity surge in the last year. So let’s hope the far-right stays far away from this one:
Note that while we should hope Ataka stays far away from the protest movement, that’s sort of hopeless hope given the nature of the movement. But at least it looks like Bulgarians are generally wary of these guys and appear to be striving to avoid violence altogether...despite Ataka’s attempts:
Thanks Dave!