The correct response to Fascism is not compromise: QAnon and hate speech need to be attacked head-on

 

After the invasion of - and temporary suspension of - Congress, what is the correct response? As a peace maker, you might think I would opt for compromise, but that is not my position. A surgeon faced with a cancerous tumor does not wait until the tumor gets bigger: he cuts it out as soon as possible, and radiates the surrounding area to ensure the cancer does not grow back. QAnon is a cancer in the American body politic, and it needs to be treated like the Fascist Cancer it has become.

Gregory Stanton, founding president of Genocide Watch, explains: “QAnon’s conspiracy theory is copied from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a conspiracy theory promoted the Nazi party that helped Hitler come to power in Germany.

Stanton argues that QAnon is simply the Nazi cult rebranded. “Two definitions of a cult are: a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister; and a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing: a cult of personality surrounding the leaders. QAnon’s strange and sinister beliefs qualify it as a cult, as does QAnon’s misplaced admiration for Donald Trump.”

 

Washington Post journalists have studied the history and social media of Ashli Babbitt, the fanatical, over-hyped San Diego woman who was shot by police as she tried to break into the Speaker's Lobby during the insurrectionist riot that took over parts of the Capitol, Ashli's profile fits that of susceptible people who find themselves "at sea" in society, unable to cope in our overly complex and fast-moving world, and who develop feelings of alienation that suck them into a Cult like QAnon, with its lurid claims of child-trafficking paedophiles including - among others - Hillary Clinton, Hollywood stars, Jewish financiers and Democrat politicians, and even (as highlighted in the unbelievably awful 'Left Behind' books that have sold 50 million copies in the USA), a wicked United Nations Secretary-General with a Rumanian name who covertly helps the paedophiles and financial manipulators to rule the world. Only President Trump can bring them to justice with his secret plan that will deliver what QAnon’s disciples refer to as “The Storm” or “The Great Awakening”.

Wit is one of the medicines against extremism and excess. But wit is not a cure.

Robert Johnson, who helps moderate the Qanoncasualties site after watching a relative fall victim to the movement, warned anyone can fall down the QAnon rabbit hole.

“How fast someone can be sucked in? If they are susceptible, I’d say five days to start believing. If they have an underlying condition, they can reach mania in a week.”

The question is: What do you do with a Fascist Cult?  

The answer from historical experience seems that you need to crush the Fascism before it crushes you. You do not compromise. You do impeach Donald Trump. You do imprison all those people who invaded the Capitol, breaching and looting the Temple of American Democracy. You forcibly remove electoral gerrymandering through the creation of an Independent Electoral Commission in every U.S. State to supervise elections, electoral registration and redistricting. You clean out the Capitol Police who appear to have been complicit in the invasion of the Capitol. You implement radical police reforms in America: not 'defunding' the police (which is a silly slogan), but removing their military weapons which are inappropriate to policing. You  insist that the thousands of different and often mis-managed police forces throughout America adopt community policing standards in place of their bullying repressive culture. Swat teams and repressive functions should be restricted to State Police.

The new Attorney General must ensure that IMPARTIAL JUSTICE is offered to all the people of the United States of America. Better police standards. Better coordination with and between courts

But that is not all. The Internet needs to be regulated to promote freedom of expression without insult and abuse, without hatred and racism. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google ..... all have been guilty of propagating - and indeed encouraging - hate speech. Their banning of Donald Trump AFTER the invasion of the Capitol is proof of their last-minute panic, once the Georgia Senate elections were decided in favor of the Democrats. Regulation is what keeps society safe. Corporations can never be trusted to make decisions that benefit society. They benefit only themselves. The First law of Capitalism is: "profit myself" and not society at large.

The biggest problems on the web seem to be anonymity and impunity. If people are traceable, accountable and prosecutable for their aggressivity - and if the hate-mongers are prosecuted - then we may be able to reduce to evils of the world wide web, return it to its primary purpose of promoting happiness. We must fight the Fascism major players have been promoting (unwittingly or knowingly). 

Many distinguished people have retired from public life because they no longer wish to face the threats and the insults. Civic discourse needs to be restored. Freedom of speech needs to be matched by the obligation to listen. Death threats should be unacceptable in any society:  people who make them should be forced into many hours of reconversion therapy in an institutional setting, + many days of anger management training at their own expense, + many months of community-service. 

No compromise. The Fascist Cancer needs to be vanquished.

The problem is complex and the solutions are complicated: so the sooner we start to attack the problem by outlawing hate speech and reforming those who promote it, the happier we shall be.

 

Bulliying Is Bad, Boris is wrong, Pritti Patel must go

 ON ETHICS and IMMATURITY in GOVERNMENT

Sir Alex Allan was the British Government’s advisor on ethics. Until Friday 20^th November 2020. He has just issued a report criticizing home secretary Pritti Patel’s “behaviour that can be described as bullying” – citing instances of Patel shouting and swearing, and finding that she had breached the ministerial code.

Sir Alex writes: “My advice is that the Home Secretary has not consistently met the high standards required by the Ministerial Code of treating her civil servants with consideration and respect. Her approach on occasions has amounted to behaviour that can be described as bullying in terms of the impact felt by individuals. To that extent her behaviour has been in breach of the Ministerial Code, even if unintentionally.”  Unintentionally? Bullying behaviour is never unintentional. Shouting and swearing is a sign of immaturity and lack of control: and if you are the minister, then you are bullying your assistants. If Patel needed have this explained to her, then she is obviously unfit to lead.

Boris Johnson announced that he had full confidence in Patel: he has ignored the bullying, and ignored Sir Alex Allan’s advice. Sir Alex, who also served Johnson’s two predecessors, said: “I feel that it is right that I should now resign from my position as the prime minister’s independent adviser on the ministerial code.” In British etiquette, that is a slap in the face of the PM. Sir Alex refuses to work for a man who condones bullying ..... by allowing a woman to abuse her staff by bullying.

 Sir Alex Allan is 70 years old, was the first permanent secretary in the Ministry of Justice, a former High commissioner to Australia, and was until 2011, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence committee and Head of Intelligence Assessment. This not the resignation of a lightweight, nor of some opposition trouble-maker, but of an substantial establishment figure who was principal private secretary to Conservative prime minister John Major for five years (1992-97). He is too good a man to work for Boris Johnson.

 

The Guardian reports that Downing Street failed to deny that the prime minister tried to persuade Allan to tone down his conclusions and say he could find no clear evidence of bullying. A No 10 spokesman said: “As you would expect, the prime minister spoke to Sir Alex Allan to further his understanding of the report. Sir Alex’s conclusions are entirely his own.” Sir Alex came to his conclusion: he has resigned, showing up Johnson for the weak and cupid man he is. 

 

Allan also appears to be a quintessentially quirky Englishman. Totally discrete as befits his security career, he is said to have been poisoned in 2008 by a foreign power; he certainly spent time in hospital for unexplained reasons. According to Wikipedia, he also windsurfed to work in a suit and bowler hat down the Thames during a train strike.

 

Boris Johnson then urged Tory colleagues in a WhatsApp message to “form a square around the Prittster”. This sounds like a message from a spoiled brat at Eton College. “The Prittster?” Is this the language of the Prime Minister of Great Britain? This puerile language is an inappropriate response to Sir Alex Allan’s report. No wonder he resigned!  Let’s change the PM, and Make Britain Great Again.

 

Patel later apologised: “I’m sorry that my behaviour has upset people and I have never intentionally set out to upset anyone. I work with thousands of brilliant civil servants every single day and we work together, day in day out, to deliver on the agenda of this government and I’m absolutely sorry for anyone that I have upset.”

 

Sir Philip Rutnam, who resigned as the Home Office’s permanent secretary after accusing Patel of a “vicious and orchestrated briefing campaign” against him, challenged a claim in the bullying report that she had been given no feedback about her behaviour by civil servants: “As early as August 2019, the month after her appointment, she was advised that she must not shout and swear at staff.” Rutnam has lodged an employment tribunal claim against Patel under whistleblowing laws, claiming he faced constructive dismissal after informing the Cabinet Office of the home secretary’s behaviour. This sort of thing never happens in the British civil service. Boris and his Brexit colleagues are completely losing the plot! They are supposed to be a GOVERNMENT for goodness sake, not a boys’ club throwing darts. 

 

Bullies Both?  Two of a kind?

Boris is not looking pritti.

Patel’s reputation for bullying goes back several years: similar bullying accusations were raised at DfID in 2017 when she was Minister for Overseas Development. Enough is enough. Respect is not ‘saying’ but ‘doing’ - people who are unwilling to show respect for their assistants, do not deserve a position of responsibility. Johnson should invite Pritti Patel to join Dominic Cummins and Lee Cain in Barnard Castle, where they can all test their eyesight together. Indeed, perhaps Boris Johnson should join them, leaving the Prime Minister’s chair to be filled by someone more competent, more mature, more responsible.

Time to bring back Mrs Thatcher. 

Or even Mrs May. 

Theresa May looks competent when compared to Boris.