From a Piece I'm Doing...
...on the House Select Committee Report on January 6th
Still on break, kind of and not entirely (I did not know what a juicy and easy and search-able target the House Select Comittee report was going to be). Here is a section from the draft of a short essay (up Friday on CounterPunch if all goes well) I’m doing on what’s missing in the report:
Regarding the January 6 Select Committee Report:…You can search the report online for keywords. I did. Neither “fascism” nor “fascist” appears even once over 845 pages. “Christian” is essentially missing. “Sexism,” “fundamentalism,” “race” (as in skin color), and “patriarchy” are all entirely missing. “Racism” gets a single and indirect mention. “White nationalist” garners a mere four mentions. "White supremacist and Christian nationalist" did get used – once, to describe just one of many white supremacist and Christian nationalist groups and actors involved in the “stop the steal” movement and the January 6th attack. Even the less politically volatile worlds “authoritarian” and “authoritarianism” came up with zero appearances.
By contrast, “Proud Boys” got 149 mentions across 89 pages. “Oath Keepers” got 131 mentions across 86 pages. “Trump” got 1,569 mentions across 659 pages (though “Trumpism” got no mentions). The largely mythical group “Antifa” got 19 mentions across 15 pages.
The Select Committee clearly bent over backward to avoid the F-word. Despite their plentiful mentions of openly fascist groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and the Three Percenters, the committee went out of its way to avoid using the word even in a secondary and descriptive sort of way. They couldn't just occasionally add the entirely accurate words and phrases “fascist,” “neo-fascist,” or “proto-fascist” to these groups, one of which (the Proud Boys) had rampaged in Washington DC the previous December with members who wore t-shirts saying "6MWE" (meaning “six million Jews killed during the Nazi Holocaust wasn’t enough”) and "[Chilean fascist dictator] Augusto Pinochet did Nothing Wrong."
Remarkable. So F'ng Weimar of them. (More to come…)
Thanks, Paul, for noting what most correspondents have ignored. I am old enough to remember the lethalities of Mussolini and Hitler's fascism and the apathy that allowed their raise. Of course,"those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But, all who consciously ignore this parallel, deserve to be doubly loathed.
Good points on evasiveness. Your scribe on Your uncle at the table was Street smarts at its best. Concise and direct-a good organizing method.
Your energy is impressive, but a real pause is what Dr. Feelgood might suggest for continued success.
Happy, Heathy New Years!