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	European Parliament speaks out against agricultural colonialism in Africa by EurActiv, La Via Campesina, FOE, GRAIN, agencies   June 2016   European Parliament speaks out against agricultural colonialism in Africa, by Cécile Barbière. (EurActiv.fr)   Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have called on the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition to radically alter its mission. The Alliance currently pushes African countries to replicate the intensive agricultural practices employed in many developed countries. EurActiv France reports.   For a large majority of MEPs, the G7’s decision to base its programme for food security in Africa on intensive agriculture is a mistake. The European Parliament took its first official stance on the subject with the adoption of a report on the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (NAFSN) on the 7th of June.   “We have already made the mistake of intensive agriculture in Europe, we should not replicate it in Africa because this model destroys family farming and reduces biodiversity,” said Mara Heubuch, a German Green MEP and rapporteur on the New Alliance.   Launched in 2012 by the countries of the G7 in partnership with ten African countries, the NAFSN has a worthy objective: to lift 50 million people out of poverty by 2050 by enabling investment in the agricultural sectors of ten African countries, including Benin, Nigeria and Ivory Coast.   But in return for increased investment, this partnership pushes its African members to implement certain political reforms that prioritise the needs of big agricultural corporations over those of small-scale farmers, which currently produce more than 70% of the world’s food.   These reforms include the liberalisation of access to farmland, the promotion of certified seeds (GMOs and hybrids) and the implementation of tax reforms to facilitate private investment in agriculture.   “Small-scale farmers across the globe use techniques that are much more sustainable and climate-friendly than big agribusiness. But the New Alliance is facilitating big agribusiness’ takeover of food systems in different African countries,” said Aisha Dowell, a food campaigner at the NGO Global Justice Now.   In the report adopted in Strasbourg, MEPs demanded that the G7 abandon its commitment to GMOs in this public-private partnership. Under the NAFSN, partner countries must agree to support “the distribution, adoption and consumption of biofortified crop varieties”.   “The report calls on the countries of the G7 to stop promoting genetically modified seeds in Africa. This is a real success,” said Heubuch.   While only three African countries (South Africa, Burkina Faso and Sudan) currently authorise the cultivation and commercialisation of GMOs, members of the New Alliance have shown an interest. Ghana and Malawi are carrying out GMO trials and Nigeria is even in the process of changing its legislation to authorise the cultivation of GMOs.   The report also highlighted the risk of land grabbing associated with the NAFSN’s strict policy on property law, which it deems necessary to protect investments.   “But in Africa, land rights are the exception, because ownership of agricultural land works according to the principles of usage and custom,” an expert source said.   “The partnership must respect the different forms of property so as not to endanger small producers,” the source added. This approach, in line with the directives of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), was backed by a large majority of MEPs.   Seed patents   Around 90% of African farmers depend on their seeds for survival. The informal sale or exchange of seeds allows farmers to keep “a degree of independence from the commercial seed sector”, the report stated, whilst offering poor farmers resilient crops at affordable prices.   “But the private sector, which is a large financial backer of the NAFSN, wants these countries to change their legislation,” the source said. This could close off a fundamental source of revenue for poor farmers, as “they would no longer be free to sell or exchange their seeds”.   While there is nothing new in the Parliament’s criticism of the NAFSN, the adoption of Heubuch’s report is the institution’s first official position statement on the partnership’s philosophy.   “If the New Alliance does not rectify the serious problems we observe, the EU should withdraw its support for the initiative,” Heubuch said.   “European countries and the EU can change things,” Heubuch added. “For example, Germany, which is in charge of the partnership with Benin, has not called for changes in legislation regarding seed ownership.”   Traditionally hostile to GMOs, France is also an outspoken critic of the NAFSN’s approach to food security. Last December, the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs said it was “aware of concerns surrounding the NAFSN and shared a number of criticisms raised by NGOs, particularly over the lack of transparency in governance and the absence of rules defining which investments to prioritise”.   http://www.euractiv.com/section/development-policy/news/european-parliament-speaks-out-against-agricultural-colonialism-in-africa/ http://www.grain.org/article/entries/5492-the-global-farmland-grab-in-2016-how-big-how-bad   June 2016   800,000 Europeans call on EU Patent Office to protect plants and animals.(Seed Freedom)   European patent laws say that patents cannot be granted on plant and animal varieties or on the conventional breeding of plants and animals. At present, the European Patent Office (EPO) is completely undermining these prohibitions. We have collected about 800,000 signatures from people all over Europe on a petition calling for politicians to take action and properly enforce EU law. On 29 June 2016, we will be handing these signatures over to the EPO. To emphasise our point and as a visible reminder, we will be carrying our favourite vegetables with us – tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, onions, beans, carrots and cabbage and so on. We will be sending a very clear message: Protect our vegetables from patents held by seed giants such as Bayer and Monsanto!   800,000 signatures are sending out a very clear message: We will not let the big companies take control of our daily food!   The Administrative Council of the EPO will be meeting on 29 June 2016. Its members are the delegates from the 38 contracting states of the European Patent Convention. They can stop the EPO from granting further patents on plants and animals derived from conventional breeding: This is the decision-making body for the interpretation of the current prohibitions in patent law.   Companies such as Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta are gaining more and more control of seeds, agriculture and food. We cannot leave a few big companies to decide what can be bred, what farmers can grow, and what we will all eat in future. http://seedfreedom.info/category/latest-news/   April 2016   On April 17, The International Day of Peasant’s Struggle - millions of peasants – women and men – around the world are uniting in action to commemorate the massacre of 19 landless farmers in 1996 in Brazil and to continue the struggle for land and life.   Two decades after that despicable incident, peasants and peasant leaders continue to be assaulted and killed for defending their rights.   The killing of Honduras activist, Berta Caceres, and other peasants in Columbia, Philippines and Brazil in recent weeks and the criminalization of social protest and many other forms of human rights abuses continue.   La Via Campesina denounces all forms of injustices that affect the peasant way of life, an important heritage of the people at the service of humanity.   Constant attempts are being made to push forth an agro-business model that imposes the practice of monoculture which privatizes land and natural resources in order to increase profit, denying their appropriation by the society for common good.   It destroys biodiversity, uses more and more toxic inputs, drives peasants off their land, and forces governments and nation states to bow to its will.   Unlike many governments, which continue to build alliances with big businesses to promote profit maximisation, La Via Campesina believes the time has come to build an economy based on equity that will restore the balance between humanity and nature founded on peoples Food Sovereignty principles.   Peasants and small farmers make up half of the world’s population and grow at least 70% of our food, using less than 30% of agricultural resources.   According to the Human Rights Council Resolution A/HRC/RES/7/14 on the right to food, 80 percent of people suffering from hunger live in rural areas and 50 percent of people suffering from hunger are smallholder farmers.   Some 500 million small farms in developing countries feed nearly 2 billion people – representing one third of humanity.   Without peasants and small farmers, society would not be able to survive, the wonderful diversity of food on people’s plates would be greatly diminished, the pollution of our water and soil would increase, our countryside impoverished and there would be increasing hunger and poverty, fuelling regional and international instability.   It is hard for many people to believe that despite the crucial role of peasant farmers, so many face daily persecution.   It has been 20 years since 19 peasant men and women were murdered by security forces in Brazil’s northern state of Para whilst demonstrating for agrarian reform. The victims were part of a demonstration of 1,500 landless men and women calling for the federal appropriation of a private ranch, when 150 military police encircled and shot at the crowd.   Since then we have remembered 17 April and used it to commemorate the struggles carried out by peasant farmers, indigenous populations, fisher-folk and landless people against corporate interests, whether agribusiness, logging, mining, big dams or other mega-development projects.   We are living in two parallel worlds. The majority of the global population are producing food sustainably on small scale farms, providing for their families and local and regional markets.   On the other side, we have vast corporations, supported by many governments, intent on industrialising, globalising and controlling more of the resources, land and the food chain, regardless of whether it destroys ecosystems, pollutes our countryside, produces unhealthy societies, creates massive inequalities or forces people off their land.   And this is why on 17 April we should all stand together – farmers, growers, citizens and activists - behind those threatened for wanting to stay on their land and grow food for themselves and others. We should use this day to make it clear that we will not tolerate corporations or governments that persecute peasant or small farmers.   Instead we should wrestle back our right to real food, a vibrant countryside and peasants’ rights to farm and manage the land sustainably. This would be massively positive to society – providing safer and more sustainable rural communities, diverse and appropriate food, and resilient local economies and blooming nature.   But why not honour the people producing our food every day – through the way we eat, what we buy, our political actions and who we vote for?   http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/17-april--day-of-peasants-struggle-mainmenu-33 http://defendingpeasantrights.org/ http://www.fian.org/en/news/article/backing_up_the_struggles_of_the_rural_world/ http://newint.org/blog/2016/04/15/fighting-for-food/   February, 2016   Corporate vision of the future of food challenged by activists at UN. (Friends of the Earth)   At the opening of a three-day International symposium on agricultural biotechnologies convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, more than 100 civil society and social movements and organizations (CSOs) issued a statement denouncing both the substance and structure of the meeting, which appears to be another attempt by multinational agribusiness to redirect the policies of the UN agency toward support for Genetically-engineered crops and livestock.   The global peasant and family farm movement, La Via Campesina, invited CSOs to sign the letter when the symposium’s agenda became public. Two of the FAO keynote speakers are known proponents of GMOs, and the agenda and side events over the three days include speakers from the Biotechnology Industry Organization (a biotech trade group in the USA), Crop Life International (the global agrochemical trade association), DuPont (one of the world’s largest biotech seed companies) and CEVA (a major veterinary medicine corporation), among others. FAO has only invited one speaker or panellist openly critical of GMOs.   Worse, one of the two speakers at the opening session is a former assistant director general of FAO who has pushed for so-called Terminator seeds (GMO seeds programmed to die at harvest time forcing farmers to purchase new seeds every growing season), in opposition to FAO’s own public statements. The second keynoter’s speech is titled, "Toward Ending the Misplaced Global Debate on Biotechnology" – suggesting that the FAO symposium should be the moment for shutting down biotech criticism.   In convening the biased symposium, FAO is bowing to industry pressure, which has intensified following international meetings on agroecology hosted by the FAO in 2014 and 2015. The agroecology meetings were a model of openness to all viewpoints, from peasants to industry. But the biotech industry apparently prefers now to have a meeting they can control. This is not the first time FAO has been drawn into this game. In 2010, FAO convened a biotechnology conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, that blocked farmers from its organizing committee, and then tried to prevent their attendance at the conference itself.   "We are alarmed that FAO is once again fronting for the same corporations, just when these companies are talking about further mergers amongst themselves, which would concentrate the commercial seeds sector in even fewer hands" the CSO statement says.   It is clear, according to the Civil Society Statement, that industry wants to use FAO to re-launch their false message that genetically engineered crops can feed the world and cool the planet, while the reality is that nothing has changed on the biotech front. GMOs don''t feed people, they are mostly planted in a handful of countries on industrial plantations for agrofuels and animal feed, they increase pesticide use, and they throw farmers off the land. Transnational biotech companies are trying to patent the planet''s bodiversity, which shows that their main interest is to make enormous profits, and not to guarantee food security or food sovereignty. The industrial food system that these companies promote is also one of the main drivers of climate change.   Confronted with the rejection of GMOs by many consumers and producers, the industry is now inventing new and possibly dangerous breeding techniques to genetically modify plants, without calling them GMOs. In doing so, they are trying to avoid current GMO regulations and trick consumers and farmers.   The agroecology activities were much closer to the way that FAO should act, the Statement points out, "as a centre for knowledge exchange, without a hidden agenda on behalf of a few." Why does FAO now limit itself again to corporate biotechnology and deny the existence of peasant technologies? FAO should support the peasant technologies, that offer the most innovative, open source, and the effective pathway to ending hunger and malnutrition.   It is time to stop pushing a narrow corporate agenda, says Civil Society. "The vast majority of the world''s farmers are peasants, and it is peasants who feed the world. We need peasant-based technologies, not corporate biotechnologies."   "It is high time that FAO puts an end to bio-piracy and to its support for genetically modified crops, which only serve to allow a handful of transnational companies to patent and to grab all the existing biodiversity," said La Via Campesina leader Guy Kastler. "On the contrary, FAO should support farmers organisations and researchers engaged in collaborative plant breeding in the service of food sovereignty and peasant agroecology”.   * The Universal Rights Network is completely opposed to any use whatsoever of Terminator Seeds, now or at any time in the future.   http://www.foei.org/news/biotechnology-un-causes-alarm http://www.grain.org/article/entries/5405-new-mega-treaty-in-the-pipeline-what-does-rcep-mean-for-farmers-seeds-in-asia http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/agroecology-case-studies Visit the related web page
	Donald Trump accused of inciting violence and bigotry at his rallies by MSNBC, Washington Post, New Yorker, agencies USA   Nov 2016   Trump should govern with respect for all who live in the United States, writes Nadia Prupis.   President-elect Donald Trump''s win stunned observers around the globe, who were quick to note the risks a Trump administration poses to the climate, human rights, the economy, and the world at-large.   Human Rights Watch (HRW) implored the president-elect to leave his now-signature divisive rhetoric behind and make human rights the core of his administration.   "Now that he has secured victory, President-elect Trump should move from the headline-grabbing rhetoric of hatred and govern with respect for all who live in the United States," said HRW executive director Kenneth Roth.   "He found a path to the White House through a campaign marked by misogyny, racism, and xenophobia, but that''s not a route to successful governance. President-elect Trump should commit to leading the U.S. in a manner that fully respects and promotes human rights for everyone."   The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) urged Trump to walk back his most egregious campaign promises—such as a ban on Muslims and reintroduction of the torture program—and uphold civil and human rights.   "President-elect Trump, as you assume the nation''s highest office, we urge you to reconsider and change course on certain campaign promises you have made," said ACLU''s executive director Anthony Romero.   "These include your plan to amass a deportation force to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants; ban the entry of Muslims into our country and aggressively surveil them; punish women for accessing abortion; reauthorize waterboarding and other forms of torture; and change our nation''s libel laws and restrict freedom of expression."   Trump has famously kicked journalists out of his rallies for questioning his statements and previously declared that, as president, he would "open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative articles, we can sue them and win lots of money."   "These proposals are not simply un-American and wrong-headed, they are unlawful and unconstitutional," Romero said. "They violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments."   Civil rights organizations lined up to condemn the U.S. Supreme Court''s gutting of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in 2013, a ruling that disenfranchised and eliminated many protections for minority voters and had an untold impact on the election, with voters reporting long lines and intimidation at polling places around the country. Groups also vowed to defend and fight for civil rights against Trump and U.S. Congress, which is now entirely controlled by Republicans.   The NAACP, which worked tirelessly in North Carolina to reverse a mass voter purge that illegally canceled thousands of registrations, mostly affecting black residents, mourned the results of the election but vowed to mobilize.   "This fall morning represents the end of a long night filled with many midnight moments of uncertainty, voter intimidation and suppression, campaigns founded on bigotry, and divisiveness as an electoral strategy," said the group''s president and CEO Cornell William Brooks. "And yet, despite the moments of ugliness, this election season has reminded us of the beauty and strength of both the nation and of the NAACP."   "History will judge not only the courage of our volunteers but also the cowardice of those who chose again and again to suppress the vote rather than listen to the voice of democracy this year," he said. "When civil rights are threatened, we are as persistent as we are determined."   The League of Women Voters likewise condemned the notable impact of the weakened VRA. The group''s president Chris Carson said: "This is the first presidential election in 50 years without the full protection of the Voting Rights Act," she said.   "Thousands of eligible voters were purged from the rolls. Onerous voter ID laws prevented eligible voters from casting their ballots. We saw cases of misinformation and intimidation at the polls.. "We can and must do better," she said.   NAACP''s Brooks vowed, "Now that the election is over, the first priority for a new Congress and a new president must be restoring the badly-broken Voting Rights Act. We cannot afford to send untold teams of lawyers to court and spend incalculable sums of money to defend our right to vote in the courts and in the streets again and again and again."   "Any effort to suppress the vote, whether at the hands of lawmakers, judges or everyday people, is and must continue to be considered unjust, un-American, and utterly unacceptable. The NAACP will not rest until full and equal voting rights are restored for each and every American citizen," he said.   April 2016   Teachers are frightened about the 2016 election''s impact on children, writes Richard Cohen, President, of the Southern Poverty Law Center   The nation''s schoolchildren don''t get to vote in November, but they''re paying close attention to this year''s presidential race. And large numbers of them are frightened by what they''re hearing.   What''s more, educators are seeing an increase in student bullying and intimidation. And they''re struggling to teach about the election — stymied by their need to remain nonpartisan but disturbed by the unfiltered words children are hearing and worried about the lessons they may be absorbing.   These are the most striking findings from an online survey of approximately 2,000 teachers K-12 educators conducted in March by our Teaching Tolerance project.   More than 500 respondents used the words "fear," "scared," "afraid," "anxious," or "terrified" in their comments to describe the negative impact on students who are Muslim or from immigrant families.   "My students are terrified of Donald Trump," wrote a teacher at a middle school with a large population of African-American Muslims. "They think that if he''s elected, all black people will get sent back to Africa."   Similarly, a kindergarten teacher in Tennessee wrote that a Latino child — told by classmates that "kids with brown skin" will be deported — asks every day, "Is the wall here yet?"   Our email subscribers and those who visit our website are not a random sample of teachers nationally, and the respondents are likely to be those who are most concerned about the impact of the election.   But the data we collected is the richest source of information that we know of about the effect of the presidential campaign on education in our country. And there is nothing counterintuitive about the results. They show that the campaign is producing an alarming level of anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom.   1.) More than two-thirds of the teachers reported that students — mainly immigrants, children of immigrants and Muslims — have expressed concerns or fears about what might happen to them or their families after the election.   2.) More than half have seen an increase in uncivil political discourse.   3.) More than one-third have observed an increase in anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant sentiment.   The survey questions did not mention any candidate by name or attempt to prompt any mentions. Nevertheless, Donald Trump was cited in more than 1,000 comments. In contrast, a total of fewer than 200 comments contained the names Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton.   Teachers in state after state expressed their concerns for vulnerable children.   "Some students are crying in the classroom and having meltdowns at home," said an elementary school teacher in Virginia. A K-3 teacher in Oregon wrote, "My black students are also concerned for their safety because of what they see on TV at Trump rallies. My white students are concerned for their friends." In North Carolina, a high school teacher said she has "Latino students who carry their birth certificates and Social Security cards to school because they are afraid they will be deported." A teacher in an urban middle school with a large Latino population wrote that a boy told her, "Donald Trump hates my people."   A number of teachers reported that students are using the word "Trump" as a taunt or chant as they gang up on others. Muslim children are being called "terrorist," or "ISIS," or "bomber."   Here are some other typical comments:   "A boy brought a knife to school to protect himself against ''the Muslims."   "My 5th graders got in a fist fight on the playground yesterday. It started when one of the boys quoted Donald Trump."   "We had a fifth grade student tell a Muslim that he was supporting Donald Trump because he was going to kill all of the Muslims if he became president!"   "We have Muslims who wear hijabs and I had to stop students from harassing them."   "The alarming and divisive rhetoric seems to give my high school students the perception that if the people can interrupt, insult, accuse, and generally disregard facts on TV, then why can''t they in the school?"   More than 40 percent of the educators told us they are hesitant to teach about the election, so we''ve issued recommendations to help them deal with the situation.   But they can only do so much when children are bombarded with the words and images of the campaign every day. We hope that the politicians will tone it down. But to be honest, we''re not holding our breath. http://bit.ly/2elnSyb   Mar. 2016   Don"t believe Donald Trump has incited violence at rallies? Watch this video.   On Friday night in Chicago, violence broke out between supporters and protesters at a Donald Trump rally, leading Trump to cancel the event. On Saturday, Trump blamed the protesters and "thugs" — a racially coded word — for the violence.   But maybe Trump should blame himself. As Rachel Maddow demonstrated in a string of clips aired on MSNBC, Trump has consistently called for violence against protesters at his rallies.   Here are Trump"s previous comments in response to demonstrators at his events, taken from Maddow"s video:   February 1 in Iowa: "If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Okay? Just knock the hell. I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise."   February 22 in Nevada: "I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They"d be carried out on a stretcher, folks. It"s true. … I"d like to punch him in the face, I"ll tell you."   February 26 in Oklahoma: "In the good old days, they"d rip him out of that seat so fast. But today, everybody"s politically correct. Our country"s going to hell with being politically correct."   February 29 in Virginia: "Get him out of here please. Get him out. Get him out. … Are you from Mexico? Are you from Mexico? Huh? Are you from Mexico?"   March 4 in Michigan: "Get out of here. Get out. Out! … This is amazing. So much fun. I love it. I love it. We having a good time? USA, USA, USA! … All right, get him out. Try not to hurt him. If you do, I"ll defend you in court. Don"t worry about it. … We had four guys, they jumped on him, they were swinging and swinging. The next day, we got killed in the press — that we were too rough. Give me a break. You know? Right? We don"t want to be too politically correct anymore. Right, folks?"   March 4 in Michigan: "Remember when Bernie Sanders, they took the mic away from him? That"s not going to happen with us, folks. That"s not going to happen. Remember that? He walked away from the mic and he stood back and he watched these two young girls talking to the audience. And they said, "We came to listen to him!" And he was standing in the back as two women took the mic away. No, that doesn"t happen to us. Get that guy out of here! Get him out! Get that guy out of here!"   March 9 in North Carolina: "We had some people, some rough guys like we have right in here. And they started punching back. It was a beautiful thing. I mean, they started punching back. … In the good old days, this doesn"t happen because they used to treat them very, very rough. And when they protested once, you know, they would not do it again so easily. But today, they walk in and they put their hand up and put the wrong finger in the air at everybody, and they get away with murder, because we"ve become weak."   March 11 in Missouri, hours before the Chicago rally: "Part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore. Right? And they"re being politically correct the way they take them out. So it takes a little bit longer. And honestly, protesters, they realize it — they realize that there are no consequences to protesting anymore. There used to be consequences. There are none anymore."   Trump"s message in all these incidents is clear: Supporters should rough up protesters. Friday night"s chaos seems like a natural reflection of that.   * Access the link below to watch the MSNBC program.   March 2016   Barack Obama"s brutal assessment of the rise of Donald Trump, by Niraj Chokshi. (Washington Post)   Donald Trump"s ascendance is nothing if not surprising. Pundits thought he would flame out early; he has done things that could have ended other campaigns; and his statements are erratic and often contradictory. Yet, he remains the leading Republican presidential contender.   Many have tried to explain Trump"s rise in the nine months since he entered the race, and now President Barack Obama can be counted among them: He offered up his analysis of Trump and the broader fight for the Republican presidential nomination during a speech Friday afternoon at a Democratic National Committee event at Texas"s Austin Music Hall.   "We"ve got a debate inside the other party that is fantasy and schoolyard taunts and selling stuff like it"s the Home Shopping Network," he joked. Obama said he was unsurprised by the billionaire businessman and reality TV star"s rise.   Donald Trump just capitalisd on the GOP"s own tactics, Obama argues. "How can you be shocked?" he asked to laughter from the crowd. "This is the guy, remember, who was sure that I was born in Kenya - who just wouldn"t let it go. And all this same Republican establishment, they weren"t saying nothing. As long as it was directed at me, they were fine with it. They thought it was a hoot, wanted to get his endorsement. And then now, suddenly, we"re shocked that there"s gambling going on in this establishment."   The Republican Party set the conditions long ago for Trump"s success, Obama said. The billionaire just capitalised on the GOP"s own tactics, the president argued:   "What is happening in this primary is just a distillation of what"s been happening inside their party for more than a decade. I mean, the reason that many of their voters are responding is because this is what"s been fed through the messages they"ve been sending for a long time - that you just make flat assertions that don"t comport with the facts. That you just deny the evidence of science. That compromise is a betrayal. That the other side isn"t simply wrong, or we just disagree, we want to take a different approach, but the other side is destroying the country, or treasonous. I mean, that"s - look it up. That"s what they"ve been saying."   "So they can"t be surprised when somebody suddenly looks and says, you know what, I can do that even better. I can make stuff up better than that. I can be more outrageous than that. I can insult people even better than that. I can be even more uncivil. I mean, conservative outlets have been feeding their base constantly the notion that everything is a disaster, that everybody else is to blame, that Obamacare is destroying the country. And it doesn"t matter whether it"s true or not. It"s not, we disagree with this program, we think we can do it better - it"s, oh, this is a crisis!"   "So if you don"t care about the facts, or the evidence, or civility, in general in making your arguments, you will end up with candidates who will say just about anything and do just about anything. And when your answer to every proposal that I make, or Democrats make is no, it means that you"ve got to become more and more unreasonable because that"s the only way you can say no to some pretty reasonable stuff. And then you shouldn"t be surprised when your party ultimately has no ideas to offer at all."   Despite his strong critique of the GOP, though, Obama added a caveat: "There are thoughtful conservatives - good people in the Republican Party, good people who are Republican voters who care about poverty and they care about climate, and don"t resort to insults, and are troubled by what"s happening inside their own party. I know them. I"ve talked to them. But they"ve got to acknowledge why this happened - because some of them have been writing that, "Well, the reason our party is going crazy is because of Obama." Which is a pretty novel idea. The notion is Obama drove us crazy."   "Now, the truth is, what they really mean is their reaction to me was crazy and now it has gotten out of hand. But that"s different. I didn"t cause the reaction. The reaction is something that they have to take responsibility for and then figure out how do we make an adjustment."   March 2016   Donald Trump"s ideology of violence, by Ezra Klein.   During a rally in St. Louis Friday, Donald Trump lamented that "nobody wants to hurt each other anymore." Yes, lamented.   The topic was protesters, and Trump"s frustration was clear. "They"re being politically correct the way they take them out," he sighed. "Protesters, they realize there are no consequences to protesting anymore. There used to be consequences. There are none anymore."   "Our country has to toughen up folks. We have to toughen up. These people are bringing us down. They are bringing us down. These people are so bad for our country, you have no idea."   This is more than an aside; this is the core of Trump"s ideology. The protesters who interrupted his rally, the political correctness that kept the police from cracking their skulls, the press that takes the hippies side — this is why America has stopped being great. We were strong, and we were tough, and we didn"t take this kind of shit from anybody. And now we are weak, and we are scared, and we take this kind of shit from everybody.   How is a country that can"t shut down a protester going to out-negotiate the Chinese? How is a country that that is so afraid of hurt feelings going to crush ISIS?   "We better toughen up, we better smarten up, and we better stop with this political correctness because it’s driving us down the tubes," Trump said.   Hours after that speech, 32 people were arrested and several were injured as Trump"s supporters clashed with anti-Trump protesters and police. That night, Trump had to cancel a rally in Chicago for safety reasons.   Violence is scary. But violence-as-ideology is terrifying. And that"s where Trump"s campaign has gone.   On February 1st, Trump made a promise to an angry crowd. You protect me, he said, and I"ll protect you. "If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Knock the hell out of them. I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise."   No one threw a tomato at that rally. But a few weeks later, Donald Trump showed that he meant what he said — if you used force to protect him, he"d have your back.   Trump was leaving a rally when Michelle Fields, a reporter for the Trump-friendly Breitbart News, stepped forward to ask a question. Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump"s campaign manager, grabbed her by the arm and threw her out of the way. His grip was hard enough to leave bruises on her arm. The moment was witnessed by Ben Terris, a Washington Post reporter, and there"s audio and video record of it.   Donald Trump will pay your legal fees. He will believe your baldfaced lie. He is on your side against the protesters, the press, the losers who are bring America down. He knows things get rough sometimes. He"s got your back.   "People who are following me are very passionate"   "The incidents are piling up," wrote Lucia Graves at the Guardian. "A Black Lives Matters protester was sucker-punched by a white bystander at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A young black woman was surrounded and shoved aggressively by a number of individuals at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky. A black protester was tackled, then punched and kicked by a group of men as he curled up on the ground in Birmingham, Alabama. Immigration activists were shoved and stripped of their signs by a crowd in Richmond, Virginia. A Latino protester was knocked down and kicked by a Trump supporter in Miami."   I would add another "incident" to Graves list. Back in August, two young Trump supporters, Scott and Steve Leader, were charged in the beating of a homeless Mexican man. They found him sleeping outside a subway station and began hitting him with a metal pole.   According to police, Scott Leader justified the assault by telling them, "Donald Trump was right — all these illegals need to be deported."   Asked to react to the beating, Trump said he had no knowledge of it, which would have been fine. But he didn"t stop there. "I will say that people who are following me are very passionate," Trump replied. "They love this country and they want this country to be great again."   The mistake the media makes with Donald Trump is to pretend he has no ideology — that he"s just a celebrity, a carnival barker, a reality star.   As my colleague Matt Yglesias has written, Trump does have an ideology. He does have an agenda. The core of Trumpism is "a revived and unapologetic American nationalism, which will stand for American interests abroad while defending the traditional conception of the American nation at home."   Like most nationalists, the emotional center of Trump"s ideology is an Us vs. Them argument. "These are not the people who made our country great," Trump told the crowd in St. Louis. "We"re going to make it great again, but these are not the people. These are the people that are destroying our country."   The Us must somehow defeat the Them — and the stakes are high, the future of the greatest country the world has ever known depends on the outcome. This is why nationalistic, Us vs. Them appeals lend themselves so easily and naturally to violence.   This is what Trump supporters hear at his rallies. They are told that America is no longer great. They are told who to blame. They are told that the reason these losers are dragging America down is we have become too politically correct, too scared, too weak, to stop them. They are told Trump will pay their legal fees if they want to do what"s necessary. "There used to be consequences," Trump sighs. The crowd knows what he"s asking. Make Consequences Real Again.   This is ugly, but it is coherent. What Trump is offering is an explanation and a solution; an argument and an ideology. It is dangerous, and it is violent, but it is not confusing, and it is not unclear.   And this is why Trump is something different and more dangerous in American life. He is a man with an evident appetite for suppressing dissent with violence, a man who believes America"s problem is that it"s too gentle to its dissidents. Trump is making an argument for a politics backed by force, for a security service unleashed from "political correctness," for a country where protesting has consequences. The results are playing out before us, night after night, on our televisions.   If Trump wins and this country goes down a dark path, we will never be able to say we didn"t see it coming. We will never be able to say we weren"t warned.   http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-chicago-and-the-lessons-of-1968 http://wapo.st/2c2pXJe http://huff.to/2cwlV1q http://huff.to/2c2qRpd http://bit.ly/2coqh98 http://www.socialeurope.eu/2016/03/secret-donald-trumps-success/ http://billmoyers.com/story/blowing-the-biggest-political-story-of-the-last-fifty-years/ http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/03/09/trump-lead-how-did-this-happen/ http://bostonreview.net/reading-lists/25-essays-against-whitelash Visit the related web page
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