Rising fascism in the US

Microplastics in food supply? PFAS chemicals in our water? Widespread emotional depression? Poor dietary habits? Reduced rates of vaccination for childhood diseases? Presence of firearms in homes? Air pollution in urban environments? Excess screen time? Poverty?

So, what is the "actual reason'?

Lash gives herself away all the time.

I read the NPR report. It's actually very good being based on a LOT of research from highly authoritative and credible medical bodies studying this issue in the US and other nations. Reading past the point where Lash ends her quote, there is much further laid out positing health factors that are or maybe are contributing to the problem. These are not random suppositions. They are highly educated and good faith attempts to explain what many statistics show regarding a subject which is many faceted and complex. Below, I've quoted in red the sentence she wrote prior to what hightor quoted...



With "everything including the kitchen sink", Lash is purposefully seeking to diminish the significant research and the credibility of the report she's just partially quoted.

And then there's the final tell... "No mention of the actual reason". Note that "reason" here is singular. Given what she's written previously, that's vaccinations. Vaccinations which citizens of every country in the world also received while yet somehow escaping America's plight.

They are wasting public money in pointless litigation.

That money could be spent saving lives.

Anti vaxers are complete scum.

I disagree.

Our government routinely breaks the law, hurts American citizens, and tries to hide the truth.

A FOIA shouldn’t be necessary to force transparency of public health information, and I’m grateful to those who spend that money to uncover truth.

I can’t understand for the life of me why anyone would prefer lies, secrecy, and unaccountability.

A nod to the cowboy:

Years ago, Dennis Kucinich fell from grace with the uniparty, they redrew his district out of existence.

He just announced an independent run.

Vote Kucinich.
Vote often.

Anti vax stuff is bollocks, far rightnutters with a foul religious agenda.

All they're interested in is gumming up the wheels of government and stifling democracy.

What I’m noticing you doing is an example of the worldwide phenomenon social liberals exhibit: *label, vilify, dismiss.* It’s exactly what the news-consuming public has been concertedly trained to do by incessant media brainwashing for years.

If an individual steps out of line with the tightly controlled public narrative, they are branded anti-vaxxer, rightwing, antisemitic, a Trumper, a Russian bot, I’m sure I could think of more—and those who are well-conditioned by the media and governments immediately shut down their critical thinking process and outright call them the label, vilify them, and stop their own critical thinking process. They’re afraid to follow their own unfettered natural curiosity, afraid to ask questions because they can’t bear the possibility of being also branded as one of the socially unclean.

The more someone challenges the power, the more they’re attacked, held up for public scorn, and in some cases, ruined.

I’ll offer RFK Jr as an easy example—and preface with the disclaimer that I think he’s a horrific Zionist asshole who I’d never vote for—but he’s not an ‘anti-vaxxer’; he’s a vaccine skeptic. His research around vaccines should be read.

Also, Bernie Sanders was vilified for going on Fox News—because if he could build a bridge to that audience and open their eyes to the desperate need in this country for universal healthcare, the chains on this country’s people would be broken. The animosity between R & D, carefully curated by our government disseminated through their media mouthpieces, could have been ripped asunder—and the people would rise.

They had to cheat the primary because Bernie’s message was sweeping the country. Now Bernie has assumed the position for them.

Anyway. It’s sad to see how effective *label, vilify, dismiss* is—even with intelligent, thoughtful people.
___________________
Re the term social liberals in the first sentence. I don’t really have a good term for the huge swath of people I’m referencing—they watch msm media and buy the narrative. They seem to think they are one of two groups: themselves and antivaxxing, antisemitic Trumpers who are also Russianbots.

There are a lot of other types of people who are none of that who refuse to play this label vilify dismiss game—who continue to question wtf is actually happening.

I wish everybody would.

Perfect proof.
Label vilify dismiss.

They are scum.

It's true.

There are people who cannot be vaccinated, they rely on herd immunity, and anti vax scum don't care about them.

They're the worst people in the world, hanging's too good for them.

If anyone has been brainwashed it's you.

You have crept further and further right from a fairly far right position to begin with.

Now you're parroting far right propaganda all the time convincing yourself it's left wing.

It's not, it's more of the same Nazi bullshit that kicked things off in the 1930s.

Nazis shut down transparency, questions, protest, dialogue.
I’m on the opposite side.

Such emphasising could of course be beneficial to you ... if there had not been other acts by the Nazis that are generally associated with them.
(Transparency, questions, protest, dialogue in politics were not common during the 1920's - especially not in the Weimar Republic.)

What happened to people who protested or questioned the Nazis?
Would you say they welcomed dialogue or offered transparency?

Yeah, my country, too.

(Sigh)

So you really got concentration camps after Biden became president?
Cancellation of fundamental rights in the Constitution?
An equivalent to the Enabling Act of 1933?
... ... ...

I hope I have Cop City information somewhere in this thread.
I’ll be adding some now for perpetuity.

https://afsc.org/news/5-things-you-need-know-about-cop-city

5 things you need to know about Cop City
BY AKIRA ROSE
UPDATED SEP 15, 2023

The city of Atlanta wants to build a $90 million police training facility. If constructed, “Cop City” would be one of the largest militarized police training centers in the country—all built by clear-cutting Atlanta’s largest green space. The facility faces massive opposition in Atlanta and nationally.

AFSC is part of a coalition of organizations and community members in Atlanta working to stop this project. We oppose the continued militarization and expansion of a policing strategy that harms our communities, as well as the continued destruction of protected forests

Here’s what you need to know.

1. Cop City will fuel the criminalization of marginalized people and further expand the carceral system.

The proposal for Cop City came in the wake of nationwide anti-police protests in 2020, when over 50 cities in the U.S. held protests after the police murder of George Floyd. Though there have never been any explicit ties to 2020 in the talking points for Cop City, the fault lines are clear. Cop City will allow police not just from Atlanta, but globally, to learn repressive tactics, so that protests and rebellions can be easily crushed. According to the original proposal, 43% of the training at Cop City will be for officers outside of Atlanta, including military training with the infamous Israeli Defense Forces.

2. Cop City is bad for the climate.

Cop City is slated to be built in the largest green space in Atlanta—the Weelaunee Forest. It will include a mock city to practice urban warfare, burn towers, bomb simulations, and multiple firing ranges,.

Environmentalists have been sounding the alarm on Cop City since its proposal, citing the Weelaunee Forest as one of four “lungs” of Atlanta and voicing concern that destroying the forest’s tree canopy will accelerate the urban heat island effect. The area, which is surrounded by mostly Black residents who are at or below the poverty line, could experience up to 10 degrees of warming.

In addition, the Weelaunee Forest is necessary to maintain decent air quality, as forests in Atlanta absorb as much as 19 million pounds of air pollutants each year. The sewage pollution in the South River has been a major issue for over a decade, and in 2021 it was named one of the most endangered rivers in America. Building Cop City would exacerbate this pollution, adding lead from gun shells and bombs to the list of pollutants in the river.

3. Cop City faces intense public backlash.

In June 2003, over 1,000 people converged on the Atlanta City Hall to rally to testify before City Council about their unwavering opposition to Cop City.
In September 2021, the City Council received 17 hours of public comment from over 1,000 Atlanta residents. Those comments, 70% of which were against building the facility, were summarily ignored, and the vote to approve the original proposal passed. In the past few years since the proposal, Atlanta residents have taken to the streets, organizing marches and rallies, demonstrating outside contractors' houses, showing up to make the recent City Council meeting the most attended in Atlanta history, and much, much more. It’s clear that Atlanta residents stand in opposition to Cop City, and the city is ignoring their concerns.

4. Law enforcement killed a Cop City protester.

The tactics used by law enforcement against the protesters have been extremely aggressive. In January 2023, a 26-year-old forest defender by the name of Manuel “Tortugita” Teran was shot over 50 times by a task force of Atlanta Police, Georgia State Police, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation attempting to clear the forest for construction. Though initial reports by police indicated Teran (whose pronouns are they and them) shot an officer and was killed in defense, the autopsy report showed they had their hands up and were seated in a cross-legged position when they were killed. This marks the first and only instance in the history of U.S. environmental protesting that an activist has been killed by police.

Tortugita was a beloved member of many activist communities. Those who knew them said they had a deep commitment to nonviolent protest, as they stated in an interview from 2022, “We’re not going to beat them at violence. They’re very, very good at violence. We’re not. We win through nonviolence. That’s really the only way we can win. We don’t want more people to die. We don’t want Atlanta to turn into a war zone.”

History tells us that police killings of protesters will continue if officers are allowed to brutalize those who fight repression. Along with the death of Tortugita, countless others have been injured by police during raids on the occupied forest.

5. Law enforcement in Atlanta has taken unprecedented legal action against those who oppose the facility.

During protests, police officers have targeted peaceful organizers and arrested them on trumped-up charges of domestic terrorism under 2017 state legislation meant to criminalize protesters. They also raided the South River Music Festival where hundreds of people were enjoying live music. Police grabbed random attendees and targeted those who came from outside of Georgia to support the Week of Action. A number of these protesters are still being charged with domestic terrorism as a tactic to scare both residents and out-of-towners from joining this cause.

The government has also targeted the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which has been helping activists and protesters secure legal counsel and bail money in the city since 2020. On May 31, a local community center was raided, and three prominent members of the bail fund were taken in on baseless charges of charity fraud and money laundering. This attempt to stop essential support from the bail fund and intimidate people from other locales is an effort to penalize and eliminate dissent.

In early September 2023, the state attorney general indicted 61 movement activists on racketeering charges. Those charged include three organizers with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund.

Building Cop City is a concerted global effort to stop movements for change from succeeding. The city has been ramping up efforts to push Cop City despite overwhelming opposition from locals. At a hearing before a recent vote to fund Cop City with over $30 million in taxpayer dollars and an additional $1.2 million a year for the next 30 years, residents gave 14 hours of impassioned public comment, almost all of which was in opposition to Cop City. The city council approved $67 million dollars of public money anyway. This is a far cry from the $30 million dollar figure first promised by the council.

With bureaucracy and violent repression working in tandem, the city of Atlanta is setting an example for other states that want to further entrench the carceral system by any means necessary. The desired result from the state is the silence of protesters and the protection of capital at the expense of the most marginalized. As Atlanta experiences rapid gentrification, a warming climate, and increased flooding, the only thing the city seems to guarantee is that any opposition to its plans for development will be met with swift and brutal force.

Where we are now

A coalition of organizations—including the Movement for Black Lives, Black Voters Matter, Southerners on New Ground, the Working Families Party, CASA, Georgia Conservation Voters, and AFSC–were part of a referendum campaign to let the voters decide the fate of Cop City. Over two months, our coalition collected more than 116,000 voter signatures—nearly double the number required for a referendum. That’s more than the number of people who voted in Atlanta’s last mayoral election.

Our coalition submitted those signatures to the city on Sept. 11, 2023—only to face more efforts by the city to undermine what should be a democratic process.

It has become overwhelmingly clear that people across Atlanta oppose Cop City. And the city will continue to impose more hurdles to stop our efforts. But no matter what challenges we face, our coalition will keep working to hold the city to a fair process—and to ensure voters have the final say in how their tax dollars are spent.
______________________

Baltimore.

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/criminal-justice/baltimore-police-department-fire-department-training-facility-M6N7PW4YN5H6FN3YYNQLD6C74Y/

(Btw, I searched Google and even DuckDuckGo and couldn’t find a word of this. I had to go to Twitter and find a local who shared a local article. Wonder why.)

Proposed Baltimore police and fire training facility has hefty price tag: $330 million
Justin Fenton and Ben Conarck
8/25/2023 3:30 p.m. EDT

A proposal for a new joint training facility for Baltimore’s police and fire departments on the Coppin State University campus has come back with a whopping price tag of $330 million.

A preliminary design report was posted to the Maryland Stadium Authority website Aug. 17, and it outlines two possible sites on the campus of the historically Black university in West Baltimore that would offer classroom and training space for the city’s two public safety agencies.

The Coppin project, pushed for nearly a decade and more formally explored starting in 2021, received renewed attention this week when a top Police Department official described it as a “tactical village,” drawing comparisons to the so-called “Cop City” project in Atlanta that has been the subject of protests.

But the controversial Atlanta project cost $90 million, a fraction of the proposed plans for the Baltimore facility. About $30 million of the Atlanta facility came from taxpayer funds, with the rest cobbled together from private donations.
______________________
More at the link.

So, since I answered your first question in the affirmative and showed you the massive protested Cop Cities being built in specific geographical locations—and showed you Nazi strategies in practice in the US, you deflect immediately and move the goalposts. A low form of argument, Walter.

Tsk tsk.

It is happening. Pretend what you need to pretend.

You certainly have not the tiniest idea what a concentration was.

Nor, what the Nazis did in Germany from 1933 onward.

This isn’t a tit for tat or a perfect mirror image of 1933 Germany & 2024 US—it’s a comparison of strategies—not yet degrees.

You try so hard to find disagreement.

The same general control strategies used by the Nazi regime that eventually had German citizens so afraid and / or brainwashed that they either agreed with or defeatedly acquiesced to the extermination of ‘undesirable’ citizens are now becoming more visible in my society.

They are glaringly visible in Israel.