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US election 2020 thread

There's a palpable sense of neo-liberalism resetting itself and purging the trumpist losing team. At 15:50 here there's a report of Harvard removing some loon congresswoman from their board. Harvard says it's because of her support for election theft conspiracism... in turn she invokes the culture wars, and on it goes.
House seeks Trump removal as it heads to 25th amendment showdown vote – live updates | US news | The Guardian
When you add in the growing list of companies rushing to cut their ties with 'insurrectionists' or the GOP itself, there's certainly fuel for the fire (for far rightists and all sort of GOPers who want to feel they've been squeezed out by the 'establishment' - they have).

Needless to say, fuck 'em all, the liberals, the insurrectionists, the corporations, the universities and the rest. There is though a sense in which, while the far right have just been defeated, they'll also feel they are being vindicated.
 
That lot are probably long term Republican donors rather than Trump donors aren't they? I'd guess they always would have preferred a more reliable mainstream Republican than him but have put up with him as long as he keeps their taxes low. If they're cutting off the party funding that might give the rest a bit more impetus to try and get shot of him and get back to normal.
 
Nb, I see people on Twitter claiming the Capitol was stormed while Trump was still speaking, as if this somehow clears Orange Donnie of inviting everyone there to overturn an election in the first place, but can't find a fact check on this, does anyone know how the timings compare?
 
Lurdan said:
p7BV3f9.png


Almost as if these corporations aren't all that grateful for efforts to destabilize the political system which underpins the regime of exploitation.
Click to expand...
Wonder how many will be back to funding them within 12 months?
 
planetgeli said:
Vindication is a self-fulfilling prophecy for them.
Click to expand...
Yep, I was thinking along the same lines. Every bank, cultural institution or university that deserts them, doesn't give them a sense of shame, but a sense they are right. It even more allows them to claim the heritage of an older America of 'striving' families and local firms, something 'pure', something 'white'. Maybe even a sense of a meritocratic capitalism, set against a woke corporate neo-liberalism. There's an irony of course in all of that bullshit. Their hero, lest we forget is the ultimate beneficiary of inherited wealth and privilege. They are telling themselves a series of lies, but the actions of the sections of American capital that are deserting trump only act to shore up those lies.
 
Looks like one of the arrested rioters has shot himself. Can only see mail and fox news links so far. Will post up another (more acceptable) source if i find it.
 
Lorca said:
Haymarket Books are also offering a free e-book fwiw (i've not read it though the author's name rings a vague bell)
www.haymarketbooks.org

The New Authoritarians

An original and compelling analysis of how a newly emboldened and radicalizing right has come to global political ascendance in the years after 9/11, culminating in the victories of Trump and Brexit.
www.haymarketbooks.org www.haymarketbooks.org
Click to expand...
Ta for the heads up. Renton is a former UAF bod that has written in this area (though I've not personally read anything of his). He's been mentioned on U75 a number of times.
 
redsquirrel said:
Ta for the heads up. Renton is a former UAF bod that has written in this area (though I've not personally read anything of his). He's been mentioned on U75 a number of times.
Click to expand...
I knew a few people who knew him from Ruskin College back in the day. They weren't...fans of him or his (academic) works.
 
redsquirrel said:
I could be being totally unfair but the UAF connection does cause me to think that his work is going to be coming from a certain angle.
Click to expand...
I can't remember the exact details but there was some feeling that a book(?) he wrote about fascist/anti-fascist history in Oxford maybe didn't draw on/represent all the historical sources that it might have done.
 
Joe Riley hates him. He was ANL in the eighties (maybe earlier but I think he’s a bit too young) and then UAF. Left the SWP following the rape. He was critical of UAF before leaving and is even more so now. Always interesting at least and he’s been on the nose around much of the ‘is trump a fascist?’ question and surrounding events. Definitely worth a read, especially at that price.
 
I was giving some feedback on Renton to a mate who knows Joe Reilly and was about to buy 'Against the Grain'

some choice quotes from years back in the Beating the fascists thread

If the essay on anti-fascism by David Renton is your source, it's hardly surprising your facts are all askew. In regard to anti-fascism as historically understood, he is a virulent opponent, (he once described the activities of the 43 Group as 'largely non-violent') and despises AFA in particular.

I once attempted a critique of said essay and it contained so many 'errors' like the one you quoted, I found it impossible. In the end I simply listed them.
If memory serves, the total came to something like 26. Renton is educated. So this is not sloppy research by the semi-literate. It is not history. It is not about the "correct degree of veneration for AFA" as you put it. It is out and out counter-propaganda. Which invariably means improving the facts that get in the way of a satisfyingly revisionist narrative.

Renton's method seems to be to arrive at a conclusion prior to doing his research. And on the journey inconvenient truths are either side-stepped or callously thrown under the bus, while the 'facts' are assembled in an order that will bolster the core pre-prepared proposition.
In truth he is the liberal left's answer to David Irving. But unlike the latter he doesn't rely on the one big lie ('Hitler didn't know') but peppers his work with a myriad of smaller lies and asserts without visible cause or foundation.


Take for example his review posted in 5510. From the outset he decides to award the author hero status, applauding his "life-long commitment to anti-fascism" while predictably omitting any mention of his abrupt (and subsequently well publicized) ejection for might be termed 'gross misconduct' from AFA ranks in 1996.

Confidently he reveals that Hann was "in the mid-80's publicity officer for RA". I have no idea what being a publicity officer for RA might have entailed during that time (if such a post even existed?) but in any case it couldn't have been Hann in it as he didn't even join as a supporting member until 1987. And could Renton really be unaware of the equally well-aired accusations regarding the considerable padding of his hero's CV in No Retreat and in subsequent interviews where he was often introduced as an AFA founding member?

If he does, he pretends otherwise, going with the flow, transforming in the process what amounted to a seven year front-line career ('87-94) into 'a lifelong commitment', something even Hann, as far as I am aware, himself never claimed in his autobiography.

"In contrast to AFA's official history" (Beating the Fascists),"not all battles according to Hann's sources, were won" Renton declares with evident satisfaction.
Almost needless to say he considers it beneath him to provide even the teeniest example of BTF's aggrandizing perfidy. This is hardly accidental for by failing to do so he sneakily leaves the casual reader with the impression that such episodes are so common as to be a given.

But as readers of BTF will know it hardly shies away from the more ticklish moments - Bermondsey, Enkel, Abbey Arms, Kensington Library not to mention the less than glorious saga surrounding Hann himself.

Even when taking into account what has gone before it still comes as something of a shock to read that BTF "stops with the Battle of Waterloo in 1992". Simply in order, Renton accuses, to allow the author to duck out of the erroneous task of charting AFA's rapid "demise" thereafter.
Again what his demise amounted to is not explored further. Some unspoken but inherent flaw seems to be the implication.

Unluckily for him, as many on here can testify, not only are there another dozen chapters covering absolutely pivotal events including Welling, the Isle of Dogs and Beackon's victory, Combat 18 and it's demise, the BNP's cessation of violence, and so forth, it could be argued that the militant strategy didn't visibly come to to fruition until 1996 with the the crushing of the assembled BNP in Manchester followed by the very public humbling of C18 at Holborn. Not too shabby for a group Renton smugly announces suffered an ignominious collapse 4 years earlier!

All told 'Renton's missing chapters' amount to 30,000 words, or putting in another way - a full quarter of pretty hefty book.

Now it does raise the question of whether he read BTF or not? Does it matter?

Ultimately so shameless and cavalier are the methods employed historical truth and Mr Renton begin and end as strangers.

He is listed as a contributor in 'Against the Grain'. This is an academic book costing a handsome sum. Unlike a pamphlet for 'tiny trots' Manchester University will expect a certain rigor in terms of research. If he follows the same formula in it, it may prove career ending.
 
miktheword said:
I was giving some feedback on Renton to a mate who knows Joe Reilly and was about to buy 'Against the Grain'

some choice quotes from years back in the Beating the fascists thread

If the essay on anti-fascism by David Renton is your source, it's hardly surprising your facts are all askew. In regard to anti-fascism as historically understood, he is a virulent opponent, (he once described the activities of the 43 Group as 'largely non-violent') and despises AFA in particular.

I once attempted a critique of said essay and it contained so many 'errors' like the one you quoted, I found it impossible. In the end I simply listed them.
If memory serves, the total came to something like 26. Renton is educated. So this is not sloppy research by the semi-literate. It is not history. It is not about the "correct degree of veneration for AFA" as you put it. It is out and out counter-propaganda. Which invariably means improving the facts that get in the way of a satisfyingly revisionist narrative.

Renton's method seems to be to arrive at a conclusion prior to doing his research. And on the journey inconvenient truths are either side-stepped or callously thrown under the bus, while the 'facts' are assembled in an order that will bolster the core pre-prepared proposition.
In truth he is the liberal left's answer to David Irving. But unlike the latter he doesn't rely on the one big lie ('Hitler didn't know') but peppers his work with a myriad of smaller lies and asserts without visible cause or foundation.


Take for example his review posted in 5510. From the outset he decides to award the author hero status, applauding his "life-long commitment to anti-fascism" while predictably omitting any mention of his abrupt (and subsequently well publicized) ejection for might be termed 'gross misconduct' from AFA ranks in 1996.

Confidently he reveals that Hann was "in the mid-80's publicity officer for RA". I have no idea what being a publicity officer for RA might have entailed during that time (if such a post even existed?) but in any case it couldn't have been Hann in it as he didn't even join as a supporting member until 1987. And could Renton really be unaware of the equally well-aired accusations regarding the considerable padding of his hero's CV in No Retreat and in subsequent interviews where he was often introduced as an AFA founding member?

If he does, he pretends otherwise, going with the flow, transforming in the process what amounted to a seven year front-line career ('87-94) into 'a lifelong commitment', something even Hann, as far as I am aware, himself never claimed in his autobiography.

"In contrast to AFA's official history" (Beating the Fascists),"not all battles according to Hann's sources, were won" Renton declares with evident satisfaction.
Almost needless to say he considers it beneath him to provide even the teeniest example of BTF's aggrandizing perfidy. This is hardly accidental for by failing to do so he sneakily leaves the casual reader with the impression that such episodes are so common as to be a given.

But as readers of BTF will know it hardly shies away from the more ticklish moments - Bermondsey, Enkel, Abbey Arms, Kensington Library not to mention the less than glorious saga surrounding Hann himself.

Even when taking into account what has gone before it still comes as something of a shock to read that BTF "stops with the Battle of Waterloo in 1992". Simply in order, Renton accuses, to allow the author to duck out of the erroneous task of charting AFA's rapid "demise" thereafter.
Again what his demise amounted to is not explored further. Some unspoken but inherent flaw seems to be the implication.

Unluckily for him, as many on here can testify, not only are there another dozen chapters covering absolutely pivotal events including Welling, the Isle of Dogs and Beackon's victory, Combat 18 and it's demise, the BNP's cessation of violence, and so forth, it could be argued that the militant strategy didn't visibly come to to fruition until 1996 with the the crushing of the assembled BNP in Manchester followed by the very public humbling of C18 at Holborn. Not too shabby for a group Renton smugly announces suffered an ignominious collapse 4 years earlier!

All told 'Renton's missing chapters' amount to 30,000 words, or putting in another way - a full quarter of pretty hefty book.

Now it does raise the question of whether he read BTF or not? Does it matter?

Ultimately so shameless and cavalier are the methods employed historical truth and Mr Renton begin and end as strangers.

He is listed as a contributor in 'Against the Grain'. This is an academic book costing a handsome sum. Unlike a pamphlet for 'tiny trots' Manchester University will expect a certain rigor in terms of research. If he follows the same formula in it, it may prove career ending.
Click to expand...
I was trying to be circumspect, miktheword :D -- I'd forgotten that stuff on the BtF thread. But yes, this really.
 
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