The Skinny: Cracker Barrel – March 2025 Blogs
March 1st to March 7th, 2025 Blog Posts
The Bipartisan Ideological Policing of Anti-Genocide Speech
You have to hand it to the mainstream bipartisan establishment in America quite frankly. After all, it takes a special kind of disingenuous arrogance to respond to the election of a fascist president promising to weaponize accusations of “antisemitism” to punish protestors and higher education institutions with “actually, the real hate crime is when you talk about the objectively verifiable violent settler colonialism and apartheid system of our genocidal client state in an academic setting.” As an aside, can someone explain to me why Kathy Hochul, who runs an unassailable “blue” state and thus has no fear of ever losing an election, governs as a Reaganite Republican? I mean does she just like being a pig, or what?
New York’s governor orders college to remove Palestinian studies job listing
“The job posting at Hunter College had called for a historian “who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to settler-colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender, and sexuality,” according to screenshots published by the New York Post, which first reported the job announcement.
Following the coverage, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, ordered the City University of New York school to remove the posting “and conduct a thorough review of the position to ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom,” her office said in a statement.
The CUNY Board of Trustees agreed, and university officials have since removed the posting for a “Palestinian Studies Cluster Hire,” which was marked as expired on Friday.
“We find this language divisive, polarizing and inappropriate and strongly agree with Governor Hochul’s direction to remove this posting,” Chairperson William C. Thompson Jr. and Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, adding they would work “to tackle antisemitism on our campuses and combat hate in all of its forms.”
On some (disgusting) level, you have to admire the brass balls on our pro-genocide U.S. establishment to keep pushing the idea that acknowledging Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza and longstanding violence against Palestinians is “antisemitism” without the faintest hint of irony or anything resembling a reasonable argument. “It’s antisemitism because we say so and words mean whatever power says they do” is an awfully familiar argument in fascist societies and under totalitarian states, but that doesn’t make it true and pretending that it does to justify punishing and hindering folks who’re opposing a genocide has a funny way of exposing that the emperor(s) have no clothes over time.
Please keep in mind that this is in New York, and Kathy Hochul, a Democratic governor, has decided to legitimize this Zionist fantasy argument by exercising her power over CUNY. In so much as this story is being reported, it is being presented as a sort of “mistake” whereby Hochul has been “trolled” via the New York Post into acting out a right wing agenda in the face of a moral panic. Personally, I think that’s a load of hogwash and Hochul is simply a collaborator. We’re talking about the same woman who spoke out in favor of mask bans to punish peaceful protestors, and sent fucking soldiers to police fare-jumpers in her subway system. Either Hochul is the dumbest person alive and completely incapable of learning from her many “mistakes,” or getting in bed with fascists based on spurious nonsensical arguments is clearly something she’s willing to do in order to please the reactionary winger rich people she really works for. For a very long time before this past election, I warned people that the *entire* US establishment would find a way to cooperate and collaborate with fascists if these Trump-humping nazis did get back in power because they prefer fascism to sharing and empowering the people; this is just another example of what I meant by that, unfolding in real time.
Google Tells the Trump Regime It’s Onside
I know this story is a few weeks old at this point, but given that just yesterday I was chatting with someone in my own life who was completely unaware of it, I thought I might take a moment to highlight why it’s not being reported well in our media, and most importantly talk about what Google’s open signal that they’d love to collaborate with Downmarket Mussolini and our fascist Pork Reich government on whatever nightmare bullshit these nazis want to do, actually means.
Amid Other Pro-Trump Moves, Google Maps Makes “Gulf of America” Name Change
“In the U.S., the gulf will be displayed as the “Gulf of America.” In Mexico, it will remain the “Gulf of Mexico.” From anywhere else in the world, the body of water will be labeled as “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).”
Although the change is consistent with the Google Maps policy on names for geographic locations elsewhere, the move comes as Google has made numerous attempts to endear itself to Trump over the past several weeks.
The company, for example, gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. It also opted to end its diversity hiring targets following Trump’s executive order terminating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and funding across the federal government. And along with the changes to its maps this week, Google removed Black History Month and Pride Month from its list of annual celebrations on Google Calendar.
Google also announced earlier this month that it would abandon its Responsible AI pledge, which included a promise not to use artificial intelligence to develop tech that could cause “overall harm” — including weapons and surveillance systems.”
In terms of media coverage and how for-profit news orgs have treated this story, we’re legitimately talking about a catastrophic failure to connect the obvious dots and ominous historical overtones in this situation. Most outlets are hell bent on covering Google’s desire to collaborate with a fascist U.S. government as a pathetic private sector attempt to curry favor with Trump, or story about Downmarket Mussolini’s laughable obsession with names on maps. The sinister reality however is that it is in precisely how Google is choosing to curry favor with Trump, that how far they’re willing to go reveals itself. Eliminating Black History Month from the calendar is objectively supporting a white supremacist regime objective, just as eliminating Pride Month from the calendar supports a heteronormative, anti-LGBTQ agenda. Changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico on its maps, even if it’s just for American users, is an open signal of support for the Trump administration’s hyper-nationalist, and increasingly expansionist agenda. This isn’t currying favor with fascists; Google is signaling to the fascist administration, that they’re ready to help them literally do fascism, presumably for profit.
All of which leads us to Google’s abandonment of the responsible AI pledge, and why history doesn’t repeat itself but often rhymes. In the lead up to the literal Holocaust, IBM (yes, that IBM) designed and supplied the Nazi Party with a punch card computing system that made it possible to identify and catalogue Jewish people and other targets of the Nazi regime for extermination; and they made a handsome profit doing so, as detailed in Edwin Black’s groundbreaking work “IBM and the Holocaust: How America’s Most Powerful Corporation Helped Nazi Germany Count The Jews.” The fact is mass deportations, incarcerations, and exterminations are a data-centric activities; you simply can’t undertake that kind of (repugnant) project without a way to organize, categorize, and easily access information about your targets. Which is a task that becomes considerably easier if you can automate collection and analysis through say, fake AI programs. At its heart, Google is ultimately a data collection and organization company, which already maintains vast amounts of information about the populations and groups the Trump administration is threatening. And now that company is openly signaling to Downmarket Mussolini that they are not only “down to fascism” but are both equipped to help conduct various types of mass surveillance and organized purges, as well as prepared abandon ethical guidelines that would prevent them from doing so if the price is right; just like IBM did in the 1930’s and the lead up to the Holocaust.
Of course you’re not going to find that kind of analysis in the pro-capitalist, for profit media because those folks are just as busy trying to figure out how they can turn a profit from Trump’s fascist agenda too; and that is a big part of why this modern fascist movement is winning, and easily.
Trump Takes Possession of the Gaza Genocide
The awesome thing about American politics is that genocidal imperialism, settler-colonialism, and capitalist extraction at bayonet point are so inherently bipartisan that each successive American regime, regardless of stated ideological positions, will continue the malevolent policies, murders, and crimes against humanity of the prior regime without it so much as inspiring questions or commentary from our (clearly) pro-genocide media and commentariat. Oh wait, no that’s not awesome; it actually sucks ass.
To the surprise of precisely no one and very little fanfare, it took the Trump administration about five weeks to greenlight Israel’s continued genocide in Gaza via crimes against humanity (in this case, intentional starvation.) I guess it’s hard to build luxury condos in Gaza if any Palestinians are alive to object.
Trump Admin Bypasses Congress to Send Israel $4B as It Blocks Aid Into Gaza
“The blockade, which began on Sunday, deprives Palestinians of basic needs like food, water and medicine, plunging the Gaza Strip back into some of the worst days of the genocide. This is after Israel had indeed increased the amount of aid entering Gaza amid the first phase of the captive swap deal, but still had not fulfilled all of its obligations to allow in supplies like shelter.
Human rights groups have condemned the blockade, saying that it amounts to collective punishment and a deadly continuation of Israel’s genocide.
“Israel is once again blocking an entire population from receiving aid, using it as a bargaining chip. This is unacceptable, outrageous, and will have devastating consequences,” said Médecins Sans Frontières’s emergency coordinator Caroline Seguin.
UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) head Phillippe Lazzarini suggested that Israel was using basic needs as “weapons of war” and that the blockade “threatens the lives of civilians exhausted by 16 months of brutal war.” The use of starvation and the withholding of aid as a weapon of war have been cited by human rights experts as acts of genocide by Israeli authorities.”
As the article notes, the four billion dollars that little maggot Rubio just approved is only part of a larger twelve billion dollars the Trump administration is sending Israel, and the White House has publicly backed Israel’s renewed efforts to starve women and children to death, citing some presumably made up shit about “Hamas” – despite the fact that these are crimes against humanity and thus cannot be justified or legally authorized no matter what excuse Downmarket Mussolini wants to offer for doing so. The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess.
Predictably, this aid package and Trump’s support for again, a genocide we’re arming, funding, and ideologically supporting on the world stage, has generated mostly subdued commentary from an American for-profit media complex that liked that genocide a lot when Joe Biden was the one approving weapons shipments and foreign aid Israel doesn’t need. Indeed, corporate media’s primary focus appears to be contrasting Trump’s financial support for Netanyahu with the administration’s decision to cut off all military aid to Ukraine; which does indeed raise some questions that are probably already answered by Downmarket Mussolini’s craven bootlicking towards Putin and his administration’s open charm policy shift towards Russia.
As important as that discussion is however, you’d think in any sort of responsible media environment we might see at least SOME significant sort of outrage over the fact that the US government is once again helping Israel conduct a genocide, but I suppose I’m the greater fool for thinking bombing hospitals and starving babies rates as a news item compared to how rude that shitbird Trump was to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on live TV. I guess that kind of callous disregard for innocent human lives and full-throated amour for US imperial predation in our media doesn’t change much from election to election either.
Boomeranging, Musk, and Fascist Unreality
If I’m being honest, I don’t really have a lot more to add in terms of analysis here but I wanted to highlight a specific section of this article about the rhetorical style employed by Trump and the Pork Reich because much of our mainstream establishment, even the portions of it that are opposing Trump (and I don’t think that represents a large portion of said establishment) either doesn’t know how this works, or doesn’t care to identify it and work to counteract it. It’s not enough to say the Trumpenreich lies, because their rhetorical style involves literally inverting reality and through the force of state and constant repetition, creating a type of implied “unreality.” This isn’t just a question of deception; it’s basically a psychological attack.
Musk, Social Security, and the Ponzi-Scheme Boomerang
“Trumpism as a discourse most prominently features three verbal maneuvers: gaslighting, coopting, and boomeranging. All three are intertwined in the disingenuous effort to overturn our liberal democracy and further the move toward a more illiberal autocratic political system, where Trump and his followers get to claim they are saving us from the failures of the current political system. Gaslighting is where you deflect a criticism by saying that the problem is something other than what the critic alleged, thereby insulating yourself from that criticism. For instance, the January 6th attack on the Capitol was actually an inside job perpetrated by the FBI. Coopting is where you adopt the language of your critics so that you are the one with the just cause and they are the one who is deserving of condemnation. The January 6th attack on the Capitol was an instance of Trump supporters standing up for democracy, not trying to undermine it. Boomeranging is where you send criticism directed at you right back at your critics. In this case, the claim is that the critics of the January 6th insurrection are actually the ones who are threatening democracy. These are all lies, aided by disinformation, consciously deployed to pollute public discourse and open the door to allowing Trump and is supporters to overthrow the existing constitutional order.”
Setting aside the fact that the author and I clearly have wildly divergent opinions about to what degree the American system under free market fundamentalism actually represents a democracy, this is a fairly accurate assessment of the rhetorical style deployed by Dowmarket Mussolini, his mandarins, and the “America First” fascist movement in modern politics. I would have liked to see Schram point out that this style of discourse is always employed by fascist movements throughout history, without variation, and some comparison to the DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) tactics employed by abusers because I think both of those things are quite instructional in the context of Americans being woefully unprepared to recognize and combat fascist politics in a country where fascist ideology has been normalized for decades and decades. For example, this is French philosopher, playwright, and political activist Jean-Paul Sartre writing in 1946:
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
Now obviously Sartre focuses his analysis on antisemites in this quote, but objectively speaking antisemitism is such an inherent part of the larger fascist zeitgeist that he was in fact also discussing the larger fascist argument style; there was no need to make a distinction in 1946, and I’d argue there isn’t a need to make one now either. Furthermore, as you can see Sartre has somehow predicted in slightly different words, the same rhetorical techniques deployed by Trumpists, America First fascists, the larger alt-right, and pretty much every “conservative” that’s happily thrown their lot in with the nazis they always wanted to be. It is in my studied opinion not at all some sort of accident that the Trump administration’s ideological arguments and justifications perfectly mirror those of the literal Nazi Party and um, rapists I guess; of which there are many in Trump’s administration.
Finally, I should hope at this point it goes without saying that I do not support starving senior citizens and poor people so Elon Musk and the other rich nazis who own Trump can steal literally trillions (no really, with a T) of dollars from the US treasury and by loose extrapolation, the American people; but if you needed that pointed out here, there it is.
Riding Dead Trans People to the 2028 Dem Nomination
Imagine for a moment that you were the Democrat Governor of the most populous state in a country that just elected an openly fascist government that is actively using a moral panic to criminalizing the existence of a highly-vulnerable minority group, while conducting a much broader pogrom against that vulnerable and targeted minority group; in this case trans people. What is the most pathetic, craven, cowardly, selfish, irresponsible, and openly collaborationist (with fascists) thing you could possibly do? Then I want you to realize that when it comes to fascist collaboration you are like a small baby, because I guarantee that no matter what your brain just came up with it’s not worse than what California Governor and potential 2028 Dem presidential nominee Gavin Newsom just did:
CA Gov Gavin Newsom “Completely Aligns” With Charlie Kirk On Trans Issues In Podcast
“On Thursday, California Governor Gavin Newsom launched his new podcast, This is Gavin Newsom. His first guest? Notorious anti-LGBTQ+ extremist Charlie Kirk. The episode covered a wide range of grievances Kirk and other far-right activists have with Newsom, touching on topics from Black Lives Matter to COVID policies. However, the issue of transgender rights surfaced repeatedly. At one point, Newsom stated he was “completely aligned” with Kirk on transgender participation in sports. He also appeared to express agreement with restrictions on medical care for incarcerated transgender people and limits on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth.”
Yes, you read that correctly; the Dem Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, celebrated the birth of his new podcast by inviting Charlie fucking Kirk on to his show and stridently agreeing with him about various aspects of the GOP’s fascist war on trans rights and by extension, their efforts to threaten the existence of trans people entirely. I’m sure some Dem apologists reading this are already calling me an alarmist, but before I explain why you can’t have just “a little” fascist persecution of trans people, I’d like to make something abundantly clear. Charlie Kirk is a professional fascist propagandist, who is actively employed in the task of creating ideological arguments to support, and popular support for, a real as fuck pogrom against trans people. That’s what he is, that’s what he does for a living:
“Newsom’s invitation and capitulation to Charlie Kirk on his podcast will alarm LGBTQ+ advocates. Kirk has a well-documented history of extremist rhetoric and hostility toward the LGBTQ+ community. In a 2023 video, he stated, “These people are sick… I blame the decline of American men. Someone should have just ‘took care of it’ the way we used to take care of things in the 1950s and 60s, but as you have testosterone rates going down and men acting like women, well…”—seemingly advocating for violence against transgender people. Kirk has also repeatedly used the slur “tr*nny” and has encouraged its normalization. He once called transgender people “a throbbing middle finger to god.” In the last election cycle, TPUSA’s PAC, which he leads, spent millions on anti-transgender ads, making his presence on Newsom’s platform all the more striking.”
Gavin, from the bottom of my heart, please go fuck yourself and get in the goddamn sea you sniveling dick-weasel bootlicker. As a trans woman, I wouldn’t give Newsom a cup of hot piss if he were dying of thirst in the Gobi desert; so he can pretty much forget about my hypothetical 2028 vote.
Given everything we just read, I’m pretty comfortable saying that Newsom hosting Charlie Kirk on his podcast in the first place is a profoundly craven and dangerous act of fascist collaboration. Enough so that even if Newsom and Kirk were chatting about the weather, he should still be forced to resign immediately from both the party and the governorship. Of course they weren’t just talking about the weather; Governor Newsom, who by the way has one of the safest seats in all of US government and thus has no electoral need to pander to literal fascists who want to criminalize and ultimately end the existence of trans people, invited Charlie on his podcast to spew transphobic propaganda in service of an active fascist pogrom targeting trans people, and in particular young trans women; and then agreed with him. There is no wiggle room or nuance to be had here, Newsom just helped the fascists make trans people less safe in America and his actions absolutely will have a body count associated with them down the line. This isn’t about women’s sports, or gender care in carceral settings because those are just the wedge arguments the fascists are using to criminalize trans existence; what Newsom is doing here is agreeing in principle that trans people are a danger to women and girls, and that their medical rights should be subject to legislation – all that’s left to argue about at that point is to what degree trans people aren’t people and thus don’t have the same rights as other Americans.
Folks, this isn’t some backwater school board rep straying off script; Newsom is probably one of the five most powerful people in the entire Democratic Party and clearly has designs on the presidential nomination for the 2028 US election. If liberals want to prove folks like me are wrong when we say Dems would trade trans lives for ten suburban white votes in an election they’ll lose anyway, you need to DO something about Gavin Newsom; immediately.
Rubio, Digital Fascism, and Anti-Genocide Protest
I don’t know about you, but I just love to watch our fascist government weaponize already-existing American xenophobia and a seventeen months-long, wholly mainstream and bipartisan campaign to conflate opposing a genocide with antisemitism and support for “terrorists,” to construct an automated digital panopticon that absolutely will be used to hunt down anyone critical of the US regime regardless of whether or not they’re “foreign” or “students.” Wait no, I hate that and anyone who thinks it’s a good idea sucks donkey ass; which is probably why it seems like an amazing idea to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio:
Scoop: State Dept. to use AI to revoke visas of foreign students who appear “pro-Hamas”
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching an AI-fueled “Catch and Revoke” effort to cancel the visas of foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups, senior State Department officials tell Axios.
Why it matters: The effort — which includes AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders’ social media accounts — marks a dramatic escalation in the U.S. government’s policing of foreign nationals’ conduct and speech.
The reviews of social media accounts are particularly looking for evidence of alleged terrorist sympathies expressed after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, officials say. Officials plan to examine internal databases to see whether any visa holders were arrested but allowed to stay in the country during the Biden administration.
They say they’re also checking news reports of anti-Israel demonstrations and Jewish students’ lawsuits that highlight foreign nationals allegedly engaged in antisemitic activity without consequence. The State Department is working with the departments of Justice and Homeland Security in what one senior State official called a “whole of government and whole of authority approach.”
I’ll give Axios partial credit for at least *implying* that this is all fascist made up bullshit; but only partial because they didn’t actually say it and like most mainstream media orgs that are at least pretending to oppose fascism, they’re relying on readers to read between the lines; a skill which most Americans simply do not posses, if our political discourse is any indication.
So let’s say it out loud for them:
The first thing you need to understand here is that Trump and the fascist movement have already publicly defined all protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as criminal in nature. Frankly, as far as I can tell, the Trump administration considers all protest activity, no matter how peaceful, a criminal activity, but they are particularly keen on prosecuting this viewpoint through attacks on anti-genocide protestors at American universities.
The second thing you need to understand is that this same fascist regime, and a significant portion of the American “centrist” establishment, have already defined opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza as being “pro-Hamas” and our government has officially labelled Hamas as a terrorist group; which unlocks a plethora of nightmare fascist enforcement and punishment options our governments installed in response to the attacks on 9/11. Please keep in mind that whether you agree or disagree with the official designation of Hamas as a terrorist group is irrelevant; that’s the law as presently constructed and you absolutely don’t have to be pro-Hamas for these chucklefucks to say you are because you oppose facilitating a genocide and bombing fucking hospitals.
The third thing you need to understand here is that while the Trump regime is using foreign students as the thin end of the wedge to justify this war on free speech because Americans are xenophobic, and their media has taught them to hate student protestors, the fact is that there is absolutely nothing stopping them from expanding their targets to include every American or person in America because we have laws and regulations on the books already that allow the US government to destroy your life and imprison you for supporting “terrorism” and they (and their fascist in-pocket judges) get to define what “supporting” and “terrorism” mean in this context. I mean I don’t want to imply these folks give a shit about “rules” at all, but we’ve stupidly allowed the US government to essentially revoke our civil rights if they yell “terrorism” loud enough, legally-speaking.
Taken together then all of that more or less indicates that the Trump administration is actively criminalizing opposition to American imperialism, criticism of American client states (particularly Israel), and opposing a genocide. Pretending they might not mean to go that far like our media continues to do, is a very naïve position to take at this late a day and with the available evidence of how the Trump regime operates. These nazis are who, and what, they’re openly admitting they are.
Finally, as an aside; remember when I told you AI is literally “a fascism machine?” This is the kinda shit I meant; computers can’t think and AI is garbage, but repression and violating the rights of millions of people, absolutely can be automated.
– Nina Illingworth
Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.
You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.
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