Don’t know where all this alt-right/alt-left stuff originated but it’s linguistic obfuscation. No one knows what the hell those categories stand for politically & in an era of such sharp polarization what we need is absolute clarity, not more bullshit. The phenomenon of concern which incorporates the alt-right & alt-left is the emergence of libertarianism as a significant political force. It was a marginal, lunatic fringe which developed into a cult in the mid-70s out of former socialists & became a force with the influence of the libertarian journal Global Research in 2001. It has erupted into a cancerous social movement based on white supremacy, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, war-mongering.

The reason it confuses is that alt-left libertarians talk out of both sides of their ass. On the one hand, they’re for universal health care, women’s rights, & oppose the Muslim ban. But then they mocked & ridiculed all protests for salvaging Obamacare, those against the Muslim ban, & the women’s march of millions on every continent because “it was just liberals” marching. Most have never gotten off their asses to march against any wars but they sure as hell hate US imperialism & regime change operations. Their anti-militarism doesn’t include Russian intervention in Syria nor Syrian bombing of civilians because they believe Assadist propaganda that it is “head-chopping Wahabi jihadists” against a democratic, secular regime.

The two issues which most expose alt-left libertarians are Syria & Israel & those are the issues that expose the convergence between the alt-left libertarians & the alt-right libertarians who are fascists. One cannot distinguish a difference between the analyses of these two political currents because they are both rooted in Islamophobia & anti-Semitism–manifest most in the head-chopping Wahabi narrative & allegations that Israel engineered the war in Syria as part of a grand scheme to annex it into a Greater Israel. Their hatred of Israel is based not on support for Palestinians but hatred of Jews.

Alt-left libertarians call themselves revolutionary & socialist. Their derision for liberals is a hallmark of their politics allowing some to support Trump. They are not a sui generis political development; there is an analog in history called national socialism. It may come as harsh reality to people like Oliver Stone, Cindy Sheehan, Pepe Escobar, Tariq Ali, Ben Norton, Max Blumenthal, Phil Rockstroh, Rania Khalek, Jeff Mackler & their followers, but they are morphing into or rendering legitimacy to national socialism.

Just a word about those liberals who alt-left libertarians hold in such contempt: chances are most taking on dictatorships, war & occupation include every religious & political current under the sun, including liberals. Those who hold the forces of social rebellion in contempt are elitists morphing into fascists. If you’re in that camp through misunderstanding, it is not too late to retreat & stand with the oppressed.

In unintended but monstrous sarcasm, MSNBC brought on Madeleine Albright to talk about Trump’s moral equivalency between fascists & civil rights activists. After she said in a 1996 interview that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children were “worth it” to achieve US policy goals in Iraq, nothing she has to say is worth horse manure.

Unlike Sarah Abed, the fascist apologist for Assad, human rights activists do not want support from war criminals nor fascists. We don’t march with the devil to achieve human solidarity.

American civil & human rights advocates are shell-shocked by the death of Heather Heyer. But we do not forget that execution & violence against young people in Kashmir & Palestine is an almost daily event, that Rohingya live with ethnic cleansing of an entire people, that death squads are gunning down hundreds of poor people in the Philippines, & that people in several war zones have been under aerial bombardment for years.

It isn’t that we think her life more important than any others anywhere. She stood against injustice & white supremacy & for that we honor her.

The eulogies at the memorial service for Heather Heyer describe a young woman inspired & outspoken about justice & hatred of inequality. May she Rest In Peace. Her voice will not be silenced.

Susan Bro, the mother of Heather, gave a beautiful & brilliant eulogy which was a call to action. You can see where Heather learned her sense of justice.

Deranged white supremacist & fascist leader Christopher Cantwell told a reporter in Charlottesville: “A lot more people are going to die before we’re done here.” Cantwell was one of the central leaders who organized the violent encounter against the removal of a Confederate monument.

Under Trump, the fascist right thinks it’s riding high & intend violence against those who oppose them, especially Black & Latino activists. It means we don’t take them on isolated or unprepared because we have a duty to protect this movement. We begin with demanding city & police officials take our security seriously & provide overwhelming force against the fascists. It means we organize & train marshals in the methods of protecting protesters. It means protesters refuse to engage in provocations of the fascists because their threats against us must be taken seriously.

We have nothing to fear about standing up against these fascists except–to coin a cliche–fear itself. These same dark forces were emboldened after the OJ Simpson verdict in 1995 but when one million Black activists showed up in Washington, DC for the Million Man March two weeks after the verdict, the fascists were driven back under their rocks.

If you cite Julian Assange on democracy, fascism, civil rights, human rights, Russiagate, you are probably a libertarian redneck.

Putting aside what a creep he is & the entire cornucopia of his repugnances, we cite only one: his appeal to philosopher Peter Singer for moral authority. Singer is the demented Australian who sanctions killing infants with disabilities & claims sexually assaulting a person with intellectual disabilities is not criminal because they don’t comprehend rape & cannot give or withhold consent.

If you look at the fascists marching with their Nazi insignia & think “economic anxiety” rather than white supremacy, you may be a libertarian redneck.

Confederate monuments in several cities are besieged by protesters who want them destroyed. White supremacists are also showing up to “defend their heritage.”

Here’s hoping they start circling Mount Rushmore in South Dakota where George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln & Theodore Roosevelt are etched in stone. Why Lincoln when he led the civil war against slavery? Because he also led the wars of extermination against Indians. Confronting these monuments is about confronting the lies of US history & charting a course for America that does not whitewash or glorify racism & white supremacism.

Guessing that debate about whether Trump is a fascist or not can be laid to rest. Or is there an operative distinction between being one & inciting them to violence?

The thing we have to come to grips with to establish grounds for impeachment–or even better, a revolution–is that with Trump, there are no new lows. In his press conference today, he reiterated his defense of the fascists & white supremacists in Charlottesville; accused the young woman killed & those injured when the fascist drove into them of provocation & charging the car with clubs; & blamed both fascists & counter-protesters equally rather than condemn the racist violence.

The fascists showed up in Charlottesville to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. When reporters queried Trump on the issue, he pointed out that George Washington & Thomas Jefferson were both slave owners & said: “This week it’s Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson’s coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week? Is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?….Are you gonna take down their statues too?”

Whether Americans tear down those ugly-assed monuments to Washington & Jefferson & all the other founding fathers who were slavers is secondary to the falsification of US history in public schools which completely omits or whitewashes (there is no more apt term) the history of slavery, the extermination of millions of Native Americans, & denies the contributions of Blacks, Indians, Latinos, Chinese, & other nationalities to US history & culture. As a matter of fact, there is no more contemptible whitewash than the history of Thomas Jefferson who held a woman slave as his concubine for years beginning when she was 14 & he was 44. Historians have turned this rape into a love story.

Most of the hundreds of Confederate & racist monuments across the US are not a part of US culture & history as dumb-assed Trump claimed. They are of fairly recent vintage, installed by unreconstructed Confederates to create lies about our history & make heroes of white supremacists. If truth be told, all of the Confederate monuments should be razed to the ground & destroyed. There shouldn’t be a single objection either to taking down the statues of the founding fathers who were slavers & replacing them with monuments to the Black, Latino, Indian, Chinese, & other working people who have built this country despite the persecutions they sustained. That is not to create deception about the past but correcting the lies & teaching our children what & who is worthy of honor & respect.

A useful popular history to read on the Confederate monuments is “Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong” by James W. Loewen. He also wrote “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” about the falsification of US history leaving out Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans.

This photo is a city worker in Louisville, Kentucky who is obviously resentful at being assigned to remove paint from a vandalized monument dedicated to a Confederate soldier.

(Photo by Bryan Woolston/Reuters)