Donald Trump and his cohort of propagandists at Fox News would have us believe the major cities of the United States have been turned to ashes and rubble by mobs of racial justice and antifa activists. But after weeks of sustained protests in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd, the only thing actually in ashes is Trump’s credibility.
The image of rampaging activist hordes, however, is key to the all-encompassing fiction the right has been spoon-feeding to itself for decades. Believing in that fiction translates into the belief that anything done to stop it is positive on its face.
Enter the faceless, anonymous, heavily armed federal officers snatching protesters off the streets of Portland, Oregon. One would think that people on the right, who have spent years warning of “jack-booted government thugs” coming to take our rights by force, would be horrified by what we are seeing in Portland. It is their grim prophecy made flesh, and yet they are responding either with silence or active support, apparently because they saw it on Fox.
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William Rivers Pitt (November 9, 1971 – September 26, 2022). He was an author, educator, political activist and loving parent. Among his published works are Pitt's book War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know, with Scott Ritter, was published by Profile Books in 2002 outlining false WMD arguments set against testimony and data from a weapons inspector who oversaw the destruction of Iraq's stockpiles in the 1990s. The Mass Destruction of Iraq: The Disintegration of a Nation: Why It Is Happening, and Who Is Responsible, was published by Truthout in 2014. The book was co-authored by Truthout reporter Dahr Jamail.
