Disappearing people, cruel cuts to U.S. government agencies, reactionary efforts to control U.S. society and stigmatize LGBTQ+ people, Smithsonian under threat, and more
This newsletter will cover disturbing recent news, including slashing U.S. government spending and jobs, disappearing people, and the proposed Smithsonian coup d'etat
There’s a lot of news to cover in this newsletter, which follows my newsletter on similar topics on March 9th and my newsletter about animation on March 14th. It serves as the inaugural issue of the newsletter section I am calling “Burkely’s Current Affairs Review.” I begin this newsletter, which is said to be too long for email, with the recent news about about detention of those who have criticized U.S. backing of Israeli genocide in Gaza Strip and West Bank since October 7th. The administration's actions echo what happened in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile in the 1970s, and El Salvador, Guatemala, and Spain. On Tuesday, ICE agents abducted a Turkish national and Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, while she was en route to meet her friends at an Iftar dinner in Somerville, Massachusetts. The officers put coverings over their faces so their identities could be concealed, and they put her in an unmarked SUV, which spirited her away. She was quickly moved to an facility in Louisiana despite a district court judge blocking the movement, in yet another defiance of court orders.
Ozturk was never charged with any crime, only claimed to be “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” with no evidence provided. It stands to reason she was detained because she had previously co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts University student newspaper calling for holding “Israel accountable for clear violations of international law” and having the university divest from Israeli companies. Her rendition is one example of a recent trend of ICE and other U.S. government agencies nabbing people. There’s been attempts to deport Mahmoud Khalil for his pro-Palestine activism in Columbia University and Georgetown University fellow Badar Khan Suri, claiming their actions “aligned with Hamas” (again no evidence was provided). Palestinian-American Columbia student, Leqaa Kordia, was claimed to have “advocate[d] for violence” (no evidence provided) and was arrested.
Brown University assistant professor, and doctor, Rasha Alawieh, was detained and federal agents found “photos of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s supreme leader on her cell phone,” then deported her. The visas of Suri and Alawieh were voided, as was the visa of Columbia student (and Fulbright scholar) Ranjani Srinivasan (she left to Canada). Often the federal statute Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was invoked to justify the deportations. It gives Secretary of State Marco Rubio the power to deport any non-citizen, under Section 107 (3)(C) who he, reasonably believes, would cause “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
The same also occurred to University of Alabama doctoral student Alireza Doroudi. He was nabbed and may be en route to the same ICE detention facility in Louisiana as Ozturk, Suri, and Khalil. The actions against Doroudi, Ozturk, Suri, and Khalil are, simply put, disappearances, or more exactly enforced/forced disappearances. The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) defines the latter as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.” What has happened to Doroudi, Ozturk, Suri, and Khalil fall under this definition, as their liberty has been deprived, government officials (ICE agents) have been involved, there’s a refusal to acknowledge that their liberty was abrogated, and their fate (and whereabouts) have been concealed.
As the OHCHR puts it, enforced disappearances have frequently been used to “spread terror within societies,” creating a feeling of insecurity among close relatives of the disappeared, and impacting “their communities and society as a whole.” It was recently reported that the current reactionary administration is requiring that foreign students wanting to study, or are currently studying, in the U.S. "pass an ideological test in order to obtain a visa." Americans remain the target, with “trespassing, occupation, organizing…now being considered acts of terrorism” by the U.S. government itself, a frightening thought, to say the least.
This is only the beginning. These actions, which violate their constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech, are being cheered on by Zionist groups (some of which are providing thousands of names to the U.S. government as potential targets to be deported). It is meant as a form of political control, with threats to go against other students who are reportedly engaged in activities which benefit Hamas, were discriminatory against Jews, or were against the United States, as the orange one has directly threatened. Already, Brown University teacher and doctor Rasha Alawieh “was detained…upon her return from a visit to her native Lebanon,” and two Columbia University residencies were visited by DHS agents. Hundreds of others have had their visas revoked, if Rubio is to be believed, with some students, like Yunseo Chung (also of Columbia), and Momodou Taal (of Cornell), suing to stop their deportations, surrounding their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests. All the while Columbia has been under fire for not standing up for students and been pressured by the administration.
Columbia surrendered recently, agreeing to most of the administration's demands, with new measures to ban face masks on campus, empower campus security officers to “remove or arrest individuals,” and take control of the “department that offers courses on the Middle East from its faculty”! Other universities are falling in line, removing their commitments to diversity, with University of Maine even restricting sports on campus from including trans people (i.e. obeying in advance), despite the Governor Janet Mills directly resisting this effort.
Presently, immigrants are the ones who have been disappeared en masse, thanks to help from Big Tech, which is more than happy to oblige. Most recently, a group of over 200 Venezuelans accused of gang activity (in Tren de Aragua) were flown to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison in El Salvador, a country run by an autocrat named Nayib Bukele (since June 2019). It recently had a failed experiment to use the cryptocurrency commodity (which is energy-intensive, polluting, and destructive), with the U.S. paying El Salvador $6 million to hold the immigrants.
Some names of these immigrants disappeared from the ICE online detainee locator and were only identified by their own families and advocates, through use of photographic and video evidence, not from any U.S. government source. Claims of gang activity are weak, often relying upon tattoos, fliers and deleted photos, coupled with the admission that most of those deported have no criminal record at all. That raises the question of whether these individuals are even in the gang, which is not “at war” with the U.S. in any way, shape, or form. The continued deportation of these individuals despite a court order telling them not to, has led to yet another constitutional crisis, while the orange one attempts to undermine the ability of the president to pardon people and his allies are bringing in children to fill immigrant jobs.
The U.S. government has broad authority under the Alien Enemies Act, originally passed in 1798. This law has only been used three times previously, most recently to “incarcerate Germans and Italians…[and] for the mass internment of Japanese-American civilians”! Mother Jones had a great article about the use of this law to put Japanese-Americans into concentration camps during World War II, with even the Census Bureau providing “the U.S. Secret Service with names and addresses of Japanese-Americans during World War II.”
In the article in Mother Jones, it was noted that the U.S. government used the law to target noncitizens deemed “dangerous” solely based on their identity (Doctor Seuss played into the latter with racist cartoons about people of Japanese descent), with the mass arrest of over 110,000 Japanese-Americans in the name of security and safety, while they posed no threat. Although previous plans to send immigrants to the Guantanamo Bay prison were stopped, they were recently restarted, providing yet another place to disappear people. The U.S. has already asserted the power of extraordinary rendition before, specifically to abduct suspected terrorists from another country and transfer them to another country, beginning in the early 1990s but even more after 9/11. There is a likelihood that other extrajudicial tactics, to induce terror, will return, including the use of black sites, by the CIA, to torture people.
At the same time, there’s been cuts to various federal agencies, whether abolishing by executive dictate (within seven days) U.S. soft power propaganda news services enshrined in the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the Minority Business Development Agency, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (in the Smithsonian), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The latter is especially bad, since it “funds grants to libraries and museums across the country,” with EveryLibrary objecting to the IMLS cuts, and for good reason.
The General Services Administration, at the direction of Muskrat’s DOGE, has terminated hundreds of leases for U.S. government buildings, while the former put pressure on USPS, leading to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy (prior to his resignation on March 24th) agreeing to cut 10,000 jobs and let DOGE have reportedly limited access to USPS, beginning the path to privatization. DOGE pushed to remove leaders of the U.S. African Development Foundation which “invests millions of dollars in African small businesses,” which a judge let continue. Rubio later declared that only 17% of USAID contracts will be honored (meaning 83% are being cut) which reportedly follow “the core national interests of the United States.” DOGE is planning to automate government tasks with A.I., and is directly targeting Social Security (with disinformation), USDA, and many other U.S. government agencies, whether the U.S. military, Department of Education, HUD, or IRS, often by bringing in DOGE personnel.
In response, there have been small moves by the U.S. Supreme Court against the reactionary administration, but it is far from enough to stop what is going on, considering the court may rule against a program which benefits schools, libraries, and rural health care providers. Other lower courts judges have ordered probationary federal employees reinstated and otherwise ruled against the administration. Related to the latter, those who have been forced to return to the office, in an anti-worker order against remote work, have been faced with terrible conditions, like “clogged sinks, overflowing trash cans, and a lack of toilet paper” as custodial staff have not returned and offices aren’t set for workers to return. This all comes at the time that the OPM seeks broader authority to fire federal employees, federal prisons are in disarray with “no real leadership in place,” and there’s executive dictate to stop NLRB and EEOC “from returning to work.”
There are disturbing efforts to control:
the justice system
education (through the fast-moving effort to abolish the U.S. Department of Education and concentrate all education policy on the state level)
flow of information (through destroying classified documents and abolishing U.S. soft power media outlets)
history (through purge of military websites on female pilots, Black veterans, Navajo code talkers [later restored after people objected], and anything else considered to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion)
anything else promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (through the continued funding freeze)
use of popper pills (with raids) [could have uneven effects]
abortion pills [and who gets them] (this will be more possible with the new anti-abortion head of the FDA who three Democrats dumbly voted for)
who can go into the library on the U.S.-Canada border
minimum wage for federal contractors (their wages won’t be increased)
who can vote (and who can’t) [interfering in state control of elections]
The latter comes on the heels of an executive dictate declaring that any of the twenty-one museums and fourteen research centers under the Smithsonian Institution (and National Zoo), which receives 62% of its funding from the federal government, cannot promote anything deemed “divisive”, “improper” or “anti-American.” Vance, a member of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian (it includes six members of Congress, Chief Justice John Roberts, and nine citizens), is tasked with beginning a coup d’etat of the institution, by asking congressional leaders to appoint those who are “committed to advancing the celebration of America’s extraordinary heritage and progress” (i.e. right-wing ideologues). It further orders restoration of markers, statues, memorials, and monuments removed since January 2020 on any federal properties.
Under the dictate, Vance will work with OMB to block funding for exhibits which he believes degrade “shared American values [or] divide Americans based on race.” These efforts are rejected by historians, who call the effort insecure, an ideological plot, a threat to anyone who helps tell or preserve U.S. history, and misrepresenting what the Smithsonian does. Representative Jasmine Crockett, Writers and Editors of Color founder Allison Wiltz, and visitors have criticized this action plan, with good reason, worrying that eugenicist views will follow.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), American Art Museum (AAM), and American Women’s History Museum (AWHM) are specifically targeted for supposedly portraying Western (and American) values as “inherently harmful and oppressive.” The order claims NMAAHC impugned “White culture.” The AWHM (still under construction) is criticized for positively depicting trans people. AAM is criticized for an exhibit saying that sculpture has been a “powerful tool in promoting scientific racism” and calling out the existence of systemic racism. They would grimace at the fact that race is “not a biological reality but…a social construct” instead.
This whole plan has been described as an “ideological purge” and promotion of a “whitewashed version of American history free from questions.” This comes after the forced dismantlement of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C.; “restoring the names of military installations honoring slave-owning Confederate generals…and…calling North America’s tallest peak Mt. McKinley instead of Denali.” This strategy for purging the Smithsonian follows the coup d’etat of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in January, which aimed to stop any queer programming and non-existent “wokeness,” by firing Democrats and stacking the Board, which appointed him as the chairman.
This effort to “radically reshape” U.S. culture, as BBC News terms it, which is nothing less than “the slow imposition of a totalitarian worldview on a nation,” as The Independent describes it, has broad-reaching effects. It has already undoubtedly engendered right-wing attempts to censor pro-Palestine speech, like Miami Beach mayor Steven Meiner threatening to evict a theater because they showed No Other Land (he still claims showing the brutal hard-hitting documentary is a “public safety threat,” which it is not). It has created an environment that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voting members failed “to support the detained Palestinian Oscar winner Hamdan Ballal.” Previously, the Smithsonian closed its diversity office in response to an executive order in January, so it’s already been complying, and people have been fired. As Art Newspaper pointed out, the bill which ended the government shutdown gave the orange menace “direct control of the Smithsonian’s appropriations,” while the National Park Service is under cuts imposed by DOGE dictates, as it is doing with other government departments.
This all has an eerie echo of the anti-communism of the past, which is why the actions are being called “McCarthyist” by some. It would be more accurate to say the actions are fascist. And that isn’t an overstatement. As Rolling Stone noted, as the reactionary administration tightens its grip on U.S. history, “which parts of the country’s heritage will be preserved remains to be seen.” The executive dictate basically establishes an “uncritical, nationalist, and pro-State” version of history, allowing censorship of “nuanced and critical views of the nation’s past.” The Smithsonian is anything but a “bulwark of woke insanity” or “racist” (but the recent U.S. military policy saying Marines can be kicked out for certain skin conditions is, since the condition mostly affects Black men) as the New York Post recently declared. They see the enemy as the “public-intellectual class, including historians and preservationists” (i.e. thinking people), while claiming the past is being destroyed, praising the aging orange one (whose mental acuity is lacking every day and is likely on all sorts of drugs) for “striking back,” and wanting to push elites toward “sanity and excellence” (code for outward racism, sexism, etc.), and warn that this is only the “first step.” Yikes!
All the while, the reactionary administration is aiming to benefit fossil fuel companies and increasing climate change with government cuts (to NOAA and the EPA), giving companies legal immunity, and not enforcing and loosening anti-pollution regulations imposed by the EPA. This is happening while Pete Hegseth has declared that the U.S. military is turning away from focusing on climate change, despite the fact the latter has cared about climate change since the beginning of the Cold War. Bill Gates has said he is giving up on climate change by laying off “a significant portion of its staff” in Breakthrough Energy (a joint venture he has with other billionaires). Climate change was not included as part of the annual U.S. national security threat assessment while oil and gas multinationals are asking for new tax breaks, to name a few stories.
When it comes to LGBTQ+ people, there have been recent efforts to stigmatize them. Just take the following as examples:
limits on gender-affirming care in prisons
ending healthcare for intersex and trans veterans
attempting to end marriage equality
possible threats to the pride event in Washington, D.C.
a case on conversion therapy pending before the U.S. Supreme Court
Republicans wanting more emphasis on getting men to stand up for themselves and to be leaders (not good)
hospitals pausing youth gender-affirming care but continuing “controversial intersex surgeries”
Muskrat ridiculously blaming trans people for protests against Tesla
People are right to be worried that LGBTQ+ people will “be put in the dark again by the draconian policies” of the current administration, even as others are stating that there could be a “renewed focus on protest, advocacy, and visibility in the face of evolving challenges.” Democrats continue to fail trans people, with Gavin Newsom’s comments as one recent example. Unsurprisingly, trans people are fleeing to shield states. Attempted bans on trans care are one of the reasons that mental health of trans and intersex people is being degraded.
On the other side of the world, Yemenis are being killed by American bombs (reportedly “only” targeting Houthis). Pete Hegseth wants to relax the laws of war so commanders can be more aggressive and there can be more lenience in charging soldiers with war crimes. Ken Klippenstein has written about plans for full-scale war with Iran, which involves threatening the country with nuclear weapons (which is illegal). Not only would bombing Iran undoubtedly incur more financial costs for Americans, but it would imperil almost 86 million people. The current U.S. foreign policy is sovereignist, with continued threats to seize the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland, and tariffs on other countries (which can hurt women more than anyone else). It’s racist too, either declaring the South African ambassador persona non grata, or supporting deportation of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Somaliland, an area engulfed by armed conflict since the 1990s. The latter will not help Palestinians, nor will it help Somalis. It will lead to more resentment, discrimination, and directly hurt and kill people.
Surely I could talk about what’s happening in Cuba, with widespread blackouts and threats under U.S. sanctions, the disturbing news in Syria with the new leader abolishing the existing constitution and imposing an Islamist one, which does not mean anything good for the people of Syria (while the State Department warns Americans to not travel there), the seeming signs of European resurgence/independence from U.S. when it comes to military spending, the F-35 fighter jet (see here and here), or a peace deal in Ukraine. I could also talk about the Ukraine-U.S. minerals deal, and why it matters, in more ways than not, or how the pandemic is still going on, which is what I’ve been saying for a while now. Instead, I’d like to focus on resistance.
There have been protests in Turkey over LGBTQ+ rights, Muskrat’s Tesla is facing a backlash with lowering stock prices, showing people aren’t putting up with the existential threat he embodies. Washington Post editor Ruth Marcus resigned following Chief Executive and Publisher Will Lewis “killing her column that criticized owner Jeff Bezos' drive to overhaul the opinion pages to focus on his libertarian priorities.” Disney shareholders rejected a proposal to withdraw from participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s corporate equity index (and are now been investigated), in contrast to San Francisco Pride losing money after sponsors dropped out. Students are continuing their fight against deportation. The current war of the reactionary administration, on the First Amendment, is said to echo the Nixon administration’s “extensive surveillance program against Arab communities in the United States,” in 1972, reportedly to search for supposed “terrorists.” Ultimately, 150,000 people were investigated!
Otherwise, there’s a poll showing increased support for the orange one among Republicans, conservatives, and men, but “decreased support from Democrats, liberals and seniors,” with Gallup declaring the orange one has increased support “among Hispanic, Black and young adults.” They should be more honest: the rising support is among men, not women. However, they admit that his weakest groups include “Democrats, liberals, Black adults, women, young adults, lower-income adults and Hispanic adults.” That’s no surprise, considering his fascist policies! Disturbingly, Americans support the nabbing of undocumented immigrants from their homes or at protests, but not at hospitals, places of worship, or schools. I guess that is progress? On a more positive note, people say that inflation is a big problem, as is the “affordability of health care,” hence the mass popularity of accused CEO killer and part Italian-American Luigi Mangione. On the other hand, U.S. withdrawal of funding from WHO (World Health Organization) has resulted in massive cutbacks.
There were other articles about the need for left-wing media, microplastics in the rain, the Vatican slightly softening it stance on trans people, and placing Twitter under the umbrella of the A.I. startup the Muskrat founded. In another potential money grab by the military, the nominee to head the U.S. Air Force, Troy Meink, declared the U.S. needs “space superiority through space control,” to counter China supposedly. It’s just as absurd as those claiming there is a “power gap”, a “ship gap,” or an “A.I. gap” between the U.S. and China. That sounds just like what Gen. Buck Turgidson declares, at the end of Dr. Strangelove (see the above video) that the U.S. must not allow a “mineshaft gap.” Some, like Klippenstein, say the recent threat assessment (noted earlier) changes “longstanding U.S. policy” on Russia, China and Iran, with the first two not described as threats (maybe the Muskrat wants investments there, apart from his already secret investments), nor is Iran said to be sponsoring terrorism.
He called the assessment “fairly coolheaded.” I would say it remains to be seen if this is just bluster or not. I question his reading of the report, because it embraces the lab-origin theory about COVID-19 origins, implies U.S. interest in the Arctic and Greenland (to counter Russia), and still says:
Russia, China, Iran and North Korea—individually and collectively—are challenging U.S. interests in the world by attacking or threatening others in their regions…Al-Qa‘ida…leaders…have tried to exploit anti-Israeli sentiment over the war in Gaza to unite Muslims and encourage attacks against Israel and the United States…Real or perceived changes to immigration laws or travel polices in transit countries can trigger unexpected spikes…China stands out as the actor most capable of threatening U.S. interests globally, though it is also more cautious than Russia, Iran, and North Korea…China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat to U.S. national security…The PRC seeks to compete with the United States as the leading economic power in the world…China’s dominance in the mining and processing of several critical materials is a particular threat…China’s approach to and role in global biological, medical, and other health-related global priorities present unique challenges to the United States and the world…The PRC’s dominance in pharmaceutical and medical supply production…positions Beijing to potentially restrict such exports for leverage over Washington and others in trade or security disputes…Beijing will continue to expand its coercive and subversive malign influence activities to weaken the United States internally and globally…Regardless of how and when the war in Ukraine ends, Russia’s current geopolitical, economic, military, and domestic political trends underscore its resilience and enduring potential threat to U.S. power, presence, and global interests…Moscow’s massive investments in its defense sector will render the Russian military a continued threat to U.S. national security…The fall of President Bashar al-Asad’s regime at the hands of opposition forces led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)…has created conditions for extended instability in Syria and could contribute to a resurgence of ISIS and other Islamist terror groups…Iran’s conventional and unconventional capabilities will pose a threat to U.S. forces and partners in the region for the foreseeable future, despite the degradation to its proxies and air defenses during the Gaza conflict…even in degraded form, HAMAS continues to pose a threat to Israeli security…North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will continue to pursue strategic and conventional military capabilities that target the Homeland, threaten U.S. and allied armed forces and citizens, and enable Kim to undermine U.S. power and reshape the regional security environment in his favor…North Korea’s military poses a lethal threat to U.S. forces and citizens in South Korea …Cooperation between China and Russia has the greatest potential to pose enduring risks to U.S. interests
At one point, it mentions violence from “Palestinian militant groups” but also “violence from Israeli settlers” as causing issues in the West Bank. I am a bit surprised to see that mentioned in the report to be honest.
Otherwise, there’s disturbing news about immigrants who used to come “from the jungles of the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama to receive humanitarian aid,” before going to the U.S. Now migration is going the opposite way as immigrants try to return home. To make matters worse, Panamanian authorities have continued their immigration crackdown with barbed wire in the jungle and “biometric tests at the border.” Many migrants say they were promised that when they reached Panama, they “would be offered a place on a plane to Cúcuta, a Colombian city” but this did not happen.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues his effort to ravage the U.S. health system, including closing the Administration for Community Living which supports “disabled and aging people,” as part of firing 10,000 HHS staff, and the CDC burying a report which stressed the need for vaccinations to stop measles. This comes while the NIH stopped funding a study on climate change’s health effects. More people will get sick and die from these policies. There’s no doubt.
That’s all for this newsletter. See you all (hopefully) in two weeks!
- Burkely