The Capitol riot on Jan. 6 didn’t spring up in isolation.
From Oregon to Texas and Michigan to Washington, D.C., stark scenes of sometimes-violent protests and gun-toting militia groups have proliferated nationwide over the past year, underscoring the growing radicalization of extremist groups on both ends of the American political spectrum.
“The genie is out of the bottle,” says Chris Loftis, spokesman for the Washington State Patrol. “That genie had hid its face, but . it is with us,” he says, “exposing to everyone how deep and dangerous our vulnerabilities are.”
Experts say solutions to radicalism will require persistent effort – even though the vast majority of Americans aren’t prone to political violence. New efforts to counter extremism are percolating, from vigilance by social media platforms to more robust steps by law enforcement and state legislators.
By Medea Benjamin and Marcy Winograd
December 21, 2020
Information Clearing House - It was painful enough to live through the U.S. invasion of Iraq that caused untold devastation and human misery for no justifiable reason.
Now we are again reminded of the grim Bush legacy with President-elect Biden’s nomination of Avril Haines for Director of National Intelligence. Haines, who has an inside-the-beltway reputation for being nice and soft spoken, was a little too nice to CIA agents who hacked the computers of Senate Intelligence Committee investigators looking into the CIA use of torture waterboarding, sleep deprivation, hypothermia, rectal feeding, whippings, sexual
by Medea Benjamin and Marcy Winograd / December 21st, 2020
Photo credit: Witness Against Torture
It was painful enough to live through the U.S invasion of Iraq that caused untold devastation and human misery for no justifiable reason.
Now we are again reminded of the grim Bush legacy with President-elect Biden’s nomination of Avril Haines for Director of National Intelligence. Haines, who has an inside-the-beltway reputation for being nice and soft spoken, was a little too nice to CIA agents who hacked the computers of Senate Intelligence Committee investigators looking into the CIA use of torture–waterboarding, sleep deprivation, hypothermia, rectal feeding, whippings, sexual humiliation–at prisons in Guantanamo and Afghanistan during the Bush War on Terror.