[In addition to stepping up to mitigate climate change & green the
world’s economy, the free nations must harden our democracies
against reactive rightwing violence & hate-based political
movements... ]
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HOW CLIMATE CHANGE ACCELERATES THE DANGER OF WORLDWIDE FASCISM  
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Thom Hartmann
July 10, 2023
The Hartmann Report
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_ In addition to stepping up to mitigate climate change & green the
world’s economy, the free nations must harden our democracies
against reactive rightwing violence & hate-based political
movements... _

, Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay

 

The government of the Netherlands fell
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week. The issue that tipped it over the edge was immigration driven by
climate change.

If Putin wanted to destroy democracy in Europe (and he does), back in
2015 he couldn’t have picked a better strategy. Odds are, though, he
was just trying to protect his deepwater ports; it wasn’t until the
crisis developed that he realized how he could exploit it to overthrow
liberal democracies in the EU. 

The way it’s played out gives us a glimpse into our future — and
the future of democratic republics all across the world — as the
global climate emergency and the refugee crisis associated with it
grows more severe over the next few years.

THE CURRENT RISE-OF-RIGHTWING-FASCISM CRISIS BUILDING IN EUROPE BEGAN
IN 2010 AND STARTED WITH GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE.

The fall of that year saw unusually severe rainfall across the
wheat-growing parts of Canada, cutting
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nation’s wheat harvest, along with drought across Russia,
Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and China. A La Nina caused
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failures in Argentina and Peru. Worldwide prices of staple foods,
particularly wheat, exploded.

On December 17 of that year a street vendor in Tunisia, Mohamed
Bouazizi
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set himself on fire to protest the high cost of the wheat he needed to
make the foods he and his peers sold, and the harassment of police
against their protests. It sparked what we referred to then as
the _Arab Spring_, that lasted through most of 2011.

The steady warming and drought in that area, though, never let up and
the desert in North Africa relentlessly continued to eat up millions
of acres of food-producing land, particularly across Syria. By 2015 it
had pushed over a million Syrian subsistence farmers
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their land — that had desertified — and into Syria’s cities,
particularly Damascus and Aleppo.

Northern Africa became
[[link removed])%20and%20Nigeria%20(7%25);] the
world’s number one food importer, and the prices kept rising
relentlessly.

NEWLY HOMELESS, HUNGRY, AND DESTITUTE, THESE SYRIAN FARMERS BEGAN
DEMONSTRATIONS IN THE STREETS DEMANDING FOOD, SHELTER, AND EMPLOYMENT
OR “WELFARE” PAYMENTS FROM THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT.

Bashar Assad, being a psychopathic dictator, ordered his troops to
fire live ammunition into the crowds in 2012 and 2013, and soon a
full-blown revolt was on: “rebels” seized Syria’s largest city,
Aleppo, in early 2013.

SYRIA WAS ALSO THE BASE FOR RUSSIA’S MEDITERRANEAN FLEET, WITH
MULTIPLE DEEP-WATER PORTS THAT PUTIN BELIEVED WERE CRITICAL TO HIS
NATION’S MILITARY DEFENSE. BY 2015 HE HAD A DOZEN BATTLESHIPS
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ALONG WITH SUBMARINES AND OTHER WARSHIPS.

He had to prevent the Assad government from falling or risk an “Arab
Spring democracy” emerging — as happened for a short while in
Tunisia and Egypt — that might align itself with the West and kick
Russia out.

Making a long story short, Putin bombed the crap out of Syria on
Assad’s behalf, virtually leveling the city of Aleppo, killing
hundreds of thousands of civilians.

It was one of the worst war crimes of this century, almost as deadly
as George W. Bush’s brutal and criminal invasions and occupations of
Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions of climate and war refugees fled the
country, joining Bush’s wars’ fugitives making their way into
Europe by any means possible.

THUS BEGAN EUROPE’S REFUGEE CRISIS, WHICH JUST HELPED BRING DOWN
HOLLAND’S GOVERNMENT.  IN TWO WEEKS, IT MAY WELL CAUSE THE
RIGHTWING FASCIST-ALIGNED ANTI-IMMIGRANT PEOPLE’S PARTY TO COME TO
POWER IN THE SPANISH ELECTIONS
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JULY 23.

As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) noted in
a 2021 report [[link removed]]:

“By the end of 2016, nearly 5.2 million refugees and migrants
reached European shores, undertaking treacherous journeys from Syria,
Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries torn apart by war and
persecution.”

THIS FLOOD OF BROWN-SKINNED MUSLIMS FLEEING AFRICAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN
CLIMATE CHANGE AND WARS INTO EUROPE OVER THE PAST DECADE IS WHY ITALY
AND SWEDEN NOW HAVE RIGHTWING LEADERS; WHY VIKTOR ORBÁN WAS ABLE TO
GAIN AND HOLD POWER IN HUNGARY WITH HIS PROMISE TO “BUILD A WALL”
ALONG HUNGARY’S SOUTHERN BORDER (A PROMISE HE KEPT); AND WHY
RIGHTWING PARTIES ARE TODAY GROWING SO RAPIDLY IN GERMANY, GREECE,
NORWAY, AUSTRIA, BELGIUM AND FRANCE.

The legacy of five centuries of racist imperialism across four
continents has been that wealth and safety from the ravages of climate
change are concentrated in mostly White-run nations, while
vulnerability to desertification and poverty are concentrated in
mostly Brown- and Black-run nations.

WHEN RUSSIA INTERVENED IN BRITISH POLITICS TO TEAR APART THE EU, THEIR
TROLLS’ MAIN FACEBOOK PITCH FOR BREXIT WAS THAT “THOSE [BROWN AND
BLACK] PEOPLE” THE EU HAD LET IN WERE NOW MAKING THEIR WAY TO THE
UK.

While every country in the world can accept refugees in small numbers
without crisis, when “other people” begin showing up in large
numbers the response by every nation in history typically tends toward
rightwing nationalism and xenophobia, an obsession with borders, and
demands for racial, cultural, and religious “purity.”

HERE IN NORTH AMERICA WE’RE SEEING A SIMILAR DYNAMIC. REAGAN SO
SEVERELY DESTABILIZED CENTRAL AMERICA AND VENEZUELA WITH HIS
SANCTIONS, ILLEGAL IRAN-CONTRA PROGRAM, AND SUPPORT FOR RIGHTWING
DEATH SQUADS THAT THOSE NATIONS NEVER RECOVERED. IN THE YEARS SINCE,
CLIMATE CHANGE HAS BIT THESE WEAKENED GOVERNMENTS DEEP, FORCING
MILLIONS OF SUBSISTENCE FARMERS — JUST LIKE IN SYRIA BUT HERE MOSTLY
FROM HARD-HIT GUATEMALA — OFF LAND THAT ONCE GREW CROPS BUT IS NOW,
JUST A FEW YEARS LATER, SCRUB DESERT.

Exploiting the climate refugee crisis on America’s southern border,
Republican politicians have spent the years since Obama’s election
in 2008 falsely claiming that Democrats had thrown the border
“open,”
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thousands of news stories that have been used by coyotes
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human traffickers — to draw even more
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toward the United States.

Compounding that, Trump launched his 2016 campaign on keeping Brown
people out of the United States, and today racism and xenophobia form
the foundation of most Republican political campaigns (when they
aren’t hating on queer people or women).

THE RESULT OF THESE TRENDS HAS BEEN A WORLDWIDE SHIFT TO THE RIGHT. AS
FREEDOM HOUSE NOTED IN A 2022 REPORT
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OVER 60 COUNTRIES EXPERIENCED “DECLINES” IN DEMOCRACY THE PREVIOUS
YEAR; ONLY ABOUT 20 PERCENT OF PEOPLE WORLDWIDE NOW LIVE IN “FREE”
NATIONS:

“Global freedom faces a dire threat. … Authoritarian regimes have
become more effective at co-opting or circumventing the norms and
institutions meant to support basic liberties, and at providing aid to
others who wish to do the same. …

“The global order is nearing a tipping point, and if democracy’s
defenders do not work together to help guarantee freedom for all
people, the authoritarian model will prevail.”

So far, the western world’s refugee crisis has been mostly driven by
massive policy errors and outright war crimes: Russia’s response to
the Syrian farmers, the US invasion and destruction of Iraq and
Afghanistan, and American meddling in Central America and Venezuela.

But all have been either triggered or exacerbated by the worldwide
climate emergency. And, as we can see from this summer’s weather
worldwide, that emergency is building at a rate far more rapid than
even alarmist climate scientists were predicting just a decade ago.

RECENT PROJECTIONS SHOW
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WITHIN JUST THE NEXT TWO DECADES AS MANY AS THREE BILLION PEOPLE COULD
BE FLEEING AREAS THAT WILL SOON ONLY MARGINALLY SUPPORT HUMAN LIFE.

As equatorial regions become uninhabitable, the mostly darker-skinned
people living there will be migrating north and south into areas
controlled by lighter-skinned people in numbers that will make
today’s Syrian, Iraq, and Afghan refugee crisis look like a
statistical blip.

IT WILL PUT WORLDWIDE WHITE SUPREMACIST AND NAZI MOVEMENTS INTO
HYPERDRIVE.

IN ADDITION TO ACTING IMMEDIATELY TO MITIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE AND GREEN
THE WORLD’S ECONOMY, THE FREE NATIONS OF THE WORLD MUST HARDEN OUR
DEMOCRACIES AGAINST REACTIVE RIGHTWING VIOLENCE- AND HATE-BASED RACIST
POLITICAL MOVEMENTS.

That will also require radically reducing the Supreme Court-gifted
political power of big money here in America — particularly from the
fossil fuel industry and the billionaires it has created — and
returning that power and wealth to the hard-hit majority. The
Democratic Party in America is increasingly committed to this, but
Republicans and the dozens of billionaires in their camp are prepared
to spend heretofore unimaginable sums to keep climate deniers and
race-baiters in office.

WE ALSO MUST HELP THOSE NATIONS MOST HARD-HIT BY THE WARMING —
CAUSED LARGELY BY _OUR_ CARBON POLLUTION — TO DEAL WITH THEIR OWN
REFUGEES INTERNALLY, LEST THEY IRRECOVERABLY DESTABILIZE FIRST THEIR
OWN GOVERNMENTS AND THEN OURS.

To paraphrase JFK, we are not helpless before this task.

But it will require western and American media and political systems
to take on these three crises — climate change, the refugees it
produces, and politicians who demagogue the issue while blocking
forward progress — now.  

We are quite literally out of time.

* Climate Change
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* Fascism
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