In July 1936, after a right-wing coup by General Franco, workers across Spain took up arms and launched a social revolution. The ensuing civil war pitted the working class against Spanish capitalists, German Nazis and Italian fascists. About 200,000 died. This is a reminder of what a real coup and its after effects look like, as the petite bourgeois dominated US government, the most powerful in the world, wrings its hands as a few populists inspired by the quasi-Bonapartist Trump disrupted their ‘sacred’ chamber earlier this year for a half day.
This context of a ‘real coup’ can be set against the tragicomic Orwellian “context of terrorism” first felony sentence handed down in relation to what’s now called by bourgeois propagandists the “insurrection” of January 6, 2021, or “coup” at the time. Though he only pleaded guilty to a single count of “obstruction of an official proceeding,” defendant Paul Hodgkins — whose criminal act entailed milling around the Senate chamber for approximately 15 minutes — nonetheless found himself branded a “terrorist” in open court by the US Government. Per prosecutors’ own admission, Hodgkins committed no acts of physical violence, and wielded no weapons. He was also never formally accused of any “terrorist” offenses, at least in a way that the Government would actually have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Regardless, prosecutors have now introduced a theory in which it’s alleged that Hodgkins and other non-violent Jan. 6 defendants were operating within a supposed “context” of terrorism — and it’s this “context” that they’re citing to argue for more severe punishment. (“The Government admits that Hodgkins’ actual conduct does not meet any legally cognizable definition of “terrorism,” but nonetheless argues that Hodgkins was “part” of a domestic terrorism event — i.e., partook in the commission of a terrorist attack — and is therefore effectively a terrorist!” Thanks Michael Tracey for the summary and quote.) The bureaucratic prosecutor in Kafkaesque fashion argues for sentencing not on the law but on “imperiling democracy” and “emotional injuries”
The co-dependent imperialist bourgeois/war state, having effectively crushed proletarian discontent or divided it with distracting racial/ethnic/religious tropes, with only the Bonapartist Trump element remaining of any significance in terms of opposition, has concocted its own Reichstag Fire in order to justify further national security state surveillance and spending—it must have an enemy to keep imperialism going and crush the remaining proletarians beguiled by Bonapartist Trump. The Reichstag Fire was an arson on the home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, he stated a Dutch communist was the culprit, and attributed the fire to communist agitators, but he acted alone. The Nazi Party used the fire as a pretext to claim that communists were plotting against the German government, which made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.
Now the US bourgeoisie is looking for culprits as the House’s select committee on January 6 takes shape, as populist elements of the Republicrats fight a rearguard action against them. After the Senate rejected a bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection, House Speaker Pelosi and the House voted to establish a “select” committee controlled by her. It permitted the minority to name 5 members, to be approved by the Speaker.
It is clear the populists will be excluded from the “select” investigation. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) tried to appoint three members who had challenged the counting of the certified votes on January 6, including Jim Jordan (R-OH), who was at a December meeting with Trump and other lawmakers when they discussed protesting the vote count on January 6, and Jim Banks (R-IN), who attacked the committee, saying: “Make no mistake, Nancy Pelosi created this committee solely to malign conservatives and to justify the Left’s authoritarian agenda.” When Pelosi rejected Jordan and Banks, McCarthy pulled all five of his appointees.
Pelosi instead appointed statist bourgeois warmonger Liz Cheney (R-WY) who openly blamed Trump for the January 6 insurrection. Today, Pelosi added Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) to the committee as well. Kinzinger is an Iraq War veteran who was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in January. "Let me be clear, I'm a Republican dedicated to conservative values, but I swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution—and while this is not the position I expected to be in or sought out, when duty calls, I will always answer," Kinzinger said in a propaganda statement. McCarthy promptly tweeted that the committee had no credibility because Pelosi had “structured the select committee to satisfy her political objectives.”
Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who has been linked to the planning for the January 6 insurrection, suggested at an Arizona rally for the former president this weekend that the rioters were peaceful and that the real criminals were “insiders from the FBI and DOJ.” With these populists excluded from the ‘select’ committee this angle is unlikely to be investigated.
Still, in the same manner as the Reichstag Fire, the FBI has been orchestrating its own ‘terrorism’ plots in order to justify further surveillance and spending through monitoring, encouraging, and entrapping marginal social elements to create the climate of fear it needs to further its growth and power. COINTELPRO and numerous examples are drawn from the ‘war on terror.’ We now know, for example, recently FBI agents actually took an active part in the plot of ‘Wolverine Watchmen’ to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer right from its inception, according to court filings, evidence and dozens of interviews, helped organize meetings where the first inklings of the plot surfaced, even paying for hotel rooms and food to entice people to attend. While the extent of FBI involvement on January 6 has yet to be firmly established, the pattern and practice of fomenting a problem only they can solve has been.