It’s really hard to keep track of everything that’s happening, on so many levels, in so many states, so many communities, all at the same time.
But it’s all one big story: A multi-level reactionary counter-mobilization against egalitarian multiracial, pluralistic democracy. 4/
Let’s be clear: The country is the United States of America, and it is the twentieth century, any time before the 1960s rights revolution - that’s the vision.
Mercilessly restore and entrench traditional hierarchies of race, gender, religion, and wealth - that’s the project. 5/
More news from just the past 48 hours.
Wisconsin. Nebraska. Michigan. North Dakota.
One political project. A comprehensive reactionary offensive. Everywhere, all the time. 7/
@chairgirlhands @tzimmer_history my concern, which has been my concern for years, is that the only effective options available to us are ones we have been staunchly indoctrinated against. Conversations with leftists and liberals alike in my experience get to a point that says "the cancer in our country must be stopped!" And then when I ask what they are willing to do to stop it we all look at each other uncomfortably and try to avoid looking at the elephant in the room, wearing plate and armed to the tusks. None of us want to be that. But with the alt-right consistently showing up dressed for war at school board meetings, children's story hours, and where ever else they feel might be an easy target, we need to start hardening against these threats, or as has been said... They will not stop. There is no end point for them.
Even in this post I dance around what I think the responsibility of every able-bodied anti-fascist should be, because this thought is a third rail in my mind. Utterly reprehensible. And yet there it is: we are at war and we are unarmed. Violence is being enacted on us and those we love, systemic, and direct. We must arm up to defend ourselves and our community against this fascist cancer. But I fear we do not have the stomach for it. I know I do not, at least not on my own. Not without mentors.
There are folks pursuing this goal, I am at least aware of @yellow_peril_tactical, and @beautfc has done a lot to at least push me away from straight up "gun bad!" mentality (though a large part of me is hoping he sees this and swings in and tells me I'm an idiot and that all I should be doing is, idk, telling people to vote or some other comfortable thing), but I am having hard time seeing enough folks start making the next logical moves. If we don't start defending ourselves, what will happen to us?
@poorpossum @chairgirlhands @tzimmer_history @yellow_peril_tactical @beautfc
Sounds like you should head over to Reddit r/liberalgunowners
@chairgirlhands @tzimmer_history
Some of us grew up in Conservative families who figured that percussive maintenance would cure a rebellious nature.
I have no difficulty reacting as you suggest. My wife is disappointed in me, but there you go.
However, restorative Justice would be an acceptable path. Or maybe ketamine therapy. :}
@tzimmer_history This is correct but I would go a step more: they will set everything on fire if they are king of the ashes after or if they think they will lose.
They have already decided on killing us, the how (and if they kill themselves) is in question... most of the time they somehow think they will be immune to any fallout. Interestingly.
@tzimmer_history A noted scholar on fascism and its history, @AnarchoNinaWrites, was discussing this with me recently. Her position is total destruction is the only goal of the fascist "project".
But they'll have no problem using the existing political/government infrastructure to achieve that goal. Fascists don't make anything, they just want to burn it all down.
@tzimmer_history Hmmm....run-on sentence; inexact usage of commas; multi-spatially-interdynamic polysyllabic words. Looks good, sounds good. Loses the audience entirely.
Besides which, IMO it's a silly and personalized construct.
In a word they're "entitled". Oh.
@tzimmer_history Not just "are actively mobilizing", "HAVE BEEN actively mobilizing". This goes back a long way, we're just seeing it in full bloom now.
It's essential that people who are not part of this #reaction realize that there are never any settled questions, and that #reactionaries will work FOREVER to undermine any " #progress " that has been made. Laws will be rescinded, #SupremeCourt rulings overturned, #rights curtailed, whatever it takes.
And yet you still use "conservative" when it is clearly inappropriate.
And they are clearly anti-democratic. The days of calling a narrow elite's collective rule a democracy because they alone vote on things are well past. If it's not power for the people, but power for the rich white males, then it's not democracy.
@tzimmer_history
The 'backlash' narrative, where the growing acceptance of people who as a whole simply want to live their own lives in peace and relative prosperity 'justifies' a reactionary assault against their rights and very lives, carries with it another name in certain groups.
That name is 'DARVO'.
If it can be shown that marginalized groups don't _have_ to be, then there must never have been any reason for that selfsame othering in the first place. Bigots were just... wrong.
@tzimmer_history
May I suggest this reaction is no more accidental than the actions of Christian nationalists themselves? It's not *just* naivete (at least at the leadership level), it represents a core philophical outlook.
The dance between liberalism & fascism isn't new. The dynamics of the interwar era, with some modern flourishes, are at work today.
@tzimmer_history This is what I call ideological centrism.
Where your ideas aren't centrist ideas...they're simply the average of whatever the two parties say.
So if you have one right wing extremist party and one mainstream party, centrists become hard right conservatives.
Where as, centrism would instead dictate alignment with the centrist mainstream party.
@tzimmer_history "and at least somewhat justifiably"
Yeah no. Please don't blame vulnerable communities for the violence done to them.
@acm_redfox It's a pretty destructive right-wing Dem meme. Here's a great podcast on the subject:
"How The Left Created Trump," revealed Rob Hoffman in Politico in November 2016. "Blame liberals for the rise of Donald Trump," insisted S.E. Cupp in The Chicago Tribune the year before. "How the left
I would like to honestly say to you that the white backlash is merely a new name for an old phenomenon... The fact is that the state of California voted a fair housing bill out of existence before anybody shouted black power or before anybody rioted in Watts.
...there has never been a single, solid, monistic, determined commitment on the part of the vast majority of white Americans on the whole question of civil rights...
MLK
The Other America
1967
It is an anti-American, racist fascist movement, in fact.
Fascism will indeed take care of any leftist excesses, as well as everything else left of the extreme rightwing.
@tzimmer_history Centrists and so called "liberals" are the best allies of the republican party.
They are only useful to kill every leftist movement that threatens their control of the Democrats.
This is the GQP's boogeyman and they accuse the Democrats of "forcing" people to change their sexuality.
The stupid must burn them.
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