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themariotheme · 4 years

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okay i am Not Having A Good Time Right Now not BAD but just... weird not as in “weird” like how i say when im actually depressed this is a different weird it’s just incomprehensible and i feel very annoying to everyone especially on my stupid twitter so i shall be spewing garbage here so

okay so right now i feel like the world is horrible and like i could never be happy in it but im not depressed abt it im just numb so im not upset about how capitalism means there are people dying and everything is bad but i need u to know that i AM upset about it actually isnt it weird ?? i need to make sure that it is understood that these things upset me but like, not right now. is that just me being defensive because ive always felt like i need to justify feeling my feelings like i KNOW other people have it worse i KNOW im a privileged upper middle class chinese girl who has Had Everything okay i KNOW i just

i dont know

am literally rotting and being useless all the time at home because im not in school im literally doing nothing im doing nothing all day im doing nothing im useless im just on this earth consuming and using up my parent’s money and contributing to climate change by having my air conditioning on even though i know individuals aren’t to blame for the climate crisis it’s companies and billionaires who suck Major Ass!!! u see how i have to justify but then also justify?? i am simply like this with Everything it’s so exhausting and i kind of want to cry now

like i Know individuals aren’t to blame for the climate crisis. artists arent selfish for making art how could i think i that???? i DONT think that i wouldnt look at someone who has their air conditioning on all day and think badly of them, i wouldnt look at artists and think “ugh what a selfish piece of shit, how could they look at the state of the world and choose to make silly art when they could be a doctor or journalist or politician or ANYTHING that would Help People” BUT WHY DOES THAT NOT APPLY TO ME ???? WHY DO I STILL HAVE TO FEEEL LOUSY ABOUT IT ?? I FEEL SO STUPID im literally just ?? arguing with myself in my head but it ends up leading nowhere i just cant not feel terrible and guilty about everything i do

whatever. i dont know

okay but right so for the past 2 weeks that i was gone from tumblr because staff are PUSSIES who SNIPED me for NO REASON and then didnt reply to my emails i was mostly on twitter because i m useless n Do Nothing At All with my time so im on twitter because im lonely and crave interpersonal connections so i tried to make friends which i did ! i think i have had some success at least in making friends online . i think i can say that maybe perhaps for sure (maybe). but yes i have made some friends on twitter i think evie and maya and noga r great and i love them this is not th point sigh

okay im just going to explain the Nonsense Teenage Drama that went down and i will be (maybe) just namedropping cause none of them r even names anyway it doesnt matter actually

but i just need to feel like ??? im not insane and overreacting to this entire thing which like some ppl have confirmed !! and yet (??)

okay tw for suicide ed self harm n bullying cause i ended up ranting abt those things :(

SO. this Person C got into some. drama with M and J. this is all friendship related i think personally C is in the wrong and M and J have the right to be mad at them for it. BUT C was also very obviously suicidal in the “i am crying out for help and attention right now” kind of way . maybe i am just sympathetic because i have been that before idk. but drama unleashed, M and J publicly got into it with C. right so everyone witnesses this. including Person D. THIS PERSON. has TIME AND TIME AGAIN shown themsevles to be terrible terrible u know what idc im just gonna copy and paste screenshots idc idc idc AAAAAA im so djfdskmg idk

like ??? THIS WASNT IDK I DONT KNOW . i dnt know i dont know i AM over this but i had a panic attack over this and i was in a depressive episdode this was 3 days of hell and it didnt even involve me ??? the most i was involved w was like being personally offended because her friends called me a bitch or whatever but like ?? there r some of her friends who r friends w my friends and it makes me feel like idk :( like why do mar n mia hate me lol am i so terrible for thinking she should go get help for her ed isntead of telling ppl to slit their wrists n off themselves online lol idk idk idk yeah okay

like i feel like im overreacting , and taking personal offense to being called a bitch because i did end up calling her out in a very long series of tweets lol and like ?? someone would screenshot my tweets n she’d tweet abt them n say im obsessed n her friends would like her tweet and those ppl would be friends w my friends :( idk i feel like im just being a fool and over reacting idk sigh this is old news by now i am actually in fact Truly over this /gen but yea my cramps r bad today fuck periods we shld just reabsorb uterine linings like rats do why cant we be more like rats

/rant

my tweets for context idk i know no one will read this all but i feel the need to make myself clear because god knows fucking why idk idk idk

https://twitter.com/urlowbeams/status/1364932184629338122?s=20

https://twitter.com/urlowbeams/status/1364928910916378634?s=20

https://twitter.com/urlowbeams/status/1364729355448983552?s=20

and scroll down from there i guess

man i was rlly going thru it huh

idk ALSO she like ?? said “if ur ugly u should die i cant breathe the same air as u” in response to someone’s selfies like ?? idk man idk idkdikddnfjfdnsjgdj im going to sleep night night im not losing my mind i swear /gen

#personal #long post #dont read it tbh ily but if u do ilyt

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phyrgon · 7 years

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ableist slurs in therapy settings

(in this i describe how the word choice of therapists can lead to those that desperately need help feeling shunned in the very place they should be getting it, very much ok to reblog) I find it interesting how many mental health experts think that they can use the term cr*zy so loosely there’s 3 ways to use it, extremely (seems north americas primarily, and more recent), overly excited/passionate (recent), and it’s historical use...the first two are bad to use cause there are better terms that aren't rooted in oppression that mean the same thing and the fact that its historical use is used today to demean people doesn't help...but usually people dont know the history so it’s bad but understandable the historical use (warning for using the ableist slur, even if stating how bad, and reference to asylumns), a basic is that it was used as diseased/sickly and quickly went for people with mental illnesses (ussually deemed more severe like bpd, borderline, bipolar, schizophrenia) and closely related to the term ins**e (which again, was used to other and stigmatize those with severe mental illnesses) and it has evolved to a multimeaning “colloquial” (aka the fact that here it in casual conversations and tv shows dont deem it as a slur even though it is) used in a negative manner meaning ridiculous/unhinged and tieing in to the normalization of ableism (now to talk about how that specific is how used in therapy) I myself am this and have been called it since i can remember one of the 2 therapists at my dbt group kept using the term cr*zy to describe why wouldnt do something cause might look like that, i explained to him after the first time why bad, he claimed it was a self describer so ok. I stated even if someone that can reclaim it, you shouldnt in a group therapy setting, and then asked if he ever even got called it because of mentall illness, he admitted no, then kept doing it and i slowly felt ostracized from group

prior therapist when i casually stated that when people use it in historical way i try to get them one on one and explain why wrong, her response “you think in too black and white terms, like imagine if someone was shouting racist things, you might want to call that out, but what happens if they’re trying to recover from alcoholism” knowing full well that alcohol isnt racism juice, it just makes you feel more free to do and say stuff already wanted, if racist while drunk, you are a racist

new therapist, related to something with mom, stating i could be safer doing a certain thing cause she’ll either get exhausted or start yelling while you seem calm and then everyone will say shes cr*zy i stated how there’s much better words like stalkerish, evil, overly agressive or unruly. and how i’ve been called that slur constantly by my mom and explained historical usage her response “well I know it’s historical use, i was just using it’s colloquial use, and i was using it against your mom so it’s ok” using a slur against a bad person doesnt make it right, and the fact that you know it’s history just makes it worse, i stated that she should probably try in general to reduce it because there might be those in therapy like me, but arent comfortable speaking up, she stated it was rare (meaning people like those with schizophrenia who are routinely called the slur, being rare doesnt mean not important to care about) this all leads people with severe mental illnesses to slowly but surely feel unwelcome in therapy, and because of that they are less likely to open up about things it doesnt help that in united states cause of capitalism, people that are well trained are more likely to help rich people over the poor and forgotten and tend to go more as a hobby then actual issues (theyre more likely to talk about an unruly worker...lower income has been shown to have much higher rate of mental illness) and for psychiatrists they have the lowest acceptance of insurance or sliding scale compared to any other doctors. or after being therapist/psychiatrist for a while teaching at a high end college (one of my therapists) so the people that are more needy(severe mental problems, financially at risk) where if dont get help are more likely to end up homeless then the rich people in therapy are given to low quality therapists, rigid times where if overworked cant come, and told ableist slurs making them feel unwelcome and all in all, get much less help then they need

#ableism #therapy #bad therapists #information post #actuallyschizophrenic #racism /#ok 2 rb #classism #long post /

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fmservers · 6 years

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Nyca Partners’ Hans Morris hunts for great fintech investments amid volatility

Hans Morris is a name to know in fintech, and as finance and tech sectors prepare for tougher time next year, he has some incisive thoughts to share about the kinds of companies that will succeed (or not) in a financial downturn. The managing partner of investment firm Nyca Partners, Morris also serves as the chairman of the board of Lending Club and is a director of other start-ups including AvidXchange, Boomtown, Payoneer and SigFig. At Nyca, which is on its third fund, Morris spends much of his time meeting with entrepreneurs focused on payments, credit models, digital advice and financial infrastructure.

But unlike many successful fintech VCs, Morris doesn’t have to read about how Wall Street’s history influenced the trajectory of those sectors. He played an active role in shaping them. His experiences — heading Smith Barney’s FIG effort (at 29 years old), overseeing Citigroup’s institutional businesses, serving as president of Visa and advising companies at General Atlantic — have also provided him with an unparalleled financial services rolodex. And for those who believe that financial history rhymes, Morris’ opinions are now especially welcome. Fintech may be entering a new, post-financial crisis phase in which the low-hanging fruit has been picked and macro headwinds outweigh tailwinds. In the discussion below, Morris talks candidly about how he’s approaching investing next year and how he’s viewing fintech M&A possibilities. He was also eager to share his thoughts on ethics in financial services (a favorite topic), the prospects for challenger banks, why he’s branched out into real estate tech, the future of blockchain and some of his favorite bank CEOs.

Gregg Schoenberg: Hans, it’s always good to see you, but I’m especially glad to be sitting down with you now, given that the financial world is convulsing at the moment. Before we get into that, though, I want to kick off with something else: Do you buy into the idea of techfin vs. fintech?

Hans Morris: I don’t. My basic organizing principle, which you and I have discussed before, is around declining information costs. As these costs decline, it disrupts the traditional profit pools in financial services. It’s always been like that. What I would say is that in recent times, some tech companies have done a very good job at building a trusted relationship with consumers, and in some cases with businesses. That trusted relationship obviously provides a significant competitive advantage of information. But that advantage lessens later on. There are so many examples we could point to of companies that were ‘it.’ Then, suddenly, they say, ‘Oh no, our tech is expensive, creates a bad experience and will cost a lot to fix.’

GS: Let’s talk about the present. As you know, the Fed has been tightening, equities are hemorrhaging, the yield curve is getting spooky and talk of a recession is intensifying. To me, Lending Club, right or wrong, was one of the original poster children of the post-crisis fintech boom. But now, I think we’re in a regime change and that the next crop of successful financial innovators will look a lot different. What’s in store for an area like credit delivery?

HM: In credit delivery, I think it’s now pretty well-realized by investors, and certainly realized by capital markets investors, that credit delivery requires capital. So today, I feel that anyone who’s going to be successful in credit intermediation needs to have a very good understanding of balance sheet risk, liquidity risk, and capital requirements. I pay a lot of attention to capital requirements, and the ability to fund something in the teeth of a crisis.

GS: Let’s say we enter a recession next year and see continued volatility across the capital markets. I understand that each recession and bear market is different, but with the fresh capital you’ve closed on, where are you looking to go on offense?

HM: Among the thousands of fintech companies that have gotten some funding, there are companies that are really struggling to get their Series B or Series C done.

GS: Names that have lost their momentum?

HM: Yes. They’ve lost their momentum, and they’ve lost the perception of momentum among venture investors. But in some cases, these companies still possess some very good fundamentals, yet the valuations are a lot more attractive. If that dynamic becomes even more extreme, I think there could be some good opportunities.

GS: Isn’t it also true that the fintech names that suck up a lot of the venture money aren’t always the best underlying businesses?

So when you talk about high-valuation companies, I think it’s unrealistic for banks to be acquirers.

HM: It’s an interesting dynamic. Generally, as long as companies can continue to raise capital, they will keep going even if that isn’t necessarily a rational thing to do. But in some cases, where you see a bunch of companies pursuing a similar strategy, it would be better to pursue a merger because we don’t need tons of companies doing personal financial management, etc…

GS: Do you see the big banks with strong balance sheets, the JP Morgans of the world, getting the green light from regulators to be more aggressive in M&A?

HM: Regulators have clearly been one reason there hasn’t been more activity. The second thing is goodwill. Keep in mind that for a bank, goodwill is a 100% reduction to tangible Tier One capital. So even for JP Morgan to say, ‘We’ll take a billion dollars of our Tier One capital and invest it in a company with no income and maybe positive EBITDA, but maybe not—

GS: —That would take a ton of capital or a ton of conviction.

HM: Well, that company would have to be a very powerful growth engine or solution. So when you talk about high-valuation companies, I think it’s unrealistic for banks to be acquirers. Where banks can be acquirers, and this is what we’ve seen, is where you have a company valued at $60 million, maybe a $100 million, etc…

GS: A Clarity Money.

HM: Yes, a company where the acquisition moves a bank much further along in a development cycle. Where the the bank can say, “Instead of us taking two years to get our real product out, we can get out a state-of-the-art product right now, and it comes with a great team and DNA. That’s appealing.

GS: Appealing, but realistic?

HM: It’s hard to pull off. Often, the team leaves, everything dissipates, and the acquirer ends up writing off the whole thing.

GS: Moving forward, who do you think is poised to make M&A work?

HM: There’s a couple of examples where it’s worked. One is PayPal, which in recent times has done an excellent job of acquiring things and integrating talent into the company. I’m quite impressed in terms of how Bill Ready, who is now COO, Dan Shulman and the management team have changed the tech profile of PayPal.

GS: Well, they’re not a 200-year-old financial institution founded on a winding alley in downtown New York.

HM: Yes, but it was very old-school Silicon Valley, and they had a lot of technical debt. Of course, they had this great mafia 20 years ago, but all those people are gone. I don’t think there’s a single person in the top 100 at PayPal that was there 15 years ago.

GS: Let’s talk specific themes. You’ve already mentioned personal financial management, which I share your skepticism about. What’s your take on the prospects for challenger banks?

HM: I think we’re likely to have a war for deposits with too many different types of firms competing for deposits. Just look at the United States last year. All of the deposit growth we saw was explained by Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan Chase. Everyone else shrank. But if you have Monzo and Revolut come to the US and you look at Acorns, MoneyLion, Chime and fifteen other prepaid models or fully chartered bank models, they’re all going to have a pretty slick interface, and they’re all going to be out there competing for deposits.

GS: How about the robos and free trading platforms? As you know, a lot of the younger customers on these platforms haven’t experienced a sustained period of tumultuous equity market conditions.

I pay a lot of attention to capital requirements, and the ability to fund something in the teeth of a crisis.

HM: I think a great majority of American households should be using a roboadvisor. However, the question is around the relationship between the customer acquisition and the revenue opportunity. In fact, a big part of our thesis with SigFig was to really help drive the pivot over to enterprise-based customers. But generally, and without knowing the details, my sense is that Betterment, Wealthfront and maybe Personal Capital have enough brand to get to the scale necessary to be self-sufficient. I think most of the others are not in that position.

GS: Turning to the mortgage and broader real estate sector, is your view that even if we have a deepening downdraft in housing, the real estate start-ups backed by you and others can do well anyway? Because they are essentially taking an industry stuck in the 1980s and ’90s and dragging it into the modern era.

HM: There’s a lot of room for tech improvement in real estate, and that includes residential real estate as well as institutional real estate. The problem with real estate, and mortgage-related models, is that the capital needs are also significant. So if you end up owning property, the bill adds up very quickly.

GS: I guess it depends on where a company buys them.

HM: True. Look, we remain bullish on them, but I share your concern that if activity stops or if you start having real decreases in property values in certain sectors, some of these companies may end up holding the bag.

GS: When I saw the Ribbon deal, I was wondering how you and other backers looked at the opportunity at this point in the cycle.

HM: Well, for one thing, you can estimate the likelihood of someone getting a mortgage pretty efficiently. You can be right 99 percent of the time, but even if you’re only right 90 percent of the time, you’re going to be fine. That’s because the certainty that the company offers to the customer is worth it. They also have a great management team and a CEO who is really smart. They’re not naive.

GS: So given all the hype and ups and downs we’ve seen in blockchain, I’m wondering if you remain a long-term blockchain guy.

HM: Here’s the simple fact: The whole financial services industry is composed of ledgers. The reconciliation between entities of that information is a significant expense, particularly in the capital markets businesses. But I don’t buy into the view that it’s going to work better in all cases. The evidence so far is that it works well in some cases.

GS: Where can it work well?

HM: Distributed ledgers can work well when having synchronous data is an essential attribute, and when speed is not necessarily a central attribute.

GS: So, even if the implementation takes longer than the the hype machine suggested it would, financial institutions will get there?

Because money attracts crooks.

HM: They will get there. The cost of change is very, very high. The benefit of it is real. The question is, ‘How’s that cost of change compare to the ongoing benefit?’ In enterprise applications, the ones that will succeed are not ones where you say, ‘Lets rebuild everything within the core functions,’ because the cost and complexity are too great. The much better way is to start at the edge of an enterprise delivering immediate value, and then become an architecture for more things to move over to that.

GS: It’s easier said than done…

HM: If you take the capital markets area, I think it often requires an individual who has a bigger-than-life personality and the leadership skills to match it.

GS: Speaking of leadership, let’s talk about that within the context of fintech, where, as you know, we’ve seen mixed outcomes. You and I have talked a fair bit about how fintech isn’t like other tech sectors, because you’re dealing with money and livelihoods.

HM: Yes, and the activities are regulated, for a very good reason.

GS: When you look at a deal, does the character of the leader trump everything else?

HM: I’d say that the character and capabilities of a leader make a big difference. And to me, in financial services, the errors made, whether it’s 10 years ago or today, are similar. I mean, you have to tell the truth. You have to.

GS: Why is it so important to you?

HM: Because money attracts crooks.

GS: On that note, when I look at some of those who subscribe to the whole blitzscaling ethos, I see it as incompatible with our current climate and especially problematic to financial services. Blitzscaling doesn’t endorse breaking the law, of course, but this whole idea of consciously letting fires burn is a recipe for disaster in today’s financial services sector, right?

HM: Yes, I think so. I’d add that we have a rule in our firm: Don’t invest in any business model where you’re tricking the customer into a profitable relationship. But unfortunately, I feel that there are many business models that do just that.

GS: That’s a bold rule given that terms of services agreements remain dark dens of iniquity.

HM: Well, it’s more than just that. Look at Robinhood. I think it’s a remarkable company made up of unbelievable entrepreneurs. But I do feel that if you say, ‘Payment for order flow is the business model,’ or ‘Margin lending is the business model,’ you’ve got to spell that out. I mean, ‘payment for order flow?’ Most people would be like, ‘What does that mean?’

GS: You might as well be speaking in Ancient Greek.

A VC once said to me that we have too much knowledge about some things. I think there’s some truth to that.

HM: Exactly. I feel, in financial services, the best companies, the most successful long-run stories, will do the right thing for their customers, always. That also means not making a high-profile release of a new product, like a high-interest checking and savings account yielding way above anyone else, before you’ve actually checked with the regulators.

GS: On that latter reference, how accountable is Robinhood’s board for the company’s recent blunder?

HM: I honestly don’t know in what way the board was involved in this, but I think it’s a good example of where a board should put the brakes on an idea until the risks are clear. Sometimes management teams, and investors, don’t want to hear that, but it’s an essential role for financial services companies.

GS: In your career, you have seen your fair share of financial icons rise and fall. Have you ever passed on a deal that wound up being a huge success because something didn’t smell right?

HM: Yes, we have passed on things that turned out to be really good investments, but that’s part of our equation.

GS: In 1997, Howard Marks—

HM: —He’s fantastic, isn’t he?

GS: He’s phenomenal. In one of his famous memos, he asked ‘Are you an investor? Or are you a speculator?’ Given that there are quite a few VCs who have come to fintech in recent years, I’m wondering if you see a lot of speculators.

HM: Most of the folks that I interact with are investors, not speculators. The crypto stuff is pure speculation by almost everybody.

GS: Yes. I wasn’t implying that we discuss crypto.

HM: To the core of your question, I’ll tell you this: There’s this very, very successful VC investor I had a debate with over a deal. My point was that the company in question would need to raise a lot of capital to scale. But that long-term consideration wasn’t especially relevant to him, because he felt the company would have options down the road. We passed on the deal, but now, I look back and regret that decision.

GS: Are you suggesting that you could benefit from having a little more of a speculative instinct?

HM: A VC once said to me that we have too much knowledge about some things. I think there’s some truth to that.

GS: I’m sure that your institutional knowledge has been an important asset on many other occasions. I’ll move on to our last topic, Hans, because I know you have a fund to manage. You know all of the big bank CEOs, right?

HM: Yes.

GS: There’s Jamie Dimon, who defies easy description. At Goldman, you’ve got a banker as CEO. At Morgan Stanley, you’ve got an ex-management consultant. At Citibank, you’ve got—

HM: —You’ve got Corbat. Michael is just an excellent manager who gets things fixed. It’s interesting: Jamie is a fantastic manager of people too, but Jamie brings in his team. Corbat is very good at taking on an existing team and just making them better. Brian [Moynihan] is also really good. I mean he was a lawyer, and when he got the job, I had no idea what he was like. But I’ve noticed that the people who have worked for him are really loyal.

GS: I think the CEOs of the big banks tend to be a reflection of the times in which they operate, right? We went through the period of the trader CEO, which is now gone. As you look down the road, what are the heads of the big banks going to look like?

HM: I’ll answer that question by turning you to Microsoft. What explains the turnaround there? Is it because Satya [Nadella] is such an amazing engineer? No; he’s a great people person. He’s a fantastic manager who put in place a high-quality decision process, which is key to managing a complex organization.

GS: Implicit in my question is whether or not these organizations are going to be as big and complex as they are now. Specifically, I’m referring to the supermarket model that you were involved in helping to construct. Does that remain in place?

HM: Keep in mind that liquidity is a very, very important aspect of a financial marketplace, and having access to core liquidity that doesn’t change frequently is very important. The professional money obviously switches very quickly. But things like core deposits, pension flows and corporate cash tend to have the longest time-frames to build access to. But when a bank has access to deposits that don’t move much, it enables it to fund the liquid financial assets. That’s so important for when you hit a liquidity crisis.

GS: So the big bank model is here to stay?

HM: Yes, I think it’s going to be around for a long time.

GS: Well on that note, Hans, I wish you luck in navigating whatever the future brings. Thanks for sitting down with me and sharing your wisdom.

HM: It’s always a pleasure speaking to you, Gregg. Thank you as well.

This interview has been edited for content, length and clarity.

Via Gregg Schoenberg https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

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therealestatesparkblog · 6 years

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How I Went From 6 to 37 Units With One Acquisition Using Hard Money Financing

Disclaimer: This is a very long post detailing how Iacquired a large, out-of-state commercial property. I hope youll find it helpful. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment below or drop me a message. My Cash Goals Prior to this deal, I owned a duplex and a fourplex. Both properties have appreciated substantially since I purchased and rehabbed them, but produce little cash flow. I have other businesses I work in aside from multi-unit investing. My 18-month goal when taking on this project was to increase my passive income (cash flow) so it exceeded my active income (wages)an aggressive goal. In preparation,I sold one of my aforementioned properties to raise money for a lucrative multi-family property to rehab and hold onto. My Search CriteriaCapitalization (CAP) rateof 10%+A value-add property (a building that needs work; yet once the work is done, the value increase should exceed the renovation cost, creating equity)A max purchase price of $450,000, with a cash flow of at least $4,000 per month upon completion10+ units (the more units in the building, the lower my risk) Note: Single-family investing is not my thing, but perfectly fine if thats your strategy.

How I Search Finding good deals is usually about relationships and marketing. However, I dont ignore online listings. I search frequently for properties that meet my criteria. In this case, I found an out-of-state, broker-listed, 33-unit property that was listed near my target price. I read for hours every day, and I know which geographical areas are doing well and which areas arent. Of course, Im not as familiar with out-of-state markets as local investors are, but I do my research and network with area experts when I find an interesting deal in what seems like a good area. I searched in a few states, and in this case, I found a deal in South Carolina. I called the listing agent to get some information. The property had: 33 units spread across 6 separate buildings14 of 33 units rented4 of 33 units completely gutted on the inside15 of 33 units in varying stages of rehab As a value-add investor, this was music to my ears. The 14 rehabbed units were 100 percent occupied and collecting rent, providing income to cover a debt payment while completing rehab work. I saw an opportunity to buy this place, complete the rehab, stabilize the property, and gain some equity to leverage for the next deal. The catch, the agent said, would be getting financing for this property, which was best suited to a cash buyer. Banks would be wary of the smaller rental market (around 45,000 people) and the condition of the property. I told the agent to give me a few days to explore some options. After some market research, I discovered that companies were investing in the area, unemployment was down, rents for this property were well below market, and there was a long waiting list of Section-8 tenants because there werent enough units in the citygreat. Validating the Deal A meeting with my CPA yielded a referral to one of his financial clients. This client was a mortgage broker focused on risky lending. I got in touch with him on Friday evening and had a pre-qualification letter by Saturday morning. Keep in mind it was only a pre-qualification, not a pre-approval (meaning the lender isnt obligated to finance the deal), but it was a good thing to have in my back pocket nonetheless. I made a trip, toured the property, and met a very genuine and honest seller who told me exactly what to expectpositive and negative. While I was there, I spent time in the city talking with hotel clerks, gas-station attendants, property managers, real-estate agents, and just about anyone else who would tell me about the neighborhood. I drove up and down every street within two miles and noticed that the local residents really took care of their properties. Making the Offer The pre-qualification said financing would cover up to 70% of a purchase price up to $400,000 (this helped with negotiations). It would also cover 100% of renovations. I had enough cash to meet these terms, with enough left over to begin construction and hold onto some reserves. So I put in an offer of $350,000, which included 30 days to come up with the financing (I anticipated a few bumps). A few hours later, another bidder offered $375,000. Multiple offersnot good. I was willing to pay up to $400,000, so I matched the other offer and put emphasis on my pre-qualification letter. It worked. The seller accepted my offer. Putting Financing Together I estimated repairs at $300,000, but I needed a professional to validate my assumptions. Im not a contractor, and I wasnt familiar with local prices. I asked for referrals to general contractors from a local lawyer, a regionalReal Estate Investors Association president, and the listing agent. Then I scheduled another trip to South Carolina and slotted six local contractors for one-hour walk throughs throughout the day. In the end, the rehab estimate totaled around $400,000$100,000 more than I had projected. After further research and discussion, I realized the contractors were high-balling the estimates for four units that needed completely new interiors. They were in a separate building where there had been a fire a number of years ago, and I needed an architect to determine what would be salvageable, how to configure the units to meet current code, and to help get a permit issued; without firming up the scope, it was difficult for the contractors to give an accurate estimate. Those four units represented most of the inflated cost. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking on my 30 days for financing. Upon further analysis, the sellers agent pointed out that if I didnt do any work on those four units, the rest of the property could be completed for $120,000. Worst case scenario, I could bulldoze that building and still easily meet my cash-flow goal. Going ahead with the project still made sense. So I sent the contractor estimates to the mortgage broker, explained the discrepancy, and the broker got to work underwriting the deal.

Related:8 Things The Real Estate Experts Wont Tell You About Hard Money Selecting a Lender Unless youre a cash buyer or have a standing relationship with private lenders, securing financing is likely the most difficult hurdle to closing a multi-unit deal. The referral from my CPA was a solid one. However, from past experience, I knew it was not unusual for a lender to pull out at the last minuteso I made a few other phone calls, just in case. I called about 25 lenders and brokers in total. Some were from my personal list, some were referrals from my contacts. Local Community Banks in South Carolina were a pleasure to deal with but couldnt help me since I was from out of state.Major U.S. banksthat I had banking relationships with were just too big for this deal.Mortgage Brokers were 50/50:About half said they wouldnt do this deal because of the construction loan and because I couldnt put down 30% of the total cost (I was looking to put down 30% of purchase price). The other half said the deal would be no problem. At this point, five mortgage brokers were reviewing my paperwork, saying they could get this deal done. I was honest with the brokers. I told them Id spoken with others since I knew the deal was tricky. Its important not to give anyone the wrong impression or let them think that youre working only with them. Of the five, two brokers backed out because they couldnt find a lender willing to take on the project. One broker said he was close. The CPA referral was still considering the deal too, but he hadntdirectly engaged any lenders yet. I continued making phone calls, following up, and juggling multiple brokers. Finding Property Management Companies & Insurance Agents I contacted five local property management companies. Three of them called me back. One of the reps was nice enough, but didnt really seem like a people personso that wasnt going to work. Another company immediately sent me a copy of the property-management agreement to look over, but it outlined a plethora of fees, and basically stripped me of my decision making-rights in managing the property. That wasnt going to work either. My real-estate agent referred me to someone hed used before in a nearby town. The owner was knowledgeable, personable, and willing to negotiate terms that would benefit us both. I negotiated a flat monthly percentage of rent as the management fee, with no other charges at all. Thus ensuring our interests would be aligned. Next I called an insurance agent I had been referred to. After many excuses and unreturned phone calls, he finally sent a quote that was double what the current owner had been payingfor the same coverage. So I called the current owners insurance company and was quoted (the same day) roughly the same price the current owner was being charged. It was nice to have a management agreement and an insurance quote ready to go for when I needed it. Lenders eventually ask for these. Related: How I find Private Money Lenders to 100% Fund My Deals (& How You Can Too) Financing, Continued I estimated anafter-repair value (ARV)of $1.1 million based on (the midpoint of) the low end of the price-per-unit spectrum for recently sold properties in the city. I didnt have income information for those properties, so price per unit is what I went on. After weeks of making phone calls and sending and resending documentation, two brokers sent meterm sheets.One promised hed continue working on the deal until I had something firm. The term sheets were as follows: Broker A: 90% financing on the purchase price, and 100% financing on rehab costs; 7% interest for 24 months, no prepayment penalty.Broker B: 20% down payment on the overall purchase and rehab; 13% interest for 12 months, no prepayment after 9 months. Both brokers were primarily working off loan to ARV. Broker As deal was obviously much better. However, Broker As terms were subject to underwriting, since the offer was presented based on the information I provided (purchase price, rehab costs, and an ARV of $1.1 million). My down payment would workout to around $40,000. Closing fees, broker fees, taxes and insurance were extra, of course. Broker Bs deal had a better chance of moving to closing. Broker B was ready to order an appraisal and close within two weeks if everything checked out. My cash-to-close cost would work out to around $240,000. I went with Broker AIm not afraid of risk. After speaking with this brokers lender, I had a good feeling. I was confident that the deal would work out in my favor. I let Broker B know I was going a different route, and he said, No problem; let me know if things dont work out. He was a great guy to deal with. At this point, I told the other brokers who were still working the deal that I had signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with another company. I signed the term sheet on the LOI, paid for an appraisal, and moved forward with Broker A. The appraisal came back with a current value of $475,000 and estimated a value of $1 million upon project completion. The higher-than-expected current value helped provide some comfort to both the lender and me. The ARV was lower than I anticipated, but the lender assured me it wouldnt affect the terms of the deal. We could move forward. I sent him the property management agreement and the insurance quote and he said everything was fine. I was surprised, since lenders wont normally go above 70% loan to value, or 65% in smaller markets, but we trudged on nonetheless. In the meantime, I kept working on trying to get some better contractor quotes, just in case.

Closing the Deal Three or four days before closing, I received an email from the lender stating they couldnt find anyone to fund the deal: I would need to put up another $200,000 in order to get things wrapped up. The terms were now similar to those offered by Broker B, but I had already paid for the appraisal with Broker As lender. I took a conference call with the lender. The managing director told me he had originally thought he could finance in-house with funds managed by his colleagues, but none of the fund managers would take the deal due to the small size of the local market. He assured me that he could get the deal done, but said he needed more for the down payment30% down on the purchase price. That was exactly what I had been originally expecting, so it was no problem. Closing was extended by two weeks, and some additional earnest money was paid. Two weeks later, another setback: The lenders managing director called me again and said he would finance the deal himself by getting a bank loan. We extended closing again, this time by 20 days, and the seller said in no uncertain terms that this would be the final extension. With the additional earnest money, I now had $15,000 in the dealnot including the appraisal and travel costs. If the deal didnt go through in the next 20 days, the seller would have kept the place and I would have been out more than $20,000. More Setbacks Well, the bank didnt like the property and turned the lender down. Remember, a smaller market means greater risk. At this point, the lender, now acting as a mortgage broker, reached out to another broker who had an interested lender in California. This new broker-lender duo moved extremely quickly, did due diligence, and communicated effectively throughout the process. In the end, the down payment worked out to be about 20% of the whole project (about the same terms as Broker B had offered). Broker A passed along the documentation wed accrued thus far, and we moved forward with the deal. The California lender asked me for a few more things, which I sent the same day. A conference call with the lender helped answer outstanding questions about the appraisal, my background, and the property. The lender assured me he everything he needed to close in one week (which was the final, hard deadline). My lawyer said Id receive the closing documents before closing. One day before closing, the lender sent a list of things he needed in order to close the following day. Most were quick and easy to send, such as updated bank statements and proof that earnest money was being held in a trust account. However, two things would require some effort: A breakdown of the contractors quote by type and quantity of material, insurance costs, overhead, profit, etc.An enforceability letter from a lawyer in Canada, where my other property is located, allowing the US lender to go after my Canadian assets should I default on my US loan. I dropped everything for the remainder of the day and got to work. I immediately sent everything asked of me except the two items described above. My contractors office was closed that day, but with a few frantic phone calls, I put something together. The enforceability letter harder to come by. My flight to South Carolina for closing was delayed due to a big storm. The unfortunate weather provided me with enough time in the evening to make additional phone calls. Eventually, I remembered a childhood friend whose cousins had all became successful doctors, lawyers, and accountants. One of the cousins referred me to a friend of a friend who said he would put the letter together the following morning. At 1:40 p.m. the following day, I received the enforceability letter and sent it to the lender. The lender had promised to have the loan documents ready to be sent at the click of a button, and he followed through on that promise. Closing was scheduled for 3 p.m. I had one hour and 20 minutes to review 98 pages of documentation at a coffee shop and then drive to the closing at my lawyers office. Luckily, the loan documents matched up with the term sheet, so there were no issues there. Closing went ahead at 3 p.m. as scheduled. Even though the wire transfer didnt arrive from California in time for the closing, the large wire transfer I had sent the day before satisfied the seller enough to allow closing to take place (without knowing the final settlement amount, I had sent an overage). The seller agreed to pick up his check for the balance the following Monday. And with that, the deal closed.

Lessons Learned In the end, the deal went through. I now have a relationship with a solid lender and a few good mortgage brokers. Some things I did well, such as preparing documentation in advance and not relying on a single, unknown mortgage broker or lender (if I had, this deal certainly would have fallen through). That said, I could have closed the deal a lot sooner had I done a few things differently. Heres what I learned: If a lender offers terms drastically better than what others are offering, its probably too good to be true. Choose a more certain option.Get contractor quotes before taking your renovation estimate to the bankunless you are very experienced and youre doing the work yourself. Banks will want proper documentation.Dont rely on a single lender to finance the deal unless youve dealt with them before.Many mortgage brokers will tell you they can close a deal like this, but only some of them canand it will take time.Communicate well, and be available. When a bank asks for something, they need it as soon as possible in order to avoid slowing down the deal. Stay in touch with the bank and your broker to ensure you stay on the same page. Were republishing this article to help out our newer readers.

Have you ever done a deal that took multiple tries to get right? Share your stories in the comments section below. https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/6-37-units-hard-money

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samanthasroberts · 7 years

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Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans

Trump supporters are not the caricatures journalists depict and native Kansan Sarah Smarsh sets out to correct what newsrooms get wrong

Last March, my 71-year-old grandmother, Betty, waited in line for three hours to caucus for Bernie Sanders. The wait to be able to cast her first-ever vote in a primary election was punishing, but nothing could have deterred her. Betty a white woman who left school after ninth grade, had her first child at age 16 and spent much of her life in severe poverty wanted to vote.

So she waited with busted knees that once stood on factory lines. She waited with smoking-induced emphysema and the false teeth shes had since her late 20s both markers of our class. She waited with a womb that in the 1960s, before Roe v Wade, she paid a stranger to thrust a wire hanger inside after she discovered she was pregnant by a man shed fled after he broke her jaw.

Betty worked for many years as a probation officer for the state judicial system in Wichita, Kansas, keeping tabs on men who had murdered and raped. As a result, its hard to faze her, but she has pronounced Republican candidate Donald Trump a sociopath whose mouth overloads his ass.

No one loathes Trump who suggested women should be punished for having abortions, who said hateful things about groups of people she has loved and worked alongside since childhood, whose pomp and indecency offends her modest, midwestern sensibility more than she.

Yet, it is white working-class people like Betty who have become a particular fixation among the chattering class during this election: what is this angry beast, and why does it support Trump?

Not so poor: Trump voters are middle class

Hard numbers complicate, if not roundly dismiss, the oft-regurgitated theory that income or education levels predict Trump support, or that working-class whites support him disproportionately. Last month, results of 87,000 interviews conducted by Gallup showed that those who liked Trump were under no more economic distress or immigration-related anxiety than those who opposed him.

According to the study, his supporters didnt have lower incomes or higher unemployment levels than other Americans. Income data misses a lot; those with healthy earnings might also have negative wealth or downward mobility. But respondents overall werent clinging to jobs perceived to be endangered. Surprisingly, a Gallup researcher wrote, there appears to be no link whatsoever between exposure to trade competition and support for nationalist policies in America, as embodied by the Trump campaign.

Earlier this year, primary exit polls revealed that Trump voters were, in fact, more affluent than most Americans, with a median household income of $72,000 higher than that of Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders supporters. Forty-four percent of them had college degrees, well above the national average of 33% among whites or 29% overall. In January, political scientist Matthew MacWilliams reported findings that a penchant for authoritarianism not income, education, gender, age or race predicted Trump support.

These facts havent stopped pundits and journalists from pushing story after story about the white working classs giddy embrace of a bloviating demagogue.

In seeking to explain Trumps appeal, proportionate media coverage would require more stories about the racism and misogyny among white Trump supporters in tony suburbs. Or, if were examining economically driven bitterness among the working class, stories about the Democratic lawmakers who in recent decades ended welfare as we knew it, hopped in the sack with Wall Street and forgot American labor in their global trade agreements.

But, for national media outlets comprised largely of middle- and upper-class liberals, that would mean looking their own class in the face.

The faces journalists do train the cameras on hateful ones screaming sexist vitriol next to Confederate flags must receive coverage but do not speak for the communities I know well. That the media industry ignored my home for so long left a vacuum of understanding in which the first glimpse of an economically downtrodden white is presumed to represent the whole.

Part of the current glimpse is JD Vance, author of the bestselling new memoir Hillbilly Elegy. A successful attorney who had a precariously middle-class upbringing in an Ohio steel town, Vance wrote of the chaos that can haunt a family with generational memory of deep poverty. A conservative who says he wont vote for Trump, Vance speculates about why working-class whites will: cultural anxiety that arises when opioid overdose kills your friends and the political establishment has proven it will throw you under the bus. While his theories may hold up in some corners, in interviews coastal media members have repeatedly asked Vance to speak for the entire white working class.

His interviewers and reviewers often seem relieved to find someone with ownership on the topic whose ideas in large part confirm their own. The New York Times election podcast The Run-Up said Vances memoir doubles as a cultural anthropology of the white underclass that has flocked to the Republican presidential nominees candidacy. (The Times teased its review of the book with the tweet: Want to know more about the people who fueled the rise of Donald Trump?)

While Vance happens to have roots in Kentucky mining country, most downtrodden whites are not conservative male Protestants from Appalachia. That sometimes seems the only concept of them that the American consciousness can contain: tucked away in a remote mountain shanty like a coal-dust-covered ghost, as though white poverty isnt always right in front of us, swiping our credit cards at a Target in Denver or asking for cash on a Los Angeles sidewalk.

One-dimensional stereotypes fester where journalism fails to tread. The last time I saw my native class receive substantial focus, before now, was over 20 years ago not in the news but on the television show Roseanne, the fictional storylines of which remain more accurate than the musings of comfortable commentators in New York studios.

Countless images of working-class progressives, including women such as Betty, are thus rendered invisible by a ratings-fixated media that covers elections as horse races and seeks sensational b-roll.

This media paradigm created the tale of a divided America red v blue in which the 42% of Kansans who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 are meaningless.

This year, more Kansans caucused for Bernie Sanders than for Donald Trump a newsworthy point I never saw noted in national press, who perhaps couldnt fathom that flyover country might contain millions of Americans more progressive than their Clinton strongholds.

In lieu of such coverage, media makers cast the white working class as a monolith and imply an old, treacherous story convenient to capitalism: that the poor are dangerous idiots.

Poor whiteness and poor character

The two-fold myth about the white working class that they are to blame for Trumps rise, and that those among them who support him for the worst reasons exemplify the rest takes flight on the wings of moral superiority affluent Americans often pin upon themselves.

I have never seen them flap so insistently as in todays election commentary, where notions of poor whiteness and poor character are routinely conflated.

In an election piece last March in the National Review, writer Kevin Williamsons assessment of poor white voters among whom mortality rates have sharply risen in recent decades expressed what many conservatives and liberals alike may well believe when he observed that communities ravaged by oxycodone use deserve to die.

The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles, Williamson wrote. Donald Trumps speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin.

For confirmation that this point is lost on most reporters, not just conservative provocateurs, look no further than a recent Washington Post series that explored spiking death rates among rural white women by fixating on their smoking habits and graphically detailing the haggard face and embalming processes of their corpses. Imagine wealthy white woman examined thusly after their deaths. The outrage among family and friends with the education, time, and agency to write letters to the editor would have been deafening.

A sentiment that I care for even less than contempt or degradation is their tender cousin: pity.

In a recent op-ed headlined Dignity and Sadness in the Working Class, David Brooks told of a laid-off Kentucky metal worker he met. On his last day, the man left to rows of cheering coworkers a moment I read as triumphant, but that Brooks declared pitiable. How hard the man worked for so little, how great his skills and how dwindling their value, Brooks pointed out, for people he said radiate the residual sadness of the lonely heart.

Im hard-pressed to think of a worse slight than the media figures who have disregarded the embattled white working class for decades now beseeching the country to have sympathy for them. We dont need their analysis, and we sure dont need their tears. What we need is to have our stories told, preferably by someone who can walk into a factory without his own guilt fogging his glasses.

One such journalist, Alexander Zaitchik, spent several months on the road in six states getting to know white working-class people who do support Trump. His goal for the resulting new book, The Gilded Rage, was to convey the human complexity that daily news misses. Zaitchik wrote that his mission arose from frustration with hot takes written by people living several time zones and income brackets away from their subjects.

Zaitchik wisely described those he met as a blue-collar middle class mostly white people who have worked hard and lost a lot, whether in the market crash of 2008 or the manufacturing layoffs of recent decades. He found that their motivations overwhelmingly started with economics and ended with economics. The anger he observed was pointed up, not down at those who forgot them when global trade deals were negotiated, not at minority groups.

Meanwhile, the racism and nationalism that surely exist among them also exist among Democrats and higher socioeconomic strata. A poll conducted last spring by Reuters found that a third of questioned Democrats supported a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. In another, by YouGov, 45% of polled Democrats reported holding an unfavorable view of Islam, with almost no fluctuation based on household income. Those who wont vote for Trump are not necessarily paragons of virtue, while the rest are easily scapegoated as the countrys moral scourge.

When Hillary Clinton recently declared half of Trump supporters a basket of deplorables, Zaitchik told another reporter, the language could be read as another way of saying white-trash bin. Clinton quickly apologized for the comment, the context of which contained compassion for many Trump voters. But making such generalizations at a $6m fundraiser in downtown New York City, at which some attendees paid $50,000 for a seat, recalled for me scenes from the television political satire Veep in which powerful Washington figures discuss normals with distaste behind closed doors.

The DeBruce Grain elevator. Federal safety inspectors had not visited it for 16 years when an explosion ripped through the half-mile long structure, killing seven workers. Photograph: Cliff Schiappa/AP

When we talked, Zaitchik mentioned HBO talk-show host Bill Maher, who he pointed out basically makes eugenics-level arguments about anyone who votes for Donald Trump having congenital defects. You would never get away with talking that way about any other group of people and still have a TV show.

Maher is, perhaps, the pinnacle of classist smugness. In the summer of 1998, when I was 17 and just out of high school, I worked at a grain elevator during the wheat harvest. An elevator 50 miles east in Haysville, Kansas, exploded (grain dust is highly combustible), killing seven workers. The accident rattled my community and reminded us about the physical dangers my family and I often faced as farmers.

I kept going to work like everyone else and, after a long day weighing wheat trucks and hauling heavy sacks of feed in and out of the mill, liked to watch Politically Incorrect, the ABC show Maher hosted then. With the search for one of the killed workers bodies still under way, Maher joked, as I recall, that the people should check their loaves of Wonder Bread.

That moment was perhaps my first reckoning with the hard truth that, throughout my life, I would politically identify with the same people who often insult the place I am from.

Such derision is so pervasive that its often imperceptible to the economically privileged. Those who write, discuss, and publish newspapers, books, and magazines with best intentions sometimes offend with obliviousness.

Many people recommended to me the bestselling new history book White Trash, for instance, without registering that its title is a slur that refers to me and the people I love as garbage. My happy relief that someone set out to tell this ignored thread of our shared past was squashed by my wincing every time I saw it on my shelf, so much so that I finally took the book jacket off. Incredibly, promotional copy for the book commits precisely the elitist shaming Isenberg is out to expose: (the book) takes on our comforting myths about equality, uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing if occasionally entertaining poor white trash.

The book itself is more sensitively wrought and imparts facts that one hopes would dismantle popular use of its titular term. But even Isenberg cant escape our classist frameworks.

When On the Media host Brooke Gladstone asked Isenberg, earlier this year, to address long-held perceptions of poor whites as bigots, the author described a conundrum:They do subscribe to certain views that are undoubtedly racist, and you cant mask it and pretend that its not there. It is very much a part of their thinking.

Entertain a parallel broad statement about any other disenfranchised group, and you might begin to see how rudimentary class discussion is for this relatively young country that long believed itself to be free of castes. Isenberg has sniffed out the hypocrisy in play, though.

The other problem is when people want to blame poor whites for being the only racist in the room, she told Gladstone. as if theyre more racist than everyone else.

That problem is rooted in the notion that higher class means higher integrity. As journalist Lorraine Berry wrote last month, The story remains that only the ignorant would be racist. Racism disappears with education were told. As the first from my family to hold degrees, I assure you that none of us had to go to college to learn basic human decency.

Berry points out that Ivy-League-minted Republicans shepherded the rise of the alt-right. Indeed, it was not poor whites not even white Republicans who passed legislation bent on preserving segregation, or who watched the Confederate flag raised outside state capitols for decades to come.

It wasnt poor whites who criminalized blackness by way of marijuana laws and the war on drugs.

Nor was it poor whites who conjured the specter of the black welfare queen.

These points should not minimize the horrors of racism at the lowest economic rungs of society, but remind us that those horrors reside at the top in different forms and with more terrible power.

Among reporters and commentators this election cycle, then, a steady finger ought be pointed at whites with economic leverage: social conservatives who donate to Trumps campaign while being too civilized to attend a political rally and yell what they really believe.

Mainstream media is set up to fail the ordinary American

Based on Trumps campaign rhetoric and available data, it appears that most of his voters this November will be people who are getting by well enough but who think of themselves as victims.

One thing the media misses is that a great portion of the white working class would align with any sense before victimhood. Right now they are clocking in and out of work, sorting their grocery coupons, raising their children to respect others, and avoiding political news coverage.

Barack Obama, a black man formed by the black experience, often cites his maternal lineage in the white working class. A lot of whats shaped me came from my grandparents who grew up on the prairie in Kansas, he wrote this month to mark a White House forum on rural issues.

Last year, talking with author Marilynne Robinson for the New York Review of Books, Obama lamented common misconceptions of small-town middle America, for which he has a sort of reverence. Theres this huge gap between how folks go about their daily lives and how we talk about our common life and our political life, he said, naming one cause as the filters that stand between ordinary people who are busy getting by and complicated policy debates.

Im very encouraged when I meet people in their environments, Obama told Robinson. Somehow it gets distilled at the national political level in ways that arent always as encouraging.

To be sure, one discouraging distillation the caricature of the hate-spewing white male Trump voter with grease on his jeans is a real person of sorts. There were one or two in my town: the good ol boy who menaces those with less power than himself running people of color out of town with the threat of violence, denigrating women, shooting BB guns at stray cats for fun. They are who Trump would be if hed been born where I was.

Media fascination with the hateful white Trump voter fuels the theory, now in fashion, that bigotry is the only explanation for supporting him. Certainly, financial struggle does not predict a soft spot for Trump, as cash-strapped people of color who face the threat of his racism and xenophobia, and who resoundingly reject him, by all available measures can attest. However, one imagines that elite white liberals who maintain an air of ethical grandness this election season would have a harder time thinking globally about trade and immigration if it were their factory job that was lost and their community that was decimated.

Affluent analysts who oppose Trump, though, have a way of taking a systemic view when examining social woes but viewing their place on the political continuum as a triumph of individual character. Most of them presumably inherited their political bent, just like most of those in red America did. If you were handed liberalism, give yourself no pats on the back for your vote against Trump.

Spare, too, the condescending argument that disaffected Democrats who joined Republican ranks in recent decades are voting against their own best interests, undemocratic in its implication that a large swath of America isnt mentally fit to cast a ballot.

Whoever remains on Trumps side as stories concerning his treatment of women, racism and other dangers continue to unfurl gets no pass from me for any reason. They are capable of voting, and they own their decisions. Lets be aware of our class biases, though, as we discern who they are.

Journalist? Then the chances are youre not blue collar

A recent print-edition New York Times cutline described a Kentucky man:

Mitch Hedges, who farms cattle and welds coal-mining equipment. He expects to lose his job in six months, but does not support Mr Trump, who he says is an idiot.

This made me cheer for the rare spotlight on a member of the white working class who doesnt support Trump. It also made me laugh one cant farm cattle. One farms crops, and one raises livestock. Its sometimes hard for a journalist who has done both to take the New York Times seriously.

The main reason that national media outlets have a blind spot in matters of class is the lack of socioeconomic diversity within their ranks. Few people born to deprivation end up working in newsrooms or publishing books. So few, in fact, that this former laborer has found cause to shift her entire writing career to talk specifically about class in a wealth-privileged industry, much as journalists of color find themselves talking about race in a whiteness-privileged one.

This isnt to say that one must reside among a given group or place to do it justice, of course, as good muckrakers and commentators have shown for the past century and beyond. See On the Medias fine new series on poverty, the second episode of which includes Gladstones reflection that the poor are no more monolithic than the rest of us.

I know journalists to be hard-working people who want to get the story right, and Im resistant to rote condemnations of the media. The classism of cable-news hosts merely reflects the classism of privileged America in general. Its everywhere, from tweets describing Trump voters as inbred hillbillies to a Democratic campaign platform that didnt bother with a specific anti-poverty platform until a month out from the general election.

The economic trench between reporter and reported on has never been more hazardous than at this moment of historic wealth disparity, though, when stories focus more often on the stock market than on people who own no stocks. American journalism has been willfully obtuse about the grievances on Main Streets for decades surely a factor in digging the hole of resentment that Trumps venom now fills. That the term populism has become a pejorative among prominent liberal commentators should give us great pause. A journalism that embodies the plutocracy its supposed to critique has failed its watchdog duty and lost the respect of people who call bullshit when they see it.

One such person was my late grandfather, Arnie. Men like Trump sometimes drove expensive vehicles up the gravel driveway of our Kansas farmhouse looking to do some sort of business. Grandpa would recognize them as liars and thieves, treat them kindly, and send them packing. If you shook their hands, after they left Grandpa would laugh and say, Better count your fingers.

In a world in which the Bettys and Arnies of the world have little voice, those who enjoy a platform from which to speak might examine their hearts and minds before stepping onto the soap box.

If you would stereotype a group of people by presuming to guess their politics or deeming them inferior to yourself say, the ones who worked third shift on a Boeing floor while others flew to Mexico during spring break; the ones who mopped a McDonalds bathroom while others argued about the minimum wage on Twitter; the ones who cleaned out their lockers at a defunct Pabst factory while others drank craft beer at trendy bars; the ones who came back from the Middle East in caskets while others wrote op-eds about foreign policy then consider that you might have more in common with Trump than you would like to admit.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/dangerous-idiots-how-the-liberal-media-elite-failed-working-class-americans/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/01/05/dangerous-idiots-how-the-liberal-media-elite-failed-working-class-americans/

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communist-cat-girl · 7 years

Text

Ok So

im on my shit again cause pragerU is still makin fuckin’ videos time to yell about PragerU - The Least Diverse Place In America

(0:08) They had me in the first quarter, im not gonna lie, i thought this would be some interestin social justice piece and that maybe prageru’s obvious racism and ignorance were instantly solved by this Charlie Kirk guy. I was so wrong.

(0:28) Okay because there still totally isnt racism on college campuses or anythin’??? and like a ton of misogyny??? that isnt addressed at all??? ever??? but sure dude okay, lets act like colleges are good and perfect.

(0:46) So this is just ... I mean he sounds like an idiot who did zero research already but here we go. Can’t wait to have a straight white guy tell me about queer acceptance.

(0:59) Umm no not at all, people will still forever be homophobes and transphobes and every other phobe on the block. Also who the fuck signs a consent form for sex? They’re not doing kinky shit they’re caricatures of a man and a woman kissin’. Also seriously dude? Experimenting? This isn’t the fuckin’ 80′s, we know people are gay for sure and that people know full well what the hell they’re doin’. Experimenting is the way straight people have been disenfranchisin’ actual gay feelin’s for ages and this dipshit is perpetuatin’ that while tryna’ claim that these issues are “been there, done that,” as if anythin’ is solved. Fuck you already Charlie you clearly don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on in the world.

(1:04) If I had a dime every time I heard some conservative asshole talk about this in relation to safe spaces alone I think I’d have enough money to pay for my tuition. Barely.

(1:10) Ye, that thing racists, homophobes, and straight up nazis try to say is an issue because of us nasty liberals. I know the phrase and I know you’re boutta’ spew some bullshit about the first amendment, hit me already.

(1:21) ... Have you been to a college campus ever dude? Seriously, this is an honest question. I don’t even think hes been out in the real world if he thinks conservative ideas are radical or that colleges shut down “diversity of thought.” They shutdown bullshit because bullshit questions don’t need to be asked.

If a nazi asks “Why don’t we kill all Jews?” We do not attempt to explain to them the immorality of genocide nor do we explain to them their ignorance for thinkin’ that Jewish people are somehow the issue in their lives instead of their own mediocrity. We ignore them and move on, as we should. Because they’re fuckin’ idiots.

(1:25) You mean society, right? All of society does is indoctrinate you into a specific way of thinkin’. College isn’t special in this, every single region, culture, and subculture, even on accident, will attempt to indoctrinate you to their way of thinkin’, that’s just how it works naturally. We learn and grow from new experiences and interactin’ with different people, it’s an incredibly important part of our growth. College is an incredibly diverse place where we can do that!

(1:36) I don’t know if you know what’s up politically but people on “The Right” like to defund schoolin’ and bash on our teachers for no reason. So yeah ... they’re gonna’ be more left leanin’ considerin’ who their enemy is when it comes to literally makin’ a wage high enough to pay rent and eat food.

(1:46) ‘Cause no conservative signs up ‘cause they know their antiquated ideas will be shutdown in two seconds because colleges are, often, forward thinkin’ institutions that want to include many different people as they possibly can instead of lettin’ some white middle class straight cis asshole tell other people what to do???

I’m not even overeactin’ here, every experience in college i’ve had with a white conservative man who is my superior has been hellish and degradin’, it sucks. You give assholes power and they become bigger assholes, it’s how it works dude.

(1:59) What kind of conspiracy theory bullshit are you talkin’ ‘bout. No one’s paycheck depends on victims ‘xcept ... well no one. Ever. In the history of everthin’.

(2:10) My core being is superficial to you? What the fuck dude? My pride in bein’ an Italian American, Wiccan, liberal, demisexual, polyamorous, transgender woman is important to me, it’s at the very core of who I am, not some superficial mask I put on. What I am is what I fuckin’ am and that shit that makes me a unique individual is important. Fuck you Charlie.

(2:13) What!? What the fuck!?

How is glorfyin’ who someone is at their core superficial and how is it destructive? Who hurt you Charlie? Who told you that positive feedback and kindness and love is harmful?

(2:16) The only thing destroyin’ real learnin’ is a) people bein’ willin’ly ignorant to honest to the gods facts and b) the fact that republicans are defundin’ education like a mother fucker.

(2:25) a) We’ve all learned from Shakespeare dipshit. He was a surprisin’ly forward thinkin’ man for his time period and wrote what is considered to be some of the greatest works of art in the western world. b) Who isn’t readin’ Shakespeare cause he was a white man? I still do, I enjoy his shit. I know plenty of other queer people who enjoy his shit. What are you gettin’ at here?

(2:34) N- ... no it doesn’t dude. I’m literally a queer woman on a college campus. I am accepted into a group despite my transness and ethnic background. Everyone, black, white, asian, and so forth, speak to each other with respect. Genders, while not treated equally by the old, conservative staff, all get to say what they want and are given equal value in conversations. I live in Texas, not a very liberal place, but I still experience more acceptance and confidence than I ever did with even my parents.

This is clearly bullshit right wingers pull to split apart people in the left by claimin’ that our actions somehow divide us even though, if recent protests and counter protests held by the left against the right proves anythin’, its that our differences unify us. Unlike all of you middle class cishet white asshats.

(2:42) No.

Even ignorin’ my experiences, I’ve never heard a single issue with liberals excludin’ other liberals. It’s always conservatives who either exclude or get pissy when their radical ideas get them excluded. Same with radical liberals really.

(3:03) Has it? Also does that matter? The issue is that we have a stupid amount of people in poverty and a stupid small amount of rich people who are stockpilin’ money that is ruinin’ our economy.

Look I actually like capitalism as a concept, I also like communism, and socialism, hell I even like a monarchy or a tribal system where chieftains and elders hold votes. These concepts (both the economic and ideological ones) on paper are all perfect and good and do more harm than good.

The issue is that in practice, here in America, capitalism is ruinin’ lives as we speak and is goin’ to lead to an international crisis sooner than later on both an economic and environmental level. Capitalism, as it stands, is unsustainable, and our stance needs to change.

(3:06) No? When? Can you give me an example because if you mean places like Cuba or China or North Korea or the Soviet Union those were all communist regimes that acted more like dictators than representatives of their people. Real ass communism hasn’t really been done outside of small communes. People are just too power hungry for their own good, the only difference with capitalism is that their avarice is given praise by the masses.

(3:14) Do not act like we alone made some kind’ve ever lastin’ peace. Do not act like we haven’t instigated violence in the Middle East like it’s a fuckin’ game of Hearts of Iron IV. We, as a nation, are warmongers at worst and war profiteers at best.

(3:21) Because as well all know poor people do not commit crimes because they’re poor and aren’t given a way out of their shitty economic situations no no no, they do it because they’re black and play the victim card.

And of course slavery didn’t both ruin the lives of millions of people by makin’ them and their descendants poor and underprivileged, black people are poor because they choose to be violent and lazy. Obviously.

[/Sarcasm]

(3:29) Maybe because they’re wrong when they say this shit and we don’t want old ideas that don’t work or are objectively wrong or based too highly on subjective thought.

(3:37) I think Trae Crowder said it best when talkin’ ‘bout the nazi bullshit in Charolettesville, “They’ve been losin’ battle after battle, fight after fight for 200 years in this country and these are their death rows.”

Your stupid ideas are fallin’ off, the reason you have a voice right now is because you’re gettin’ desperate and so are the old rich assholes who are afraid taxes will empty even 1% of their fuckin’ pockets who give you the money to even exist.

(3:34) And that’s what they do! And we look at what people on the right do and we all cringe because it’s stupid! We’re not all closeted entitled fuckin’ rich kids goin’ to ivy league schools on our parents dime! We know what the real world is and it’s fuckin’ tough and scary and everyone is pitted against us. We know these things. Dumb fuckin’ bitch. I’m seriously tired of this guy right now.

(3:50) ... ... Did this dude not think we know what liberal means?

(4:12) Noble goal, I wish the rest of America would adopt this kind of “Melting Pot” idea, we’d prolly have way less issues honestly.

(4:25) ??? Why are you mad that people are bein’ kind and decent ???

(4:31) Thanks for usin’ actual terms in an attempt to disenfranchise them of any real meanin’. The same shit is happenin’ with the word triggered so y’know, not really a new tactic. Also one that doesn’t work on changin’ minds. This entire channel is an echo chamber I swear.

(4:35) Wow he’s ... stupid huh. The words mean what they mean asshole. Maybe ask one of your queer friends? You’re diverse in thought, right? Oh wait no your diversity of though doesn’t take queerness into account. Because you’re an asshole.

(4:52) ... No.

Like literally no, where do you get this idea from? Other liberals do not think like other liberals, there is infightin’ in EVERY culture, includin’ college campuses you fuckin’ dipshit.

I’m sorry I’m mostly just callin’ him a dumbass cishet white asshole middle class piece of shit but I’m really pissed off with his willful ignorance.

(4:54) No, it’s not. The two things do not compare.

(5:01) You mean what queer, black, and many other disenfranchised people have been doin’ for ages? Okay.

(5:12) No. Shit.

Video over. I want to die. I hate this dude so much.

#q slur #b slur #rose rants about bull shit #again

0 notes

victoryliononline · 7 years

Text

Redneck Revolt: the armed leftwing group that wants to stamp out fascism

There are various commonalities between the far left and the far right including a arrogance for liberals but the most difficult divide is on the topic of intolerance

The cookout offered free meat, a face-painting kiosk and a demonstrate sign-making terminal a pile of cut-up cardboard caskets, coat markers and moves of parcelling videotape. A group of place sons, each no older than 12, assembled around. They missed signalings to tape to their bicycles, so we are able to razz around and tell Trump what they thought of him.

One grabbed a piece of cardboard and wrote in large-hearted words: TRUMPS A BITCH.

Max Neely rapidly stepped in.

Im not sure you should utilize that command, he answered, his voice taking on a kindly hue. At 6ft2in, he towered over them. That term isnt exceedingly respectful to girls, and there are a lot of women around here today that we should be respecting. Perhaps you are able to think of another parole to use.

The sons awarded. Eventually, they settled on a different, less offensive rally clue at the least in Neelys attentions. FUCK TRUMP, it spoke, followed by four exclamation points.

A 31 -year-old activist with long fuzz and a full wiry beard, Neely had a full era of government activism ahead of him: Donald Trump was in Harrisburg to mark his 100 th day in role with a addres at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex. In other parts of the city, the liberal opposition were also readying themselves: makings such as Keystone Progress, Dauphin County Democrat and the regional Indivisible radical planned to rally in rally.

Neelys group were not among them. Instead, they had set up a picnic site in a small ballpark, offering a barbecue and leftist folders. Someone had planted a bright scarlet hammer-and-sickle flag in the grass. On a nearby counter hung a black banner that tolerate the words Redneck Revolt: anti-racist, pro-gun, pro-labor.

Activist Steve Hilditch, who runs a section of the Redneck Revolt radical. Image: Cecilia Saixue Watt figcaption > root > If you havent acknowledged, we arent liberals, mentioned Jeremy Beck, one of Neelys cookout acquaintances. You know, if you keep going further left, eventually, you go left enough to get your shoots back.

Wooly radicals, theyre not. Redneck Revolt is a nationwide organization of forearmed political organizers from urban, working-class backgrounds who strive to reclaim the period redneck and promote active anti-racism. It is not an alone lily-white group, although it was does take a special interest in the specific travails of the white good. The establishments principles are plainly left-wing: against white ascendancy, against capitalism and the nation-state, in support of the marginalized.

Pennsylvania is an open-carry state, where shoot proprietors can legally carry weapons in public without camouflage. Redneck Revolt members often realise the course of carrying out openly carrying a artillery as a political statement: the presence of a discernible artillery has contributed to intimidate resists and corroborate shoot freedoms. Many of the cookout attendees owned grease-guns, and had considered bringing them today but eventually they had decided to come unarmed, in the interest of restraining the phenomenon family-friendly.

Redneck Revolt began in 2009 as an offshoot of the John Brown Gun Club, a handguns developing activity originally are stationed in Kansas. Dave Strano, one of Redneck Revolts founding members, had confiscated upon what he saw as a negation in the Tea Party movement, then in its infancy. Many Tea party organizers were fellow working-class people who had permitted significant sufferings as a result of the 2008 economic crisis which, in his eyes, had been caused by the terribly prosperous. And more, Tea Partiers were now flocking in great numbers to rallies funded by the 1 %.

By corroborating economically republican politicians, Strano recalled, they would only be significantly controlled to benefit the once rich.

The history of the lily-white working class has been a record of being an manipulated parties, he wrote. Nonetheless, weve been an manipulated people that farther employs other exploited people. While weve been living in tenements and slums for centuries, weve too been used by the rich to affect our neighbors, coworkers, and friends of different colourings, religions and nationalities.

Now, eight years later, more than 20 Redneck Revolt fields have ripened across the US; different groups straddle widely in size, some with only a handful of members. Max Neely is a member of the Mason-Dixon branch, which encompasses central Pennsylvania as well as his native western Maryland. Many members are lily-white, but the organization seeks to build on a redneck identity beyond race.

I grew up playing in the groves, hovering coolers of brew down a creek, hitting off fireworks, simply generally raising hell, all that kind of stuff, mentioned Neely. Acts most people would consider a part of redneck culture. Were trying to acknowledge the ways weve originated mistakes and bought into white-hot ascendancy and capitalism, but also contribute ourselves a better environment in which its OK to celebrate redneck culture.

The group draws a great deal of insight from the Young Patriots Organization, a 1960 s-era partisan radical comprising primarily of white-hot working-class Appalachians and southerners. Im very impressed with Redneck Revolt, answered Hy Thurman, one of the early benefactors of the Young Patriots. I think theyre right on with what theyre trying to do.

The group opposed combating racism and worked closely with the Black Panthers, but they did make use of the Confederate flag in their recruiting. Thurman explained that it was used only strategically, to start the talks with good white people who might identify with the symbol.

In the same way that the Young Patriots once squandered the Confederate flag, Redneck Revolt seeks to employ another insignium of rural America: guns.

Redneck Revolt groups work on accommodating an explicitly anti-racist existence in rural areas, and sharpen particularly on gun displays. Many members are from the locations where guns are relatively normalized, and Neely requires Redneck Revolt to serve as a viable alternative for people who might otherwise meet the growing right-wing militia movement.

Since the 1992 Ruby Ridge besiege, the US has evidenced an increase in anti-government paramilitary companies. Oath Keepers, for example, is a militia group that strives to defend the American constitution, which the group believes is under threat by its own government. They claim to be nonpartisan, but its members politics tend to distort far right. During last few years presidential election, they announced that members would be checking electing booths to prevent referendum tampering, territory he was most concerned about expected tries at voter forgery by leftists.

But groups like Oath Keepers have much in common with far leftists: concerns about the infringement of human rights, dissents to mass monitoring and the ever reauthorized Patriot Act, feeling at the continuation of the contends of the working poor.

We use gun culture as a room to relate to beings, pronounced Neely, whose grandfather was an ardent hunter. No liberal elitism. Our basic content is: firearms are penalty, but intolerance is not.

Officially, Oath Keepers bylaws veto anyone associated with a abhor radical from joining, though their background checks have proven to be inconsistent at best. But there are other rightwing groups around the explicitly racist kind.

Im worried about Pikeville, pronounced Neely. Ive went friends out there.

KKK members salute next to a station wagon at a private campground in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Image: Pat Jarrett for the Guardian figcaption > beginning > Pikeville is a small Kentucky town depth in the heart of Appalachia. It has no major airport or interstate, a population of less than 10,000 and an abundance of peaceful mountain surrounding. Mining has long been the major industry now, though Pikeville too captivates tourism: mid-April chooses over 100,000 visitors to the annual Hillbilly Days gala, a occasion of Appalachian culture and music.

In the week after the celebration objective, however, Pikevilles atmosphere had made a distinct form. Neo-Nazis were coming to municipality the same day as Trumps appearance in Harrisburg.

The Nationalist Front an alliance of far-right lily-white nationalistic make-ups was scheming a revival in front of Pikevilles courthouse. Make a stand for white acting lineages, read an invitation that flowed online.

This embarks a process of building and expanding our seeds within grey working class communities to become the community preaches that our people need and deserve, wrote Matthew Heimbach on the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website.

Pike County chronically impoverished, overwhelmingly white is seen as a fruitful lay for spreading their ideology. The metropoli of Pikeville itself has actually knew some growth in the past few years, but the greater expanse is struggling. Pike Countys unemployment rate is one of the highest in the nation: 10%, more than twice that of the US as a whole.

Trump successfully tapped into this desperation with his pro-labor, anti-immigrant hyperbole and successfully triumphed more than 80% of votes assigned. Citing this figure, Heimbach hoped to develop dwelling pro-Trump sentimentalities into full-blown national socialism.

Were doing this because we care about the people of Pike County, did Jeff Schoep, head of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, in a video promoting the rally. Weve visualized factories shut down, weve witnessed people losing their jobs, weve heard families going frantic and contacting out for narcotics or interesting thing that they shouldnt be doing. We want to give people hope again. Something worth fighting for.

That something happened to be a white-hot ethno-state, and many Pikeville residents were not interested.

The city approved work permits for the Nationalist Front to gathering downtown, citing the constitutional title of free speech and assembly, though Donovan Blackburn, the city manager, also issued the following statement promoting quietnes, respect and diversity.

Students at the University of Pikeville scheduled a counter-protest, but the occasion was speedily canceled due to safety concerns: university officials is concerned that a conflict between the Nationalist Front and representatives from the antifascist motion or antifa could intensify into violence.

An anti-fascist counter-march to #MarchAgainstSharia in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Picture: Sean Kitchen Developed in Europe over the past decades, antifascists represent the lefts own united front: a conflux of revolutionaries, communists, social democrats and others, dedicated to embossing out autocracy by any means necessary, including violence which they see as a justified response to the inherent violence of dictatorship. They often hire black alliance tactics, where individuals wear masks and all-black draping to avoid police identification.

Antifascist radicals have never been as prominent in the US as they have been in countries such as Greece, where disguised people recently smashed the windows of the Golden Dawns headquarters. But in the aftermath of Trumps election and the ensuing heap of hate crimes, they have hurriedly mustered. A masked somebody famously swiped lily-white nationalist Richard Spencer in Washington DC on Inauguration Day; two weeks later, antifascists lit flames on UC Berkeleys campus in protest of rightwing ideologue Milo Yiannopoulos.

We live in a historical moment where theres unprecedented affluence inequality, and the average person is struggling to get by, added Sidney( not his real name ), an Appalachian antifascist “whos been” hindering a close watch on white nationalistic activity in his area. When governments, as they characteristically do, fail to step in, people look to other institutions for an answer. Fascism is having a revitalization because were in that time. Its not a problem thats going to be solved by leaving it alone. Thats like leaving new infections alone.

A 27 -year-old native of West Virginia, Sidney comes from a coal mining pedigree. He separates his time between investing drywall and planning with Redneck Revolt.

Pikeville really caught my courtesy, pronounced Sidney. The Traditionalist Worker partys been realizing real efforts to organize in Appalachia. Im not a Kentuckian, but Im a working-class Appalachian, and it certainly pokes in my craw.

Rednecks against intolerance: Anti-fascist objectors in downtown Pikeville. Photograph: Pat Jarrett To dissuade antifascists, who often wear masks during performances, the Pikeville city commission overtook an emergency rule that restricted the dres of masks or scarves in downtown Pikeville. Anyone above the age of 16 wearing a cover-up or punk would be subject to 50 daylights in jail and a $250 penalize.

Antifascist demonstrators would have to show their fronts, who are able potentially dangerous: neo-Nazi groups have been known to use facial acceptance software and other tactics to identify counter-protesters, acquire personal information and subject those identified to further harassment.

At Redneck Revolt, we incline not to cover our fronts regardless, replied Sidney. We want to make inroads with the community, and its easier if they knew who you are.

But Sidney had a greater concern: Kentucky is another open-carry state and Heimbach had encouraged members of the Nationalist Front to stop forearmed, ahead of possible leftist attacks. At least, however, he would have his own pistol: his Smith and Wesson semi-automatic pistol, which he decided to carry concealed.

A couple regionals had expressed to Sidney that they wished they would all go home both neo-Nazis and antifascists.

I cant denounce them for detecting like that, did Sidney. Theyve went this huge ideological oppose on their doorstep that they didnt ask for.

Regardless, some time after noon, a large group of antifascist protesters some armed, some wearing bulletproof vests headed to the courthouse, ready to face the Nationalist Front.

Instead, they saw simply about 10 grey nationalistics, waiting in a bit range that had been fenced off by police. They were members of the League of the South, a group that promotes a refurbished strive at secession from the US. The two major Nationalist Front delegatings, the Traditionalist Workers party and the National Socialist Movement, were missing.

Rumor soon spread that they were lost.

Given that theyre not from such regions, and they dont represent the people here, its not exceedingly surprising, pronounced Sidney.

A Pikeville inhabitant indicates with Redneck Revolt objectors. Photograph: Pat Jarrett Back in Harrisburg, groupings of six young white-hot nationalist servicemen wearing a outfit of lily-white polo shirts approached Neelys cookout place; they looked like missionaries, clean-shaven with neatly combed hair.

Max Neely approached them and invited, cautiously, whether they were interested in socialism.

No, they greeted. They related themselves of the membership of Identity Evropa, a white nationalist radical that endorses racial segregation and only admits applicants of European , non-Semitic heritage. They had originally been subsidized Trump as a presidential applicant, but were now in Harrisburg to affirmed him; they were disappointed that he had not yet initiated a white-hot ethno-state.

Neely wanted to keep them away from the cookout. On another epoch, in another fixed, some of his associates might have come ready for a fight. But today was meant to be family-friendly, and many of the outing attendees were young black partisans from a local high school. They could handle themselves, Neely knew, but the job of arguing for the legitimacy of your reality against the individuals who disavow your humanity is an arduous one.

So while his Redneck Revolt friends maintained a scrupulous watch from across the street, Neely tell the Identity Evropa members talk more about their dogma about how the US was a nation meant for white people, how white culture was under attack. Neely debated them as politely as he could, hoping his hushed listening could diffuse the situation. They thanked him for is just so calm and civil.

Its easy-going to be allay when youre a white man, responded Neely. Its simple when its not your life or your familys lives at stake.

They could not accompany the back of his shirt, which outlined a hooded representation dangling from a tree, and the words HANG YOUR LOCAL KLANSMAN.

The encounter objective preferably decisively: three neighbourhood youthful daughters had chased off the white nationalistics.

Resist: a eight-foot-tall signal made by the Redneck Revolt group in Harrisburg. Image: Cecilia Saixue Watt figcaption > source > By mid-afternoon, the cookout was in full swing. Nearby citizens replenished dishes with barbecued chicken and strawberries. A vicinity being looked at the pamphlets that Neely had laid down by. Piece Now, Peace Later: An Anarchist Introduction to Firearms, spoke one title.

Yall trying to overthrow the government? he asked.

Its more about society defense, reacted Travis, one of the Redneck Revolt members.

I just wanted to warn you, “the mens” resumed. West Philadelphia, 1985. Look what happened to them.

He was talking about the lefts own Ruby Ridge moment: in May 1985, a Philadelphia police helicopter dropped a rocket on to the row house that had dished as a installation for Move, an armed pitch-black freeing group. There were 11 fatalities, including the groups benefactor, John Africa, as well as five children. The developing attack destroyed 65 residences. A special fee afterwards appointed by the mayor to investigate the incident concluded that the bombing had been unconscionable.

When Neely and other white-hot each member of Redneck Revolt claim allyship with campaigns like Black Lives Matter, they are compelled to acknowledge their whiteness including with regard to, their capacity to carry weapons with impunity.

When Oath Keepers began to garrison rooftops during the 2014 objections in Ferguson, Missouri, their intention was to protect opponents from the police but many activists were scared and daunted by the form of heavily armed white people. When Redneck Revolt representatives show up at black-led rally occurrences, they often invited.

They are our security, enunciated Katherine Lugaro, an organizer with This Stops Today, Harrisburgs regional iteration of Black Lives Matter. Theyre a wall between us and anyone repulsive. They applied themselves on the line.

A neo-Nazi demonstrator in Pikeville. Photograph: Pat Jarrett Back in Pikeville, a full hour after the rally was scheduled to begin, a van reeled into the parking lot down wall street. Matthew Heimbach and the rest of the neo-Nazis had arrived. Close to 100 people, dressed in head-to-toe black and carrying Nazi insignia, rallied up to the courthouse house. Many in the front were visibly armed; others carried wooden shields decorated with swastikas and Norse runes. Person had brought a shield peculiarity Pepe the Frog and the words Pepe ber Alles. They sieg-heiled to Heimbach.

They were outnumbered by protesters two-to-one.

Then extended a few hours of scheduled neo-Nazi discussions. This turned into a few hours of wailing, as the antifascists attempted to drown out the sound system with rhythms and mocks. From the midwest to the south, they sung, swipe a Nazi in the mouth.

A handful of Pikeville tenants persisted on the other side of the police railing, listening to the Nationalist Front speeches. But most locals present had trickled in along with the objectors, eventually obliging up a third of the crowd, and had joined in with the jeering.

They were absolutely the most strident antifascist utters there, remarked Sidney. Im assuming the majority of them tribes were apolitical, or perhaps republican, but the latter are drawing a line in the sand.

No traumata , no films burnt; the Nationalist Front finished their speeches and returned to their caravan. A ponderous police spirit had obstructed the two groups separated and frustrated any the possibilities for struggle. It was over.

Cathi Lyninger of Louisville affirms the neo Nazis in Pikeville. Photograph: Pat Jarrett In Harrisburg, night precipitated. Max Neely and his banding of comrades eventually regrouped at a

Read more: https :// www.theguardian.com/ us-news/ 2017/ jul/ 11/ redneck-revolt-guns-anti-racism-fascism-far-left

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samanthasroberts · 7 years

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Redneck Revolt: the armed leftwing group that wants to stamp out fascism

There are several commonalities between the far left and the far right including a disdain for liberals but the biggest divide is on the topic of intolerance

The cookout offered free food, a face-painting booth and a protest sign-making station a pile of cut-up cardboard boxes, paint markers and rolls of packing tape. A group of neighborhood boys, each no older than 12, gathered around. They wanted signs to tape to their bicycles, so they could ride around and tell Trump what they thought of him.

One grabbed a piece of cardboard and wrote in big letters: TRUMPS A BITCH.

Max Neely quickly stepped in.

Im not sure you should use that word, he said, his voice taking on a fatherly tone. At 6ft2in, he towered over them. That word isnt very respectful to women, and there are a lot of women around here today that we should be respecting. Maybe you can think of another word to use.

The boys conferred. Eventually, they settled on a different, less offensive protest sign at least in Neelys eyes. FUCK TRUMP, it read, followed by four exclamation points.

A 31-year-old activist with long hair and a full bushy beard, Neely had a full day of political activism ahead of him: Donald Trump was in Harrisburg to mark his 100th day in office with a speech at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex. In other parts of the city, the liberal opposition were also readying themselves: organizations such as Keystone Progress, Dauphin County Democrats and the local Indivisible group planned to march in protest.

Neelys group were not among them. Instead, they had set up a picnic site in a small park, offering a barbecue and leftist pamphlets. Someone had planted a bright red hammer-and-sickle flag in the grass. On a nearby table hung a black banner that bore the words Redneck Revolt: anti-racist, pro-gun, pro-labor.

Activist Steve Hilditch, who runs a chapter of the Redneck Revolt group. Photograph: Cecilia Saixue Watt

If you havent noticed, we arent liberals, said Jeremy Beck, one of Neelys cookout friends. You know, if you keep going further left, eventually, you go left enough to get your guns back.

Wooly liberals, theyre not. Redneck Revolt is a nationwide organization of armed political activists from rural, working-class backgrounds who strive to reclaim the term redneck and promote active anti-racism. It is not an exclusively white group, though it does take a special interest in the particular travails of the white poor. The organizations principles are distinctly left-wing: against white supremacy, against capitalism and the nation-state, in support of the marginalized.

Pennsylvania is an open-carry state, where gun owners can legally carry firearms in public without concealment. Redneck Revolt members often see the practice of openly carrying a gun as a political statement: the presence of a visible weapon serves to intimidate opponents and affirm gun rights. Many of the cookout attendees owned guns, and had considered bringing them today but ultimately they had decided to come unarmed, in the interest of keeping the event family-friendly.

Redneck Revolt began in 2009 as an offshoot of the John Brown Gun Club, a firearms training project originally based in Kansas. Dave Strano, one of Redneck Revolts founding members, had seized upon what he saw as a contradiction in the Tea Party movement, then in its infancy. Many Tea Party activists were fellow working-class people who had endured significant hardships as a result of the 2008 economic crisis which, in his eyes, had been caused by the very wealthy. And yet, Tea Partiers were now flocking in great numbers to rallies funded by the 1%.

By supporting economically conservative politicians, Strano thought, they would only be further manipulated to benefit the already rich.

The history of the white working class has been a history of being an exploited people, he wrote. However, weve been an exploited people that further exploits other exploited people. While weve been living in tenements and slums for centuries, weve also been used by the rich to attack our neighbors, coworkers, and friends of different colors, religions and nationalities.

Now, eight years later, more than 20 Redneck Revolt branches have sprouted across the US; the groups range widely in size, some with only a handful of members. Max Neely is a member of the Mason-Dixon branch, which encompasses central Pennsylvania as well as his native western Maryland. Many members are white, but the organization seeks to build on a redneck identity beyond race.

I grew up playing in the woods, floating coolers of beer down a river, shooting off fireworks, just generally raising hell, all that kind of stuff, said Neely. Things most people would consider a part of redneck culture. Were trying to acknowledge the ways weve made mistakes and bought into white supremacy and capitalism, but also give ourselves an environment in which its OK to celebrate redneck culture.

The group draws a great deal of inspiration from the Young Patriots Organization, a 1960s-era activist group consisting primarily of white working-class Appalachians and southerners. Im very impressed with Redneck Revolt, said Hy Thurman, one of the early founders of the Young Patriots. I think theyre right on with what theyre trying to do.

The group opposed racism and worked closely with the Black Panthers, but they did make use of the Confederate flag in their recruiting. Thurman explained that it was used only strategically, to start conversations with poor white people who might identify with the symbol.

In the same way that the Young Patriots once used the Confederate flag, Redneck Revolt seeks to employ another emblem of rural America: guns.

Redneck Revolt groups work on providing an explicitly anti-racist presence in rural areas, and focus particularly on gun shows. Many members are from places where guns are relatively normalized, and Neely wants Redneck Revolt to serve as a viable alternative for people who might otherwise join the growing right-wing militia movement.

Since the 1992 Ruby Ridge siege, the US has witnessed an increase in anti-government paramilitary organizations. Oath Keepers, for example, is a militia group that strives to defend the US constitution, which the group believes is under threat by its own government. They claim to be nonpartisan, but its members politics tend to skew far right. During last years presidential election, they announced that members would be monitoring voting booths to prevent election tampering, stating he was most concerned about expected attempts at voter fraud by leftists.

But groups like Oath Keepers have much in common with far leftists: concerns about the infringement of human rights, objections to mass surveillance and the ever reauthorized Patriot Act, anger at the continued struggles of the working poor.

We use gun culture as a way to relate to people, said Neely, whose grandfather was an avid hunter. No liberal elitism. Our basic message is: guns are fine, but racism is not.

Officially, Oath Keepers bylaws prohibit anyone associated with a hate group from joining, though their background checks have proven to be inconsistent at best. But there are other rightwing groups around the explicitly racist kind.

Im worried about Pikeville, said Neely. Ive got friends out there.

KKK members salute next to a pickup truck at a private campground in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Photograph: Pat Jarrett for the Guardian

Pikeville is a small Kentucky town deep in the heart of Appalachia. It has no major airport or interstate, a population of less than 10,000 and an abundance of idyllic mountain scenery. Mining has long been the major industry here, though Pikeville also attracts tourism: mid-April draws over 100,000 visitors to the annual Hillbilly Days festival, a celebration of Appalachian culture and music.

In the week after the festival ended, however, Pikevilles atmosphere had taken a distinct turn. Neo-Nazis were coming to town the same day as Trumps appearance in Harrisburg.

The Nationalist Front an alliance of far-right white nationalist organizations was planning a rally in front of Pikevilles courthouse. Take a stand for white working families, read an invitation that circulated online.

This begins a process of building and expanding our roots within white working class communities to become the community advocates that our people need and deserve, wrote Matthew Heimbach on the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website.

Pike County chronically impoverished, overwhelmingly white is seen as a fertile setting for spreading their ideology. The city of Pikeville itself has actually experienced some growth in the past few years, but the greater area is struggling. Pike Countys unemployment rate is one of the highest in the nation: 10%, more than twice that of the US as a whole.

Trump successfully tapped into this desperation with his pro-labor, anti-immigrant rhetoric and successfully won more than 80% of votes cast. Citing this figure, Heimbach hoped to develop existing pro-Trump sentiments into full-blown national socialism.

Were doing this because we care about the people of Pike County, said Jeff Schoep, head of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, in a video promoting the rally. Weve seen factories shut down, weve seen people losing their jobs, weve seen families getting desperate and reaching out for drugs or other things that they shouldnt be doing. We want to give people hope again. Something worth fighting for.

That something happened to be a white ethno-state, and many Pikeville residents were not interested.

The city approved a permit for the Nationalist Front to gather downtown, citing the constitutional right of free speech and assembly, though Donovan Blackburn, the city manager, also issued a statement promoting peace, respect and diversity.

Students at the University of Pikeville planned a counter-protest, but the event was quickly canceled due to safety concerns: university officials feared that a conflict between the Nationalist Front and members of the antifascist movement or antifa could escalate into violence.

An anti-fascist counter-march to #MarchAgainstSharia in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Sean Kitchen

Developed in Europe over the past few decades, antifascists represent the lefts own united front: a conflux of anarchists, communists, social democrats and others, dedicated to stamping out fascism by any means necessary, including violence which they see as a justified response to the inherent violence of fascism. They often employ black bloc tactics, where individuals wear masks and all-black clothing to avoid police identification.

Antifascist groups have never been as prominent in the US as they have been in countries such as Greece, where masked individuals recently smashed the windows of the Golden Dawns headquarters. But in the wake of Trumps election and the ensuing spate of hate crimes, they have swiftly mobilized. A masked man famously punched white nationalist Richard Spencer in Washington DC on Inauguration Day; two weeks later, antifascists lit fires on UC Berkeleys campus in protest of rightwing ideologue Milo Yiannopoulos.

We live in a historical moment where theres unprecedented wealth inequality, and the average person is struggling to get by, said Sidney (not his real name), an Appalachian antifascist who has been keeping a close watch on white nationalist activity in his area. When governments, as they characteristically do, fail to step in, people look to other institutions for an answer. Fascism is having a resurgence because were in that moment. Its not a problem thats going to be solved by leaving it alone. Thats like leaving an infection alone.

A 27-year-old native of West Virginia, Sidney comes from a coal mining family. He splits his time between installing drywall and organizing with Redneck Revolt.

Pikeville really caught my attention, said Sidney. The Traditionalist Worker partys been making real efforts to organize in Appalachia. Im not a Kentuckian, but Im a working-class Appalachian, and it really sticks in my craw.

Rednecks against racism: Anti-fascist protesters in downtown Pikeville. Photograph: Pat Jarrett

To dissuade antifascists, who often wear masks during demonstrations, the Pikeville city commission passed an emergency ordinance that prohibited the wearing of masks or hoods in downtown Pikeville. Anyone above the age of 16 wearing a mask or hood would be subject to 50 days in jail and a $250 fine.

Antifascist demonstrators would have to show their faces, which could be potentially dangerous: neo-Nazi groups have been known to use facial recognition software and other tactics to identify counter-protesters, acquire personal information and subject those identified to further harassment.

At Redneck Revolt, we tend not to cover our faces anyway, said Sidney. We want to make inroads with the community, and its easier if they knew who you are.

But Sidney had a greater concern: Kentucky is another open-carry state and Heimbach had encouraged members of the Nationalist Front to come armed, ahead of possible leftist attacks. At least, however, he would have his own firearm: his Smith and Wesson semi-automatic pistol, which he decided to carry concealed.

A couple locals had expressed to Sidney that they wished they would all go home both neo-Nazis and antifascists.

I cant blame them for feeling like that, said Sidney. Theyve got this huge ideological fight on their doorstep that they didnt ask for.

Regardless, some time after noon, a large group of antifascist protesters some armed, some wearing bulletproof vests headed to the courthouse, ready to face the Nationalist Front.

Instead, they saw only about 10 white nationalists, waiting in a little area that had been fenced off by police. They were members of the League of the South, a group that promotes a renewed attempt at secession from the US. The two major Nationalist Front delegations, the Traditionalist Workers party and the National Socialist Movement, were missing.

Rumor soon spread that they were lost.

Given that theyre not from this region, and they dont represent the people here, its not terribly surprising, said Sidney.

A Pikeville resident argues with Redneck Revolt protesters. Photograph: Pat Jarrett

Back in Harrisburg, a group of six young white nationalist men wearing a uniform of white polo shirts approached Neelys cookout site; they looked like missionaries, clean-shaven with neatly combed hair.

Max Neely approached them and asked, cautiously, whether they were interested in socialism.

No, they responded. They identified themselves as members of Identity Evropa, a white nationalist group that endorses racial segregation and only admits applicants of European, non-Semitic heritage. They had initially supported Trump as a presidential candidate, but were now in Harrisburg to protest him; they were disappointed that he had not yet created a white ethno-state.

Neely wanted to keep them away from the cookout. On another day, in a different setting, some of his associates might have come ready for a fight. But today was meant to be family-friendly, and many of the picnic attendees were young black activists from a local high school. They could handle themselves, Neely knew, but the task of arguing for the legitimacy of your existence against those who deny your humanity is an arduous one.

So while his Redneck Revolt friends kept a careful watch from across the street, Neely let the Identity Evropa members talk more about their ideology about how the US was a nation meant for white people, how white culture was under attack. Neely debated them as politely as he could, hoping his quiet listening could diffuse the situation. They thanked him for being so calm and civil.

Its easy to be calm when youre a white man, said Neely. Its easy when its not your life or your familys lives at stake.

They could not see the back of his shirt, which depicted a hooded figure dangling from a tree, and the words HANG YOUR LOCAL KLANSMAN.

The encounter ended rather decisively: three local teenage girls had chased off the white nationalists.

Resist: a eight-foot-tall sign made by the Redneck Revolt group in Harrisburg. Photograph: Cecilia Saixue Watt

By mid-afternoon, the cookout was in full swing. Nearby residents filled plates with barbecued chicken and strawberries. A neighborhood man looked at the pamphlets that Neely had laid out. Piece Now, Peace Later: An Anarchist Introduction to Firearms, read one title.

Yall trying to overthrow the government? he asked.

Its more about community defense, answered Travis, one of the Redneck Revolt members.

I just wanted to warn you, the man continued. West Philadelphia, 1985. Look what happened to them.

He was talking about the lefts own Ruby Ridge moment: in May 1985, a Philadelphia police helicopter dropped a bomb on to the row house that had served as a headquarters for Move, an armed black liberation group. There were 11 casualties, including the groups founder, John Africa, as well as five children. The resulting fire destroyed 65 houses. A special commission later appointed by the mayor to investigate the incident concluded that the bombing had been unconscionable.

When Neely and other white members of Redneck Revolt claim allyship with movements like Black Lives Matter, they are compelled to acknowledge their whiteness in particular, their ability to carry weapons with impunity.

When Oath Keepers began to patrol rooftops during the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, their intention was to protect protesters from the police but many activists were alarmed and intimidated by the appearance of heavily armed white men. When Redneck Revolt members show up at black-led protest events, they are generally invited.

They are our security, said Katherine Lugaro, an organizer with This Stops Today, Harrisburgs local iteration of Black Lives Matter. Theyre a wall between us and anyone hateful. They put themselves on the line.

A neo-Nazi demonstrator in Pikeville. Photograph: Pat Jarrett

Back in Pikeville, a full hour after the rally was scheduled to begin, a caravan rolled into the parking lot down the street. Matthew Heimbach and the rest of the neo-Nazis had arrived. Close to 100 people, dressed in head-to-toe black and carrying Nazi insignia, marched up to the courthouse building. Many in the front were visibly armed; others carried wooden shields decorated with swastikas and Norse runes. Someone had brought a shield featuring Pepe the Frog and the words Pepe ber Alles. They sieg-heiled to Heimbach.

They were outnumbered by protesters two-to-one.

Then came a few hours of scheduled neo-Nazi speeches. This turned into a few hours of shouting, as the antifascists attempted to drown out the sound system with drums and jeers. From the midwest to the south, they chanted, punch a Nazi in the mouth.

A handful of Pikeville residents lingered on the other side of the police barricade, listening to the Nationalist Front speeches. But most locals present had trickled in along with the protesters, eventually making up a third of the crowd, and had joined in with the jeering.

They were absolutely the most strident antifascist voices there, said Sidney. Im assuming most of these folks were apolitical, or maybe conservative, but they were drawing a line in the sand.

No injuries, no shots fired; the Nationalist Front finished their speeches and returned to their caravan. A heavy police presence had kept the two groups separated and prevented any opportunity for confrontation. It was over.

Cathi Lyninger of Louisville protests the neo Nazis in Pikeville. Photograph: Pat Jarrett

In Harrisburg, night fell. Max Neely and his band of companions eventually regrouped at a

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/23/redneck-revolt-the-armed-leftwing-group-that-wants-to-stamp-out-fascism/

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