#what are we fucking doing? Denying someone's right to freedom of protest. Freedom of speech. For saying stop killing people.

[penwrythe]

Learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable is important. I'm genuinely not okay when I hear, see, and research more about the genocide happening in Gaza, the history of Israel's founding, and its terroristic actions. It is important for me to know.

Taking short breaks (usually a couple of hours or so) does help when things get too much. Then, I return and continue engaging with reblogs on Palestine.

I really don't know what else to say, but this genocide must end. All genocides must end and must never happen again. Keep talking about Palestine, Armenia, Congo, and Sudan! Keep protesting! Keep fighting!

What is important now is to be as loud as you can be! Raise ruckus! Make your voice unavoidable! Be as annoying as possible! Do not let your representatives ignore this!

[96thdayofrage]

The clashes in Charlottesville catalyzed the American public’s reckoning with the budding white nationalist movement, which had accelerated after Donald Trump’s election. Afterward, the wave of public shaming of the violence in Charlottesville led at least one “Unite the Right” marcher to insist his participation in the rally was misinterpreted as racist. Others who attended quickly lost their jobs after online campaigns exposed them.

But the eventual identification of the man in the white tank top and red hat shook many: He was revealed to be a 33-year-old Puerto Rican resident of Georgia, originally from the Bronx. “I’m the only brown Klans member I ever met,” Alex Michael Ramos joked in a Facebook Live video before he turned himself into police Aug. 28. The Facebook post has since been taken down.

But Ramos wasn’t the only “Unite the Right” marcher with a Hispanic background.

Christopher Rey Monzon, a 22-year-old Cuban-American, is associated with the League of the South, which the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a neo-Confederate hate group. Monzon was arrested weeks after Charlottesville for charging at protesters in a separate Florida demonstration. And Nick Fuentes, a 19-year-old student who hosts an alt-right podcast called America First, said he had to leave Boston University in the aftermath of the Charlottesville protests after receiving death threats over his participation.

The presence of these Latino men at the largest white nationalist event in recent memory underscores the complicated racial position of Latinos in the United States. Latino white supremacy, it turns out, might not be a contradiction in terms.

Increasingly, Latinos are identifying racially as white. In fact, more than half did so in the 2010 U.S. Census. A March 2016 report from Pew Research Center found that 39% of Afro-Latinos also identified “as white alone or white in combination with another race.” With a current population of around 58 million, Latinos make up the second-largest ethnic group in the U.S., just behind whites.

Another Pew Research Center study from December found that 59% of U.S. adults with Latino heritage who identify as white believe others see them as white, too. Over time, the study found, descendants of Latino immigrants stop identifying with their countries of origin and consider themselves more and more American.

Fuentes — who says he’s about 25% Mexican — identifies as white, not Latino. In an interview with Mic, Fuentes also said he believes multiculturalism threatens white national identity. Monzon, meanwhile, has called for South Florida to secede from the U.S. His ties to the League of the South are generational, as his parents have also protested with the white supremacist fringe group, according to the SPLC. In a Facebook profile the SPLC has attributed to him, Monzon goes by “Ambrosio Gonzalez,” the name of a Cuban general who fought as a Confederate colonel in the Civil War.

Ramos, however, rejects any notion that he’s racist, insisting he went to Charlottesville in defense of free speech and as a show of force against left-wing groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

During the nearly hourlong video Ramos posted to Facebook, he became agitated at users who challenged him for marching with the KKK and jumping a black man.

“Yeah, I stood side-by-side with racist people, but they weren’t racist to me,” Ramos said. “They did not call me a ‘spic,’ they did not call me a ‘fucking wetback,’ they didn’t say nothing as such. We stood for the same common goal.”

Alex Michael Ramos has been charged in connection with the beating of a black man during violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the “Unite the Right” rally Aug. 12.

Uncredited/AP

Despite his stated goals, the brutal violence in the video from that day was enough for judges in Charlottesville to twice deny Ramos bond.

“The victim was defenseless,” Judge Richard Moore of the Charlottesville General District Court said at Ramos’ bail hearing in November. “Mr. Ramos rushes into something where people are pummeling Mr. Harris. He is an unreasonable risk to others.”

Ramos is facing a malicious wounding charge and could spend up to 20 years in prison if convicted, according to local station WVIR-TV. Through his attorney, Ramos declined to be interviewed.

Other alleged perpetrators include Daniel Patrick Borden of Ohio, who was identified online and arrested in connection to Harris’ attack. Like Ramos, he was also denied bond. Authorities arrested another suspect, Arkansas man Jacob Scott Goodwin, in October and extradited him to Charlottesville the following month.

Harris himself was later forced to turn himself in when Harold Ray Crews, an attorney and resident of Walkertown, North Carolina — and the state’s chairman for League of the South — claimed Harris injured him in the same scuffle. Though Harris’ felony charge for unlawful wounding was dropped in December, “there are still misdemeanor charges pending,” according to the Root.

Fuentes is, in many ways, representative of the ideas of the so-called alt-right, which the Anti-Defamation League defines as a “loose network of racists and anti-Semites.” His Twitter feed shows equal disdain for conservative commentator Ben Shapiro and the South Side of Chicago, which has seen a sharp increase in gang-related murders in recent years. Though he decried Heyer’s murder at the “Unite the Right” rally during his interview with Mic, he also equated it with antifa violence.

Fuentes did acknowledge there isn’t much reconciliation between his stance on multiculturalism — simply put, it’s bad and should be avoided — and his own cultural background: His Mexican ancestors immigrated to the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century. Intermarriage has created a “beige, rootless mass,” he said, and he rejects any notion that Latino immigrants can assimilate.

“I don’t buy the idea that if you come to a country and your kids learned the language, you’re from that country,” Fuentes said. “You have to understand that America is an exceptional nation; it’s the proposition nation. That’s why the identity question is so big here. America was obviously settled only very recently. If I moved to China and I filled out the paperwork, would that make me Chinese? Of course not. I would maybe be a part of the People’s Republic.”

“They demonize the ‘other,’ but the irony is that they were once the ‘other.’”

Fuentes’s own standard — that learning English and settling in the U.S. does not make you American — disenfranchises himself and his parents, a fact he acknowledged. From the perspective of someone who sees the U.S. as a foundationally European nation, as Fuentes does, being anything less than white is the same as being a nonentity.

“You rob children of something very fundamental when you take away a common and coherent identity,” he said. “I look at my Eastern European people from high school and they have their food and their special clothing from their home country. But when you have race mixing, you rob them. I do pause at that. This is not an experience I wish to replicate. I don’t know if I wish I could turn back the clock and change things, but ideally there wouldn’t be mixing.”

Joanna Mendelson, senior investigative researcher and director of special projects for the ADL, sees growing anti-immigrant views from the descendants of Latino immigrants as a unique conundrum.

“It’s this idea that, ‘we did it right, we did it legally,’” Mendelson said in an interview with Mic. “They’re not just addressing illegal immigration — which would be one thing — but they’re against refugees and Muslims and legal immigration. They demonize the ‘other,’ but the irony is that they were once the ‘other.’”

On Aug. 20, days after the Charlottesville protests, Juan Cadavid, a Colombian-born Californian who now goes by the name Johnny Benitez, led an “America First!” rally in Southern California he described as a vigil for victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. Dozens of supporters were drowned out by nearly 2,500 counterprotesters, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In an interview with NPR in December, Benitez shared how he went from Occupy Wall Street protester and Bernie Sanders supporter to alt-right nationalist, claiming he was exiled from Occupy and called a bigot after he questioned the need for the group to support transgender people. He insisted he was not a white supremacist, but an advocate for what he called “white identity politics” — which includes embracing the 14 Words slogan used by white supremacists: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

Benitez also told NPR he pushes for a United States that is “Italo-Spanish” white, to make room for the descendants of southern Europeans (which he considers himself to be). White nationalists such as Richard Spencer have said white Latinos could theoretically be part of a white ethno-nationalist state, but they still have mixed feelings about assimilation.

“In some instances you are rejected from the host culture, made to feel not American,” Benitez said of being an immigrant in the U.S. “And if I go back, I’m definitely not Colombian. You know, I didn’t live there, you can hear that I have an American accent, things like that, when I speak Spanish.”

Benitez’s girlfriend, Irma Hinojosa, cohosts The Right View, a YouTube talk show hosted with four other women who call themselves the “Deplorable Latinas.” The show features conservative Latinas commenting on the news from a point of view that conversation about Latinos and immigration focuses on the undocumented versus those who entered the country legally. Hinojosa also has her own YouTube channel where she livestreams protests and alt-right events. She was the only woman to speak at a June “Freedom of Speech” rally featuring Spencer and other alt-right figures.

[angrybell]

Things I have to get off my chest about Senator Kamala Harris (aka why no one should ever vote for her)

So you think Kampala Harris is a really great candidate for president. Really?

Was she a good DA? Her first elected office. Well, no, she was not. Her office somehow managed to get less convictions at trial than her predecessor (believe me, if you knew the sordid history of what her predecessor did to the office, it would amaze you). SF Weekly did a review of her office and reported that her prosecutors, “won a lower percentage of their felony jury trials than their counterparts at district attorneys’ offices covering the 10 largest cities in California[.]” Yeah, LA county was outperforming her, and their jury pool back then was a nightmare for prosecutors.

Was she an honest prosecutor? Nope. She was found to have hidden information about a crime lab technician which was discoverable under California law. This was information she was legally required to turn over to defense attorneys. This lead to 600 convictions being overturned and dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct.

Since this was SF, a bluer than blue city in a deep blue state, she received a promotion to Attorney General. Failure and abuse of power was rewarded.

As Attorney General, she directed her office to cover up prosecutorial misconduct. What does that mean I’m plain English? She protected prosecutors who falsified evidence.

This was not a one time thing either. Her prosecutors were cited for this multiple times. Just like when she was the SF DA.

In one case, the local DA added lines to the transcript of an alleged confession. Without them, there was no admission of guilt. Basically, they falsified the confession, so that the defendant would plead guilty. The only way it was caught was because the defense attorney fought for the tapes of the interrogation and got them. Now, the trial judge, when shown the evidence did the right thing: he dismissed the indictment completely.

Then-Attorney General Harris, who likes to portray herself as noble for not opposing the Prop 8 lawsuit, instructed her appellate prosecutors to take the issue up on appeal. She literally told them to defend lying and falsification of evidence.

This case was not the first time she’d had been caught defending a known lie to the courts. In a series of cases coming out of the Sierra Pacific/Moonlight fires, the investigators committed more outrageous misconduct. The state agency, CalFire (which handles wildfires in California) basically hid/destroyed evidence. And the Attorney General’s Office helped cover it up.

The conduct of the CA DOJ under Harris was so egregious, the Ninth Circuit was talking about making a referral for prosecution for perjury during the oral arguments in the Baca case.

In the Baca case, there was evidence that the prosecutor had actually suborned perjury. Harris’ appellate team tries to sweep it under the rug. Harris has her prosecutors fight tooth and nail to deny the appellate court access to transcript of hearing where the perjury came to light.

Did Harris’ DOJ prosecute these rogue DAs for their crimes? Nope. Did any of the appellate attorneys within her own office suffer any consequences? From what I’ve read, not a one has been disciplined in any fashion.

Clearly, she’s happy to tolerate and protect corruption. Is this what makes her a good choice give her your vote?

As Attorney General, she tried to force non-profit groups to release their donor lists. She was of the opinion that the government had the right to know the identity of everyone who donated to every group. Why? There’s no reason except for the purpose of harassment. Which is exactly what was happening as soon as the non-profits handed over their donor information. Witnesses at the trial testified to being harassed and intimidated because their private information was leaked.

Put another way, do you want Trump to have this power? No? Then you shouldn’t want Harris, or anyone else to have this power.

Fortunately, this program of Harris’ was stopped by the federal courts. And before you say “oh it was because a Republican judge”, the judge who enjoined the program was appointed by Lyndon B Johnson.

One of the reasons the judge ruled against Harris was because it was clear that the purpose of her program was not a proper one. Judge Real wrote, “As made abundantly clear during trial, the Attorney General has systematically failed to maintain the confidentiality of Schedule B forms.”

It was not an accident that the information was leaked. It was by design. She was blatantly using her power as AG to oppress people who disagreed with her.

And you want to reward her with your votes and give her more power? Do you think that she won’t turn on you if you end up disagreeing with her?

Think about that.

What has she done as Senator? Has she sought to find a way to broker compromise on issues where that is possible? If you look at her voting record, that’s not the case.

Has she gotten any legislation passed? She’s sponsored 76 bills, resolutions, and amendments to bills. She’s gotten the same bill passed twice. She’s gotten a couple of Senate resolutions thanking various groups for their service (my favorite was Buffalo soldier one).

So what’s the bill she’s gotten passed twice? It’s to outlaw lynching. Something I find hilarious because for more than a century, the Democrats blocked anti-lynching laws in Congress. Of course, the last lynching happened in 1981, so clearly it’s a pressing matter. In case your curious, it was a unanimous vote.

Is this a demonstration of her political skill? Not really. Being opposed to lynching in politics is as controversial as being in favor the sun rising in the East.

Being a politician means more than just winning elections in a state that is so in your favor, with a party machine that picks its people according to the wishes of the party leaders (and she clearly has thei favor). It means getting things done. So far, she’s done nothing. She’s built no alliances. She’s moved no bills through Congress.

She hasn’t even gotten a post office named and Bernie Sanders has been able to do that at least once.

What is she good at? She’s good at getting media attention and showing up to celebrate hard fought victories achieved by other people. The scene of her showing up in The Case Against 8 is one of the most disgusting displays of political opportunism I’ve seen in recent years. They fought the case. They went through it all. And she swooped in for a fucking photo op after doing nothing but making sure their victory was incomplete.

She’s not a good politician. She a good media whore.

Is that what you want in the next person to take the oath as the next President of the United States?

Where do you stand on your civil liberties? She’s anti-2nd Amendment, which I realize is a plus for people who are inclined to vote Democrat. What should trouble you is that she is also opposed to the 1st Amendment’s freedom of speech guarantee. How do we know this? She has called for Supreme Court Justices to be conformed who would overturn Citizens United.

Now, I realize that the propaganda is that Citizens United allowed “bad” money into elections, but that’s not true. the holding of the case deals with the power of the government to restrain free speech. The case is about a small group of people, who formed a corporation, to speak out on certain topics. One of those was to oppose Hillary Clinton and her proposed policies. If SCOTUS has ruled the other way, the ability of people to get their voices heard would be subject to government restraint. Or to put it in clearer terms: censorship. It would ensure only the wealthy would have a say in elections (who else has enough money to self fund a protest movie? Or ad?)

Think it would only restrain groups like Citizens United (you know, the evil right wing ones)? Nope. It would also apply to unions, the Sierra Club, and all the other “good” groups.

She has some other troubling positions that implicate the 4th Amendment. She is in favor of law enforcement doing a DNA dragnet through commercial DNA testing services, looking for familial DNA to develop leads on cases. I don’t know about you, but giving the federal government free reign to develop a DNA database is troubling.

Senator Harris is also proponent of civil asset forfeiture. As much as detested the Obama Administration, at least they were trying to make it harder to do. She is so much of a fan, she tried to make easier for the government to forfeit your property. Now, if you don’t know what civil asset forefeiture is, you’re not alone. In my experience, it’s one of the least understood things that the government does by lay people.

Essentially, civil asset forfeiture (“CAF”) is a law that allows the government to seize the assets of criminals. Sounds harmless right? Well, it’s an easy power to abuse. Under CAF rules she was supporting, the state would be able to forfeit the property if there was a “substantial probability” that it was obtained by criminal acts. Now, that sounds good but it’s really a lower standard. Remember, to be convicted of a crime, you have to be convicted only if there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. To make it worse, the presumption works against the person who has lost their property to the state asset seizure. You have to prove the negative. Prosecutors love this, because they almost always win (I do have the dubious honor of having lost one of these cases as a prosecutor).

So what does all this tell you? Senator Harris has a history of abusing power, violating the law, and protecting government corruption. If that’s how you like your candidates, then she a perfect choice. If you care about someone who will not intentionall violate the law, use the government to harass and intimidate her opposition, or be effective at upholding the law and constitution, find someone else.

Please stop rewarding her track record of failure and abuse of power!

[mettasing]

cw // war, mentions of death and rape, long post, a couple of f-words, really messy rant

i read the news from various sites, analyzing different points of view. but do you know what just cannot be seen differently? FUCKING WAR CRIMES.

just fuckin-- lookie lookie! it's the same people who babble about the "GrEaT ViCtOrY" and n*zis' atrocities in XX century. commiting just the same atrocities. murdering, raping, looting, destroying just because they "can". somehow thinking they are doing the right thing, how fucking cute!

and what about common people? well, here's a gallery. an old woman in rags standing before crumbling house, yapping about her "strong and wise leader". a ruined raging alcoholic yelling praises to the war and pleading his tsar to "push the red button". a young adult – FUCKING YOUNG ADULT, ONE OF THE MAJORITY OF ANY PROTEST'S CONTINGENT – telling about local mcdonald's restaurant closing with a sad, saaaad expression on his or her face but with eyes full of confusion. a man inside his pre-historic vehicle laughing and telling stories about us overpowering "the rotten west" and how these sanctions are a fluke. no they aren't you dumb bitch. but i can see – for brain plagued with propaganda and palm oil it's hard to understand.

yes, it *is* propaganda. and? who really thinks that those beliefs, even if they're implanted, can easily be plucked from these heads? it's unsalvageable. it is a fucking shithole. no fucking light in here. there are lazy, indecisive intellectuals, always walking the razor thin path of uncertainty in the vast desert of opinions and possibilities. there are absolutely indifferent people with no thoughts of the matter – they're just "not interested in politics"... that is until said politics will come knocking at their door. there are literal zombies: devoid of critical thinking, ready to justify every crime commited, even against them. the "wise emperor" can't do wrong, can he? there are the ones who don't condone this shit by any means, but they STILL have so much to lose, because guess what – here you can say goodbye to your freedom, your job, family and social standing if you'll like the wrong tweet (oops, irrelevant now) or say/write some "sus words". and of course there are people who fight, who support. but their numbers still are oh so small.

but i think i strayed from the topic, also probably presented myself as some "smart elitist" or mankind's judge from a middle of nowhere. but, uh... seeing and reading everything about what's going on makes the blood boil.

8. 8 fucking years of strain, the curtains finally fall with THIS happening. "a military operation", y'all say? hunting children for sport, crushing to dust the cities and then looting to the oblivion what's left? i personally know people who give excuses like "oh it's just geopolitics". geopolitics my ass. 21st century, we haven't learned words, diplomacy and shit. but instead, we got poison for "the loud ones", bats for protestors and rockets from fairytales for everyone else. you'll talk about geopolitics when someone will come and destroy your home, kill and torture your loved ones, if there's any.

yes, we were slowly losing our freedom our speech, the lies flowing into our heads oh so gently. but who really stood against it? those who were – we mostly know them by names, and also that they are... "somewhere else". recently, we couldn't save one man, even if he certainly was no leader of some sort of uprising. i don't think that even now the *majority* will stand up. it is easy to see why, just when you look around. it is tragic. but honestly? it is – and not "kinda is" – deserved.

no one will brush it off and forget about it. the criminals will answer. everyone who didn't say a word will say plenty of them. innocent children will carry this burden in the future. we HAVE become fucking barbarians, if not worse. no point in denying it. thank you and goodbye, i think we'll hit the final stop – the rock bottom – so, so soon.

[politicaltheatre]

The Long March, pt.2

History will not be kind to John Bolton.

As thrilled as so many are with him this week because his book exposes Donald Trump’s corrupt ass-kissing of autocratic rulers such as China’s Xi Jinping and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, what many can’t fail to recognize is that he could have and should have told all of these stories sooner. Much sooner.

That he didn’t is because he has a book to sell and he wanted to wait until close to its release date so he could boost his book sales. That should tell you all you need to know about John Bolton.

Oh, he was one of the architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that killed millions and destabilized the entire region thus killing millions more. You should know that, too.

He’d really like us to invade Iran. Right now. This minute. That probably won’t happen, but it’s definitely something you should know. John Bolton is not someone you want in power.

Donald Trump, of course, is furious, and not just because even just the few details that have emerged about the book have made him look bad in front of the “other” strongmen, but because, like all bullies, he absolutely hates being exposed as a bully. Which he is. It’s worth repeating.

We focus so often on Trump’s incompetence, lies, and buffoonery that we seem to neglect talking about his being a bully, and understanding his bullying is the key to understanding everything about him.

Which brings us to Tulsa and Donald Trump’s “fuck you” of a campaign rally. Trump is all about propaganda, which for him means pushing buttons and provoking responses, much like a bully on a playground getting a rise out of his chosen victim.

His choice of Tulsa on Juneteenth was clearly intended for this. It allows him to play the bully and it allows his supporters to cheer him on as he does it.

This, in fact, is why he lies so often. He knows his audience. Whether or not they know he’s lying, they don’t care; as long as he’s hurting someone they don’t like, they’re happy. In professional wrestling, this is called “playing the heel”, and this very much is how they see him and why he appeals to them.

Go back and look at his rallies. He’s performing to his audience, but they, like the audiences at pro-wrestling matches, are performing, too. They’re no “marks”. It’s interactive, and that carries over to all of his public appearances and especially his daily rants on Twitter.

What, then, could be a bigger “fuck you” to to those fighting racism and police brutality than defiling a day celebrating freedom from slavery in a place just beginning to remember and overcome its own brutally racist history? Even pushing it back one day, Trump still gets to take credit. As bonus, he hopes, speaking Saturday will bring more protesters and counter-protesters primed for violence.

He wants videos of protesters losing their cool. He wants “Antifa” protesters seen to be doing violence. He wants a campaign ad that shows everyone looking for some kind of justification for voting for him (again) that they are right to support a culture (and economy) that relies pushing others down and keeping them there.

As those shared videos of hammer-wielding, fire-starting not-protesters keep showing us, this generation of protesters are more than capable of recognizing the threat posed to them and their movement by being blamed for violence they haven’t done. They understand full well how images of violence may be weaponized against them.

Trump won’t get his riot, not from them. On the contrary, any attempt to provoke a riot or perform one professional wrestling-style is very likely to be captured, shared, and exposed for the fraud it is.

This is an enormous advantage over previous generations. Countless past movements in countries all over the world failed in no small part because their ability to communicate was limited, either naturally or forcibly, and they allowed those working against them to control how they were perceived.

What Trump will have, though, is the opportunity to misrepresent the phrase “Defund the Police”. Much like “Antifa”, another term sure to get plenty of misusage at the rally, what it means can change depending on whom you ask.

This isn’t exactly a shock. “Black Lives Matter” has long been misrepresented by Trump and his supporters, and surely will be again in Tulsa. When bullies can’t make a rational argument to defend their behavior, they attack and they use obvious misrepresentation to do it.

Trump’s game here is the same as the one he played recently with “Obamagate”. Use the vagueness of the term as leverage. It can mean what each listener wants it to mean. Details just get in the way.

It’s all a variation on “The Big Lie”, a con made infamous by Adolf Hitler’s PR guy, Joseph Goebbels. Tell a lie that’s obviously a lie, such as, “Jews control the world”, keep repeating it (or dog-whistling it), let people read their own fears into it, and use that to get people to exploit themselves for you.

Contrary to what Trump’s audience will hear for the next four and half months, “Defund the Police” does not mean abolishing the police. There’s already a term for that: abolishing the police.

To defund the police is to redirect money from the police budget to programs better equipped through training and better suited in mindset to handle non-violent crime, such as a man asleep in his car at a drive-thru, and social issues, such as addiction and homelessness.

This means demilitarizing the police, both in the gear and weapons they’re using and in the adversarial mindset that is so entrenched among them that many who watched those same videos of police cracking the skulls of old men and young women thought it was a perfectly justified use of force.

The hope is to make policing less about statistics and quotas and war and more about recognizing those whom they have sworn to protect as equals and treating them as they would want to be treated themselves.

This, then, is what Donald Trump will attempt to do in Tulsa. With a lot of help from his own, personal Goebbels, Stephen Miller, Trump will tell his supporters that Black Lives Matter protesters want to abolish all police, that they want criminals to run free, and that they want to destroy what makes America great. And he’ll use that one phrase, “Defund the Police”, as the anchor to do it.

Another button Trump will push, which is to say, another Big Lie he will tell, will be about the statues of Confederate leaders (and other equally racist ones) being taken down and rising support for renaming ten military bases named for Confederate generals.

Like others pushing back at this necessary change, Trump will attempt to frame it as protecting history. “Heritage” is a code word we will likely hear, likely more than once. Like other coded language, it obscures truth rather than revealing it, which is just what those statues and base names were meant to do, obstruct our memory and sell us on a lie.

The lie they told normalized the racism those men stood for. It scrubbed clean the atrocities they and others committed to hold power over others and destroy their hope.

That lie has succeeded for so long because when we had the chance after the Civil War to complete the long march towards justice and equality for all, we gave up as we so often do. We had fought a war and were weary of it, and we had achieved…something, enough for people different than us and far away from us, so we stopped.

We’ve had opportunities since and each time we’ve made it a bit farther down the path, but each time we stopped, and those statues and names were no small part of the reason why. They held stature in our eyes, and that gave the lie power. They gaslit us, telling us our own memories were lies.

As with police brutality, they have served both as an expression and reinforcement of the imbalance of power in our society. Tearing the statues down and renaming the bases deprives power to the lie of our past. It restores the power of memory. We need to do that in order to move forward.

Memory is everything. This is why Trump and the strongmen he so admires attack it. Our memories serve to protect us, to keep us from making mistakes and repeating those of the past.

It’s why Trump frenemy, Premier Xi, has built his career on suppressing memories of the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Without free speech and the memories that generates in a culture, you end up with something like we see in China, where few born after those pro-democracy protesters were killed even know it was done, or Hong Kong, where memory of Tiananmen is being criminalized.

Or worse, you end up with something like North Korea, another self-proclaimed “socialist” regime that denies its people two of the most basic tenets of actual socialism: free speech and freedom of movement.

The end of Japan’s brutal colonial rule in 1945 must have filled North Koreans with some sense of hope of those freedoms and more. Instead, they have endured a hereditary dictatorship - one that appears to be transitioning to its fourth “supreme leader”, Kim Yo Jong - that uses images of its rulers and idealized servant-citizens to suppress the truth of their misery and reinforce the imbalance of power between the ruling class and them.

Memory is everything.

The term “The Long March” refers to the military retreat of the Chinese communist army early in their civil war. The retreat lasted over a year. It saw the rise, fall, and second rise of Mao Zedong as leader of the communists. It is taught in China as a triumph of courage and will, as the test that proved Mao’s leadership and the virtue of following his lead.

Of course, Mao wrote that history. What the communists knew when they started their rebellion was that Chiang Kai-Shek was a corrupt, authoritarian ruler who was as weak - he had no answer for the Japanese colonial invasion - as he was greedy and cruel. Anyone would have been better than him.

Sound familiar?

What they got in Mao was change, but while China has finally achieved its place as a global economic and nuclear superpower, it has done so by crushing dissent, killing millions upon millions of its own people, and creating a brutal class system exactly like the ones of Chiang Kai-Shek and the emperors before him.

Ask the victims of Tiananmen Square if the long march ended well for them. Ask the people of Hong Kong right now.

It isn’t enough to make change. We must maintain it and expand it. That means holding the police accountable on body cam footage so they actually use the cameras. That means pushing them on public access. That means electing politicians who want to represent their communities rather than corporations. That means taking the time and effort to research candidates and to vote. That means finding a way to stay engaged.

Whatever has been accomplished in these first few weeks, it is just the first few steps down a long road. If this movement is to succeed, enough of us will need to go the distance, and to do so not merely following anyone else’s lead. This means asking questions we may not want to ask and passing on memories both of what we have done right and what we have done wrong.

Let someone tell you what questions need asking and what memories are worth remembering, and you hand over your lives to them, what they have been and what they can be. They will tell your story as theirs and they will change it to suit their needs.

On this day, the 19th of June, we owe it to ourselves and to future generations never to surrender that particular power to anyone ever again.

- Daniel Ward

[theawakenedadventurer]

Be true to your Art. .

That's the whole point of Waking Up and Awareness to anything.

Listen. Read and Comprehend.

THEN think for yourself and NOT just accept things as true just because someone who says they are a scientist, doctor, guru, teacher, politician, priest, pope or supposed master says its true.

Listen before you utter thoughts that were implanted into you by another who is just a puppet.

In doing so, thinking your own thoughts, feeling your own feeling and doing your own things...

The truth is revealed.

That is true freedom.

No one or group can do that for you but they will say anything to get you to believe otherwise.

No one or group fights for your freedom.

Your heart, your energy and your creations are yours to hold, defend and keep or give as you see fit.

Dare to believe that for a moment.

Does it feel dangerous? Why?

Presidents, priests and teachers are nothing but Puppets that are employed and paid to take the microphone and podium to keep the people misinformed, dumb, numb, deaf and blind to the beauty of life!

Dangerous thinking to those who spread lies and fear.

They are afraid.

Of what?

Losing control over others because it has been well thought out and manipulated over the years and now they are laughing about because we the people govern themselves with fear.

They want you to believe there is no stopping it but there is.

A simple empowering thought can change the world and its people.

That's what they fear. But they didnt realize the system they have designed is super fragile.

History repeats if repeated uncontrolled. Controlled repition only prolongs revolution. It's not gonna stop it.

We are smarter than that but we just need to come together and stand up for each other.

We are letting them win by not saying anything at all and ignoring the hate and fear to the point where it becomes the norm.

Then...What happens?

Violence. War. Outburst and just like that, history repeats again with different rulers eventually falling into the same agenda of domination, ruling with fear and lies.

Its an effective strategy. Maybe more effective hundreds of years ago but come on.

We are better than that.

We all have freedom of speech. We should be proud that we live in such a great time of CHOICE.

You can still choose which of the the voices that are amplified in your world.

We still have a choice.

We still have a right to say and write what we want even if it is opposed to the ones who hold the weapons and the money.

We allow these things to go on because we have been taught to feel pain and fear when we hear it.

So what? It's only ok if politicians day things like that because that's what you associate then with?

Most of us our adults or at least people with brains that can think and speak for themselves.

The separation and division goes beyond political parties.

It starts in the mind. If you resist that. You resist the law of nature and only put yourself through pain.

And then we spread the garbage around, the fear and the shit that doesnt matter in the world.

Artists must speak up and fight back because who else will? Who else holds such a vast audience?

What and who do you think the president and everyone influencing him and is being influenced by him is afraid of?

Its not women or immigrants

Artists.

The point is that Everyone is a potential artist and we have the power to unite.

We won't do it if we keep eating up all the nonsense and fear given to us like its priceless info.

And THEN we turn on our brothers and sisters, around the world as people of Earth, and proceed to act like we are informed from the people that are obviously lying about everything.

Everyone thinks they know how it all works and they are a scholar but you know nothing at all from listening to ANYONE who says their way is the ONLY WAY.

Period.

Religion and politics are where the best of the best Liars and Thieves go because you all fall for it and they know it to be profitable, working with fear and hate.

Fear and hate leave more of an acute impression than kindness and love which are chronic.

The screen rules us, and they know if they can just get into your screen and provide the suggestion...

BOOM! You are already regurgitating the nonsense fear intended to be spread.

Good job. That's not art. That's bullshit!

It's something that doesnt exist until you believe it.

KEEP THE FEAR TO YOURSELF, not your real words and true expression.

True expression from the artist is WITHOUT FEAR.

Hmmm, now we are getting somewhere...because WHO do you THINK wants to keep that information from you?

Who benefits from keeping you segregated?

Nice and neat in a box, classified, generalized, stereotyped and prejudged so they can find you because they feel they OWN you.

* Don't be just another NUMBer.

Think for yourself. Have an original thought and THEN speak.

If you learn anything from bitching online, repeating whatever garbage words you found on the internet or the news then learn that.

That alone will change the whole world.

If we don't stand up and speak what we want and don't want, then someone else is gonna do it for us.

That's what wrong with America and the world.

We have grown so accustomed to being BUSY that we let others make important decisions.

Boring .All day. Meetings that seemingly go no where while other more exciting negative attractions and distractions go on so no one even pays attention to all the shit that's being changed and the rights that are being taken.

All while you are being trolled by the latest outlandish antics and anecdotes the clowns have to vomit out to fool you, while you let yourself fall into Chaos of fear.

And then, cut to commercial.

Contrast with a cure.

With side effects, disease, violence and distorted sexuality to fool you even more into handing over your mind and heart to something that doesnt even exist, again.

Jokes on you and they are all sitting their laughing in their ties.

Really, they are more afraid then us.

But, no one else feels they have the power because we were all trained to be that way. To be a victim that seeks attention and approval all while not disregard the humanity of your own neighbors.

Perfect plan for world domination. Dont you think?

Turn the people against themselves.

That's the first and foremost tactic of any strategist in war.

Make the people destroy themselves and the rest of them can fear being destroyed.

Perfect plan but there's a huge hole in it.

Humanity can wake up.

People can realize and unite.

We can reverse the damage if we start the healing process.

It takes it time. Just like Nature. But we have to stop eating all this shit up about President Trump and all his cronies.

You only stand to give him more power by protesting it.

He's laughing because he is doing his job very well.

Operation: Distract the Public with anything possible. Check

Plan for Citizens: Keep numb, dumb, fearful and hateful of eachother. Check

Strategum: Misinformation disguised as truth to keep people's minds closed to the Power of Creation they are capable of: Check

A Revolution of the whole world in how it sees itself in the Universe: Pending

We have to reverse this shit. Let's go!

The time is well past and overdue.

The conversation should be opened up ALL the way if we are to heal as a planet.

Not just a little or an inch at a time because we are afraid of not getting approval.

That's a child mentality. Let us be Men. Women. Adults.

Organized, civilized society doesn't have to be ruled by what our fathers and grandfathers allowed and let slip through the cracks.

Like Congress for example. Terms for life? Wtf is that?

How about volunteers? 2 year term. No pay. This ain't no free ride vacation while you step on the people's voices and choices.

When you serve, you serve for free, with love or else you're out of fucking office.

You'll see how fast all those assholes leave, not getting paid anymore.

President? King? Queen? You should be made to earn that shit through many trials and tribulations that test your worthiness to lead.

Presidential term that is 4-8 years?

No. How about a year? IF YOU ARE GOOD!

How about we all take turns being president and get rid of one rule at a time until all we have left I'd freedom of choice and to live life without the demons that shouldn't even be able to affect us anymore?

They are crying, kicking and screaming because they see they are losing control and are very afraid of losing their tethers to this dimension.

The time of shadow is done

Theres enough people in the nation that are capable and are never given a chance. Pass the torch to someone who thinks in all of the colors in the rainbow instead of choosing one color and denying that there are others.

How do you become a speaker of the world with a mentality of a 3 year old?

Get hired by people with the same mindset who want others to think in a low vibration just like them or even worse!

Let's talk about it and step into our power so we don't need anyone else or government to tell is what we can and can't do because only they supposedly have power because we gave away for convenience.

To not be bothered to learn or grow is the biggest sin against yourself and the people you care about.

Create and then you have so much fun and enjoyit.

You'll have no more room in your life for the things that aren't even real because you are to busy creating your life and manifesting your dreams to even bother with the bullshit.

You have the power to do that right now but will you?

Do you have the proverbial balls to start now?

To live your dream despite all the systems and programs designed to hold you back?

We can only adapt and unite if we adopt an open mindset that is geared toward creation rather than destruction.

Love of life.

Not of fear of death.

Create your masterpiece and watch the fear of death fade for you have left something worthwhile behind and know that it is good.

No more obsession with knowledge.

Fake news and terror is killing our peace in a way that no gun, bomb or weapon of any sort could accomplish at all.

You can take a life but you can't take someone's soul who has lived and gave their life in the name of creation, love and peace

[eachainn]

In Eyes Once Familiar, a Stranger I See (Suzalulu Week Day 7 :  Rebirth)

Author’s Note: Continuation of the Julius and Lelouch competing over Suzaku AU (Part 1 - Part 2 and following from the prompt I wrote earlier this week. Title take from I Know Those Eyes/This Man is Dead from the Count of Monte Cristo Musical.

Suzaku closed his eyes as the woman cut the collar from his neck. He felt the tips of the cutters scrape against his neck as she finished the cut. He heard her mutter an apology, but he didn’t dare make a noise while the collar was still against his neck. Suzaku just settled for a nod, watching as she took the collar and dropped it to the side. She narrowed her eyes at it and gave it a kick, shaking her head when it only clattered a few inches.

“Damn Britannian torture devices. Should be outlawed.” She huffed and looked back at him, the anger on her face deepening. “Fuck.”

Suzaku looked at her before reaching up to touch his neck, hissing at the ring of raw skin he felt there. Some of it was from the collar rubbing, but the other part was because of the collar itself. Any sound that he had made had set off the shock. Suzaku had tried to keep quiet, but some sounds had escaped him during the parade and then when he had been stolen away. He hissed as his fingers found a more tender part of his neck.

He dropped his hand away, letting it fall into his lap. It felt good to have it off, just like it felt good to have the straitjacket loosened. Suzaku couldn’t remember a time in the last week that he’d had it loose enough to move. It had been on Julius’ orders, not that Suzaku was surprised by it. Everyone had been frightened and in an uproar.

Things had already been tense over the past few weeks, especially with the anniversary of Lelouch’s death.

Suzaku closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He listened to the woman move around the room, tracking more out of habit than anything else. His full attention was on the persistent ache in his chest and the familiar spark of anger. He took a few more deep breaths before opening his eyes.

It was the anniversary that had started all of this. 

It had taken three years but he had managed to get Clovis to see things his way, even if it had been via a strange route. Clovis might not have been ready to grant freedoms to the Japanese people, but he would do them in memory of his brother. Personally, Suzaku was past the point of caring, just as long as something was done. His goals hadn’t changed, they had just expanded. He wanted to see Japan free from Britannian rule, but he also wanted vengeance for Lelouch’s death.

He had thought that he had been close to a kind of vengeance, the one that he had talked himself into accepting. It would be enough if Lelouch’s laws were passed, because then a part of Lelouch would live on. It was the one kind of revenge that he would allow himself because the other kind, the kind that he wanted desperately, would hurt Nunnally, Rolo and Marianne, and he couldn’t do that, not when they had done so much for him.

Everything had been in place until Clovis had invited Julius to watch his brother’s hard work be put into law. Suzaku was sure that Clovis hadn’t known any better. No one had. He was the lucky one who had gotten to know, but only because Julius wanted him to. Suzaku wasn’t even sure Clovis had figured it out in the end, he had died confused to why Julius had shot him for no apparent reason. But Suzaku understood, he had understood from the moment that Julius had turned to grin at him before he fired.

Julius wanted nothing of Lelouch to be remembered. Physically killing his brother hadn’t been enough, all reminders of Lelouch had to be destroyed too.

It was why Suzaku hadn’t been surprised when he’d been arrested moments after Clovis’ death. After all, he was a living reminder of Lelouch and someone who wouldn’t bend to what Julius wanted.

He curled his hand into a fist, jerking his gaze up abruptly as the woman came back to stand in front of him. He swallowed when she looked at him before shaking her head. “I think we might have something to help that.” She gestured at his neck. “It might not be enough for the burns, but it should help with where it chafed. We’ll need to take you down to medical for those.”

Suzaku shrugged, slumping back in the chair. “I have no plans to go anywhere.”

That made the woman smile. She nodded at him, reaching up to adjust her headband. “Good. The boss will probably want to talk to you. Any information you can give us will be helpful, in exchange for saving your life of course.”

Suzaku bristled a bit at the suggestion, but it was more out of habit than disgust. He hadn’t had much time to adjust to his new situation, he had been shuffled around from interrogation to interrogation. The rest of the time he had been trying to figure out what the greater plan was. It was Julius, so there had to be a greater plan, but he hadn’t been able to figure it out. Julius had kept his plans close to his chest, or he had missed the clues. Suzaku wouldn’t have been surprised if it was the latter. He wasn’t used to matching wits with Julius, he had always succeeded by being stubborn enough to wait out whatever Julius had planned.

He nodded wearily. “Yes, but I want information from you too.”

Her eyes widened, the woman freezing in the act of reaching for the door. She shifted in place before turning around to look at him. “You’re in no position to be asking.”

“It’s not about your plans, I don’t care about those. I just want to know if you were the ones at Babel Tower three years ago and if any of you saw what happened there.”

It took her a moment to realize what he was talking about. She stared at him before clearing her throat. “Someone might know something. I’ll ask around, for when you cooperate with us.”

“I don’t plan on fighting.”

The look she gave him said that she didn’t quite believe him, but Suzaku didn’t care. She was probably right to considering all of the rumors that had spread about him.

For years he had been Britannia’s White Knight, the only Number to be admitted to the Knight of the Rounds. Then, for three years, he had been Britannia’s White Reaper, her White Death. He’d been everything that he had needed to be to make something out of the tragedy of Lelouch’s death. He hadn’t fought the Black Knights, but it had been close many times.

He settled back in the chair, watching as she went to open the door again. She had barely closed her fingers around the knob when it was jerked open, the woman stumbling back.

Suzaku almost got to his feet, but he held himself back. No one in the hideout was a threat to him, at least as long as he stuck to their rules, and he had no intention of making himself a threat. At least, not until he learned what he needed.

He watched as the masked man entered the room, recognizing him from before. The man had been the one to catch everyone’s attention with his grand speech and then his threat of poison gas. Suzaku narrowed his eyes, studying the man.

He had heard and seen plenty about the man while serving under Clovis in Japan. He could be dangerous and tricky, but he could also be dramatic. His own rescue was one of those dramatic moments. The man had threatened poison gas, which had sent everyone into a panic, but he had done it when his supporters on the ground hadn’t been wearing gas masks. If he had shown himself to be a callous man, Suzaku would have been angrier, but it had obviously been a feint, just a smoke screen for them to get away.

Suzaku clenched his jaw, letting the tension go a moment later. He could argue all he wanted against the man’s methods, but he would be making himself a hypocrite for it, because he had done the same thing under orders from Britannia. It didn’t make him happy, but he couldn’t deny a certain kind of pleasure to see the Black Knights influencing resistance movements in other countries, especially when they were thwarting Julius’ plans.

He settled for nodding at the man, expecting him to immediately start the interrogation or at least confer with the woman, but he just stood in the doorway. Suzaku tipped his head slightly, his gaze darting to where the woman was staring at him. From the way she held herself, this was strange.

Her gaze darted down to something that the man was holding, reaching for it even as he spoke to him. “I was just coming to get you.”

“Thank you, Kallen.” The man sounded distracted and, from what Suzaku could guess from the way his mask was turned, he wasn’t even looking at her.

The man stepped around her, Suzaku seeing a jar of salve in his hand. He raised an eyebrow, surprised by the sight. He thought that Kallen would have run out and come back with it. He had resigned himself to taking care of himself, either while he was questioned or before, not for the leader of the Black Knights to come to him.

Suzaku glanced back up at Kallen, watching as she shook her head. She reached back to shut the door behind her, leaning against it.

He didn’t get much time to watch her because the man was reaching out to tip his chin back. Suzaku swallowed at the gentle touch to his jaw, letting the man turn his head from side to side. The man’s breath shuddered as he exhaled, the sound loud with how close he was to Suzaku. “They treated you rather roughly. Are those…”

“Burns.” Kallen spoke up from her place by the door. “Damn collar was turned up to its highest setting.”

“They shouldn’t burn at that setting.”

Kallen shrugged. “Then they tampered with it.” Her gaze jumped back to him. “It makes me wonder if you did kill Clovis.”

“No.” Suzaku tried not to stare as the masked man removed one of his gloves and popped open the jar of salve. He opened his mouth to protest, but he was too late. He shuddered at the cool touch of salve against the strip of irritated shin around his neck. Suzaku breathed out slowly, closing his eyes. He took a moment before he dared to open them again.

From the way that Kallen was staring at him, what was happening was irregular. Suzaku expected her reaction, because he couldn’t imagine that the leader of the Black Knights would do this to anyone. Then again, her reaction meant that it wasn’t an interrogation technique. Suzaku’d had plenty of times when Julius had tried to convince him that he was really his friend. It hadn’t worked, although Suzaku wasn’t sure it was meant to have worked at all. For all he knew it was another one of Julius games.

He swallowed, letting the masked man tip his head to further to the side. He felt the man work around the side of his neck towards the back. Suzaku tried to look at the man out of the corner of his eye before giving up. “I was just in the room when Julius shot him. The whole thing was a set up.”

Kallen nodded slowly, her fingers drumming out a pattern on her arms. Her careful consideration didn’t last long, Kallen shaking her head. “So what did he arrest you for?”

“I wouldn’t fuck him.”

Suzaku felt the masked man’s fingers stutter in their task, the motion leaving a smear of salve down his neck. He heard the man curse, the careful touch to his neck quick to return. That wasn’t enough to make Suzaku look at him.

The man must have felt his gaze because he spoke up, his voice distorted by the mask. “You’re a Knight of the Round, you’re above the law.”

“I was a Knight of the Round. Apparently I was an experiment, one that failed. Numbers are not to be trusted with the honor of being a Knight of the Round.” Suzaku cleared his throat, ignoring the flash of hurt. It was beyond him at the moment, so there was no reason to focus on it. Besides, he would have been stripped of the position with what he was planning anyway. “The announcement came the day after I was arrested.”

“Bastards.” Kallen spat the word out, but there was a smile on her face. “But that’s their loss. Imagine the looks on their faces when they realize that we have their White Death.”

“KALLEN!”

She jumped at the shout, giving the masked man a glare before reaching back to shove the door open. “Don’t keep him to yourself for too long, Zero.”

Suzaku frowned at the emphasis that Kallen put on the name, but she was gone before he could ask anything else. The door slammed behind her, leaving him alone with Zero.

He swallowed, suddenly aware of the fact that he was alone with the leader of the Black Knights, and Zero was still tending to his neck. It was enough to make him want to push Zero away and finish the job himself. He didn’t want kindness, not until he knew where he stood.

He cleared his throat. “Zero-”

“Ignore her.”

“So you don’t intend to ask for my help or what I know?”

It was impossible to see the man’s expression, but his shoulders twitched. Suzaku wasn’t sure what it meant, but he didn’t get a chance to think over it for too longer.

Zero stood up and stepped away, looking at him with what Suzaku could only assume was a serious expression. “We would appreciate what you can give us, but we won’t force you to do anything.”

“Then you rescued me for nothing.”

“Not for nothing. You are one of the few voices from the royal court that were talking about freeing Japan.”

“Were.”

Zero shook his head. “You are still a Knight of the Round, they can’t take it away from you.”

“Britannia has a habit of taking things away from people.” Suzaku looked at Zero, watching for any kind of body language. When the man remained still, Suzaku shook his head. “I’ll give you everything that I can, but I just want to know who was at Babel Tower three years ago. I want to know what happened to Prince Lelouch. We were never given a body. We buried an empty coffin and it would help his family.” Suzaku paused to take a deep breath. “It would help me.”

Zero stayed still, Suzaku staring at him before shaking his head. “I’ll report what I can, and then I’ll go looking. I’ll help where I can but…this comes first.”

He turned to go, expecting to be stopped immediately. To his surprise, he was allowed to get close to the door. Suzaku reached for the knob but hesitated, waiting to be called back. All things considering, it was not the behavior that he expected from the Black Knights. They were more lax than he expected from the main problem of Area 11. Considering what they could get from him, he was surprised that he was being allowed so much free rein.

He shook his head, ready to open the door when Zero spoke again. “Suzaku.”

There was a hint of a command in his voice, enough to make Suzaku turn around.

His eyes widened as Zero reached for the back of his mask. He curled his fingers into something in the back, Suzaku jumping at a click. The sound seemed loud in the small room. Suzaku wasn’t sure if he jumped or not, he couldn’t do anything but watch as Zero pulled the mask from his head.

He felt his heart start pounding as the black hair that was revealed first, his mouth going dry as Zero lifted the mask away completely. Suzaku sucked in a quick breath, unable to move as he stared at Zero’s face.

It was a face he knew and missed. It was a face that he thought he would never see again.

Suzaku took a step back, leaning against the door to keep himself upright. He was sure if it wasn’t there, he would fall right over. He reached back to brace his hands on the door, hoping that it would help keep him upright, especially when the man smiled.

“It’s good to see you again, Suzaku.”

Suzaku took a deep breath, feeling it shake as he exhaled.

“Lelouch.”

[violetsystems]

#personal

I walked up to the Nike store over lunch Friday.  I’m not running the marathon.  The last few months I’ve barely scratched four miles.  My times have been under nine minutes which is good enough for me under the circumstances.  I picked up that shirt with the hot dog.  I liked the message.  Why Ketchup when you can lead?  Maybe I was just hungry.  These days I bring my lunch to work and leave the office for an hour to walk.  The personal politics of this city seemingly follow me around every waking minute of the day like I’m some superhero in need of more work to do.  So much so that worrying about anything outside of this city let alone country is distracting and possibly unsafe.  People try shit with me every day here in Chicago.  They apparently try the same shit on the Internet too.  If someone could imagine trying to process the exhausting amount of times people have started shit with me it would be mind shattering.  I do sometimes think people just hate me for no reason.  I used to be more concerned about the logic.  I also used to be a little less self confident and less focused.  Sometimes you lead to get away from things.  I’ve been travelling to New York every two months since January maybe.  I used to go to Asia twice a year for three weeks at a time by myself.  Led a boring existence in hostels sleeping on shitty mattresses for thirty dollars a night.  These days people ask if I have any exciting plans to leave the country.  I say it’s not safe for me to and they blink.  I go to New York instead and somehow this is less exciting, adventurous or dangerous enough to people to sound like a getaway.  It’s true I can’t get away from anything in New York.  It’s all right there.  And so am I.  Safe and sound at this point.  NYPD running club stalking my Instagram.  Fire department too probably.  That’s neither here nor there.  My phone reminded me of all the pictures I had taken there over the years.  All those morning coffees overlooking the WTC memorial.  I saw my hair slowly get shorter and my face less fearful.  I’ve also seen my hair get more grey.  Time passes.  People forget about all the actions you made on your path to transformation that were brought on by positive decisions in your life.  They just see you as they see you.  Jealous of how you got there without them having any say in the matter.  A walking contradiction in so far as nobody has ever asked how I feel about anything.  They pretend to already know.  Have plans for me I will never know.  Set traps on a daily basis that I walk through comically like a Tom and Jerry cartoon.  To be honest people have talked so much shit about me by now I don’t see how they can have any more say in how I live my life.  That’s largely a decision I have to police for myself.  Because people cross the line with me every day here in this beautiful Sanctuary city we call Chicago.  If you know how a sanctuary city in America is supposed to work in these modern times you know we are the city that works.  We are one of the most progressive big cities in America albeit highly dysfunctional.  If you don’t believe me Conde Nast seems to think so for the third year in a row.  I lead the pack in every way in that respect.  Because I live here.

Now that I’m finally on vacation I’m ready to enjoy it.  Partially by leaving the city entirely.  I still have to mow my mom’s lawn this weekend.  On the outside it must look like I lead a very lonely existence.  People try to get me to be part of their shit for sure.  And then people from my hometown schedule entire events in New York City the exact dates I’m there and pretend I’m invisible.  I’ve given up on any dj’ing dreams almost quicker than I gave up trying to stream Hearthstone.  The more information it seems I divulge on here magically someone tries to subvert it.  And it’s not even hidden very well anymore.  Sucks to be me.  I shudder to think anyone recognizes that I’ve been visibly part of a protest movement on my commute every day.  Shuttling in on the pink line to work doing my best.  My best is never good enough.  People expect more.  People need a hero.  People need my attention when they pretend I don’t exist.  The psychological reality I’ve come to face is bleak at best.  But it just has taught me better than to react to things that ultimately are not worth my time.  People waste my time daily.  Trying to trick or punk me in some abusive way and hide it under some community action or artistic protest.  Targeted by every fringe movement imaginable.  Hoping to catch me in a paradox of free speech and hang me like a martyr.  This all is what I deal with any time I walk out the door.  And yet when I drop off in Queens people bubble up to me asking for directions or a safe space to catch their bearings.  Back home these days I have adopted an invisible eye roll and a deep breath.  People are awkward and project their fears and politics on me daily.  The trick is to know where it is all coming from.  When it’s an organized action of a mob of public opinion stalking you at every turn it can be frustrating at best.  People see me as a convenient enemy.  A target dummy.  The unfortunate thing people don’t see is that people watch this.  Part of the whole aesthetic that drew me to obscure street wear brands like Undercover was the silent troll of it all.  People are either genuine or they are not.  There is some mystic way of finding that out.  That can be informed by wisdom, life trials and maybe the road you travel.  But the “vibe” you get from people is a lot more than magic.  Except when you are more in control of your reactions.  Body language.  Tone.  Intent.  Situational factors.  Where you are at in your life.  These are all things that speak in a moment.  The quicker we react to things the more we miss these hidden messages.  We may think someone is nice and walk away bothered by one particular thing they said in passing conversation.  You make a decision to say no.  You resist.  You say you need to think about it.  And the facade breaks down.  People didn’t get what they wanted from you.  So they gaslight you and tell you you are crazy.  Berate you and tell you hateful things if you are lucky.  Mostly they’ll just say them behind your back and people will begin to believe it.  And years later people find out all the times it was too late to do anything about this.  There is no closure unless you want to open up a pandora’s box of hurt feelings and betrayal.  Part of leading is never looking back I guess.

There are mornings like today when I look at my life and see it as completely broken.  And then I think about how some things never changed.  They grew.  How I can’t be enough for some people after all these posts.  How my politics aren’t readily obvious in what I silently accept and what I bark off on my lunch break.  Like I don’t care what gender you are when you use the same bathroom as me.  You don’t see me rush you down and celebrate on Instagram.  But when somebody leaves a dead bird at the entrance to my work at 7:30 in the morning I’m a little less amused by the social experiment you are trying to achieve.  How your good buddies Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are fighting the good fight against freedom of speech while denying a woman’s right to choose.  How none of this makes any fucking sense and yet people live their lives in chains as they watch CNN, Fox News, or whatever for profit company they’d like to view the world through.  And meanwhile I can sit in my home and play video games with people in China.  A portal is open to a country I’ve visited on my own and by myself.  I read an article once about an ex consulate who claimed viciously anyone visiting China by themselves was putting their privacy and freedom at risk.  I didn’t really get that vibe in Shanghai.  I just ate McDonald’s.  Again your mileage may vary.  Part of my extended family plays sports on an all female team in China.  One of the very first trips to Asia I made was to China via Beijing and HK.  South Korea was on that trip.  I felt very safe in South Korea.  So much so that I visited there almost fourteen times up until the very first summit between North and South Korea.  I would argue that trip jeopardized my privacy far more than setting foot into Mainland China.  But again politics are personal.  Pizzas are forever.  McDonald’s in China for the record is pretty good.  Although the fries were soggy.  Part of leading is having your own opinions and beliefs about things.  If you are me you notice you lead alone often.  There is a crowd out there bubbling.  Conde Nast seems to think so.  There’s a place everyone fits in.  Even me I guess.  But looking back only slows me down.  People want me to react but never respond in a calculated way.  They’re afraid of listening to me speak.  Always probing my weaknesses.  Always trying to set me up to fail.  If I ever look back it is to my successes.  The successes nobody sees.  Like a giant firewall was placed over my life and all the good I have done here in America.  How many movies have they banned in America again?  Mine is still in production I guess.  If I never become a star that’s fine.  I was just trying to make sure you shine as bright as you are to me.  That’s the only star I follow out here in the dark.  Make sure you follow your heart in whatever you do.  And make sure your heart is full of love before you shut the door.  Hate and anger can only lead you so far.  For now I’m shutting the door on work for the entire next week.  More time to think about you.  <3 Tim

[sagealex]

the post about banned books is obviously in reference to books banned on local and state levels, in schools, but even so, public school is likely where most people do the majority of their thoughtful reading in their life.

discussion of this issue brings back memories of a very specific time in my schooling, and, for some reason, I feel like sharing them.

i graduated from high school a couple years ago, and the whole black lives matter movement got up and going while i was in school. the george zimmerman trial happened while i was in my sophomore year of high school, and in class we were reading Fahrenheit 451, and on my own time, I was reading The Complete Transcript of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Assasination Conspiracy Trial.

I had heard of the hashtag #blacklivesmatter already, and I had already formed an opinion about it, but there’s always this anxious few-to-several months between when I hear about something and when my parents see it enough times on the news to get angry and talk about it. So there was a lot of time between when I realized what was happening, and when I realized what everyone else thought was happening.

I remember the day it started. It started in English class.

I remember talking about Jesus on TV in Fahrenheit 451, the morality or immorality was irrelevant when he was only meant for entertainment and advertisement. TV was allowed, but thinking about ideas with any depth wasn’t. And then I remember going home and hearing, for the first time, what my family had decided was true about Trayvon Martin. And then the morning after that I realized the reality of the fact that, despite the information being publicly available for years, most people didn’t know that MLK was killed by agents of the federal government. 

And while the connection between these things doesn’t seem immediately obvious even now, that same morning, the pledge of allegiance made me sick. Students were allowed to stay silent during the pledge in my school, so I stood up like I had for nearly every day of my life up to that point, and I put my hand over my heart and opened my mouth, and physically gagged on the pledge. I just let my hand drop, and I looked down, literally in shame, because I couldn’t do it anymore.

I had been an incredibly patriotic person my whole life, and then suddenly I couldn’t do it anymore.

And when I went to English class later that day, we discussed book burning, and how the information that is destroyed and hidden is probably the most important information to dig into, and I felt

Awful. Just awful.

And after that I started making my own posters and flyers for protests. I had a binder with a hand-drawn pair of black hands upright, with that quote attributed to Alex Hamilton (the British sports commentator), I had my friends hand-copy posters I had drawn up about freedom of speech and net neutrality and such things, I brought articles about recent shootings and protests into my human relations class, as that teacher had a recap of the news every week. And I thought it would all make me feel better. I thought it would make it all better.

It didn’t. I still feel awful. I feel awful and sick, and even though I’m outspoken in some spheres, in others I have to sit by silently in order to be allowed to stay under the roof I have right now, and to keep from earning suspicion from my highly controlling family. I’m the one who watches my siblings right now, one of whom isn’t allowed to go anywhere or do anything without supervision.

The reading of Fahrenheit 451, along with other books on this list, in high school, while I was coming into adulthood and society at large, created some sort of space in my mind. The space created by Fahrenheit 451 was the exact size and shape of the knowledge that, even though we’re taught about Martin Luther King, Jr. in school, even though anyone could see video of so many murders of black people, even though the books are there! They’re right there!

Information is denied by those for whom it is inconvenient.

When we can’t read To Kill a Mockingbird, we don’t get the chance to empathize with people who are blamed by all of their society for something they clearly did not do. When we can’t read Steinbeck’s books about the Great Depression, we don’t get the chance to face the bitter reality faced by refugees of situations they had no hand in. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a nail in the fucking coffin of America’s ability to defend slavery, and for a school to ban it is to deny history, and further obscure the reality of the darkness of America’s history.

For every book I read in my AP classes in my junior and senior years of high school, my English teacher had a different story about how the conservative powers that be in my city would come to him, as head of the English department, and scream at him over the contents of the books he’d have the students read. He told us that, every time, those adults would come prepared with quotes from the books that someone else had given them, since they had never opened the books themselves.

I still haven’t found a way to put this experience fully into words, but in high school English class, a net in the vague shape of the unfairness of the world was weaved to catch onto the ideas that people didn’t want to discuss. Before I had even finished Fahrenheit 451, I lost my faith in the information presented by the TV, I lost faith in the possibility that i might someday reconcile my beliefs with those of the adults in my community, and I lost faith in my country. I lost faith in the idea that everyone will someday come around to the objective truth, and this made me feel ill in a way that hasn’t relented since.

But, in the end of Fahrenheit 451, they talk about the Phoenix, and how people will go on burning themselves down, generation after generation, and how all we have to do is to remember. As long as there’s someone here paying attention, and making it their job to remember what really happened, and to recall the information that was contained by books that others burned, there’s still hope for humanity.

I still don’t know whether things will be okay. I don’t know whether my participation in politics will make any impact, whether I’ll ever have an idea that would really make the world a better place, whether I’ll always live my life in alternate bouts of proud protest and cowed silence, whether people will keep on dying for no reason.

But I know that I can definitely make information more available, and take information from behind paywalls and give it freely to those who are searching for it. And that’s what I’m doing here.

[libertariansunitedagainstfa-blog]

Response to fascist provocation and entryism at ISFLC

This post is best viewed on WordPress. It is saved on archive.is and archive.org. Videos are on Vimeo.

Introduction

On February 18, 2017, a small group of crypto-fascists calling themselves The Hoppe Caucus [archive] brought Richard Spencer, an open white supremacist, to the International Students for Liberty Conference (ISFLC). The conference organizers did not allow him inside the conference itself, so the provocateurs put him in a bar at the hotel where the conference was held. They deceptively set up a makeshift sign saying that the event was Richard Spencer’s appearance at ISFLC. Shortly thereafter, they were confronted by conference attendees. After about 45 minutes, the fascists were expelled by the bar’s owner.

Although Spencer was ultimately removed, this show of force should cause concern to any anti-fascist or libertarian. Why do fascists feel emboldened enough to crash a libertarian conference? There are many reasons that we cannot exhaustively address, but one major factor is that libertarians are ignorant to the history and methods of fascism. Unfortunately, by and large, libertarians do not recognize the need to confront fascists when they show their faces in public. This — at best — neutrality has allowed for the proliferation of ideological racism and far-right elements within libertarian ranks. We aim to change that.

Spencer’s attempt to appropriate the auspices of a libertarian conference shouldn’t come as a surprise, and the caucus responsible should be understood as the tip of the iceberg. In this document we provide information on the people immediately responsible for the event. Expelling them from libertarian organizations is the starting point from which we can begin to secure an explicitly anti-fascist libertarianism. Many of the responsible parties have already been banned from Students for Liberty, but continue to operate unchallenged within a more conservative group also focused on organizing libertarian students called Young Americans for Liberty (YAL). We hope that this document will provide some of the tools and evidence that antifascists in both organizations and across the libertarian movement need to identify and resist fascist entryism.

A note to readers on the left: we use “libertarianism” here out of convenience to refer specifically to the movement popularly known by that name in the United States, but please understand that it is an ideologically diverse umbrella. We are ourselves individualist anarchists of various stripes. Despite what some disingenuous demagogues on both the right and left would claim, libertarianism is far from synonymous with fascism, and it would behoove other anti-fascists to recognize how critical it is that the libertarian movement not be ceded to fascists. The libertarian movement is large and fertile ground for radicalization and desperately needs help and solidarity. In fact, the movement is polarizing, with many members moving leftward. This leftward movement has been received hysterically by the few remaining reactionaries:

Lies and Violence

A common misconception among libertarians and liberals is that modern fascists are peaceful. Many take them at their (occasional) claims to support only voluntary means to achieve their decidedly non-libertarian ends. The logic goes that as long as they are polite, fascists should be accepted civilly and allowed to recruit. The events of ISFLC weekend expose the delusion of such an approach, both through the fascists’ words and their actions.

One of the lies continually promoted by the fascists is that The Hoppe Caucus had no intent of disrupting ISFLC and only invited Spencer in the interests of “free speech” (a very peculiar form of free speech that requires everyone to encourage fascists to speak in their hotel). In their own words [archive]:

The Hoppe Caucus hosted Richard Spencer at #ISFLC_ not because we were trying to start some kind of commotion, but rather an important dialogue. Hans-Hermann Hoppe invited him to his own Property and Freedom Society Conference several years ago for that very reason.

It’s clear from their own words — said off-the-cuff, not typed later to fit their narrative — that this is an outright lie. As Subervi so nicely puts it, they held the event in order to “trigger the fuck out of these faggot libertarians”:

Their denial of agreement with Spencer is selective at best:

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, for that matter, is a primary influence on crypto-fascists within the libertarian movement.  He is famous for his assertions, among others, that homosexuals are predisposed toward shortsightedness, and that a libertarian society would necessarily exclude non-white immigrants, queers and other non-traditionalist individuals as threats to its continued existence.  Fascists cite him when they wish to wrap immigration restrictions in libertarian language.  Spencer is not the first white supremacist that his Property and Freedom Society has hosted either.  His motivations for doing so are as transparent as those of the Caucus that bears his name.

One of the libertarians in attendance at the conference, John Lindley, was actually attacked twice by someone who claims to be a peaceful “ethno-nationalist”:

Myself and others went in and immediately began disrupting the event. We called them bigots and Nazis and told them if they wanted to use violence they could start on us. It was our intention get them kicked out. The manager came over and said people need to quiet down. So the Hoppe people said “hey you guys, free speech” so that's when I said “oh why you might get kicked out? Good fuck you." So management came and we all dispersed which is when Spencer left. That night after the social I came back to the hotel. I confronted the hoppe caucus who were all sitting there drinking. I yelled and then debated for a bit but they weren't even good intellectually. (Obvs) I left to go to a room and had to come back. They confronted me about stealing beer and then Cesar [Subervi] grabbed me from behind. There was a scuffle and I punched him as we were pulled apart. This morning Rocco was on my feed and I let everyone know I was still there and not afraid of them. So I saw some of them and called them out and they walked by and then walked by Cesar because I had ran into one of the girls from the ancap group and we were talking. Anyway he turned around and came up and said "you don't just get to talk shit and walk away" and attacked me so I punched him and then we fought for about 30 seconds. We were pulled apart and then I left because we were told the cops were on the way. He tried to confront me again and I just walked away. I don't regret and would do it again. Anyone who would have the state control lives based on something as arbitrary as race then you are in no way a libertarian. You are a violent threat and you should expect people you want the state to marginalize to defend themselves. Giving fascists a platform is the same as being a fascist at this point. They are the ones who started this war but we will defend ourselves. And I will defend my friends and family because that's who is being threatened.

Lindley made us proud by resisting fascists on both fronts - words and fists. He gave Cesar Subervi a hell of a black eye, too.

This violence has, of course, been misrepresented [archive] by The Hoppe Caucus as an unprovoked attack by an anti-fascist “thug.” In the words of Jeffrey Tucker, fascists are liars. In the aftermath of the second fight, other students can be heard remarking that Subervi “fights with everybody.” In fact, his entire activist career seems to consist of instigating fights, getting his ass kicked [archive], and then running away [archive] crying [archive] that he was victimized [archive]. More on him below.

This group clearly intends to do physical harm, both immediately and in the future. For all his protestations that the ethnic cleansing he plans will be “peaceful,” when asked directly by a supporter, Spencer admits that it will not be:

The fantasy of a nonviolent white nationalism, put forward by Hans-Hermann Hoppe and his adherents in the Caucus, is so absurd a lie that even Mr. Peaceful Ethnic Cleansing will not play along with it.

Liberals and libertarians are often duped into this notion that we should wait to resist fascism until there are jackboots marching down the street and loading people into train cars. They don’t seem to recognize the connection between fascist organizing and fascist violence. But fascists make themselves perfectly clear. The far-right “libertarians” who invited Spencer admit as much:

The reference to helicopters is an allusion to Augusto Pinochet, a Chilean dictator who murdered dissenters by throwing them from helicopters. They clearly state their intent to commit acts of aggressive violence against those they disagree with as soon as they have obtained the means to do so, yet without a shred of self-awareness they conclude that leftists are the truly intolerant ones. Spencer, you might note, finds the whole idea hilarious.

Despite all of this, some go so far as to deny Richard Spencer is even racist at all, not just that he is a nonviolent racist (aka a unicorn). Belying that notion is this footage of Spencer making the incredible claim that it’s better for a white person to be destitute in a desolate white city in Wyoming than rich in the bustling and eventful Beijing, simply because Beijing has Chinese people.

People

This problem didn’t occur for no reason and it can’t be fixed without effort. As noted earlier, a great many of the instigators of this stunt continue to be welcomed into certain libertarian circles, and even perform leadership roles. Websites like The Liberty Conservative serve as de facto mouthpieces of fascist propaganda, whether wittingly or not. Prominent libertarian icons [archive] encourage the use of movement resources to promote fascist speakers.

Besides standing up to extreme expressions of fascism, like John Lindley et al. did at ISFLC, we have to stand up to casual ones. We can’t just condemn Richard Spencer, we have to condemn every helicopter meme and “All Lives Matter.” We can’t just yell at boneheads, we also have to pressure friends who keep silent as their organizations rot from the inside. There is a disturbing volume of collaborators in libertarian and libertarian-adjacent organizations, as evidenced by the number of Young Americans for Liberty members who espouse fascism. These people must be expelled and a firm standard of anti-oppression established. This is libertarianism, people! That comes from the word liberty!

To that end, this section documents what we know about the folks responsible for the Spencer trolling. Most of them are from either the Macomb Community College or Transylvania University chapter of Young Americans for Liberty. The information presented here was obtained easily from their web presence; most of them seem to think that fascism is a harmless game and have taken no precautions with their information.

Mitchell John Steffen

Born 07/1995 5010 Pebble Creek East, Apt. 5 Shelby Township, MI 48317-4899 mitchellsteffen711@gmail.com Facebook [archive] Twitter [archive] • old Twitter [archive] • older Twitter [archive] Instagram [archive] • old Instagram [archive] • older Instagram [archive] YouTube [archive] • old YouTube [archive] Ask.fm [archive, full screenshot] Vine [archive] Foursquare [archive] Snapchat: Mitchistall

Steffen lives with his parents and attends Macomb Community College, where he is a member [archive] of their YAL chapter [archive]. Steffen founded the Hoppe Caucus, according to an article in The Liberty Conservative [archive] and has even posted now-deleted pictures of himself to their Facebook page:

Before beginning his career as a fake libertarian, Steffen tried to become a professional violent nationalist:

After narrowly failing in this pursuit, Steffen created The Hoppe Caucus_. _Now, he spends his time posting fascist memes espousing violence:

Ironically, he is anti-libertarian on abortion on the basis of opposing all forms of murder, and seems to endorse police violence against black people:

In between all the fascism, he attends Hope Lutheran Church and finds time to run his campus’s libertarian group:

Cesar Alfonso Subervi

Born 11/24/1995 32 Blue Ridge St. Warrenton, VA 20186-2303 cesarpacmanjr@gmail.com Facebook [archive] Twitter [archive] Instagram [archive] iEmoji Feed [archive: page 1 • page 2 • page 3 • page 4 • page 5] SoundCloud [archive] MySpace [archive] “Millenial Patriots” (sic) YouTube [archive • video 1 • video 2] WordPress [archive]

Subervi lives with his parents and works as a conservative activist and professional antifa punching bag. His penchant for getting his ass kicked is ironic given his long history [archive] of athleticism [archive]. He is one of the few people on this list who has no documented involved in YAL, opting instead for the even further right Turning Point USA, where he is a member of the Latino Leadership Caucus [archive]. He enjoys driving slightly over the speed limit [archive], financially supporting other fake libertarians [archive], attending Warrenton Presbyterian Church, and making incredibly douchey YouTube videos. A few days after ISFLC, he showed up at CPAC [archive], once again as a Spencer toadie.

He has filed a public contract for a business [archive] at Calle Palo Hincado 177,  Zona Colonial., Santo Domingo., which is associated with the phone numbers 809-687-7607, 809-689-8366, and 809-617-2176. He once ran for president. Subervi’s old Facebook cover photo depicts Francisco Franco, Spain’s former fascist dictator, in a heroic light.

Shane Gregory Trejo

Born 11/1987 299 Lake Meadow Dr. Waterford, MI 48327 shanetrejo@ymail.com Facebook [archive] Instagram [archive] Reddit [archive: 01 • 02 • 03 • 04 • 05 • 06 • 07 • 08]

In 2011, Trejo attended Michigan State University. Trejo now lives with his mother and writes propaganda [archive] for his friends (pictured above with Steffen) in The Hoppe Caucus, along with a variety of other mostly right-wing publications. Trejo likes a large number of fascist Facebook pages [archive]. He used [archive] to be [archive] a juggalo [archive]?

He wrote a terrible article [archive] linking libertarianism with the alt-right. Discussing the article on Reddit, he acknowledged Richard Spencer is a nazi [archive]:

Trejo spends much of his time on Reddit being a racist, misogynist dick:

Theodore “TJ” Joseph Roberts

Born 02/23/1998 2271 Teal Briar Ln. Apt. 208 Burlington, KY 41005-8386 Facebook [archive] Twitter [archive] • old Twitter [archive] Instagram [archive]

Roberts is a core member of The Hoppe Caucus and can be seen at the beginning of video footage of the Spencer event introducing himself and shaking hands. He is president [archive] of the Transylvania University chapter [archive] of Young Americans for Liberty and serves as YAL’s Kentucky state chair — a paid outreach position. In his photo above, he poses with the president of YAL, Cliff Maloney Jr.

Roberts is a former Students for Liberty campus coordinator who resigned [archive] in the wake of his attempt to bring fascist entryist Augustus Sol Invictus to ISFLC.

Roberts is on the editorial board [archive] for another far-right organization called The Revolutionary Conservative — alongside his pal Auggie. When The Hoppe Caucus attempted to raise funds for the Invictus stunt, donations were directed to The Revolutionary Conservative.

Evidently, after the plans for Invictus fell through, The Hoppe Caucus settled on Richard Spencer as the next best fascist.

Roberts also writes [archive] for perhaps the largest website working to promote fascist entryism into libertarianism, Liberty Hangout. An ardent Christian and opponent of abortion rights [archive], he attends 7 Hills Church. His internet presence makes his ideological commitments very clear.

Joel Thomas

Born 07/1991 41310 Dogwood Dr. Sterling Heights, MI 48313-4425 (586) 628-0471 thomas-8-91@outlook.com timesaversolutions2016@gmail.com Facebook [archive]

Thomas is the former vice president of the Macomb Community College YAL. Despite professing an ardent libertarianism, he helped bring Spencer to ISFLC.

His misguided approach to free speech may not be entirely malicious, but it is actively dangerous.

Taylor James Ragg

Born 09/25/1995 70 Nicholson Boulevard Harlan, KY 40831-7131 tjragg18@transy.edu Facebook [archive] Instagram [archive] YouTube [archive]

Ragg previous attended Eastern Kentucky University, but currently attends Transylvania University, where he is a member of Young Americans for Liberty [archive]. He attended Trump’s inauguration. He can be seen sitting next to Richard Spencer for the duration of the event, staying silent until eventually making finger quotes and talking about free speech.

Carlo Angelo Maiale

22300 Thomson St. Clinton Township, MI 48035-4914 maialecarlo@yahoo.com Facebook [archive] Twitter [archive] Instagram [archive]

Maiale is yet another member [archive] of the Macomb Community College YAL. His degree of involvement with the Spencer stunt is unknown; however, he can be seen wearing a red Trump hat, is friends with the rest of The Hoppe Caucus, and hails from one of the two YAL chapters who are primarily responsible.

Harry Albert Turkington IV

Facebook [archive]

Turkington is a YAL member and former SFL campus coordinator.

He attends University of Wisconsin-Green Bay where he is a member of Sigma Beta Delta [archive] and serves as grand treasurer for the Upsilon-Eta chapter of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He is another entry whose degree of involvement is unknown. His Facebook likes [archive] are full of fascist pages and he can be seen wearing a red Trump hat at the Spencer event.

James Maier

Facebook [archive]

Maier can be seen in a photo posted to The Hoppe Caucus’s Facebook page with Steffen and Trejo. He also has a history of posting Facebook comments suggesting fascist sympathies. That said, he reportedly strenuously denies any involvement with the Spencer event or connection to the perpetrators and claims to have had a change of heart; multiple sources say he spent the weekend attempting to distance himself from his Hoppe Caucus roommates. There is a dearth of evidence implicating him relative to the other list entries. We include him here in the interest of transparency and as proof that people can change.

If you have any tips on further fascist attempts to co-opt libertarianism, please email libertyantifa@protonmail.com.

[somewhereinthehimalayas]

Day 2. I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

Obviously, it’s been a few days since I wrote last. This is because days aren’t really days and time isn’t actually real - possibly naive life lessons from quarantine. A day means nothing asides from what you expect it to mean. So, for me, on this blog, a day is just another entry. 

The world is insane right now. Duh. Nobody needs to tell anyone else that, you can just look at the news. Or, you can’t. The stories that don’t make the top stories are generally the ones people like to hide the most. It’s not that the media doesn’t have time, it’s that they choose not to comment. A news outlet is just like any one of us, in my opinion - silence is pain and violence, especially when you’re responsible for distributing information. The things you find out about elsewhere, with videos to accompany - twitter, reddit and the like - is where you find out the worst news. Stuff you can’t even deny being true. The President of the almighty US can, apparently. Fuck that guy. Free speech doesn’t exist when if I could freely and openly say what I thought about him online, and they end up being able to connect it to me, I might get in a bit of trouble. Not even allowed into that great, super free country. But whatever. 

Today I thought “why do I not just break down because of it all? Why am I still here, okay, not crying for the grief others suffer every single day?” We’ve all cried about a news story, but I mean constantly. How can we keep up our everyday lives when others are suffering so much around us? Protesters beaten for doing nothing in the US, killed and forgotten in Hong Kong. Climate change, poverty, oh yeah - the PANDEMIC, etc. I don’t think humans are naturally empathetic, is how I would answer my question. I think selfishness, to an extent, is a part of most peoples brains. As a psychology student looking into conformity psychologists like to make excuses about why people commit the atrocities they do during wars and the like. I don’t really think there’s an excuse for that, ever. I think people can be evil and not show it their entire lives until they’re allowed. I think the will to say “No”, (look up Milgram’s study if you’re interested in this), can be learnt, but nobody starts out like that. I think to care about ourselves only is simply a part of us, part of me too. That’s why I feel sorrow and grief reading the news, I cry, but I don’t cry all the time. Neither do you. Because we’re just glad it doesn’t happen to us. 

It’s a lot to think about, and also thinking about ways to be more empathetic as well. I used to struggle with empathy (not so much anymore luckily, though my judgement remains to be poor), but we can always do something to benefit those around us. Donate, sign a petition, burn down a police car in a protest. 

I like this poem, lastly. I think it’s perfect, especially with the current climate. Simple, but effective. If I could, I’d put it on a sign and parade it around after my exams are done and I can go to a protest in my home city. Democracy by Langston Hughes. 

Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear. I have as much right As the other fellow has To stand On my two feet And own the land. I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread. Freedom Is a strong seed Planted In a great need. I live here, too. I want freedom Just as you.

If anyone needs someone to talk to, my DMS are always open. As usual. 

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

The big problem with those conservative calls for 'civility'

Conservative doublespeak just got taken to a whole new level.

There are many reasons to balk at politicians' and commentators' calls for "civility" in response to Donald Trump officials getting kicked out of restaurants. Say, the hypocritical fact of Trump's own acerbic behavior, or the idea that "civility" is the least of our worries at a time when the U.S. government has separated migrant families at the border with no plans for reuniting them. 

SEE ALSO: Memo to 2018 from the 1960s: Forget 'civility.' Get angry. Don't stop.

Now, the people of Twitter have honed in on a particularly piercing rebuke of the civility balloon by invoking the idea that helped put Trump in office: that conservatives in fact ended "civility" themselves, by just calling it "political correctness," and labeling sensitivity about the language we use as a problem.

"What ever happened to civility?" "You labeled it 'political correctness' and decided it was something bad."

— Allen Marshall (@AllenCMarshall) June 29, 2018

This "civility" brouhaha all started when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders oh-so-innocently tweeted that a restaurant denied her service. 

Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) June 23, 2018

Sanders' statement came several days after protestors drove Department of Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen out of a Mexican restaurant by yelling "shame" at her, after a press conference in which she defended her agency's family separations at the border. 

At another Mexican restaurant in D.C., one patron went up to Stephen Miller, who is the reported architect of many of Trump's immigration policies, and called him a fascist. Protesters have also staged rallies outside of Miller and Nielsen's homes.

Meanwhile, Rep. Maxine Waters supported the public confrontation of Trump officials at a rally in Los Angeles, and used the word "harass," which really got people hot and bothered.

"The people are going to turn on them, they're going to protest, they're going to absolutely harass them until they decide that they're going to tell the president 'no I can't hang with you, this is wrong," Waters said.

After Sanders' Red Hen incident, the protests, and Waters' comment, national conversation took a detour away from topics like, oh, the Supreme Court decision upholding the Muslim ban, and the separation of children from their parents at the border. Conservative politicians and several editorials decided that this was the moment to lament the lack of "civility" in America. 

In particular, a Washington Post editorial telling readers to "let the Trump team eat in peace" caused a firestorm on Twitter. Republican Jeb Hensarling opened a committee hearing with Waters decrying her comments as uncivil and not neighborly. And Republican political adviser David Gergen told CNN that today's protests are less "civil in tone" than the civil rights struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. 

Many other editorials and segments followed echoing the same need for "civility." And Marco Rubio got sassy about the use of the word "fuck" by a Capital Gazette reporter who survived the deadly shooting at her workplace.

Sign of our times... the F word is now routinely used in news stories, tweets etc It’s not even F*** anymore. Who made that decision???

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 29, 2018

Also, Trump made a lightly veiled violent threat. But anywho...

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2018

People have not taken kindly to the civility comments. Some have said that incivility is exactly the correct response to the Trump administration. And others have pointed to the hypocrisy of the statement given the president's own history of mocking women, minorities, people with disabilities, and anyone who opposes him.

But beyond pointing out hypocrisy, there is a very clear answer to the doe-eyed question of "gee, where did American civility go?" And it is at the heart of what got Trump elected: the Right's previous obsession with the damage that "political correctness" was inflicting on the country during the Obama years. 

The argument went like this: America has become so politically correct, catering to the whims of sensitive minorities, that it has infringed on Americans' right to say what we really think, and it has allowed for America to become overrun with (dark-skinned) migrants. There was a sense that if something offended people, that didn't mean what that thing said was actually incorrect — it just meant that it was offensive. 

So Trump rode into office as the candidate willing to tell it like it is, "crying liberals" be damned. His truth-telling about invasive immigrants would cut to the heart of America's real problems (not its fake problems, like racism), and thereby Make America Great Again. 

Trump has railed against political correctness 37 times on Twitter, frequently using it as the ending note and resounding message of his campaign appearances.

THANK YOU Grand Rapids, Michigan! Time to end political correctness & secure our homeland! https://t.co/cyRCfwxJg3 pic.twitter.com/PPrriLTFgA

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2015

Obama, and all others, have been so weak, and so politically correct, that terror groups are forming and getting stronger! Shame.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2016

Our country has become so politically correct that it has lost all sense of direction or purpose. We are unable to move forward painlessly.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2014

I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2017

Trump and his supporters objected to politically correct speech because the fear of being called a racist made America less secure. So every penis joke, "lock her up" chant, Mexican rapist comment, and disabled reporter impression just strengthened him. 

Where did "civility in America" go? Down the toilet with "politically correct" sensitivity about stereotyping, racism, and sexism. 

And this pic I will keep pulling up every day until this is over.... pic.twitter.com/A9XJOL6ryt

— CD Reiss (@CDReisswriter) June 30, 2018

🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 pic.twitter.com/KnHYbKwbs4

— Charles Gaba (@charles_gaba) June 29, 2018

Now, the people of Twitter aren't going to let conservatives have their cake and eat it, too. Many have pointed out that "civility" is just a re-branding of "political correctness," something that conservatives previously pinpointed as the source of America's ills. 

If conservatives were so concerned about preserving their ability to use slurs and "tell the truth" even if it offended people, why are they opposed to liberals using the sharpest arrows that speech allows to protest conservative policy, in the face of those enacting that policy?

The see-sawing between “we need more civility” and “we need less political correctness” is really something to behold.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 1, 2018

Regarding the right whining about a lack of civility in public discourse after years of also whining about Political Correctness: I once set someone off in a bar by telling him 80% of what he derided as Political Correctness was simply being polite. So fuck your feelings dude.

— jackwilliambell (@jackwilliambell) July 1, 2018

We need civility but NOT political correctness

— Demo (@__demosthenes) July 1, 2018

What exactly is the difference between "civility" and "political correctness" and how does one rationalize loving one and hating the other?

— nate bowling (@nate_bowling) June 25, 2018

I remember when civility was called political correctness, and it was bad.

— Jake Maccoby (@jdmaccoby) June 30, 2018

If Republicans want civility, they can start by rejecting Trumpism whose very foundation is built upon incivility & anti-political correctness.

— William LeGate (@williamlegate) June 25, 2018

It can feel like a maddening exercise in futility to point out every Trumpian hypocrisy or blame-shift. But in this instance, dissecting the language used to paper over real issues is crucial.

Let's remember: Sarah Huckabee Sanders' Red Hen incident tweet distracted from the media shitstorm that the family separation policy had caused. Now, by interrogating the narrative of civility, we are actually able to bring the conversation back to the issue of immigration at hand. That's because Trump invoked arguments against political correctness to lay the groundwork for the inhumane immigration policy that it is now enacting. 

Recently, the New York Times reported on the Right's newfound embrace of the First Amendment to push forward an ultra-conservative agenda. From this report, and from how civility and political correctness have been summoned as a distraction from landmark Supreme Court decisions and family separation, it's clear that the battle over freedom of speech has consequences beyond language. 

Let's make sure those who seek to lock up immigrants, enable unlimited campaign spending, or abolish abortion, don't have the last word.

WATCH: Trump loved Mexico and left, then came back to the U.S. and forgot all about it

[boredmann]

@reasonandempathy , I want to thank you for blocking me because I disagree with you about Kaepernick.

Yeah.  You don’t get to criticize someone for nonviolent protesting while trying to uphold MLK as the ideal and a spiritual hero.

The values Kaepernick’s protest were precisely in keeping with MLK’s stated values.  His disappointment and lack of pride in and for the US were exactly the same as MLK’s sentiments.

The sentiment that the country has failed in its promise but that it can do better.  MLK explicitly preached on the supremacy and efficacy of nonviolent protesting.

It should be in your face.

It should be hard to avoid.

It should compel action.  But it should always be nonviolent and fueled by love, not hatred.

Detailing and dictating acceptable forms of protest for other people based on your proclivities do nothing but speak to your own lack of character and values. It is, literally, the same damn thing as the Freedom of Speech Debate that I think you’re more familiar with it.

So long as there’s no violence, you don’t get to determine another person’s speech or protest.  Period.

Martin Luther King actively broke the law, numerous times, dozensof times in his nonviolent protests.  But Kaepernick can’t kneel because that’s a bridge too far?

He can’t listen to Green Berets and US vets and act with more respect and more focused action than he initially was?

At this point I don’t care.  Out of 10 on “radical and dangerous protests”, Colin Kaepernick is about a 3 where MLK was an 7 or an 8.   The guy has broken a grand total of 0 laws and 0 NFL regulations of code of conduct clauses (hence why he wasn’t fired but rather his contract was left to die).

If something about that sticks in your craw, that’s officially your problem.

Okay, let me try and understand what your problem is.

You view criticism of Kaepernick’s protest as the same as saying he shouldn’t do his protest at all.

You don’t get to criticize someone for nonviolent protesting while trying to uphold MLK as the ideal and a spiritual hero.

What’s the conflict here? He has the right to protest. And others have the right to have opinions about that protest.

The values Kaepernick’s protest were precisely in keeping with MLK’s stated values.  His disappointment and lack of pride in and for the US were exactly the same as MLK’s sentiments.

This is where the key disconnect comes for people who don’t view Kaepernick the same as MLK. Is America is the same as it was 50 years ago during MLK’s time? Fuck no. Is racism all fixed and everything is perfect? Fuck no. I’m saying that we’ve made much more progress, and that the current problems that people are protesting are far less oppressive and clear-cut than the problems MLK and other civil rights activists faced back then.

Yes, there are numerous problems that disproportionately affect black people in the US. But what are those problems, what are the causes, and how can we work to solve them?

It’ll take too long to actually get into the issues right now, but suffice it to say, people fundamentally disagree over the scale of problems facing black Americans today. But I don’t think you can seriously argue that it’s the same as what the Civil Rights movement faced.

Detailing and dictating acceptable forms of protest for other people based on your proclivities do nothing but speak to your own lack of character and values. It is, literally, the same damn thing as the Freedom of Speech Debate that I think you’re more familiar with it.

So long as there’s no violence, you don’t get to determine another person’s speech or protest.  Period.

And did I ever do such a thing? No. I explained why people are criticizing his protest. And yet you act like simply criticizing someone’s protest means you don’t want them to protest at all.

I’m reminded of that stupid xkcd comic about free speech. Monroe makes a number of false assertions, mainly that freedom of speech only applies to government censorship. He also denies that removing someone’s platform has any impact on free speech. But the alt-text holds a kernel of truth to his message: If your best response to criticism is that you have the right to your speech, that doesn’t bode well for your argument.

That’s essentially what you’re doing here. I’m explaining why many people have a problem with Kaerpernick’s protests and statements, but you dismiss it on the basis that ‘you can’t dictate how he can protest’. No shit, but I’m not saying he can’t protest. I’m giving feedback.

It’s incredibly ironic to act like criticism is the same as fighting someone else’s freedom of speech.

Martin Luther King actively broke the law, numerous times, dozensof times in his nonviolent protests.  But Kaepernick can’t kneel because that’s a bridge too far?

So there’s no such thing as intent? All that matters is the physical action, or whether or not it’s legal?

When you act like the act of kneeling is the problem, you’re deflecting away from the actual message and conversation. Kneeling isn’t an inherently evil action or any bullshit like that. It’s his reasons and explanations that people had a problem with.

He can’t listen to Green Berets and US vets and act with more respect and more focused action than he initially was?

He can, and I commend him for being mindful and making an effort to be more respectful. But that doesn’t change what his stated reasons are for refusing to stand. The notion that the US flag shouldn’t be shown deference because the US oppresses black people is one that most Americans (especially white Americans) don’t share.

At this point I don’t care.  Out of 10 on “radical and dangerous protests”,

Who are you quoting here? Not me. I never called Kaepernick radical or dangerous.

And yes, it’s pretty clear that you don’t care. You don’t care what my actual disagreements are, you just want me to be an anti-civil-rights villain so you can justify attacking and blocking me.

[literateape]

You Are Not What You Wear But We Think You Are...

By Don Hall

Just lately, in the non-stop melee of Freedom of Speech but Not Freedom from Consequences of Speech, we are experiencing a complete disconnect in rationality.

The Rage Profiteers are apoplectic to point out that racists and Nazis organizing and protesting may be free speech but that outing them online and getting them fired is the fair consequence of this free speech while the Slobbering Masses of the Right declare that a kid wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt to his job at Subway is free speech, it is the natural consequence of that free speech when he gets fired for airing politics on the job.

They're both right.

What we wear—our fashion sense and decisions to purchase clothing from Hot Topic or Eddie Bauer or the local thrift store—has consequences, as well. The case made that these consequences are unfair as subjective as those of the Rage Profiteers on both ends of the sociopolitical spectrum: fair has nothing to do with it. We judge each other visually first almost every single time.

In some cases, it doesn't really matter. In others, like when the prejudger is an officer of the law equipped with authority, a pistol and the lack of accountability reserved for those hired to protect our property over our lives, the consequences of prejudgment based on the uniforms we choose to display can be deadly.

SCENARIO ONE: I'm looking for a job. I land an interview at a prestigious downtown office. I am fully, if not bit over, qualified and the job is a perfect match for my skills. I make the choice to show up for the interview wearing a pair of Speedo underwear, a tee-shirt that says "Ride My Mustache, Baby!" and orange flip-flops.

My clothing is my choice. And I'd pretty much guarantee that the consequence for that choice is that I'm not getting hired. Even my privileges as a white male won't matter.

"I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it." — Garrison Keillor

Everything we do is predicated by our perception of things. We flirt with people whom we perceive to be attractive and open to the flirtation. We approach others or shun them based on our initial perception of who they are without having anything to guide us but the way that person presents him or herself.

SCENARIO TWO: Himmel and I walk into a bar in Texas wearing nothing but chaps and pink T-shirts that read: "Kiss me, I'm Gay." And I'm wearing orange flip-flops.

Right or wrong (and there's no question that if we get beaten by rednecks that they are 100 percent in the wrong), the reality is that by our choice of dress we have exponentially increased our chances of being gay-bashed and dragged behind a pick-up by a bungee cord.

"Perception is everything. Your perception determines your reality. Not reality, just your version of reality. The problem arises when your version of reality and actual reality collide." — Mr. Prophett

In the simple stone throwing that we all engage in when confronted with this prejudging of pretty much everyone around us, it's easy to forget a couple of salient points. First, we all have our built-in prejudices—stereotypes exist as a quick reference guide to us all in a world with too many people in it. Second, while not all prejudices are necessarily negative, they rarely reflect the absolute reality of most people.

Our biggest difficulty in dealing with this is that those of us who believe that these perceptions ultimately do not reflect reality tend to think that if we force the issue and brazenly flaunt the stereotype it is a form of educational empowerment to the drooling, bigoted masses. It doesn't always work and when it doesn't the consequences are usually catastrophic.

SCENARIO THREE: Janice and Ted don't know each other but both attend a local nightclub. Janice is wearing the sexiest outfit she can put together, which includes a pair of short-shorts, baby doll midriff-baring t-shirt that says "Man Candy" on it, stiletto heels, glitter makeup and both a thong peeking out of her shorts and her push-up bra slyly visible. Ted arrives wearing a pair of tight jeans, a muscle shirt that says "Available and Willing" on it, a gangsta ballcap turned to the side, a gold necklace with a dollar bill pendant and a gold-toothed grill. Neither hook up because she thinks he looks skeevy and he thinks she looks like a slut.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." — Philip K. Dick

Don't believe me?

Scroll down and check out each picture. Each person photographed has made a conscious choice to present him or herself a very specific way. Each reaction that you have is based solely on the external dress and pose of individuals who may be completely different than your snap judgment.

So, what's my point with all of this?

Simple. How you present yourself is your personal choice and expressing oneself with appearance is both very powerful and empowering. How you present yourself also carries with it consequences and the responsibility for the setting of those consequences belong to he or she making the choices, not those who react to them. As I tell actors, the audience always gets it. If they don't, it's because you aren't communicating clearly.

Choose wisely, assess risk realistically, and blame no one else for the choices you make. The only solution to this set of circumstances is to reframe how we decide to perceive one another. Because, just like the choice to wear orange flip flops, how I decide to perceive someone else is a choice.

If I choose to assume that the homeless dude with no teeth who rummages through the trash and tosses it all over the street was once a pediatrician with three kids who no longer bear any responsibility for him, my reaction to him is changed. If I choose to assume that the black teenager with the Gangsta Rap t-shirt and gold teeth is an honor student who volunteers on Saturdays at the local animal shelter, my reaction to him is improved. The woman with the midriff t-shirt from Hooters and booty shorts has a PhD in biophysics. The guy with the Marine tattoo and the handlebar mustache councils young boys to understand their masculinity.

And I also choose to avoid orange flip flops at all times because those fucking things are just inexcusable.

[jonboudposts]

On Modern Nazism: The Problem is You

The following is a little guide for this increasingly witless land to help you pull your head out of your rear-end and understand the difference between a gaggle of white western extremists hell-bent on attacking anything they perceive as different enough to threaten them – and those who are noble enough to stop them.

1. Opposing Fascism is a Morale Obligation

It was in the 1930s and 40s; it is now.  Quite simply there are those of us who care enough to stand up against intolerance and oppression and then there are the rest of you who stay home.

Also, there is no such thing as the Alt-Left.  Please find me this incredibly dangerous ‘far left’ that wants to control society and make us all look like Lenin.  You cannot because it does not exist.

In fact, neither is there an Alt-Right.  They are all just fascists and white supremacists, a grievance movement for the least-aggrieved people on earth; simple.

2. There is no Reduction in Freedom of Expression by Opposing Fascism

For far too long, extremists have been allowed to hide behind free expression, fashioning their hate speech around the idea that their opponents are all left-wing ‘extremists’ who want us all to be nice to each other.

Let me put this argument to bed once and for all:

If you express your opinion, then I can express mine.  If you say untrue things about Muslims or gay people or any other group, I will counter your lies with the truth.  If you arranged a march to attack and threaten a community, I will arrange a counter-demonstration to prevent you from doing so.

That is freedom of expression – end of story.  The main difference is my side is much bigger than yours and much more dedicated.  The right lose so they claim victim hood when really it is a combination of unsustainable beliefs, weak dedication to a cause and being a complete failure.

That is it.  There is nothing to say about being offensive or the right to be; nothing to debate about your freedom of expression or mine. This is not under threat; the beliefs of the far right are threatened because they are a load of crap and impossible to realise.

I do not give a fuck about upsetting the right; far, middle, alt or light.  Further, grow up and stop whining about any violence at these events; because if a bunch of fascists (for whom violence is central to their beliefs) kick off, what else can you do but defend yourself?  So what if someone’s hate flag gets ripped?  When I have finished my emotional outpouring for those beaten and killed by white extremists, I will see if there is anything left for your piece of cloth.

3. There is No Moral Equivalence Between the Left and Right

The basis of fascism is placing people of difference via very slim criteria in a position of inferiority, to the point that their lives are of less worth.  Violence is a central tenant of this and actively encouraged to achieve the social cleansing they desire.

At some point it becomes unavoidable to deny that to achieve any of the things the far right want, then genocide would be necessary.

There is nothing like this on the left.  There is no official justification or praise of violence and no criteria by which people are judged superior or inferior.  There are many failures within left politics but none that set out to destroy people like fascism did and still wants to.

4. Much of This Weak Response to the Far Right is a Result of Privilege

One of the things the far right have always managed to play on is the grievance culture of the best-off people.  That is an article (or more) in itself but to comment on one effect, the biggest block on progress here is how little the actions of fascists touch the majority of people in both Britain and the US.  White people are not likely to be randomly attacked in the streets by one of these flag-welding marching mobs.  If they are, it is usually because of some perceived difference (such as ‘looking gay’ or ‘weird’).  For the majority of you however, there could be a fascist march happening down the road while you read this and you would never notice.

We have a cultural problem with how we treat issues like this.  We make assumptions about others and ourselves to different degrees.  Young white men are just as likely as anyone to be radicalised.  Along with the easily-accessible websites, we have the mainstream press and political class which is full of people making fact-less claims and promoting hate speech against minorities.  Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik had connections to the English Defence League and a collection of Daily Mail cuttings, with particular love for Melanie Philips.  Thomas Mair was a white supremacist who was photographed with members of Britain First (although a BBC insider claimed to me they could not find any evidence of connection between him and the group).

We simply do not treat this kind of extremism the same as the Islamic verity, along with paedophilia (one of the whitest crimes there is).  It does not get racially categorised, condemned or generate the same level of hateful reaction.

Instead we get people with now face threats to their lives by the actions of marching fascists coming out in defence of concepts like free speech which are never under threat in the first place and they have ultimately no belief in anyway.

One contributor to a Five Live phone in on 16 August commented that the demise (the ‘doing’) for the BNP was the moment that former leader Nick Griffin was fully mainstreamed by appearing on BBC Question Time.  While his performance was a coffin nail, it was only one of the last after a powerful and dedicated campaign to stop a group that included holocaust deniers and those inciting violence against immigrants.

Use some thought here people; do you really think that just showing up on a worthless TV programme was the only thing it took to destroy this Nazi in the political spectrum?   What did you do after you saw him on the show?  Same as before no doubt – sat on your arse while someone else took on the responsibility of fighting fascism.  If it had not been for the dedicated effort over years by brave anti-fascists, I have no doubt the BNP would still be around, with their white power message chiming well with modern America.  Plenty of people have had disastrous appearances on QT and still have careers in politics, including the UKIP (well, just about still have careers).  In fact another reason for the demise of the BNP is because UKIP did their politics much better to a mainstream audience happy to embrace them.

But ultimately it was the actions, campaigns, talks and protests of the anti-fascist movement that broke the BNP and UKIP.  

Anti-fascism is seeped in a great history that more people should embrace ant take forward; for we need it so much today.

Lastly, an additional point:

For all the usual shouters who obsessively go on about World War 2 all the time, it might be worth remembering that the very people marching through Charlottesville (check spelling) are modern examples of the very evil that ‘the greatest generation’ fought and died fighting. Your lax reactions and opinions of moral equivalence between left and right are unbearable enough, but to support anything done by Nazi scum like this just shows how little the war generation and the history you cling to like a shipwreck really means to you - you are historically-illiterate

Fascism exists in the modern world because you are scared and lazy.  It will continue while you make excuses and hide behind abstract concepts. But one thing is for sure; the anti-fascist movement will never relent in fighting this evil, while you sit back and watch.

  �G�����B2w�