This is why I prefer cancer metaphors. None of the radicalized nazi racism baggage, since they call people they don’t like vermin or rats, what have you. But it still denotes something pernicious and very hard to deal with effectively. Is it dehumanizing? Well, yes, tacitly as any metaphor does. It’s a metaphor and therefore a nonhuman reference. But it functions in a way that we do not immediately associate with the past, such as the holocaust.
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As someone who would have been carted away as well- they do make me feel safer.
Some people are willing to put themselves between me and militarily armed fascists private armies to protect me.
The fascists are trying to overthrow the government by force right now. And trying to eliminate people like me right now.
The fascists are working at the direction of the President.
Antifa isn’t trying to take over or harm me. In fact many of them are lgbtq people.
If you don’t stop fascists now - you won’t get a second opportunity and what you fear will have come to pass.
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In the context of your comment about Antifa, are you talking about their violence against property, or their violence against the riot police sent out to violently put down a peaceful protest? Or am I missing something. I’ve been trying to keep up with stuff, but if Antifa are going out and, unprovoked, instigating violent confrontations while fighting for equality and rights for all of us, I think I missed that part.
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If it’s the looting this summer that’s the concern, one of the heads of BLM expressed it very well, by pointing out that businesses that were destroyed were in no way representative or supportive of local communities. They were there for the sole purpose of monetary extraction and repression (food deserts, payday loans). These were NOT community businesses.
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When a cancer surgeon is inside someone, removing tumors, I like to imagine them working dispassionately, not hopping up and down with rage and loudly shouting how much they hate cancer cells.
In Red Mars Kim Stanley Robinson uses the phrase, “integrated pest management” for the proactive countermeasures of the revolutionaries.
One of my catch-phrases I keep coming back to, is “cold blooded, big hearted”. Not to be reactive to every insult that comes along, but looking for anwers that work for everyone.
It’s the polorization I see going on, both left and right, that troubles me the most. “You’re either with us, or you’re against us” -may have originated from the right, but I see plenty of lefties taking it up as well.
This is what I am reacting to. I think we need a more nuanced debate around this doctrine of, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”
https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/kbwh0j/somewhere_to_vent_about_red_house/
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Thanks for responding. Can you give me the quick TL;DR version? From the first couple posts, it looks like activists protesting evictions and maybe some property damage?
I was keeping up on the Portland, OR stuff this summer but have fallen behind in light of recent events.
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The laws are there. The police ignore them.
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In his apologia analogy to cardiac surgeons; if the surgeon was planning and acting on exterminating minorities, progressives, LGBT people etc via his surgery- I’d sure as hell hope we would be passionate in our responses.
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The red house occupation has ended, but it does have its own wikipedia page. I’ve been trying to find a link to the story told by one of their neighbors, who lived inside the zone, I’ll post it when I get to it.
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The eviction was proceeding during an eviction moratorium due to the pandemic. Funny how it was going forward against this family and not others, eh?
ETA: the moratorium being yet another law the police were ignoring to the detriment of POC.
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When I say, “part of this nutritious breakfast”, I’m saying there is no single tool that’s going to do everything necessary to end fascism. No, laws are not enough. We have to change the culture. We have to break these racist traditions.
The current power of police unions needs to be broken. That’s not going to happen with only street activism, we’re going to need mayors and city governments to stand up to these thugs.
The situation now is much like it was in 1968, with trust in the government at a nadir. Things seemed to get better in the 70’s after Nixon was forced out… but those gains did not hold. Labor unions were gutted, the ERA was defeated, the EPA became a joke, and Reagan/Thatcher made a big show of “holding the line” against such progress.
These days Trump has gone on to demonstrate just how idiot-proof the presidency isn’t, by taking customs tbat were never put into law, and shitting all over them.
We can’t abolish the electoral college without using the law to do it.
No, the law isn’t going to be enough, it’s going to take a hundred things coming together to make it happen. But if all we ever manage is a change in custom -without getting it in writing- then it’s only going to last until another con man comes along.
Culture change takes time. How many bodies are you willing to allow to stack up during that time? Because that’s what (at least in Portland) antifa is standing against.
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Whew! Glad to learn that it wasn’t a coup, revolution or insurrection- the Defense Department assured us that it was just First Amendment Protests.
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point to me where I have said that antifa needs to back down. You’re arguing against a straw man here.
What exactly did you mean by this, then?
If that’s not what you meant, then please clarify.
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I marched against the WTO. I participated in Occupy. I protested Bush’s election in 2000. Been in a bunch of marches for Palestinian human rights. Marched in support of the Meuller investigation. Each of those actions had a specific goal, a specific target. And when it was over, we moved on.
Each time I went out, I went with people who were trained in nonviolent, de-escalation techniques. Nonviolence -for me- was never about lying down and letting the bad guys roll over us. It was about winning. We are simply more likely to attract more people to our cause, if everything possible is done to take violence off the table.
At the WTO protests, something happened that cemented my view that this was the right way to go: A woman came to the protests who had seen us on TV, saw the way we were protesting, and felt safe enough to bring her daughter with her. And having that kid with us, made it that much more likely that the signal would spread.
Nonviolent protest takes discipline. It doesn’t take much for some other yahoo to decide they want to come along and break things instead, and try to get me pulled into that. Nonviolence doesn’t always work. And just as Martin Luther King declined to condemn the violent activists of his day, I’m not gonna try to tell Antifa what they should and shouldn’t do. They are “part of this nutritious breakfast”.
It is far more difficult to be loyal to an ideal than it is to be loyal to a person. Idealism requires thought, internal struggle, moral choices. While supporting - or opposing- an individual is much simpler, all you have to do is believe.
I don’t believe Trump is the ultimate evil.I don’t even think this year’s fascism is what’s going to do us in. While Antifa is getting pulled into fights with undereducated poor white people, the Corporatism that Mussolini advocated for, is going strong, and mostly unopposed.
I’m in this for the long haul, I’ve been protesting since the 80’s. I’ve learned to lift with my legs, not with my back. I think Antifa is going to exhaust itself too quickly to make a lasting difference. (And if I’m wrong? more power to them. they just don’t speak for me.)
I hope that clarifies my position.
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Somewhat. One nitpick:
While Antifa is getting pulled into fights with undereducated poor white people
That’s a common misperception. Patriot Prayer leader Joey Asshole is relatively wealthy. Many Proud Boys are, too. They are large landowners, contractors and developers who drive $80,000 modified pickups, and as the identities of the Trumpsurrectionists are revealed, are CEOs and software developers, taking private planes to and from DC, and pretty much the opposite of “undereducated” or “poor.”
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…and if these wealthy individuals are seen on the street, marching with their guys, and risking fisticuffs… I would be very surprised. The people putting up money for this shit, are not the ones Antifa can reach. Like Trump withdrawing to his Orange House after promising to march on the streets with his morons.
(If some Antifa hacker wants to prove me wrong and perform electronic criminal mischief upon their financial resources, they’ll get mad respect from me!)
I’m not talking about backers (though they exist, too). I’m talking about on-the-street Proud Boys. It’s not a particularly large group - they just seem like they are everywhere because they have the means to travel and not work regularly. The same people bounce from Portland to Seattle to DC to Kenosha, hauling their arsenals and merch with them. Working class people do not have the resources or time to galavant across the country every week to do their Confederate Cosplay.
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