Letters from Trumplandia 10: Peace, Violence, and Understanding

 The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man. - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I'm not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don't go looking for those things. - Bruce Cockburn

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence. - Mahatma Gandhi

Growing up, I was not much of a fighter. On some level, I think violence confused me. It made no sense that other people would want to hurt me when I had done nothing to them. None of the petty violence that made up a fair portion of my early school yard experience had any of the real urgency of the scenarios I watched on television. When I lost my first fist fight in 5th grade to Terry Peters in the boy's bathroom, there was absolutely nothing at stake. When Byron Combs punched me in the locker room in high school because I answered his passive bullying remark with a joke and a refusal to apologize for standing up for myself,  I understood better that something at stake. I simply did not want any part of it. I took the Biblical admonishment to turn the other cheek seriously -- at least where physical violence was concerned.

When Vince Lancaster, who managed to fight everyone in our class and lose finally got around to challenging me our Senior year by making comments about my Dad who had just died, I fought him and won, though I was horribly confused as to why I won.

I figured out later on that it was less about asserting my dominance as much as it was the social judgement that my anger was justified and giving into it met with crowd approval.

Violence confuses me less now than it used to. It's not so much that I've developed an intellectual framework to understand it. There is no rational explanation for violence. But I understand that violence is as much a part of the human experience as love, and as powerful a motivator and action.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because of an argument I see coming up over and over again in

social media threads. The argument is most often used by far right wing apologists and New Wave American Fascists. They claim that liberals and the left are truly the fascists because they really don't want to "coexist" with people who want to silence social justice groups, terrorize the LGBTQ and Black Communities , make "blood and soil" arguments about culturally and ethnically cleansing the United States, and hold parades to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday. They make this argument because of a simplistic and generalized view of the left. Nearly everyone on the right -  whether they are moderate republicans, Tea Party hold outs, alt-right Nazis, or GOP party base one percenters - is buying into the alt-right (AKA New Wave American Fascist) rhetoric that everyone on the left is 1) a liberal; 2) a Democrat, and 3) a "snowflake."

This reductionism -- which many rank and file liberals and far left radicals are also guilty of when referring to opposing culture war factions -- is less a sign of a failing political and educational system as it is a well-thought-out strategy to keep opposing sides from having any meaningful conversation. It's an old strategy. It's also a really effective one that has been used time and time again by every and all political parties to maintain their base supports in the face of cultural and social change.

The basic problem with the New Wave using "coexist" and "tolerance" arguments is that when they make the argument, they are ignoring the fact that they feel their violence is justified while any potential or actual violence on the part of others in unjustified. They act as if theirs is a rational framework in which violence is a legitimate answer. There are folks on the far left who have made this determination, too.

But then, violence has a special kind of vernacular. Nearly anyone can embrace it, which only goes to prove that no one ever fights a war believing they're wrong.

I'm not saying there aren't times when violence is inevitable. Actually, I think it's naive to assume we can simply stop being a violent society by rejecting self-defense. Personally, I've found that seeking peace sometimes means confronting violence. Sometimes confronting violence means rejecting it. Sometimes it means answering with violence. Each approach will have consequences. I think part of the problem is that, in a culture built on a false dichotomy of ideas (either/or) we are supposed to choice either pacifism or violence. If people were less complicated monkeys, that might even work. 

It's possible to desire and work for peace while refusing to tolerate or coexist with evil -- which what the New Wave of American Fascism, with all of it's masks (like the TWP, the American Vanguard, alt-right apologists, and Trump supporters in denial) represent. The first mark of any failed political argument inevitably involves some flaccid misunderstanding about the difference between being peaceful and being a doormat for someone who wants to abuse you and your generous spirit by whining about "coexistence." Not only is it possible to desire and work for peace without tolerating evil, it is absolutely mandatory. Like violence, peace does not simply create itself. Like violence, peace requires time, energy, and determination. 

The key difference is that peace requires a longer view and more attention. 

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Letters from Trumplandia 9: The May Day Special

 Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.  -- George Orwell

I wasn't sure where I was supposed to be this past Saturday. Part of me wanted to be in Pikeville this past weekend facing down the early break of this New Wave of American Fascism.  Somewhere in me lurks a reactionary, even still. The reactionary me wanted to go to Pikeville and punch Nazis and bring to bear on their heads the considerable anger and violence I feel towards the baby fascistas who vandalized my son-in-law's car and terrorized him and my daughter.

There are days when the lines are very clear and I know where I'm supposed to be. But as the plans started to come together for an insurgent reaction to the TWP having their little Nazi picnic, I found myself feeling not entirely sure of  how it was all going to pan out. Any time you walk into Eastern Kentucky like the Grand Pooh-bah Savior of the people, you are walking into trouble. If you think they need you (even if they ask) you've got to tread carefully. Regardless of your thoughts about the book, Jesus, fishes and loaves, the banished money changers, or Golgotha, you ought to expect to be crucified by the very people you think you're going to save if you intend to march into Eastern Kentucky.

Martyrs ... have to choose between being forgotten, mocked or used. As for being understood - never. Camus

Because there isn't an Eastern Kentuckian, devout Christian or no, that demands anything less. They have what you might call a high standard.

As I write this, today is May Day. The first of May has historically been a labor
holiday pretty much everywhere except in the United States, where our early robber baron overlords gave us Labor Day in September in order to try and steal thunder away from the radical labor movement. Of course now, The Big Orange Meanie, our Fascist-in-Chief  Donald "The Don Don" Trump is trying to recast this historic and global radical holiday as "Loyalty Day."

The Don Don

Yeah. Let that one sink in and tell me again that he's not a fascist.

For months, Memeworld has been all a-twitter about a General Strike -- or, as I like to call it, the Wobbly Rapture. They've already started one down in Brazil. I don't expect to see much in the way of a general strike around here simply because there isn't the will or the numbers for it. Memeworld has it's own warriors, though, and I realize I am not one of them. I'm an opinionated sometimes activist and organizer who's really more of a poet than a protester. I'm all for it, of course... protesting and pushing back against Nazis, a General Strike. All of it. But one of the things I've learned is that just because you're in a room full of folks who might agree with you, that does not mean you have a cultural quorum.

That's not to say that the anti-fascists can't win out the argument. Tyranny always betrays itself in the end, and even now, the mask is starting to slip off the figurehead for the New Wave, our boy Don Don. The mistake that most traditional liberals are making right now is they act as if getting rid of Trump will stem the tide. It won't. His vitriol has unleashed something that's been a part of the American character since the first settlers came here.*

If the Pikeville Rally shows us anything, it's that there is absolutely nothing new about hate. It sometimes takes on a slicker facade, like Richard Spenser or Steve Bannon. It sometimes takes on the mask of an arrogant bully, like Donald Trump. Sometimes it takes on the mask of the true believer, like Kentucky's own tin pot fascista, Matt Bevin. But it's nothing new.

Something else the rally made clear, if it wasn't already: the powers that be are complicit in protecting the ability of hate to spread itself like cancer. The cops didn't try and shut down the fascists for making verifiable threats to peaceful protesters. The cops shut down the peaceful protesters by relying on fear and the implied threat that the cops would not be there to protect them.**

I was not at the Pikeville Rally. In the end, I decided it was more important to be here with my family and the community of folks I work with in homeless outreach.

But that shouldn't confuse anyone into believing that I've gone anywhere, or that I'm backing down. It's true, I've been a little quiet of late.

That's over now.
___________________________________________________________
*Note: the Puritans did escape England to pursue their own religious ideals, but they were not then, now, or ever, martyrs for religious freedom. These are the ones who burned women for witches, remember?
** This, too, is nothing new. See Also: The Kent State Massacre, The Cripple Creek Massacre, the Ludlow Massacre, The Haymarket Affair, the murder of Joe Hill by the state of Utah, and The New Testament. 

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Letters from Trumplandia 5: The doghead comes to town (with apologies to all dogs, great and small)

A man can be in two different places and he will be two different men. Maybe if you think of more places he will be more men, but two is enough for now. ― Elmore Leonard, Valdez Is Coming

You don't fight fascism because you're going to win. You fight fascism because it is fascist. - Jean-Paul Sartre 

River City is all a twitter because the WWE is coming to town. Trump is going to be at Freedom Hall this evening, giving his supporters, followers, worshipers, and the underbelly of bigots, racists, white power inbreeds, and generally all around delusional people a chance to catch a glimpse of the Mighty Orange Man himself.

There will also be protesters, I'm sure. Trump attracts a lot of attention, and he has done a lot to stir the pot in the last week. In releasing his budget proposal, he has done pretty much what he said he would do. He's proposing to eliminate funding for PBS, NPR, the NEA, Amtrak, and Meals on Wheels. The first three he talked about copiously on the campaign trail. That anyone is surprised now is only proof that

1. they didn't REALLY pay attention, and
2. they lulled themselves into complacency because that's what most liberals do.

And of course, the calls to call our congress people -- most of whom are Republicans who have had a grudge against PBS, NPR, the NEA, and Amtrak for years --  have been put forth like mighty beacons. Now, they say, is the time to act. Now, we can save democracy. Now we can protect the arts and the cultural soul of America.

Please.

If those hatchet men and warmongers want to put cultural institutions under the ax, they will. They have been for years.  The only difference is, now we have a president who, for all of the oozing evil he's unleashed, is an honest representation of who we are as country. There's no more delusion. As Plato pointed out in the mouth of his state-murdered teacher, Socrates, democracy most often falls back into dictatorship. In our case, we've got a festering form of fascism that's been part of the American psyche since the Puritans came here believing God gave them this land -- in spite of the fact that there were well established cultures living here already.  This same fascism bubbled to the surface in the mid 1800's (See also: The Know-Nothings). It's bubbled up other times, too.

We've allowed the oligarchs to hold power by turning a blind eye to the exploitation that has made them wealthy and let them control the language and the narrative by which we could condemn them. Those in the best position to truly articulate what is wrong with all this -- artists -- have always been the cross hairs. This too, is nothing new. The moneyed elite always seek to control the arts, whether it's by making it commodity, or by controlling purse strings.

If you're angry about these things, please consider the words of poet Robinson Jeffers , written in 1941:

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Our hope -- the only hope really -- is knowing and having faith in the fact that art lasts longer than culture as long as we keep making art and keep passing it on. Art will outlast the dictators as long we pass on the knowledge to make art. Art will outlast because art always does... because someday, art eventually becomes the true historical record of a culture... not manufactured propaganda.

Just remember: your art is more than just a hobby. It is more than a weapon against fascism (which it absolutely is). Your art is part of the long memory. It is bigger than all of us, bigger than the institutions that were supposed to safe guard, and bigger than the engorged ego of one orange fascist and his fans. 

Get to it.



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