#i want him to look like a distorted/extended version of Roman

[shmuzzieheart]

Remus and Janus full-body doodles :] I think I'm finally figuring out a body and head shape for Remus that I'm happy with.

[sosayset]

My Little June 6th Social Media Exchange

I’ve got a friend, a former teammate on a hockey team, who is fairly right leaning.  I made a post on June 6th, the anniversary of the storming the beaches of Normandy,  about my feelings on the Republican Party and their current state of true awfulness.  He didn’t respond directly, but definitely threw down on his own so that I could see it.  So I responded to him.  Harshly.  And this isn’t an exchange.  I called him out, didn’t do anything other than to acknowledge there was a response that I ignored, actually multiple because I’m sure that I was mentioned by more than one other mouth breather, and then I doubled down.  And now, because I am still mad, I’m making it public to my audiences.   

My response to his shameless defense of the Republican Party and conservatism in general. 

<My Dude>, on your side of the political divide there are unabashed racists. On your side, there are actual Klansmen. On your side there are actual, literal Nazis; we're talking "wir müssen die Juden ausrotten," Nazis. This isn't up for debate, either, this is absolute FACT. Now, and this is important, this isn't me being accusatory, but me pointing out the bare bones of the issue. These horrible people agree with you and your point of view. They are comfortable with you and your point of view. They *identify* with you and your point of view. They are comfortable with you and standing alongside you and supporting you and your perspective and your political point of view and everything you espouse. Actual f***ing Nazis are there with you, shoulder to shoulder. And this is an undeniable reality of irrefutable empirical evidence.

And all of this begs the question of pretty much anyone who might find themselves in a similar position, in a space where the most contemptible, most reviled, most deplorable, people can find comfort and sanctuary; "what does this reflection say about my values and what I believe?" If actual Nazis are on your side, and your first reaction is NOT to take a step back and ask yourself why they are comfortable on your side and not afraid to be beaten within inches of their life, you are in the WRONG. "Why are Nazis comfortable with me and being in my space?" The answer is, "I'm wrong about something, I need to figure out why and shut the hell up until I know exactly why." That's it.

Me? I'm pretty much okay punching them in the face, no questions asked, and leaving them on the ground bleeding. But that's me, and how I feel with the idea of actual Nazis being on my side...on June 6th...in the US of A. I am not a conservative or 2021 Republican so I don't have to make those decisions.

<My Dude>, take a moment. Take your step back. Take a look at things from the outsider perspective on things, both as they are and through the lens of history you keep saying you have. And then please reevaluate yourself. From where I see things, you are in the bunkers on that beach aiming your weapons at those landing vehicles, repeating to your brothers in arms how right those Austrian and Italian f***s in charge of their nations were and that it was and is worth killing and worth dying for to grow their ideologies, and standing in staunch opposition to those storming that beach in defense of democracy. You ARE on the side of Nazis now, how can you possibly believe or defend the idea that your would not have been 70 years ago?

Personally, I believe you are better than that, given a more lucid frame of reference then where you actually stand, as it is. But for now, it is what it is. It can't be stated more plainly; it is 2021 and you ARE on the side with the Nazis and you would have been 70 years ago, too.

As I said, there was a response.  Maybe more than one.  I ignored them.  I posted this article (the transcript I used, and sources, are all below)

If you've read through this <article> and the source material, or at least given some of them a brief look, you'll know that the consensus definition of fascism in the sources says it hasn't *actually* existed after 1945, and I am inclined to agree.  At most it has morphed into lesser versions espousing *similar* ideological tendencies.  And that's my point in all of this.  We've taken minuscule baby steps away from blatant racism as a foundation, but the idea that there are some who belong, and some who don't, while defined less clearly than the past, still exists, and that mentality still serves as a primary motivator for specific beliefs and even prejudices.  

That said, <my Dude>, I read all of things you post that the algorithms of this site allow me to see regularly, and I can tell you, that through the scope of that version of neo-fascism outright predicated not on race but on the sense of some belonging, and some not, is reflected in all of your rhetoric CONSTANTLY.  All the time.  And maybe you believe it, or maybe you don't, that's not for me to say.  But the fact remains that, as I said before, you are a vocal supporter on the side that has Nazis.  You are on the side that this article basically breaks down as pro-fascist in its core beliefs.  

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by saying you're actually NOT of that mindset, but to look at just where you're sitting.  The Germans have a saying that goes something like, "if you see a Nazi sitting at a table, and ten other people sitting with him, you see a table of 11 Nazis."  

And my overall point remains unchanged; recognize the table you are sitting at, right now.  

PS- I didn't bother to read yours, or anyone else's responses.  You're sitting at a metaphoric table with those most ideologically aligned currently with 1930s and 40s fascism, along with modern Nazis, and I am calling it out, that's all.  Any response, it either agrees and like me, are asking you to reevaluate, or they are trying to defend sitting at that table without such a reexamination, which isn't worth my time

Be well. 

____

What Is Fascism?

Since before Donald Trump took office, historians have debated whether he is a fascist (1.).

As a teacher of World War II history (2.) who has written about fascism (3.), I’ve found that historians have a consensus (4.) definition of the term, broadly speaking.

Given the term’s current – and sometimes erroneous – use, I think it’s important to distinguish what fascism is and is not.

+Race-first thinking+ Fascism, now a century old, got its start with Benito Mussolini and his Italian allies. They named their movement after an ancient Roman emblem, the fasces (5.), an ax whose handle has been tightly reinforced with many rods, symbolizing the power of unity around one leader.

Fascism means more than dictatorship, however.

It’s distinct from simple authoritarianism – an anti-democratic government by a strongman or small elite – and “Stalinism” (6.) – authoritarianism with a dominant bureaucracy and economic control, named after the former Soviet leader. The same goes for “anarchism,” (7.) the belief in a society organized without an overarching state.

Above all, fascists view nearly everything through the lens of race (8.). They’re committed not just to race supremacy, but maintaining what they called “racial hygiene,” (9.) meaning the purity of their race and the separation of what they view as lower ones.

That means (10.) they must define who is a member of their nation’s legitimate race. They must invent a “true” race.

Many are familiar with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime’s so-called Aryan race (11.), which had no biological or historical reality. The Nazis had to forge a mythic past and legendary people. Including some in the “true race” means excluding others.

+Capitalism is good+ For fascists, capitalism is good. It appeals to their admiration of “the survival of the fittest,” a phrase coined by social Darwinist Herbert Spencer (11.), so long as companies serve the needs of the fascist leadership and the “Volk,” or people.

In exchange for protecting private property, fascists demand capitalists act as cronies (12.).

If, for example, a company is successfully producing weapons for foreign or domestic wars – good. But if a company is enriching nonloyal people, or making money for the imagined subrace, the fascists will step in and hand it to someone deemed loyal.

If the economy is poor, the fascist will divert attention from shortages to plans for patriotic glory or for vengeance against internal or external enemies.

+Might makes right+ Important to most fascists is the idea that the nation’s “patriots” (13.) have been let down, that “good people” are humiliated while “bad people” do better.

These grievances cannot be answered, fascists say, if things remain under the status quo. There needs to be revolutionary change allowing the “real people” to break free from the restraints of democracy or existing law and get even (14.).

For fascists, might makes right.

Since for them the law should be subservient to the needs of the people and the need to crush socialism or liberalism, fascists encourage party militias. These enforce the fascist will, break unions (15.), distort elections and intimidate or co-opt the police (16.).

The historical fascists of Germany and Mussolini’s Italy (17.) extended the might-makes-right principle to expansion abroad, though the British fascists of the 1930s, led by Oswald Mosley (18.) and his British Union of Fascists, preferred isolationism (19.) and preached a sort of internal war against an imagined Jewish enemy of the state. What fascists reject

First and foremost, fascists want to revolt against socialism (20.). That’s because it threatens the crony capitalism that fascists embrace.

Not only does socialism aim for equal prosperity no matter the race, but many socialists tend to envision the eventual extinction (21.) of separate nations, which offends the strong fascist belief in nation states.

Along with getting rid of aristocrats or other elites, fascists are prepared to displace the church or seek a mutually beneficial truce with it (22.).

Mussolini, Hitler and the Falangists in Spain (23.) learned that they had to live with (24.), not replace, the church in their countries – as long as their regimes weren’t broadly attacked from the pulpit.

Fascists also reject democracy, at least any democracy that could potentially result in socialism or too much liberalism (25.). In a democracy, voters can choose social welfare policies. They can level the playing field between classes and ethnicities, or seek gender equality.

Fascists oppose all of these efforts.

+Fascism grows from nationalism+ Fascism is the logical extreme of nationalism (26.), the roughly 250-year-old idea that nation states should be built around races or historical peoples.

The first fascists didn’t invent these ideas out of nothing – they just pushed nationalism further than anyone had before. For the fascist, it’s not just that a nation state makes “the people” sovereign. It’s that the will of righteous, real people – and its leader – comes before all other considerations, including facts.

Indeed, the will, the people, their leader and the facts are all one in fascism.

1. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/164170 2. https://history.case.edu/faculty/john-broich/ 3. https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/blood-oil-and-the-axis_9781468314014/ 4. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-twentiethcentury-political-thought/fascism-and-racism/CFB19146B5E63D20089DF0AAC5CD84D9 5. https://www.britannica.com/topic/fasces 6. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Stalinism 7. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anarchism/ 8. https://books.google.com/books?id=NLiFIEdI1V4C&q=%22racial+thought+for+political+purposes%22#v=snippet&q=%22racial%20thought%20for%20political%20purposes%22&f=false 9. https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1093/embo-reports/kve217 10. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-politics/article/abs/racethinking-before-racism/02AAE753AAD57BAFB03A2F003EF12538 11. https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-5/breeding-new-german-race 12. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/herbert-spencer-survival-of-the-fittest-180974756/ 13. https://www.jstor.org/stable/260578?seq=1 14. https://web.archive.org/web/20130930081524/http:/www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html 15. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14058/14058-h/14058-h.htm 16. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ss-and-police 17. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/01/mussolinis-racial-policies-in-east-africa-revealed-italian-fascists-ambitions-to-redesign-the-social-order.html 18. https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-49405924 19. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/1932729.pdf 20. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/128540/the-anatomy-of-fascism-by-robert-o-paxton/ 21. https://books.google.com/books?id=tH0jwbnj7BgC&q=%22withering+away+of+the+state%22#v=snippet&q=%22withering%20away%20of%20the%20state%22&f=false 22. https://www.npr.org/2014/01/27/265794658/pope-and-mussolini-tells-the-secret-history-of-fascism-and-the-church 23. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/02/spains-civil-war-produced-a-fascist-movement-that-was-disorganized-but-just-as-authoritarian-as-italys.html 24. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state 25. https://theconversation.com/what-or-who-is-antifa-140147 26. https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism/Extreme-nationalism

[itinerantscribe-blog]

Day 16 of 28

I say there are no side effects of what seems to me a relatively straightforward procedure, but what is this lack of sleep business if not a side effect? I am exhausted by 9pm, I find myself craving the couch, a couch in a room normally subjugated to passing fancy by the kitchen that entertains me until bedtime, onto which I drop heavily as the oppressive yoke of fatigue holds me fast in its stranglehold. There I remain, 20, 25 minutes until no longer can I resist the call of a more permanent nocturnal abode, forcing myself to my feet to make the arduous 10 yards to my cot. Sleep comes easily, but so too does reveille, not more than 5 hours later. I try to re-enter the unconscious world, but the door is locked to me, I have been thrust out, exiled to another day of yearning for another night. It is extraordinary. Can it be lack of beer? Surely the attendant lack of sugar must also play some part, but I have not excluded sugar entirely. Not at all. 

I am craving blueberry muffin. It is a sugar craving. No doubt. Lack of sleep allying itself with lack of beer to deliver with emphatic force the need. I leave home early in search of one fresh, not packaged, oh no, some standards must stand inviolable. All I find at the first shop is failure and disappointment. A different flavour perhaps? No thanks very much! A croissant maybe? Not a chance! I am wasting time, I will phone first. No luck second attempt. Nor third. My God, why is it so hard to get a blueberry muffin in this town? Plebs. I am about to give up. Do you sell blueberry muffins? Yes? Great! You have no idea how many places don’t. I have given up beer for 2 weeks you see, I am craving a blueberry muffin for some reason.  Through my smiling eyes I see I have shared more information than necessary. They don’t care, why would or should they? I sound like an old idiot. But they need to be careful with that poorly disguised sneer, I am being polite, but I still have teeth. I walk homewards, my prize safely deposited and ready for my total attention. I will pass my regular coffee haunt, I will stop I decide. I feel so placid, so calm. My delight at crossing the road with hands nowhere near my chest is subdued by this aura of tranquillity that has appeared from no-where.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlaqkqf2DPw

It is still early, the place is populated by only a pair of souls. I sit outside, drink in the fresh air and watch the man walking towards me. He holds a cigarette, more than half smoked, tailor made not roll up, and I wonder if he will pull hard once more before discarding the dying butt. He sees not my observation, as ever sun shielded spectacles wonderful concealment for nomadic eyes. The man is early 40′s perhaps, I am a poor judge, balding asymmetrically. His face is ashen and wan and pallid, and this I have no doubt, is a consequence of his habit. His habit is killing him. He is wearing a suit minus the jacket, and as often the case for those who dress out of uniform compulsion rather than free will or free spirited design, his shoes are poorly maintained, unpolished and scuffed. Each to his own I think, as though my judgement matters. He walks past as my coffee arrives and I imagine a roll up in my own hand, like days long since gone, coffee and smokes and Roman mornings. I suddenly want a roll up, I visualise myself. It fits. Oh my, I really  want one. It is association, nothing more. I settle on blueberry muffin microwaved for 40 seconds and smothered with cream. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCxFY1wyDTE

My young friend has been confused recently, but today I am confused.We are not confused about the same things however, I am very clear why I have embarked on this voyage of abstinence. No, my confusion is embedded in some farrago of tangled up stuff. See, my anxiety is never far away when out and about when I am in drinking mode. All the drinking does is allow me to hop from staging post to staging post (watering hole to watering hole may be more apt)  to facilitate any outdoor expedition undertaken. However, I am still anxious, it’s just suppressed. That said, I am anxious when I exit if not in drinking mode but at least go out without the anaesthetic alluded to above. And then the fatigue, the lack of sleep of course adds to the melting pot since even the most well adjusted individual may feel a little shaky with a prolonged exposure to sleep deprivation. So here’s the confusion. I don’t really want to experiment with the normal mechanisms I have employed in the past until I am sure that the cause of the anxiety is not a temporary reason, eg sleep deprivation. Nor do I want to experiment until I am sure I am clear of all beer influence. I am sure you can see why. The last two would mislead me and distort the results of my experiment since they should pass on their own without the need for recourse to my emergency kit bag. If the anxiety remains once they are dispelled, which it has to date, then I can be sure this is the anxiety, whatever its unknown origin, that is the true culprit and thereby validate the results of my experiment. See what I mean? 

However, I’ve been dodging school for a few days, so perhaps I should anticipate the passing of the two lesser potential suspects, and introduce one mechanism which continues to intrigue me and which I believe does offer some remedy to this wretched ailment. Transactional analysis. Eric Berne. I have mentioned this before, I know, but it refuses to recuse itself. You know how it works I’m sure, adult mode, child and parent modes too, states repeating themselves from childhood and family dynamics, the ideal state to seek the adult? Well, this can be extended a little, in my opinion of course, and can be combined with Gestalt approaches to inner child. See, whenever I undergo an ‘episode’, be it in an airport terminal, a big supermarket, walking along the road, despite the unpleasantness of the episode itself, it always reminds me of a child, a frightened child or perhaps a child throwing a tantrum. I recall the first time I took my son on an overground chuffa train. Oh my god! I swear if his wobbly wasn’t identical to a panic attack!!! In the midst of my concern for him, I couldn’t help but notice this, intellectually you understand, since it so resonated with my adult condition. But this was a child! A 2 year old or maybe 3 if memory serves me. He wasn’t throwing some sulky fit, he wasn’t possessed of some agenda, we were having a lovely day up until that moment. Suddenly, he was scared, innocent fear displayed by the very young when presented with the unknown and potential lurking danger, authentic, instinctive, subliminal reasons for anxiety. Well naturally, I didn’t hesitate in acting, consoling and re-assuring him, explaining in soft tones the normality of the event and its risk free, harmless nature. Once assured, he calmed down, and whilst remaining temporarily apprehensive, his fears were dispelled without time to inseminate some seed of phobia which might one day blossom into residing and terror inducing anxiety for an older version of his young self. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFGZgbta764

This was an illuminating and highly instructive episode indeed, and made me consider my own position then and now. It is clearly not me, the rational adult that is panicked by a high ceiling, or an open space or an everyday street, since I can clearly see there is no danger, no reason to go into high charged, adrenaline fuelled mode.  Why could it not be then, some other force inside me, an irrational object, a scared entity, a child like thing? This to me makes a great deal of sense, and I have on occasion, entered Berne’s adult state right in the midst of an event and challenged my inner child, asked it to show me the danger, provide me with proof, and then I have consoled it and re-assured it, and mentally clasped its hand and told it I would look after it. Sounds mad, doesn’t it? Even as I read what I write, sounds mad and yet, and yet, there is also a sense of welling melancholy, sadness, this is the Gestalt element, loving the inner child. You know, it has worked previously. Not always but I don’t try so often that I can speak with definitive knowledge whether the results would be longer lasting and consistently successful. But it has worked, I have felt the ‘child’s’ fear diminish, I have felt a wave of relief with my gentle and soothing words directed to this scared inner being. It is so plausible. Explains so much. Perhaps I am so desperate to find a solution that I don’t want to put it to the test with too much frequency unless this postulation proves to be entirely vacuous and without credence. I think I am going to give Berne and Gestalt another try. Is it too flimsy, too sucrose plated a position, too liberal and welcome to the new world bohemian yukkiness, to be credible? Draw your own conclusions....

Ps Do you think it’s my inner child that likes to drink beer or do you think my inner child is rejoicing with the current state of affairs? Hmm, I wonder...