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oediex · 1 month ago

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You know what, yeah, that bell hooks quotation wasn't appropriate, it doesn't say what the person who added it think it says.

But I don't think it's fair to say that that man who everyone is pissing on somehow claimed we had to "hold his hand" or "coddle" him or whatever. Or even that women had to do it.

He never once even mentioned the word 'woman' in that post. I'm not excluding that that what he was implying - it's very possible! - but what he said was "the left", and let's be clear, this is his understanding of what the left is. I saw people saying that a "self-proclaimed leftist" should understand that his answer was still drenched in patriarchal thinking. But he never once proclaimed he was a leftist. Perhaps he thinks he is, but all he said was that he got "out" of the "alt-right". For all we know, that means he voted for the Democratic Party and we, who are on the left, all know that's not the fucking left.

The question that was posed was how do we keep young men from turning right wing, and he offered an explanation. An explanation! Not an excuse! Again something that a lot of people just assumed.

And yes, it was a flawed explanation, and yes he has some things to learn, and yes it was uncritical and terribly phrased.

But can we recognise that not everyone has the necessary critical thinking skills to completely dig their way out of the overarching ideology that fucking rules our lives? Critical thinking skills aren't something that we are born with. It's something that is learned, something that you have to train. It's a never-ending project. And from what I know of the educational system in the US? That's not where you get it.

Speaking of bell hooks, at least she understands this. In that book (The Will to Change) she writes that "most men never think about patriarchy - what it means, how it is created and sustained." She writes how the patriarchy sees men's violence and the one emotion they're allowed to have, anger, as "natural". Understanding the patriarchy is something that has to be learned, and you either figure it out yourself by reading, but most of us probably had someone in our lives who talked to us about it, taught us about it, and then we might have started reading more about it.

What if you don't have someone like that? What if all you hear is that the things feminists tell you is bad is what was imprinted on you as "natural" to you?

Here's bell hooks:

Yet no one talks about the role patriarchal notions of manhood play in teaching boys that it is their nature to kill, then teaching them that they can do nothing to change this nature—nothing, that is, that will leave their masculinity intact.

Here's what she says of her own brother:

As patriarchal thinking and action claimed him in adolescence, he learned to mask his loving feelings. He entered that space of alienation and antisocial behavior deemed “natural” for adolescent boys.

She clearly pinpoints the moment of these patriarchal ideas taking hold to be in adolescent, and the question that was posed was, what can we do to stop that from happening? I've seen people say that nothing can be done until we change the material conditions that make it so that men systematically have power over women. And yeah, undoubtedly that is a fight we need to have. But is that truly the only way we can keep (some) boys from falling into the grasp of the (alt-)right? Is there no hope in at least reaching them in the meantime?

I've seen a post saying, "omg of course he goes for misandry" and while misandry isn't real in that men are not systematically oppressed, that doesn't mean that there aren't some out there who express hatred or disgust of men. That's not what the left stands for, obviously, but it is not absent. Here are some comments from the notes on some of these reaction posts (and presumably these are all people who consider themselves leftists):

"you should be hunted for sport"

"makes me want to commit homocide"

"kys right now"

"'leftists constantly said i should die' yeah fucking right"

"we need to double male loneliness and I'm not even kidding"

"I HATE MEN AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. THEY HATE US MORE AND THEY HAVE ALL THE POWER TO DO ACTUAL HARM TO US. Misandry is NOT FUCKING REAL but I wish it was"

"we should kill people who don't get it"

Is that hatred of men (non-systematically)? Not all of it, but some of it definitely or possibly qualifies. And it sure does look like some people (who probably think themselves leftists) think this man (or men in general) are the "scum of the earth" and that they want him/them dead. How else do you interpret some of these phrases?

Now imagine that this is something that you encounter online, and with the help of the stranglehold of the patriarchy, whispers of right wing ideology, confirmation bias, and negativity bias? I can imagine you might end up concluding they "hate you for your immutable traits" (remember patriarchy teaches boys that violence and anger is natural to them) and that they "blame you for everything that's wrong in the world".

Is that the right conclusion? No. But as much as being able to use reason is part of being human, so is not being immune to ideology and propaganda. We wouldn't fucking be where we are right now if that wasn't the case.

How do we teach boys that anger and violence aren't "immutable traits"? How do we educate them about the power of the patriarchy? Well, where does it have to come from if not from the fucking left?

Does it have to be you? No. Does it have to be women? Also no. It's probably good if it's men, and especially men who themselves walked with the right at some point (if someone has already been pulled into the right, rather than catching them before).

It can be a woman though, if there's someone who wants to do it. I don't mind doing it if someone wants to talk about it. Will I be nice? No, I won't hold back and I will tell them if what they're saying is wrong. Will I coddle them? Fuck no. Will I keep trying if someone clearly isn't listening? No. Will I be compassionate? Yeah, I think I will.

Because compassion is really important when you're trying to keep people from falling into the far-right, or even if you're trying to get them out of it (which again, isn't what we were talking about in the first place).

Here's Pete Simi, professor of Sociology, talking about Life After Hate, an American non-profit that tries to help people leave the far-right:

The organization was started by former hate group members who have been doing a lot of outreach in terms of providing testimonials and trainings to schools and law enforcement and other community groups across the country. The focus of their message is the importance of using compassion to inform prevention and intervention efforts and aftercare for individuals who want to change their lives but may need various types of support. I think LAH is a very promising development and I hope it will continue to find the resources that it needs to expand the services it provides.

Being compassionate doesn't mean coddling. It doesn't mean holding their hands and it doesn't even mean being nice to them. It doesn't exclude holding people accountable for their views. It does require patience, though. And I understand that if someone is holding the belief that you are not allowed to exist, that isn't something you can do. And that's fine. It doesn't have to be you.

But somebody has to do it, and it has to be someone on the left.

Now none of that means that the suffering of men under patriarchy, and the fact that this has to be addressed loud and clear, are more important than the suffering that women, and especially women whose oppression intersects with other levels of oppression. I've seen some tags on reaction posts that stated "omg of course centring men in discussions of gender" - but the post was about men. That was the whole starting point!

Because men do suffer under the patriarchy. And it's pushing them to the right, towards misogyny and racism, unless they develop the necessary critical thinking skills to understand their own suffering. And you know who thinks so too? bell hooks.

Often men, to speak the pain, first turn to the women in their lives and are refused a hearing. In many ways women have bought into the patriarchal masculine mystique. Asked to witness a male expressing feelings, to listen to those feelings and respond, they may simply turn away.

Since men have yet to organize a feminist men’s movement that would proclaim the rights of men to emotional awareness and expression, we will not know how many men have indeed tried to express feelings, only to have the women in their lives tune out or be turned off.

It is a form of abuse that this culture continues to deny. Boys socialized to become patriarchs are being abused. As victims of child abuse via socialization in the direction of the patriarchal ideal, boys learn that they are unlovable.

The patriarchal model that tells men that they must be in control at all times is at odds with cultivating the capacity to be responsible, which requires knowing when to control and when to surrender and let go. Responsible men are capable of self-criticism. If more men were doing the work of self-critique, then they would not be wounded, hurt, or chagrined when critiqued by others, especially women with whom they are intimate. Engaging in self-critique empowers responsible males to admit mistakes. When they have wronged others, they are willing to acknowledge wrongdoing and make amends. When others have wronged them, they are able to forgive. The ability to be forgiving is part of letting go of perfectionism and accepting vulnerability. At the same time, constructive criticism works only when it is linked to a process of affirmation. Giving affirmation is an act of emotional care. Wounded men are not often able to say anything positive. They are the grump-and-groan guys; cloaked in cynicism, they stand at an emotional distance from themselves and others. Affirmation brings us closer together. It is the highest realization of compassion and empathy with others. One of the negative aspects of antimale feminist critiques of masculinity was the absence of any affirmation of that which is positive and potentially positive in male being. When individuals, including myself, wrote about the necessity of affirming men and identifying them as comrades in struggle, we were often labeled male-identified. The women who attacked us did not understand that it was possible to critique patriarchy without hating men. Indeed, recognizing all the ways that males have been victimized by patriarchy (even though they received rewards) was a way of including men in feminist movement, welcoming their presence and honoring their contribution.

“in order to create loving males we need to love males” means teach boys that they can be themselves without being less of a man. it means being encouraging and nurturing of their emotions so they don’t become cold and hateful. it means showing boys, early in their lives, that they have value outside of what our society deems proper masculinity. what it doesn’t mean is that it’s our job to handhold men who see women as walking sex toys through the concept of empathy, and maybe if we’re really really nice to them and don’t say things that hurt their feelings they’ll stop killing us for saying no

#bell hooks #racism #misogyny #feminism #patriarchy

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truffledmadness · 4 years ago

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Millenial Trad Politics: A Modest Proposal

So, based on this post and after the go-ahead from @funereal-disease, I’ve got a pet theory about the tendency of both the Millenial Hard Right AND the Millenial Hard Left to contain a strong undercurrent (and, in the case of the right, overcurrent) of trad social mores.

I don’t think it’s actually about politics at all.

Internet Millenial Leftists and the Internet Millenial Right seem to share quite a few commonalities, if you read between the lines. Specifically, in the demographics and personality quirks of some of their members. They all appear to have been raised by (or at least, in very close proximity to) what might be described as Whole Foods Liberalism--well-off, majority-white, neoliberal suburban American culture. Both the left and the right will imply that this is the dominant American (or even global!) culture. It’s not, not even remotely, but that you would ever make the mistake of thinking so suggests that you were raised in that culture, and that you were very, very sheltered within it. But this not only explains a lot of the rhetoric, but also the weird tendency to imply that sexism and particularly racism are things that one learns about in college courses (and the deeper implication that everyone goes to college).

The sheltered perspective of this brings in the second commonality: shelteredness more generally. Again, a lot of this is reading between the lines, but the Internet Millenial Right is often quite famous for being a space where socially alienated young white men come because they feel starved of community, and I’ve noticed similar tendencies on some of the left, especially tankies. I think that this tendency is fundamentally inextricable with the trend towards affluent neoliberal upbringing. And inextricable with a third thing, that might be the most important: a certain amount of rebellion as an adolescent, as we switch from being parent-oriented to peer-oriented, can be a very important developmental milestone. And a HUGE number of millenials never really got to have that. This is not an original point, although while most will argue that this is because of parenting trends (”helicopter parents”) or blame social media in some nebulous way, I think there’s actually an overlooked economic aspect--in the 2000s, particularly post-GFC, a lot of the traditional “safe” ways for teenagers to slouch around and feel dangerous became too expensive for teenagers to actually do. Fast food, clothes, movies, etc., all got more expensive, while part-time job opportunities got scarcer, leaving a lot of the “traditional teenage experience” effectively out of the price range of actual teenagers.

So, what you’re left with is a bunch of people who feel that they were deprived of an adolescence, living in a culture that (VERY VERY WRONGLY, in my opinion) glorifies adolescence, and are looking for outlets for that. Now, there are healthy ways to explore that (gay male culture has long provided an outlet of this kind for people who were deprived of an adolescence because they were closeted at the time) or merely aesthetically unpleasant but basically harmless (see: the entirety of so-called “Instagram culture”). But there is a faction that’s interested not merely in adolescence, but in rebellion, specifically.

Enter politics. Now, a LOT of factors go into whether or not you end up on the left or right wing of this, but the Angry Trad thing seems to me to be fundamentally rooted in rebellion. When you’re raised by neoliberals, most “traditional” outlets for rebellion don’t actually feel like a departure from your native culture and its expectations. If your parents are aging hippies with a “Coexist” bumper sticker on their Prius, joining a weird band or doing some spiritual exploration through different faiths won’t shock them--they think that’s normal. Being trad, however, does feel legitimately shocking and rebellious. Especially if, on some level, it’s all completely theoretical.

Which brings me to my last point: none of these people have read a history book. And let me be clear, I am not actually faulting them for that, and I don’t think their ignorance is because they’re stupid--generally, they’re not. Since around the 1990s, with the advent of Common Core American education has undergone a major push to legitimize math and the hard sciences (and, to a lesser extent, “reading levels”) as the only legitimate subjects of study, while gutting the humanities, especially history and civics. While certain events are obvious and broad enough that collective understanding of them has survived, more or less, most hasn’t. This is why so many people think that feminism began and ended with the suffrage movement, and racism began with slavery and ended with the Civil Rights movement, and why they’re less likely to understand why these ideas are still important or relevant. The right then glosses this over by saying that women and minorities are inferior, and the left glosses it over by saying these are nebulous distractions from class struggle (never mind that issues of racism and sexism are often most immediate and pressing for people who are also struggling economically). But the root of this appears to be a genuine ignorance.

#long post #truffles does politics #truffles is silly

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mutualhighmaintenancemachin-blog · 5 years ago

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I need a fix cus I'm going down

Made the mistake of appraising myself sufficiently healthy to attend a bonfire with normal decent tax-payer type folks. Stood up too fast in my chair and blacked out completely, hit my head on concrete. When I came to i had no earthly fucking memory of having driven to the bonfire, nor could i really recall the names of the three concerned hipsters perched over my limp doughy abscessed jaundiced shit heap of a body. Told them it was a problem with blood sugar, i had forgotten to imbibe my afternoon orange juice! Translation-haven’t slept in four days, taking in roughly two hundred calories a day all in ginger ale. Meth heads opt to sustain themselves on a diet of paranoid resentment in lieu of proteins and grains. The cook gets super spun and lectures us like we’re babes about the dark leftist forces presently waging war on the masculinity of the white man-for one thing, he's convinced that jews run the porn industry and that fucking pornhub is riddled with overtures both overt and subliminal intended to brainwash white guys into identifying as weak and feminine and to associate men of color with heroism and strength. He also believes that soy causes gender dysphoria. All of these batshit crazy delusions act like stars in the broad constellation of the cooks worst dystopian fears-a workforce with no room left for traditionally male-centered leadership characteristics dominated from top-down by a host of future ladies who make their trade in creative collaboration, rather than fear and theft of other peoples ideas. Without a need for a provider, our nazi-bespectacled methamphetamine cook envisions a new sexual economy in which women will jettison their attachments to the family structure in favor of like, industrialism, i guess, and men will have no other resort but a desperate turn to cross-dressing and dick-taking and i guess maybe stitching scarves. It was at this point that i was really tempted to tell the cook something he needs to hear-if you really believe that large shadow societies are orchestrating history just cus they want to make you some dudes boyfriend, its probably cus part of you wants to be. I get that, sucking dick is a blast. if you’re terrified that you can’t compete in a post-modern job market, it might just be because you aren’t. There’s no place left for cowboys or outlaws or methcooks cus those professions only make sense in the context of an insanely violent frontier. You feel obsolete and useless because you are, but make no mistake, that hurt has nothing to do with the world everything to do with your soul being severely malnourished. I know cus mine is too! Real moral christian courage is showing up to your crucifixion with a smile on your face ready to graciously thank the romans for every nail they put through your wrist. You feel empty because your a paranoid fascist meth cook, i feel bad cus I'm a junkie. We are bad. The nazi pilots who blitzed france in two sleepless, speed-fueled nights probably felt fucking fantastic, as if they were aloft on the trade winds of history itself and their momentum across europe must have seemed like proof enough of the moral righteousness of the german cause. But then the morning comes and the meth wears off and your skin smells like piss and your back aches and you can’t stop grinding your jaw and the first wave of survivors begin to trickle out from the camps and presumably in that moment a few nazis had the epiphany-that the very same starved beaten traumatized jewish women and men and children they had aspired to extinguish from human memory were now going to tell the story of what had happened. Power loses, grace is its own kingdom, etc etc. Furthermore those german officers who managed to transition back to civilian life and start families must have experienced a very strange new parental dynamic-can you imagine a family at a dinner table and the proud head of household instructs his small son to finish his vegetables and after pausing to mull it over for a few moments his son turns to him and says Father having thought about it a great deal i don’t think ill be following your instructions-after all you were only following instructions yourself when you helped to engineer the greatest cruelty in human history! To which ostensibly the father mumbles to clear his throat and asks his wife to pass the potato salad. Not even to invoke the possibility that the Fuhrer himself Mr. Adolph Hitler probably died surrounded by a swarm of shadow people, fucking hilarious just the thought, him yelling in that distinctive manic patois of his that he’s the leader and the abeyance of his will is sacrosanct blah blah blah while the little invisible mites under his pale skin shift and swell and scratch and the shadow people dancing around his peripheral vision taunting and cajoling and ridiculing him and the absurdity of his final solution and because he didn’t know speed the way we now know speed he probably didn’t know anything about the shadow people at all from his perspective they might just as well have been the ghosts of his victims come to taunt and ridicule him in his lowest hour pointing and laughing and daring him to pull the trigger!

The same entitlement motivates the mass shooter who imagines a world full of seven billion perfect strangers as an attack on his rightful pursuit of happiness. No one will sleep with him and he can’t make sense of his place in a world built on fucking so he begins to indulge in fantasies of coercion, revenging himself on the very public space he so craved Now if our hypothetical douchebag had any pretense of self-awareness he might have looked into the possibility of adopting several dogs, and in turn coming to see his life as a story about caring unconditionally for animals. That’s a helluva life-Saint Francis got into the catholic hall of fame for doing not a whole lot more. Or perhaps he could adjust his expectations of intimacy in consideration of the countless plain-to middling-to ugly folks who are forced to come to terms with the truth early on that all of our bodies are grotesque and hideously deformed billboard advertisements for our big beautiful impossibly dense souls-come see a kernel of divine inspiration made self-aware, shimmering in the glory of creation, just two exits past the tits and chin and ankles and all the rest of our faulty parts.

Now a discerning reader(however unlikely you’d be to find one in an audience consisting of absolutely fucking nobody lol) might have already begun to detect a certain heady strain of hypocrisy in this authors conclusion. Because while I'm not much of anything the one thing i certainly am is a self-destructive drug addict. So maybe its one thing for me to make fun of the cook for his wrath-filled flu-stricken infants tantrum of a way of viewing the world, assigning to his solipsism a generation-hopping solidarity with his nazi forefathers who came before and identifying in his politics the germinal seed of fascisms future, a politics so personal and self-contained that every divorce will be debated as if it were a stand in for larger cultural decay, every morning hangover a portent of spiritual decline, the vitals of the stock market remeasured and reassessed each time someone finds on the sidewalk a loose dollar bill. Political assemblies with real largesse exclusively devoted to trolling the instagram of a nebraskan man named doug’s now ex-wife for pictures of her maui vacation with husband number two drinking mojitos on a beach with sand bleached white as bone and both of them grinning with surgical precision an opulent almost confrontational kind of public grinning Doug couldn't recall that bitch ever having felt for him and the kids off playing in the surf and well how could any concerned and conscientious citizen fail to see the basic threat to democracy that whole scene represents? Donald Trump is probably the loneliest man in the world. He’s never met another person. He spends his time wandering the halls of his head checking for reoccurrences of his own reflection, a lifetime spent pathologically re-telling the same story about how he came to be the most powerful person in the world, so that by the time he really became who he had always pretended to be, the most influential figure in the free world, he had long-since bought into his own fraud to such a great extent that even the real thing couldn’t compare. Only a selfishness and self-centeredness as grandiloquent as his could explain the mindset of the modern mass shooter and the micro-politics informing him. He confuses his head for the world and then becomes enraged when it won’t do as he wishes, cursing the rain for its cold lash against his shoulder where he’d rather there have rested warm summer glow, furious at the thought of all the people he would never meet in far-off places he would never see who never paid him any attention whatsoever. Playing peek-a-boo a little bit of cheating peer through chubby fingers arrayed like a geisha’s fan and for the first time see that objects don’t disappear without our gaze to ontologically anchor them to earth. What a hurt. Now it might be technically correct that my addiction does to my loving family what the selfishness of the mass shooter does to public space. It intrudes like an alien thing and turns the air chilly in our childhood home and it transforms the medicine cabinet into a contested territory in need of defensive fortification and now that Cassies marriage has crashed on the rocks of addiction nobody could blame her if she never allowed another addict to darken her doorstep again and there was the sight of Jan opening my trucks passenger side door and a few rigs fell out onto the floor and all the spoons in the house have one side burnt-and-bruised like a black-eye you say you got from falling down a flight of stairs despite body language that says something entirely else why is it we don’t have a single spoon in the house what ghost spends all night punching the walls full of holes

recently went to an Alanon meeting to sneak a glimpse of how the other half lives...this lady said my addiction is to loving my addict. Bawled rivers out from red raw-rubbed rubber eyes and said my addiction is to my addict Not her person or qualifier or partner but her addict. Syntax almost seeming to suggest that something about the existential plight of the addict gets her intoxicated dizzy on pain. It’s quaint though cus that sort of sentiment is for fucking rookies-guarantee you no ones crying over me like a romantic. Not anymore. My thing these days is of a distinctly more shakespearian strand of tragedy, with wittgenstein and derrida’s influences also undeniable. I’m sick now in a way where people stop crying and praying you’ll find God and change and decide instead it’d be easier to just cross the street. Schizophrenics lost in a chorus meant only just for them, apocalyptic street preachers who stand on soap boxes while reeking of shit and give voice to visions of an America not our own, an alternate dimension where european arrival at the shores of the new world stalled out somewhere halfway across the pacific ocean on a wave so tall it scraped the heavens and America grew up a nation of nomads who set their watches to the rumbling migration of herds of buffalo and not even the highest priest could dream of a more beautiful idea than that of motion, movement without cease, the only acceptable fixed still frozen property being the burial mounds where the dead went after all their motion had gone-if they could view us on the other side of the looking glass stolen away in our own personal homes they would almost certainly come to the conclusion that this place where we live is just the land of the dead, a negative photograph of everything vital and good. Who would i be to disagree though, right?

The point is anyway that some alchemical reaction of A. Mental illness and B. Amphetamine abuse has more or less stranded me in words. Verbs and nouns and adjectives and adverbs in place of sky and grass. What Fredric Jameson called the prison house of language. Where derrida’s difference goes to play for eternity, never quite meaning what it had meant to say. What shook wittgenstein speechless. The president’s rhetoric so hollow that you can almost see him suffering a kind of dementia or spiritual torpor that results from the badness of his faith. Chewing and chomping consonants and sounds till they all are made to mush and shearing syllable after syllable off the network of signification until all that’s left is one satellite pinging a distress call hello is anyone there off of its own side. It’s own side like Adam plucked Eve from his rib and said put on this dress-after they ate the fruit and God cast him/her out to walk the world alone reportedly God said have fun all alone you worthless slut. Imagine trumps final state of the union-i am very sick, i have been alone for as long as I can remember, i wish i hadn’t lied so often, i wish i had occasionally told the truth, i would trade all of it to have known just one person.

Anyways, barring that miracle of political theater, the body gets sick and dissolves while the spirit is lost in words. I’d like to die in a bathroom stall in haughville with a rig stuck in my arm and the words I'm sorry stuck at the tip of my tongue and God decides to show some compassion and makes me a deal says you were never much good to people didn’t believe in a thing but you sure could do some impressive vomiting up of nonsense words and so what ill do is your soul will dissolve and turn into ink and for the rest of eternity you’ll be a naughty joke or a half-scribbled doggerel scrawled on the wall of a piss-soaked bathroom stall in the ghetto or you could say call this number here for a good time and don’t forget to ask for large marge and nobody’d ever suspect you were trapped in there or maybe a joke like this favorite of mine about my son it goes something like Jesus Christ was a God-awful carpenter, couldn’t pull a nail to save his own life. Christ was a God-awful, couldn’t pull a nail to save his own life. Couldn't pull a nail. Christ was God-awful. Couldn’t nail his own couldn’t save a carpenter terrible couldn’t pull god-awful a terrible carpenter he couldn’t pull a nail to save his own life. I can’t pull this nail to save my own life. It’s right there sticking out of my wrist, but for whatever reason I just can’t find the right words to pull it out he was a carpenter who couldn’t pull a nail even if his life depended on it couldn't save his own life he couldn't-

For a good time call this number 1-555-555-5555 and don’t forget to ask for-

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emedhelp · 5 years ago

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HAMMER: The Democratic Party Is Fundamentally Unfit To Lead The United States Of America | Daily Wire

The Democratic Party has become, in the year 2019, a deeply destructive political force. The Party, as presently comprised, is a ragtag potpourri of anti-nation-state/pro-open-borders activists, devoted prenatal infanticide cultists, neo-Marxist economic "class warfare" grievance-mongers, and identity politics-centric racial identitarian hucksters. This is a Party for whom a leading presidential candidate — in both 2016 and 2020 — is a Fidel Castro-praising actual communist who literally honeymooned in the former Soviet Union and flew a hammer-and-sickle Soviet flag in his Vermont mayoral office at a time when the U.S. was engaged in an existential "mutually assured destruction" standoff with the Kremlin.

In short, the modern Democratic Party is not a healthy political vehicle. It is afflicted with the most pernicious of all political maladies — a seething sense of self-hatred. It is exceedingly difficult to ponder the core tenets of Founding-era American political theory — separation of powers, federalism, a carefully delineated nation-state, a durable and constitutionally secured rule of law, religious liberty, and flourishing intermediary institutions of the civil society — and conclude that the modern Democratic Party has a relationship with the United States of America itself that can be characterized as anything other than haughty self-abnegation.

Indeed, the two Democratic presidential candidate debates last week were revealing.

The 2020 Democrats categorically refuse to identify a single limitation on abortion that they could support. They speak about the need to even protect abortion for "trans females" — which would be biological men who subjectively feel as if they are women. The 2020 Democrats do not bother to explain how exactly it is that a "trans female" — a member of the human species with both X and Y chromosomes — could procure an abortion, which can probably be easily explained by the fact that there is no such thing as a pregnancy for a "trans female."

The 2020 Democrats, furthermore, held an actual, legitimate debate on whether it is appropriate to eradicate private health insurance in America. We have apparently moved on so far from the debate over the inclusion of a "public option" in Obamacare that the relevant leftist policy debate is now not about the inclusion of a "public option," but is instead about the exclusion of a "private option" in the Democrats' post-Obamacare "Medicare for All" socialized medicine dystopia. Because nothing could possibly go wrong with socialized medicine. And nothing could really go wrong with not only the imposition of single-payer socialized medicine, but the outright abolition of private health insurers.

The 2020 Democrats are completely clueless on the issue of foreign policy and America's role in the world. In fact, if foreign policy had a role in the two debates last week beyond one or two rapid-fire, down-the-line questions, I believe I missed it. The word "Israel" certainly was not mentioned — as is befitting for a political party that is not just trending toward being seriously anti-Israel, but also toward being seriously anti-Semitic. The Democrats offer little more than platitudinous sound bites praising transnationalism and excoriating the post-1648 Westphalian nation-state system — exactly the opposite of how foreign policy in the 21st century ought to be conducted.

But perhaps on no issue were the 2020 Democrats more utterly radical than on the issue of immigration. The Democratic presidential candidates fell all over themselves to see who could position him/herself as the most authentic guardian of socialized medicine health insurance coverage for the country's ever-burgeoning illegal alien population. Because amidst a hitherto unprecedented year-plus assault on America's sovereignty by means of a systemic border crisis driven by murderous cartels and almost unanimously frivolous asylum claims, what the 2020 Democrats seem to care about the most is further incentivizing the profitable enterprise of cartel-driven human trafficking — and the brutal rapes that are inherent to those criminal trafficking rings — by offering the additional amnesty of "free," taxpayer-subsidized health insurance for all illegals. It is a proposition that, only five years ago, would have been beyond parody. But now it is standard Democratic Party presidential campaign fare.

The Democratic Party is, at its core, a political outfit that despises all that makes America great. The Democrats despise borders, despise the distinction between citizen and alien, loathe constitutional self-governance, frown upon the church-attending "yokels" of Middle America, and seek to remodel America through the lens of an ever-supercilious, ever-secularist Europe. Political leftism, once ideologically dominated by a moral relativism that obfuscated lines between good and evil, is now nothing if not morally clear and bumptious about what it believes. It just happens that what modern Democrats believe is positively harrowing. This is an unserious political party that should never, ever be given the reins of power over the greatest nation in the history of the world.

Voters in 2020 will have an extraordinarily clear contrast presented to them at the ballot box. Hopefully they make the right decision.

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cartoonessays · 8 years ago

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Identity Politics

One of the big issues in our political discourse is around what are called “identity politics”. To be short and blunt, the way we collectively discuss it is a total fucking trainwreck.

I’ve talked about this issue before in the recent past, but just to quickly recap it, a big point of friction in the Democratic Party primaries between opponents Fmr. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign was of the latter’s focus on economic issues and the former’s focus on issues related to race and gender. After Clinton’s loss in the general election, there were several pundits, whose political views range as widely as conservative, liberal, and Marxist, who criticized her campaign’s failure to understand how much of an issue economic disenfranchisement really was for such a large part of the populace, vociferously criticizing its focus around so-called identity politics.

I’ve discussed at length my own major issues in how Hillary Clinton’s campaign discussed issues related to identity, and how it was the most major manifestation in how superficial our broader discourse around it really is. However, the critics suggesting to abandon identity politics in general and focus on economics are just as hopelessly tone-deaf as the Clinton campaign/Democratic Party.

One of the biggest recurring questions in the wake of Clinton’s electoral defeat was “how did the Democrats lose so much of the white working class, especially when so many more of them voted for Barack Obama in past elections?”. That’s a good question to ask, but what absolutely drove me crazy is that nobody seems to inquire at all about working class people of color. True, voters of color went for Clinton over Trump in massive numbers, but those numbers are only among the pitifully small percentage of those populations that actually voted. It’s a problem that nobody ever bothered to ask why so many working class people of color didn’t vote. The only response Democrats seem to have towards non-voters, especially after 2000, is to disparage them as lazy, stupid, and in this past election, sexist, racist, or exhibiting their white privilege (how do all these political experts fail to understand that insulting people you want something from is a shit strategy?).

For critics on the left that criticize identity politics, their whole framing of it is all wrong. Thea Riofrancos and Daniel Denvir have discussed how this divisive debate on the left is oversimplified to the detriment of all sides. Leftist economic wonks, particularly Marxists and socialists, would do themselves some good to get a better understanding of how racial issues intertwine with economic issues if they hope to gain more support from people of color. Another example of this disconnect was highlighted by Johns Hopkins University professor Lester Spence, whose book Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics criticized David Harvey’s seminal work A Brief History of Neoliberalism for its lack of analysis in regards to race in its critique of neoliberal economics. Spence argues that the people subjugated in a society structured in white supremacy (he focuses on black people) are impacted even more by the effects of neoliberalism than white people. Yet another example, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz discusses economics as they relate to Native Americans currently and historically in her books. Any other critiques of identity politics on the left that aren’t grounded in an understanding of Marxist or socialist theory would do better to start reading up on Marxism and socialism.

Conservative critics of identity politics dismiss the concept of it off-hand as completely frivolous. A distressing number of liberals adopt this critique in this exact same way too. They’re all full of shit, especially the conservative critics. Right-wing politics are just as wedded to identity as much as left-wing politics. The only difference is that right-wing politics focuses on the identities of the dominant class; white, male, heterosexual, economically elite, and Christian.

In her seminal work The Second Sex, the thesis of Simone de Beauvoir’s argument of how women are oppressed is that our society has been structured with men as the norm and women as the deviation to the norm. This analysis can be extended to other identities as well; whiteness is structured as the norm and all other races are a deviation, heterosexuality is structured as the norm and LGBT+ is a deviation (see the term “gay agenda”), Christianity is the norm and other religions are the deviation. These identities as the norm have been so entrenched in our collective consciousness that we don’t even recognize or discuss them as identities.

The point of this blog has been to analyze portrayals related to identity in cartoons, which is only a small manifestation of how it plays out in society. The two Disney films Tangled and Frozen were named that instead of Rapunzel and The Ice Queen because they thought the less gender-neutral names would not appeal to boys. Disney films with more masculine titles like Aladdin, The Lion King, Tarzan, or Hercules are never assumed to be a turn off to girls in their audience. There’s a long history of female characters having more passive roles in comparison to active male characters and existing in relation to those male characters. Media starring white protagonists are viewed as universal while media with protagonists of color are viewed as “niche” or “political”. Media where the main character is supposed to serve as the audience surrogate are almost always white men or white boys.

Gong back to how conservatives adhere to identity politics, another reason that their identity politics aren’t recognized as identity politics is because they have a long history of discussing it using euphemisms. As Republican strategist Lee Atwater explained in a 1981 interview:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968, you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

As a result, policies that target black people for incarceration are called “tough on crime” or “law and order”. Those black people being targeted are called “thugs” or “criminals” instead of “niggers”. Latino immigrants are dehumanized through terms like “illegal aliens” instead of more direct slurs like “spic” or “wetback”. Arabs and Muslims are dehumanized by the terms like “terrorist”. Meddling and violent regime change in other countries is re-framed as “spreading democracy”. Persecution of LGBT+ in society is re-framed as “religious liberty”. This terminology is the legacy of the “Southern strategy” first adopted by Richard Nixon in order to win over white voters anxious about the demands for racial equality from activist groups, particularly Democratic voters disillusioned by Lyndon Johnson’s passage of the the Civil Rights Act. This was decades before the term “political correctness” entered our political lexicon.

Long before the 1950s and 1960s, presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson spoke out against what they called “hyphenated Americans” as a way of pandering to xenophobic attitudes towards European immigrants (who were not considered “white” in the late 19th/early 20th century). That same Woodrow Wilson screened Birth of a Nation at the White House when it premiered. The characterization of the inhabitants of foreign countries as “backwards” and “savage” in 19th and 20th century literature from the likes of Rudyard Kipling or Ian Fleming were used to justify Western imperialism throughout Africa, Asia, and South America.

Hell, dominant identity politics goes all the way back to Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortes. Those damn sure weren’t other European Catholics they were conquering, raping, and pillaging in the Americas.

Folks on the left better get a better grasp of what identity politics actually is and how to discuss and advocate for it in a much more productive way because the right sure knows their way around it (no matter how much they deny it). Dismissing it outright or perverting it to take marginalized groups for granted are not the ways to go if you are truly invested in dismantling structural oppression.

Further viewing:

youtube

#identity politics #politics #economics #cartoon essays #just my thoughts

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rfhusnik · 6 years ago

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Remember: You’ll Do The Work, And You’ll Pay The Bills

Written By: Steven Fillmore

For many years I tried to more or less keep my mouth shut. I got up every morning and went to work. But, as a recent retiree, I’ve become very concerned about the future of The United States of America. And I don’t think the majority of Americans today realize the potentially perilous position that their dismissive attitude toward illegal immigration will most likely place their children and grandchildren in in years to come.

And as far as I can see, there are three dangerous points of view now “setting up” America for tragic consequences in years to come. First, there are those Americans who think they’ll be able to keep themselves isolated from the increasing number of Hispanics now living either legally or illegally in their nation. These are the people who illegally pay for various services, such as their children’s education, and build walls around their property, yet don’t want our nation to build a wall to protect its current poorer inhabitants. And by the way, why is it that every time a proposed border wall or border shutdown is mentioned in the media, only negative things are said? Second, there are those who believe God will provide an answer to illegal immigration. And they also believe that the Almighty won’t allow a Hispanic majority to harm or misuse non-Hispanic minorities in the years to come. And then there is that third group which says it cares about the future of the U.S.A. It has grave concerns it says, about environmental issues. But rest assured, environmental concerns will take a back seat in importance to future Americans if those Americans are no longer able to live freely because what once had been a class of illegal aliens now controls their very lives.

And, in the midst of these future fears, like most elderly white men, I’ve paid a price for the concept of white supremacy, though I never believed in it; and, if the truth be told, often wondered if a fair amount of those who said they believed in it actually did, or were simply using that bogus concept as a tool to stir up some excitement in what otherwise would have been very boring existences. But then, maybe dad was right. He told me I’d amount to nothing someday.

Yet, with that said, I can’t lie now and say that life has gotten better for white American males over the span of my lifetime – oh no! And it seems that this fact has become especially noticeable over the last ten to fifteen years. And here are some examples of what I mean. Today, America’s heroes aren’t the people who work to keep the nation functioning. No, today we look up instead to such people who are able to enter our country illegally, and then live off the fruit of the labors of this nation’s working class. And today white American males are pretty much automatically held in disdain by many women and members of other races.

Nonetheless, I’m in a reflective mood today. Thus, I hope I won’t ramble (too much) in this piece. And, let me tell you that this is the last time Steven Fillmore will appear as a writer of these posts. And I’ve informed my city’s mayor, Ralph Hawk, who compiles these writings, of that fact. And Ralph said he was sorry to hear that, but admitted that he can probably find several other people from our city who’ll be willing, able, and probably glad to hold forth here.

So, anyway, today I’m thinking back to forty some years spent working in this city’s main factory, and how yesterday, a few days after I retired from the workforce, I heard some liberal legislators say that most white males of my age actually wasted their lives. And how did we waste them? Apparently during our working years we didn’t do enough to help socialists, communists, fascists, criminals, drug users, illegal aliens, deeply indebted college graduates, feminists who weren’t living out the full feminist dream, so-called dreamers, gay, lesbian, and transgender activists, animal rights activists, environmental activists - and especially those of that group who want to ban cows and airplanes, as well as pass a number of other asinine dictatorial laws, members of Congress whose vocabulary seems to be limited to the word impeachment, members of Congress who dress as foreigners, and members of Congress who all dress in the same color for special events, just like the brown shirts did many years ago when they conducted their business in a Reichstag that was trending toward Nazism.

And, of course the American liberal media concurs with that afore - mentioned assessment of America’s working class. And it makes sure that everyone knows that during our lifetimes people such as myself didn’t care enough about the poor and downtrodden; but more importantly than even that, feared what an invasion of foreigners seeking to end what had been the American way of life would do to the legacy and wealth we hoped to leave our heirs.

Thus, I’m leaving these words as a very troubled soul. I only pray that the youth of America will reject the socialism and near communism which already we see being peddled by most of those who so far have announced their candidacies for president in the next election.

And we know that a portion of America’s youth will be, and already has been taken in by the ridiculous promises which left-wingers have, and will continue to make. But the postulation that the rich should pay their fair share in taxes is truthful, yet is easier said than done. Few know of, or take the time to learn of how dollars sheltered from taxes often, in the long run, do more for the American economy than do those confiscated via taxation, and then wasted on government frivolities such as conspiracy investigations which investigate the innocent, and allow those who may really be guilty of what’s being investigated to appear blameless, even though those of that second group are probably the same individuals who got the phony investigation started in the first place, and perhaps used America’s highest information gathering unit to aid them in that quest.

And it’s difficult to leave when it’s known that soon Americans will be bombarded by left-wing campaign ads promoting various presidential candidates. And we know that soon the youth of America will be severely tested. It will have all sorts of financially impossible promises made to it such as: Everyone should have a free college education, airplanes should be banned (can you even begin to imagine the negative impact of this!), cows should be banned – this will do wonders for America’s agricultural sector – especially when the large numbers of Hispanics whom the leftists apparently wish to have enter our country have found the livestock industry to be one of only a very few industries which actively seeks them as workers. And, the list of crack-pot ideas which already have been floated by many potential candidates for president goes on and on.

Thus, before the snowball of lunacy which no doubt will descend upon us in the months ahead reaches its full speed, I’d like all Americans, but especially young Americans to remember that nothing is ever given away, or accepted in a completely free fashion. A price is always paid; and under socialist and communist leadership, a despised lower working class always toils to benefit bureaucrats, even though socialists and communists tell the masses that the exact opposite is the true experience under their way of life. So, don’t be fooled in the upcoming presidential election. Don’t vote for someone who’ll keep you working to support him or herself, while he or she keeps right on importing more people into this nation who’ll also lessen your paycheck amount through their welfare needs.

And, as a final sign off here, I want to say that I’m aware of course that the dictatorship of the right (fascism) can be as destructive to human rights as that of the dictatorship of the left (communism). But only people who deserve to live freely will live freely. Ask yourself, “If my car died on the roadway tomorrow, would I simply leave it there, run away to the north, and not care about it anymore? And would I leave others to deal with its obstruction?” Those questions, though simplistic, are probably dually pertinent at this time. First, if something is wrong in my nation, do I simply run away to where other people can take care of me? And second, will I allow myself to be conned by politicians, either young or old, or male or female, who should know that the policies they’re advocating will be disastrous for America, yet pursue them anyway – apparently only to appease their own large egos.

Anything that’s wrong in a capitalist America can be fixed in a capitalist America. But there are a few facts to be faced. No economic system is inherently fair. Some people will always need to do the blue and white collar jobs that will need to be done. And if those people are forced to labor under a system which takes too much from them and then gives too much to criminals, illegal aliens, or government officials who don’t understand the importance of fiscal responsibility, then the entire society will have serious problems.

And remember, don’t be intimidated by old or young male or female presidential candidates. All of them have one thing in common; they want to shake their fingers at you and tell you what a bigot and destroyer of the environment you are, and have been, and, especially so if you’re white and male. And remember also, while they’re chasing their socialist dreams, such as giving freebies to non-workers, trying to end the airplane and livestock industries, severely altering the American way of life for the worse, and importing more foreigners who’ll live off your labor today, and perhaps confiscate your heirs’ wealth in the future; you’ll be the people who’ll be doing the work which always needs to be done in any society, be its economic system capitalist, socialist, communist, fascist, feudal, monarchical, or whatever. Yes, you’ll do the work, and you’ll pay the bills, but they’ll continue to devastate America and its way of life.

And also, you may say this is crazy, and hopefully it will prove to be false, but what will America be like when Hispanics are the majority ethnic group in it? Will they abide by the laws and ways of life which traditionally have been the foundations of The United States of America? Or will they pursue their own agenda, using their majority status to elect Hispanic candidates to national office, including perhaps the presidency, and then use their political power to severely restrict whites and blacks, and, who knows, perhaps confiscate their lands and wealth, and perhaps even enslave them?

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jscottscales · 6 years ago

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Vote Democrat to Restore ObamaCare taxes on the lower class • Dustin Koellhoffer • iPatriot

Will Americans vote to keep making America great again or restore Obammunism? Will Americans stand for law and order or endorse foreign invaders and criminals? Will Americans vote for righteousness or vote stupidly to allow the rule of the mob?

Democrats would reverse all of the gains President Trump has made in jobs, trade, and deregulation. They would destroy all the advances he has made in diplomacy to bring our allies back into the fold and beat down our enemies. They would restore Nancy Pelosi to the speakership again and, as she did after gaining power in 2006, she will again nuke the economy two years later to blame the Republicans to get a Democrat elected president. Democrats wrongly predicted that the Stock Market would crash if Trump were elected. The opposite is true.

Tax cuts and deregulation did not inspire people to invest in America’s future because they believed that Trump would take money from the poor and give it to the rich. The ousting of Hillary and Obama brought Americans hope once again to achieve the American Dream without having the government steal it out from under them. The result is the lowest unemployment rates in fifty years and job growth opposite of what Obama declared to be the new normal.

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Liberals add the word “justice” to their causes to conceal their injustices. Social Justice and Environmental Justice are euphemisms for leftist racism promoting criminals and their economic policy promoting socialist communism. Liberals want to hold conservatives criminally responsible for their words. The only words that are criminal are words advocating physical violence which is what liberals have been doing in promoting their own racist fascist hate of Republicans and white Christian men.

“Democrats are openly encouraging millions of illegal aliens to break our laws. A Republican Congress means more jobs and less crime. A Democrat Congress means more crime and less jobs. It’s that simple.” – President Trump

Keep making America great again

“We’re deciding between two very disparate viewpoints of what America should be. It’s either going to be run by the left who believes in mob rule, radicalized feminism, chasing congressmen and conservatives out of restaurants, or we’re going to vote for the founding principles and Constitution and what our Founding Fathers laid out for this country.” – Candace Owens

Democrats are pulling out all the stops in their voter fraud campaign including allowing felons and foreigners to vote at Democrat polling stations. This cannot be allowed to make the rules in America. A liberal wrote on my blog that all I do is spread propaganda. He said this right after declaring that my description of Democrat budget policy math is incomprehensible, and then described Trump as a racist “sending 15,000,000 troops to the border to stop a few thousand women and children seeking refuge.” If this is the extent of liberal’s understanding of math and the situation on the border where tens of thousands of men are trying to invade our country, it is no wonder they are so easily duped by Democrats.

Real Democrat Propaganda

Leftist Media Gaslights America

Democrats are saying, “He’s [Trump] energized the radical right in our country.”

“At the center an unapologetically incendiary President untrammeled by the traditional norms of civility.” – George Stephanopoulos

The “radical right” of which they speak are the American people who stand for law and order over Democrat’s mobs and their foreign invaders. Trump’s “incivility” is speaking truth to Democrat power exposing their lies to take away their power to deceive and refusing to concede to their threats. American patriot’s hearts are swollen with pride at the first Republican since Ronaldus Magnus to stand up against the Democrat propaganda machine and declare the truth openly and boldly and without apology. Donald Trump bows to no liars.

Democrats are now running to the microphones to declare how they support President Trump defending our borders and covering up the fact that they have been declaring our borders should be open to all. Their only intent is to dupe the ignorant with their lies that their only policy is to hate Trump, impeach Trump, destroy what he has built in the last two years restoring America’s greatness and turn America back to the economic malaise of Obammunism. No one is running on the disaster that was ObamaCare’s largest tax increase on the middle and lower classes in history. They are producing their age-old propaganda that Republicans will take away Social Security and Medicare to leave people to die in the streets. Who still falls for this?

“Obama is the only Democrat we can find who likes the Trump economy because he’s trying to take credit for it.” – Kellyanne Conway

Obama nuked economy in 2008 wants credit for Trump’s boom

“If you’re black and vote Republican, you’re a traitor to your race!” – Black Democrats

I don’t know what to think of the leftist bigots who believe voting for the former slave masters of their ancestors is somehow endorsing their race. As for me, I can’t betray my race unless space aliens attack and I join with them because I belong to the human race. I don’t take sides with anyone because of their race, creed, or sex. Like the Founders, my ideology is founded in Jesus the Christ. I’m not a traitor to anything unless I take sides with evil, in which case I would be a traitor to God and myself. I am an opponent of the lies and bigotry that rule the left in their anti-God, racist, gender hatred of Christian white men. Christian white men are the people who founded this great nation. Christian white men are the ones who fought and died to eliminate slavery. Christian white men are the ones who fought and died to end socialist tyranny. Christian white men are the ones who fight for the people’s rights, not for criminal’s rights. In the war between good and evil, it is always Christian white men who fight on the side of righteousness.

Christians crushed the Inquisition, Moslems endorse the Jihad

President Trump has put America first and he has the Midas touch to restore American greatness that Obama said was unrightfully taken and that he tried to put in the past. Putting America first is a requirement of our government. Not putting those in the world who would come to America to steal and transform her as Democrats do. America is the hope of the world only if she remains the strong shining city on the hill. Putting America second is like a rescuer becoming a victim. The rescuer’s motto is to think before you act so as not to become a victim because victims don’t rescue anyone. America cannot defend the liberty of other nations if she doesn’t defend her own.

Want to talk about traitors to their race? Try confronting the descendants of African slaves who now fight to oppress minorities, to coerce them to be racist themselves, and to vote only for the descendants of their ancestor’s masters. The Democrat Party has not changed since the Founding. They still lie, cheat, steal, and kill to get their way. The only vote for liberty, to keep the money you earn, and to be able to live the American Dream is as it has always been – to vote Republican. Vote Democrat if you want high taxes, fewer jobs, more welfare, open borders, importing foreign invaders, and mob rule by criminals. The choice is obvious to people of good morals.

There is no Leftist Media Bias!

The Immigrant Crisis is a Creation of the Democrats

Toxic Two-Faced Democrats

Democrats cannot tell the truth. “Arctic ice will be gone forever by 2013.” “Hillary will win a 97% chance landslide presidency.” “Donald Trump colluded with Russians and is a racist fascist.” Democrat polls say they will win back control of Congress because of the “Obama economy” and open borders. Democrat polls are so bogus. The only poll that counts is that made on Election Day. Go vote Republican. Repeat 2002 and 2016 and make liberals cry again.

Like my Facebook page @The Left is Never Right

Follow me on Twitter @ DKoellhoffer Twitter

[Author’s Note: Please share this with your friends by email to overcome shadow banning by Facebook, Twitter, and Google. Conservative Christians are not able to relay the truth thanks to liberal fascist censorship that is disrupting communication while they distract the nation. My own blog and FB page readership are down by 90% over the last two years despite doubling subscribers. Leftists perpetrate their frauds in the name of social justice as they dupe the people into accepting their tyranny.]

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author and are not not necessarily either shared or endorsed by iPatriot.com.

Source

https://ipatriot.com/vote-democrat-to-restore-obamacare-taxes-on-the-lower-class/

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axsomreport · 6 years ago

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Trump Delivers Remarks At The Flight 93 National Memorial

Dan Bongino FLATTENS Jim Carrey And The Socialist Party, And It Is GLORIOUS

James Woods Reminds Everyone Of This Hillary Clinton Tweet On The Anniversary Of 9/11

John Bolton issues take-no-prisoners response to International Court’s war crimes probe of U.S.

Never Forget.

Bob Woodward has a serious trail of accuracy issues that nobody is talking about

Joe Scarborough Writes SHAMEFUL Piece On The Anniversary Of 9/11

Sen. Dick Durbin Blames GOP For Chicago’s Gun Violence – James Woods SHREDS HIM

Kimberly Guilfoyle Refers To Don Jr. As ‘Big Daddy’ At A Fundraising Event

Leftist NY AG Candidate Accidentally Admits The Unborn Are PEOPLE And That There Are TWO Genders

Twitter Is Overwhelmed By Powerful 9/11 Tributes

James Woods shares crushing Hillary Clinton tweet to commemorate 9/11

Sheriff calls out own county lawmakers’ vote to put citizens in jeopardy to protest Trump’s immigration

New memoir tells how close Hillary came to being charged with perjury. Where’s the salivating press?

Dubbed ‘Department of Swagger’: Why everyone’s talking about Mike Pompeo’s email sign off

Scarborough celebrates somber day by fear-mongering, says Trump is ‘far graver threat’ to America than 9/11

Kaepernick launches his own shirts, without Nike, with a seriously hefty price-tag

Nike ad backlash gains steam. One state is already reviewing contracts, considering legislation

Mike Rowe’s tribute to 9/11 hero comes with advice: ‘Nike’s free to celebrate whomever they wish, but …’

Media whip up ‘gotcha’ frenzy over two Trump tweets. Easy fix makes heads spin.

PolitiFact nails Kamala Harris for blatantly lying about Kavanaugh’s birth control ‘dog whistle’

These Belly Pics Of A Woman Expecting Triplets Are Completely Freaking Me Out.

THIS Magic Wand! Trump Epically Trolls Obama With His OWN Words

Maxine Doubles Down On Calls To Violence

Just-Released Email Reportedly PROVES Google’s Anti-Trump Bias In 2016 Election

The Female Monday Night Football Announcer Is Driving Everyone Nuts

Peter Strzok And Lisa Page Just Went From Bad To Way, WAY Worse.

House Republicans Introduce Tax Reform 2.0

Olivia Newton-John Shares Heartbreaking News

California Gov. Jerry Brown Signs Bill That Will Make The State Even MORE Unaffordable

Judge Jeanine THANKS Barack Obama

Food Truck Owner In Detroit Proudly Refuses To Serve Police Officers

Broadway Star Publicly Wishes For Trump’s Assassination

Remember When They Told Us “Body Positivity” Wasn’t About Normalizing Unhealthy Lifestyles?

Do You Really Know What Net Neutrality Is?

Kamala Harris Touts Another WHOPPER On Brett Kavanaugh

DeSantis Resigns

Michelle Malkin Hands Jim Carrey His Butt On A Silver Platter

Accuracy in Media

Politifact Labels Harris Tweet on Kavanaugh’s Abortion Position ‘False’ - 9/11/2018

Yahoo: Trump Doesn’t Even Know Which Land to Lease - 9/11/2018

Mainstream Media Finds No Sources in Favor of Trump PLO Announcement - 9/11/2018

CJR Writer Tries to Understand Tucker Carlson Without Introspection - 9/11/2018

MSNBC Gives Glowing Coverage to Obama for Criticizing Trump - 9/10/2018

Allen West The Old School Patriot

Leftists Overtaking My Hometown of Atlanta - 9/11/2018

Islamic Terrorists Want Dems to Win in November - 9/11/2018

The Traitorous Revision of History in the US - 9/10/2018

The Very Definition of Terrorism on Display - 9/8/2018

Alinsky, Trump, and an Anonymous Coup - 9/7/2018

Big League Politics

BREAKING: DOJ Set To Investigate Anti-Conservative Bias Among Social Media Giants - 9/11/2018

Twitter User Threatens Mass Murder of Trump Supporters, Account Still Active - 9/11/2018

Muslim Organization Tries To Bully Franklin Graham From Speaking In U.K. - 9/11/2018

Rabid Anti-Trump Leftist Attempts to Stab GOP Congressional Candidate - 9/11/2018

Leftist U.S. Senator Compares Russian Conspiracy Theory To 9/11 - 9/11/2018

Bizpac Review

GOP Rep. Scott Taylor explains how reenlisting after 9/11 changed his life forever - 9/11/2018

Crack pipe vending machines disguised as pen dispensers pop up in Long Island as school begins - 9/11/2018

Georgia school reignites debate over corporal punishment after reinstating paddling as punishment - 9/11/2018

President Trump honors 9/11 with a speech so powerful it leaves moved CNN hosts stunned - 9/11/2018

Carter Page: FBI probe not about me, it’s about tearing down Trump and all the good he’s doing - 9/11/2018

Breitbart News

Nancy Pelosi, Confident: 'I Will Be the Speaker of the House' - 9/12/2018

Pelosi: Dems Will Win House Because Some Republicans Aren’t ‘Going to Fight Us’ - 9/11/2018

Exclusive — ‘Possession of Drug Paraphernalia’ and Dozens of Other Charges: Ad Exposes Minnesota Democrat’s Brushes with Law - 9/12/2018

Support for Mayor Khan Crashes After Summer of Violence - 9/12/2018

UK Police Force Doubles Down on 'Non-Crime Hate Incidents' After Social Media Backlash - 9/12/2018

Chicks On The Right

Uh Oh. Salsa Dancing Cynthia Nixon Has Lost The All-Important Amy Schumer Vote. - 9/12/2018

Man Threatens Mass Shooting To Collect ‘Bloodstained MAGA Hats’ – Police On The Scene - 9/11/2018

Convenience Store Clerk Collapses In Medical Emergency – Teens Do The Unthinkable - 9/11/2018

Socialist Nutjob Caught In YET ANOTHER LIE - 9/11/2018

Don Jr. Says His Father Only Has A ‘Small’ Group Of People Within The White House He Can Trust - 9/11/2018

Consortiumnews

On the Brink with Russia in Syria Again, 5 Years Later - 9/12/2018

Beyond Bolton: The Path to a Progressive Foreign Policy - 9/11/2018

Letter from Britain: The Real Reason for the ‘Anti-Semite’ Campaign Against Jeremy Corbyn - 9/10/2018

Support Our Commitment to Independent Journalism - 9/10/2018

Moscow Has Upped the Ante in Syria - 9/9/2018

CNS

Trump Would Shut Down Government Over A Border Wall; Some Say He Should - 9/12/2018

Kenneth Starr Still Getting Hardballs - 9/12/2018

If Americans Can't Drive in Afghanistan, Can We Remake Syria? - 9/12/2018

UN Human Rights Council Gives Platform to Venezuelan Minister, Who Slams The US - 9/12/2018

The Purge - USA Network - 9/11/2018

Daily Caller News Foundation

Eddie Edwards Will Face Off Against Democrat Chris Pappas In New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District - 9/11/2018

REPORT: Manafort Is Talking To Mueller About Reaching Plea Deal In Second Trial - 9/11/2018

Cardinal Wuerl To Meet With The Pope About RESIGNATION - 9/11/2018

Police Investigating Anonymous Threat Made At Trump Hotel Before MAGA Event - 9/11/2018

Molly Kelly Wins New Hampshire Democratic Primary, Faces Incumbent Sununu In November - 9/11/2018

Daily Wire

NBC News White House Correspondent Mocks Trump Saying 'Radical Islamic Terrorism' On 9/11 - 9/12/2018

WATCH: Son Of Woman Killed On 9/11 Seemingly Slams Pelosi And Booker For Using Victims as 'Props' - 9/12/2018

Bernie Sanders' Son Doesn't Do So Great In His Congressional Primary - 9/11/2018

Democratic Socialist Threatens To Shoot Up MAGA Event At Trump Hotel, Report Says - 9/11/2018

Pastor Gets Standing Ovation For Blunt Message To Nike - 9/11/2018

Dan Bongino

September 11, 2018: Ep. 804 New Texts Expose More Corruption - 9/11/2018

Do Illegal Aliens Really Commit Fewer Crimes? - 9/10/2018

September 10, 2018: Ep. 803 Is This Major Player in the Scandal Still Alive? - 9/10/2018

SPYGATE: The Characters You Need to Know - 9/9/2018

September 7, 2018: Ep. 802 Is Justice Coming? - 9/7/2018

Drudge Report Feed

Fearing destructive quake, California considers list of buildings likely to collapse... - 9/12/2018

Priest charged with sexually assaulting young girl... - 9/12/2018

Calls prevention summit... - 9/12/2018

Rat in Broth Wipes $190 Million Off Restaurant Chain's Value... - 9/12/2018

Jimmy Carter: Don't scare off moderates... - 9/12/2018

Eagle Rising

President Trump Remembers The Flight 93 Heroes - 9/11/2018

Georgia School Brings Back Paddling To Punish Students - 9/11/2018

Bolton Announces The Trump Admin Will Stop US Cooperation With The ICC - 9/11/2018

Wisconsin College Frowns On 9/11 Memorial Project Over Fears It Could Offend Muslims - 9/11/2018

TRUMP BOOM: Most Summer Travel, Higher Small Business Optimism Since Reagan, Lowest Unemployment Ever, MORE - 9/11/2018

FOX Business

Extradition case of Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya in UK court - 9/12/2018

A Decade Later: 5 Lingering Effects of the Financial Crisis - 9/12/2018

4 Retirement Planning Mistakes You Probably Don't Even Realize You're Making - 9/12/2018

Farmer Brothers (FARM) Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript - 9/12/2018

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished for Social-Media Giants - 9/12/2018

FOX News

Florida woman doused husband's eyes with hot sauce during argument, police say - 9/12/2018

Hurricane Florence could bring catastrophic storm surges: What are they, and how can you prepare? - 9/12/2018

Hurricane Florence apps to use during the storm - 9/12/2018

Hurricane Florence churns in the Atlantic: How do these powerful tropical storms take shape? - 9/12/2018

Libyan officials say unknown missiles hit Tripoli airport - 9/12/2018

Gatestone Institute :: Articles

China's 'Digital' Totalitarian Experiment - 9/12/2018

Turkey's Latest Power Grab a Naval Base in Cyprus? - 9/12/2018

Pakistan: New Government Fails to Support Minorities - 9/11/2018

Are We Remembering 9/11 or Forgetting It? - 9/11/2018

Turkey: Torture, Sexual Abuse Rampant in Prisons - 9/10/2018

Geller Report

WATCH Moment ‘teenage’ migrants chase after UK-bound vans in broad daylight in sleepy French village - 9/11/2018

Terror-tied Muslims ‘proselytizing’ at U.S. school assemblies - 9/11/2018

‘Silent Donation’: Corporate Emails Reveal Google Executives Tried to Turn Out Latino Voters Who They Thought Would Vote For Clinton - 9/11/2018

WATCH: Ground Zero Mosque: Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks - 9/11/2018

NYC: Racist, far-left principal trying to rid school of Jewish teachers: lawsuit - 9/11/2018

Hot Air

Report: Tennis umpires might boycott Serena Williams’s matches over “sexism” claim during U.S. Open fiasco - 9/11/2018

The Botham Jean killing: Should the cop be charged with manslaughter or murder? - 9/11/2018

Nikki Haley warns of ‘dire’ consequences if Russia and Iran continue attacks on Idlib, Syria - 9/11/2018

Pope Francis: The Great Accuser is hunting bishops these days; Update: Wuerl to discuss resigning with pope - 9/11/2018

“Unsung success”: Trump says handling of the Puerto Rico hurricane was some of the best disaster management ever - 9/11/2018

InfoWars

Emergency Report: Trump Must Take Action Now To Stop False Flags - 9/11/2018

Tech Gods Wipe Truth From Public View - 9/11/2018

Video: Amazon is Now Banning ‘Offensive’ Books - 9/11/2018

Spirit of America Captured: Bald Eagle Graces 9/11 Memorial - 9/11/2018

Report: Pyongyang Aims to Connect Railways of North, South Korea - 9/11/2018

Jihad Watch

9/11: Seventeen years have passed, and no end is in sight - 9/11/2018

Australia: Muslim preacher says its a “major sin” for wife to refuse husband’s demands for sex - 9/11/2018

Dartmouth prof: It’s good that 17 years after 9/11, people are finally forgetting about terrorism - 9/11/2018

France: Muslim who drove car onto airport runway said “I have been sent by Allah,” has “psychiatric fragility” - 9/11/2018

Muslim former Chicago resident indicted on charges he tried to join the Islamic State - 9/11/2018

Katrina Pierson

Peek: Above All, Obama Angry Trump has systematically chipped away at his legacy - 9/12/2018

Trump Reminds America “Radical Islamic Terrorists” Attacked Us on September 11th - 9/12/2018

Dershowitz: Strzok’s Claim About ‘Leak Strategy’ Doesn’t ‘Pass the Giggle Test’ - 9/12/2018

New Strzok-Page Texts Show Coordinated Media Leaks - 9/12/2018

The Drive-Bys Can’t Change Public Opinion on Trump and It’s Driving Them Crazy - 9/11/2018

LifeNews.com

Bioethicist Says Allowing Infanticide Does Not Violate a Baby’s Right to Life - 9/11/2018

Remember When California Spent $3 Billion for Embryonic Stem Cell Research. It Hasn’t Cured Any Patients - 9/11/2018

Thousands of Pro-Lifers March in Dominican Republic Against Legalizing Abortion - 9/11/2018

Actress Sally Field Reveals She Secretly Aborted Her Baby at 17 - 9/11/2018

Professors Argue Its OK to Euthanize Patients to Harvest Their Organs - 9/11/2018

LifeZette

Identity Politics ‘Invades Science’ on Campus: Here’s the Proof and the Pushback - 9/12/2018

Six Facts Say Papadopoulos Is Right to Think Downer, FBI Set Him Up - 9/12/2018

‘Careful What You Ask for’ Ahead of Midterms, Starr Warns Dems - 9/11/2018

Look Who Supported Roseanne Barr After She Was Fired - 9/11/2018

Happening Now: Mass Shooting Threat at Trump Hotel MAGA Event - 9/11/2018

Newsmax - America

GOP Sen. Collins Gets 'Vulgar' Calls Protesting Kavanaugh - 9/11/2018

Puerto Rico Gov. Rebukes Trump: 'Not a Successful Relationship' - 9/11/2018

Google Brings Back AI Expert With Military, Defense Ties - 9/11/2018

Florence Could Rival North Carolina's 1954 'Benchmark Storm' - 9/11/2018

WashPost: Archbishop Wuerl to Talk Resignation With Pope - 9/11/2018

Newsmax - Newsfront

Education Dept. Reopens Rutgers Case Alleging Anti-Semitism - 9/11/2018

Google Brings Back AI Expert With Military, Defense Ties - 9/11/2018

Hurricane Florence Has Ingredients That Make Experts Worry - 9/11/2018

Study: Obesity Makes You Stupid - 9/11/2018

Newsmax - Politics

GOP Sen. Collins Gets 'Vulgar' Calls Protesting Kavanaugh - 9/11/2018

Puerto Rico Gov. Rebukes Trump: 'Not a Successful Relationship' - 9/11/2018

Sessions Open to Probe of Social Media Giants - 9/11/2018

Report: Bush 43 to Help Fundraise for Select GOP Candidates - 9/11/2018

Chuck Schumer Slams Trump on 'Hurtful' Puerto Rico Comments - 9/11/2018

Newsmax - TheWire

Whale Sanctuary Blocked, Japan Pushes to End Commercial Hunting Ban - 9/11/2018

El Nino Event Is 70% Likely This Year, UN Says - 9/11/2018

Alex Trebek's Beard on 'Jeopardy!' Causes a Stir - 9/11/2018

Mac Miller Autopsy Performed, More Tests Needed in Rapper's Death - 9/11/2018

Lifelike Pediatric Robot Creeps Out Docs in Training - 9/11/2018

OAN Newsroom – One America News Network

Hurricane Florence prompts mass evacuations - 9/11/2018

WATCH: Potential False-Flag Attack in Syria Could Trigger U.S. Military Strike - 9/11/2018

FAA: Pilots advised to exercise great caution while in Iranian airspace - 9/11/2018

3 Chicago teens shot near high school - 9/11/2018

WATCH: Remembering 9/11 - 9/11/2018

Politichicks.com

Michelle Owens of the Center for Prosecutor Integrity Discusses DOJ and Corruption in DC - 9/12/2018

Anni Cyrus: Nike’s Kaepernick ‘Just Do It’ Jihad - 9/12/2018

Reminder: Benghazi “Whistleblowers” Confirm Lies, Deceit, Cover-ups - 9/11/2018

When is Enough? When All Firearms Are Taken Away! - 9/11/2018

Six Years of Benghazi: The Comfort of Friends - 9/11/2018

Populist.TV

How did the #CIA React to the Events of September 11, 2001? | Guest: @JohnKiriakou - 9/11/2018

How did the #CIA React to the Events of September 11, 2001? | Guest: @JohnKiriakou` - 9/11/2018

Remembering September 11, 2001 & What it Means to be a Patriot | Guest: @skepticalvet - 9/11/2018

Headlines + What’s Your Best Trick for Separating Truth from Fiction??? Call-In NOW @ 202-521-1320!! - 9/11/2018

What is the Current Situation in #Syria? - 9/11/2018

Sara A. Carter

McConnell Suggests ‘Ethics Inquiry’ over Cory’s ‘Unusual Behavior’ - 9/7/2018

Trump Calls on Sessions to Investigate Anonymous NYT Op-Ed Author - 9/7/2018

Corey Booker’s Grandstanding Stunt Backfires - 9/6/2018

Lawmakers Call on Trump to Declassify Carter Page FISA - 9/6/2018

Meadows: Demands AG Sessions Investigate Bruce Ohr’s Role with FBI - 9/5/2018

The American Conservative

U.S. Again Cries ‘Chemical Warfare’ in Syria - 9/11/2018

Congress’ Deadline for Yemen Certification Has Arrived - 9/11/2018

The Communalist Mormons Mitt Romney Would Have Hated - 9/11/2018

Is ‘Universal Authorship’ Such a Good Thing? - 9/11/2018

Sweden: The Latest Nationalist Domino - 9/11/2018

The Black Sphere

Chuck Schumer Comes Unplugged and Unhinged - 9/9/2018

‘Bleeding Blue’ Film Examines the Dangers and Politics of Policing in America (VIDEO) - 9/6/2018

Nike’s Bad Publicity * VIDEO * - 9/5/2018

Tiger Woods Defends Trump, Blasted by ESPN ***VIDEO*** - 9/1/2018

The Daily Signal

The Daily Signal Podcast: ‘Gosnell’ Filmmaker Shares Why This Story Had to Be Told - Invalid Date

Brett Kavanaugh’s Opponents Aren’t Really Against Him. They’re Against the Constitution. - Invalid Date

Newly Disclosed Strzok-Page Texts Shed New Light on ‘Media Leak Strategy’ at FBI, Justice - Invalid Date

America Has Strayed From Founders’ Vision for Economic Freedom and Limited Government, Walter Williams Says - Invalid Date

Government for Hire? Emails Show ‘Climate Industry’ Funds Jobs in Offices of Governors, Attorneys General - Invalid Date

The Epoch Times

Hurricane Florence Approaches Carolinas as Wind Speeds Reach 150 MPH - 9/12/2018

East Coast Military Bases Brace for Hurricane Florence - 9/12/2018

New York Beats London to Top Financial Center Spot Amid Brexit Fears - 9/12/2018

Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra Receives Rousing Welcome at Taiwan Airport - 9/12/2018

UK Prime Minister Theresa May Could Face Leadership Challenge - 9/12/2018

The Federalist

Podcast: Democrats Push Single Payer, Republicans Push Paid Family Leave - 9/11/2018

We Should Remember 9/11 Through The Lens Of Good Friday - 9/11/2018

Jim Carrey Urges Democrats To Embrace The Socialist Label - 9/11/2018

Read A Pile Of Top Nazis Talking About How They Love Leftist Marxism - 9/11/2018

U.K. Police Urge Citizens To Report Neighbors For ‘Offensive Or Insulting’ Speech - 9/11/2018

The Gateway Pundit

Obama-Hillary Fired Benghazi Heroes When they Got to Germany – Made Them Find Their Own Way Back to US (VIDEO) - 9/11/2018

Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department to Retrieve Emails Found on Weiner Laptop - 9/11/2018

Brit Hume Proves Once Again that GOP Elites Can Never Be Trusted to Lead Ever Again (VIDEO) - 9/11/2018

Breaking: More Strzok-Page Text Messages Show Coordination of FBI-DOJ to Destroy Trump with Planted Media Leaks - 9/11/2018

Stabbing Suspect Farzad Fazeli Facebook Rant About GOP, Trump: ‘Street Gangs Have a Code to Clean House’ - 9/11/2018

The Western Journal

Adrian Rogers: The Poison of Pornography - 9/11/2018

Man Appears To Take Shot at Kaepernick from 9/11 Memorial Stage - 9/11/2018

Watch: Nancy Pelosi and Cory Booker Get Scolded at 9/11 Memorial by Victim’s Family - 9/11/2018

5 Prayers for Those Who Are Stuck Waiting - 9/11/2018

Serena Williams, One of the Best Tennis Players Ever, Embraces the Left’s Victim Mentality - 9/11/2018

TownHall

School Disciplinary Policies Must Be Local - 9/11/2018

If Americans Can't Drive in Afghanistan, Can We Remake Syria? - 9/11/2018

Scooters Outrun Law - 9/11/2018

The Case Against Krissy Noble and How Drug and Gun Laws Deprive Us of Fundamental Rights - 9/11/2018

The Medicare-for-All Hoax - 9/11/2018

TownHall News

Merkel: "No excuse" for far-right violence in demonstrations - 9/12/2018

World stocks mixed as China hits at looming US tariffs - 9/12/2018

The Latest: Florence steadily making way to US East Coast - 9/12/2018

Algerian generals, others fired without explanation - 9/12/2018

EU eyes beefed-up coast guard to protect outside borders - 9/11/2018

twitchy.com

‘I am coming with a gun’: Twitter rando threatens to collect ‘bloodstained MAGA hats’ at Trump hotel meet-up - 9/11/2018

‘Incredible gesture’! Here’s what Jake Tapper is doing with his advance for the film version of his book - 9/11/2018

Center for Immigration Studies says Twitter is tagging the phrase ‘illegal alien’ as ‘hateful content’ - 9/11/2018

Man arrested for attempting to stab Republican congressional candidate; made ‘disparaging remarks’ about GOP - 9/11/2018

‘You BLEW it’! It doesn’t take long for Tomi Lahren’s hot 9/11 take to fizzle - 9/11/2018

Washington Examiner Politics

Washington Post scoop on GOP gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis landed with a thud - 9/11/2018

Jon Tester, Congress' second-biggest recipient of lobbyist cash, rails against money in politics - 9/11/2018

17 years after 9/11, a warning from Abraham Lincoln - 9/10/2018

Swedish populists gain ground; Europe's leaders can only stop such movements with policy changes - 9/10/2018

Voters still care a lot about regulating Wall Street - 9/9/2018

Washington Times: Faith & Family

Donald Wuerl to talk resignation with Pope Francis in Vatican - 9/11/2018

Vatican official: Sex abuse scandal is church's 'own 9/11' - 9/11/2018

Doug Lamborn demands DOJ probe Colorado for 'harassment' of Christian baker Jack Phillips - 9/10/2018

Vatican promises 'clarifications' to pope cover-up claims - 9/10/2018

Donald Trump, Melania Trump send Rosh Hashanah message - 9/9/2018

Washington Times: Inside the Beltway

Inside the Beltway: News media fixates on 'Trump's Katrina' and Hurricane Maria - 9/11/2018

Inside the Beltway: America remains steadfast on 9/11 anniversary - 9/10/2018

Inside the Beltway: Media attacks on Trump run like clockwork - 9/9/2018

Inside the Beltway: Trump resistance now 'an emergency,' say organizers - 9/6/2018

Inside the Beltway: Democrats faulted for joining Kavanaugh chaos - 9/5/2018

Washington Times: Inside Politics

Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski hit by anti-Kavanaugh ad blitz - 9/11/2018

Ann Coulter stands up for Jeff Sessions - 9/11/2018

John Brennan endorsed anti-Trump Steele dossier: Bob Woodward - 9/11/2018

Newt Gingrich, Republicans float new Contract with America - 9/11/2018

Bernie Sanders' son in crowded New Hampshire primary field - 9/11/2018

Washington Times: National

Belgrade airport closed after tires burst on plane - 9/12/2018

Merkel: "No excuse" for far-right violence in demonstrations - 9/12/2018

India nabs man suspected of killing dozens of truck drivers - 9/12/2018

Putin says Russia identified suspects in Novichok poisoning - 9/12/2018

Ryanair pilots, flight attendants go on strike in Germany - 9/12/2018

Washington Times: Politics

Plea to be heard for benefits of worker illegally in country - 9/12/2018

AP FACT CHECK: Obama doesn't always tell the straight story - 9/11/2018

Jimmy Carter cautions Democrats not to scare off moderates - 9/11/2018

Months of deadly unrest devastate Nicaragua's economy - 9/11/2018

Eddie Edwards, Trump-backed candidate, wins New Hampshire Republican U.S. House primary - 9/11/2018

WayneDupree.com

Ex-NIKE Exec Who Embezzled $77K Will Spend 13 Months In Jail - 9/12/2018

George W. Bush To Help Campaign And Raise Money For GOP Candidates - 9/11/2018

Defeated Schumer! Love For Senate To Turn Blue But Geography Is Against Us - 9/11/2018

WayneDupree.Com Named To Top 100 Conservative Websites — No. 50 - 9/11/2018

Nike Gains Back 3.3 Billion Stock Loss - 9/11/2018

0 notes

how2to18 · 7 years ago

Link

AT A RECENT DISCUSSION at the CUNY Graduate Center with the writer Chris Kraus, the first question came from a protestor. Kraus was there to talk about After Kathy Acker, her excellent new biography of postmodern lit’s enfant terrible. But the question was not about the biography or Acker’s fiction or even Kraus’s own remarkable novels. Instead, the questioner asked why Semiotext(e), Kraus’s publisher — and at one point Acker’s — was hosting a reading with Kraus at the gallery 356 Mission in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. Boyle Heights, a historically Latinx neighborhood, is currently engaged in a struggle against gentrification, taking on that seemingly naïve first wave of cultural pioneers: the artists, gallerists, and musicians who often head out to the frontier of what are often lower-income, nonwhite neighborhoods in search of urban grit, inspiration, and, most importantly, cheap rents. Why, the questioner asked, would Kraus and Semiotext(e) contribute to such gentrification? Semiotext(e), a long-standing publisher of radical continental leftist theory, politics, and fiction, would be directly contributing to gentrification.

After a brief impasse, the usual questions begin, with Kraus answering one on politics by pointing out that while Acker was no activist, her work held a subversive edge. Acker, Kraus explained, was political in terms of her art, her personal life, and her theoretical understandings of semiotics and culture. Kraus’s response, though a fair defense of art as politics, falls a little flat. It seems somehow unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, Semiotext(e) canceled the Boyle Heights event shortly thereafter. It is into this complex interrelationship of politics, culture, and economics that the resurgence of interest in Acker has arrived. With the recent publications of the first authorized biography of Acker by Kraus, a compelling edition of letters between Acker and media theorist McKenzie Wark in I’m Very into You: Correspondence 1995–1996, and a new edition of Blood and Guts in High School — released in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of Acker’s death — the question of Acker’s legacy is both timely and telling.

Back in the postmodern day, a protest like the one at the CUNY Graduate Center would have been all but unthinkable. Not only was the political and cultural landscape different (art’s participation in gentrification had just begun), but Acker also had cachet as a transgressive writer. She broke taboos of authorship and ownership by plagiarizing and appropriating literary works, trash, and pornography into her own texts. She wrote explicitly about all kinds of sex, about full-frontal family romance, and about S&M. She radically challenged the notion of a single and stable identity, and called attention to the increasingly powerful role of images in media and daily life. Finally, Acker broke any and all generic constraints and narrative conventions in her collage-like novels or, better, literary assemblages.

But times have changed. As Kraus remarked in a recent interview, “Transgression has become so banal.” In turn, the once daring S&M themes in Acker’s work do not have the same charge they once did, finding themselves comparatively gray-scaled down in a Fifty Shades culture. Nor is Acker’s once cutting-edge deconstructive critique of image culture as trenchant as it once was. Furthermore, postmodernism has long been out of fashion, its once canonical works increasingly ignored by scholars, and its supposedly radical politics questioned as art has become not simply more commodified than ever, but a primary engine for capitalism itself (as in the case of gentrification or “revitalization”). In short, it is perhaps not the most fortuitous moment — if there ever is one — to reconsider an experimental and transgressive writer like Acker. So the questions we might ask in the midst of this would-be revival are obvious: Why Acker? Why now?

Grove Press’s corrected edition of Blood and Guts in High School (the last two sections were mistakenly switched in earlier publications) puts all of Acker’s literary and cultural “transgressions” on display. Completed in 1978 but not published until 1984, the novel is arguably her best, and it serves as a strong case for why Acker still matters. Blood and Guts is a twisted künstlerroman, tracing young Janey Smith’s relationship with and escape from her father/lover to the dirty downtown of late 1970s New York; her capture by a Persian slave trader; her friendship with Jean Genet in Tangiers; and eventually her journey to Egypt and into another (dream) world via her poetry and several fantastic dream maps, which Acker pens in detail.

The novel’s fragmentation and genre play — the story line hopscotches through blocks of prose, play-like transcripts, poems, a creative book report, pornographic drawings, folktales, quotations by literary theorists and philosophers, and more — make it a romp through time and space. The nonlinear and nonrealist story of Janey’s time on earth is frightening, at times poignant, and even very funny. The novel is also unforgiving in its depiction of raw desire and sexuality and includes a brutal abortion section of the “On Demand and Without Apology” sort, so rarely seen or heard of in today’s abortion-rights-slashing United States. For all the sex in Acker’s work, relationships of any kind are never easy. “Abortions,” Janey says, “are the symbol, the outer image, of sexual relations in this world. Describing my abortions is the only real way I can tell you about pain and fear … my unstoppable drive for sexual love made me know.”

Such dizzying genre shifting helps Acker to challenge the notion of a secure, unified self. Since Janey’s world is always rapidly changing, so too is what she thinks of as “herself.” For Janey must learn that the self is a kind of fiction, one that, though it often comes pre-scripted, is always capable of changing genres. As the novel puts it, “You, the thing you called ‘you,’ was a ball turning and turning in the blackness […] every time the ball turns over you feel all your characteristics, your identities, slip around so you go crazy. When the ball doesn’t turn, you feel stable.” Of course, nothing is stable in Blood and Guts, yet the novel’s compactness and focus on Janey’s story make it less jarring than other comparable novels in Acker’s oeuvre, such as Great Expectations (1982) and Don Quixote: Which Was A Dream (1986). As Kraus aptly notes in her introduction to the new edition, Blood and Guts is “a disjunctive but emotionally continuous work.” Acker’s blending of such opposites shows a masterful touch.

There is also something perfect about the angst-ridden “teenage” or “high school” vibe of Blood and Guts. Because Janey is an angry, rebellious, fucked-up teenager, Acker’s angry, rebellious, fucked-up novel feels entirely appropriate and not at all like the experimental fiction it is. High school holds a special place in the American psyche, and this positioning allows Acker to tap into a reservoir of collective nostalgia, resentment, and dark desires. Janey’s frustration and alienation play particularly well in this venue. “Parents stink,” the novel’s first section begins, and therefore so does Janey’s attitude. She painfully negotiates the nuances of difference between sex and love, works a shitty job, and even joins a gang of disaffected, delinquent youth, THE SCORPIONS, for a brief period. But Acker never lets us forget Janey’s physical and emotional vulnerability. As Janey writes in her feminist reading of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, “The society in which I’m living is totally fucked-up. I don’t know what to do. I’m just one person and I’m not very good at anything. I don’t want to live in hell my whole life.” For Janey, this hellish waking life — the world of school, work, family and societal expectations — means not being in “the vision-world, the world of passion and wildness.” She thus inverts the “real” and dream worlds, since “disconnected from dreams[,] I was psychotic.” In the end, Janey’s dream journeys allow her to realize that “[r]eality is just the underlying fantasy” and to imagine a world and a self different from her own.

Janey’s role as antiheroine, however, is complicated. To Acker’s immense credit, she never settles on a single packaged image or idea of woman in Blood and Guts, or in any of her works. No comforting or commodifiable image of a rebel girl emerges. Instead, Acker relentlessly explores the process of becoming a rebel and becoming a woman through Janey. Since altering such images does not necessarily result in changing the underlying reality, Acker is not interested in merely substituting a bad image with a badass one. Even today, from the new Mad Max to Wonder Woman, these compensatory, supposedly feminist representations of women do little to change systemic gender and sexual inequalities or to prevent sexual abuse by men, from the groper-in-chief on down. For Acker, such received ideas make dubious essentialist claims about what a woman is or ought to be.

Blood and Guts thus privileges experience over received knowledge and culture (culture is always a bad word — the enemy — in Acker). Yet it does so in a way that subverts the traditional (male) bildungsroman. Experience for Acker’s “innocent” protagonists is a continual process of consciousness and the body moving through a world of images and attempting to dream beyond them. And so, even Janey’s teenaged angst and nihilism can pass into the lyrical:

A girl is wild who likes sensual things: doesn’t want to give up things being alive: rolling in black fur on top of skin ice-cold water iron crinkly leaves seeing three brown branches against branches full of leaves against dark green leaves through this the misty grey wanders in garbage on the streets up to your knees and unshaven men lying under cocaine piled on top of cocaine colours colours everything happening! one thing after another thing! … you keep going, there are really no rules: it doesn’t matter to you whether you live or die […]; if you get stuck that’s OK too if you really don’t give a shit […]! Loving everything and rolling in it like it’s all gooky shit goddamnit make a living grow up no you don’t want to do that.

Here is an openness to the flow of experience in full. Consciousness becomes a permeable membrane letting in both the world’s horror and beauty. Knowledge, then, is never something transcendent, settled, or settled upon. Everything is in flux. Personal development is less about building one’s self up so much as it is about disassembling the self that society provides its readymade templates for.

Nevertheless, there is a politics to Acker’s fiction that goes beyond her critique of identity. This politics can be glimpsed in Blood and Guts via Janey’s writings in two seemingly disparate ideas: “[P]olitics don’t disappear but take place inside my body,” and, “The only thing I want is freedom. Let me tell you: I don’t have any idea what that means.” The first quote, of course, could in many ways be taken as the rallying cry of identity politics. One’s racialized, gendered, or sexed body is a site where real political struggle takes place. The second, however, is concerned with how we define freedom and what kind of politics would best guarantee it. The two strains come together, of course, because the body is engaged in political struggles. But in Acker, things are more complicated than they seem.

As Acker’s atypical feminism suggests, identity politics is not exactly her thing. The body is certainly at stake, but it is not a starting point for addressing standard political issues. Acker seeks a “freedom” prior to those “freedoms” guaranteed by, say, the state, a constitution, or the law. It is not that she would have been “against” fair and equal treatment for all under the law. But consider, for example, some of the real-life characters who appear in Acker’s novels, such as Jean Genet in Blood and Guts or Arthur Rimbaud in the underrated In Memoriam to Identity (1990). They are not reimagined as tragic or latent hero figures, or proto-activists for gay rights — as a politically correct(ive) historical novel or film of today might have it. Instead, Acker figures them in the same way she does other similar real-life characters (from Antonin Artaud to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec). They are social, artistic, and sexual outlaws, deviants and criminals whose struggles to forge new forms of art and life are an affront to the very idea of society, not a call for inclusion. From the point of view of liberalism, this is both a reckless romanticization of the marginalized and their very real plight and an avoidance of pragmatic politics. Seen from another view, Acker is offering an anarchic challenge to the state and society.

The traditional politics of liberalism is a dead end for Acker. She counters it with a politics that ties the body together with a notion of a freedom that, like Janey, we “don’t have any idea what it is”: freedom as an endless process, not an end product — even if it means creating more “rights.” Take the ending of Blood and Guts, when we enter into Janey’s dreamscape world and are told of “ancient books” in which “humans can become something else.” Most important of these is a “book on human transformation.” Janey asks in the book’s final words, “Shall we look for this wonderful book? Shall we stop being dead people? Shall we find our way out of all expectations?” Continually challenging expectations — literary, sexual, political, or otherwise — is Acker’s forte. And she does so not for the shock value of transgression but to test our understanding of freedom’s limits.

Blood and Guts’s anarchic politics is set resolutely against a (neo)liberal humanism of the left or right’s variety. The left’s version of neoliberalism has marketed its commitment to diversity quite well over the last couple of decades without adequately addressing underlying issues such as income inequality, sexism, or racism. Acker, in contrast, is not interested in celebrating diversity if it means adding to a drop-down menu of identity choices. She wants to preserve the notion of diversity before it is tamed by an acceptable category. Thus, her works question and defy categorization itself. Nor, however, does Acker end up blindly equating “freedom” with the “free market,” which comprises the right’s justification of neoliberalism. True, Acker lived in soon-to-be-gentrified neighborhoods and cultivated a hip, edgy image (portrayed on many of her books’ covers) that played into the fame game. But even as her onetime cultural capital has been devalued, the work itself remains truly radical. Ironically, today we must look past Acker’s seductive rebel image in order to grasp what is essential in her novels.

For Acker reveals how literary forms (genres) are like forms of life (genders, among other forms). Genres in Acker are a shifting kaleidoscope of forms that, like facets of identity, are not stable and mask the crucial fact that, like the unified “you,” there is no comforting master narrative. Acker wants to keep open the questions — in both art and life — of what a human is and what forms of life we might potentially create ourselves. To be sure, such aspirations can be seen in Acker’s later life in her brief correspondence exploring queer subjectivity with Wark in I’m Very Into You, as well as in her introduction to the 1990s lesbian/dyke culture in San Francisco. It is no surprise then that Acker’s admirers include the likes of Maggie Nelson and Avital Ronell, both of whose works often blend art and activism, theory and praxis.

Art and literature can no longer be naïve about their direct or indirect complicity with gentrification and capitalism. The protest against Kraus’s Semiotext(e) reading was right on the money in this case. Yet it doesn’t follow that experimental or non-mainstream work that may have contributed to or emerged from gentrification can’t provide a compelling critique of neoliberalism’s notion of market-driven freedoms. Acker’s work and Semiotext(e) still have crucial things to offer when thinking about subjectivity and freedom, even for those who protested the Kraus reading.

Capitalism and its discontents won’t just disappear from marginalized communities when the art galleries and high-end coffee shops do. Then the real work must start. And, of course, anyone with the means or authority to draw lines between the included and excluded will need to provide a list of essential qualifications to divide what belongs from what doesn’t. No matter how worthwhile the cause, such a project comes with obvious dangers. Not for nothing does Janey write her book report on The Scarlet Letter. Recall, too, that Trumpism peddles a false yet effective image of the true red-blooded, white, blue-collared worker who single-handedly Made America Great.

In a world in which liberal democracy is itself in crisis, Acker’s work is more relevant than ever. Change the political genre, fight for something new, Acker’s work urges us, because conventional politics in the post-factual, image-driven age is failing and unable to evolve. Blood and Guts in High School reminds us that freedom is endless becoming and potentiality. We don’t have to play extras in our current postapocalyptic zombie-movie world. And our present reality, like our politics, is only as limited as our imaginations let it be.

Ralph Clare is associate professor of English at Boise State University. He is the author of Fictions Inc.: The Corporation in Postmodern Fiction, Film, and Popular Culture (Rutgers University Press, 2014) and the editor of the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to David Foster Wallace (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

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republicstandard · 7 years ago

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I am a Pro-Brexit Immigrant. Britain is Not a Racist Country!

Annie G

I never miss a chance to remind people that I am an immigrant living in England.

Specifically I am a Greek-Cypriot immigrant. I don’t know why I feel the need to state this so many times, but it has to do with the fact that British people lately seem to have been let down by the immigrants they so much welcomed and embraced in the past. A nation that welcomes everyone. A state broadcaster that in a desperate effort to embrace diversity bans white people from specific vacancies. Native people so scared of the label racist that they allow illegal and alien cultural practices to go unchallenged and unpunished. A British legal system that is softer on immigrant criminals. An establishment that on a daily basis proves itself to have forgotten the people it should serve, work for and favor. Chaos in already tense working-class communities. Look there, in the forgotten corner; the so-called Nazis, fascists and racists, pleading for their country to be returned.

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Even though I have been in England on and off since the age of seventeen, I never felt, until now, the need to get involved in the internal machinations of the country- let alone her politics. I have been a silent observer for many years thinking:

“Annie, you are a guest, you have no right to interfere”.

All this has changed in the last three years. The never-ending unmasking of so-called Asian grooming gangs (though we all know these men are not Japanese), frequent terror attacks, and the frankly galling observation of the British establishment attacking its own people using my immigrant status as an excuse to justify restrictions on civil liberties and free speech, I felt it was time for me to speak up. Speak up about my personal experiences with Islam, for sure, but I must speak up in defense of the British people. People that seem to my eye to have been abandoned by the world, and their own leaders.

Have you lost your mind?

this a question I am often asked by the self-proclaimed saviours of immigrants and refugees. Not only those leftist political activists, but also by random people with a genuine interest as to why I so passionately support British people, Brexit, and patriots like Tommy Robinson, and Anne-Marie Waters. Yes, I must have lost my mind. I voted for Brexit so the British government can deport me once Britain is out of the EU!

Yes I must have lost my mind, and I support Tommy and Anne-Marie, Britain’s worst ‘Nazis’, so they can dub me a Greek hairy monkey that should be deported. Indeed, I have been insulted with these words; but not by the people who the left-wing in Britain has branded Nazis. Quite the opposite. It is offensive, not to mention an insult to my intelligence, that many people think that I support people that hate me based on my race or skin color. It cannot be that I, a foreigner, agree with the ideas of people who are not like myself. I must vote in line with my ethnic group. So much for the vaunted racism of the right wing, when it has only been the left in this country who has ever cared about my ethnicity instead of my opinions.

Yes indeed, I voted for Brexit! The British Government on the 23rd of June 2016 gave me my democratic right to choose between Leave or Remain in the referendum, deciding the fate of the UK in the European Union. I am entitled to my vote no matter what I chose, without the fear that I would be branded a racist if anyone found out that I voted to leave. I and thousands of other immigrants were allowed to vote in a referendum deciding the future of the British people. Doesn’t that sound crazy? I was allowed to vote because my nationality is Cypriot and my country belongs to the Commonwealth of Nations.

In a curious turn, my first cousin -born and raised in Greece, but holds a Cypriot nationality due to her father being Cypriot- was also allowed to vote. She is not allowed to vote at the Cypriot upcoming presidential elections in January because she hasn’t lived in Cyprus, but somehow she was allowed to vote as a student in the UK in one of the most important referendums about Britain’s future. It feels that no matter what British people do, they cannot win. There is always going to be a loophole in the system to suppress their interests or wishes over the interests of immigrants or minorities. Despite this weighting and relentless fear-mongering in the press, the British people voted to leave. Who could have imagined such an incredible victory?

Before I came to the front lines of debate, showing off my British patriotism, I had to answer the question myself- Where does my loyalty lie? Britain or Greece & Cyprus? If Britain tomorrow goes to war with Greece or Cyprus which country would I support? Questions like this that have troubled me. After deliberation, I came to the conclusion that my loyalty will always be to the country that took me in as a broken and damaged youth and turned me into a self-confident woman. That is Britain. A country that gave me a home, and allowed me to bloom.

Contrary to the whinings of the Remoaners, who foretell my imminent doom, I have never believed that post-Brexit Britain will deport me or the other hard working immigrants that do offer a great deal to this country. How could Britain do such a thing, when it fails to deport jihadists and potential terrorists? If, after careful consideration, I decided to put my adopted country's interest above the lies and fear-mongering of a biased media and political elite and voted for Brexit; why I have no regrets. If liberals think I have lost mind; let it be so. A comment on my old twitter account (before it was suspended, slapped wrists all round for wrongthink) read something like:

“poor girl, probably her English boyfriend told her to vote for Brexit and she did without knowing she will be kicked out soon”

Unable to think for myself because I am foreign, or a woman, or both. People branding me mentally inferior, failing completely to acknowledge that my vote was not forced by anyone. My vote was a mature well-thought decision. What troubles me the most, is that it is people who claim to be my advocates that are trying to take away my agency. The threat to my status as an independent individual, capable of making decisions are not the people I am told to fear daily, by the Mainstream Media and the establishment. Brexiteers have done me no wrong. The culprits always are the people that took it upon themselves -without consulting me first- that they know what’s best for me better than I do. Staying in the EU is what is best for me personally, so that is why I was wrong to vote how I did. Doesn’t that reveal everything about the Remain camp? So selfish, one-dimensional even.

Tommy Robinson, Anne-Marie Waters and the people that follow them or belong in this patriotic movement are people I have been told to fear. To be a patriot in the United Kingdom is to be as close to a Nazi as one can get. One such person according to the media is Tommy Robinson, a man who a decade ago rang the warning bell against the inability of Britain to deal with Islam, and has been branded a fascist ever since. Yet Tommy Robinson has been a person that on more than one occasions took the time of the day to give me counsel and support me on personal issues. I consider him a friend, and as far from a racist as one can be. Anne Marie Waters, accused by her former political allies of Nazi beliefs has come to be one of my closest friends.

The supporters of these two public figures have become something like a big family to me. I received over fifty Christmas invitations in 2017 from people around the nation, so that I wouldn’t spend Christmas alone as I don’t have any family in England. More than fifty so-called racists and bigots were willing to put an extra plate on their family Christmas table, so that the Greek hairy monkey immigrant didn’t spend Christmas alone. This is not the xenophobia we are told exists in the heart of Britons. This is the hospitality and politeness of British legend.

The myth of far-right extremism, Neo-Nazis marching in our cities and lurid headlines are pushed through the British mainstream media to establish fear and hate towards British citizens among the British people. There is also the stench of classism, that the working-class alone are victims of some xenophobic cult, because they are stupid- because they are inferior. So say the media.

It took some courage the first time I attended one of these so called Neo-Nazi rallies, I will admit. However, it only a little bit of an effort to make my own reading and research into what these Neo-Nazis are all about. Being a Greek means one is well familiar of political parties like Golden Dawn who believe that Mr. Hitler did nothing wrong. Like any self-respecting person, I don’t want anything to do with groups like this- and I can assure you that Tommy Robinson, Anne-Marie Waters and their organizations couldn’t be further from the fascism of Golden Dawn. The right of a person in a secular society like Britain is to be free to criticise any religion. For over 150 years, European intellectuals have done so to Christianity even in the face of harsh censure. The shoe drops when the working classes protest against a faith that is not as placid as Christianity. This is impolite, it seems. Never mind the cost to British children. Never mind the arranged marriages and exploitation of women. The working classes must know their place.

This is why Robinson and Waters are hated.

I fail to see what have those people done that is so wrong, that they deserve to be branded as fascists and deserve to be excluded from the rest of the society. I have lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and have experienced life among Wahhabist Islamic communities. I have seen Sharia Law being practiced and thus possess an understanding of Islam I argue is superior to that of most British liberals. Yet, I fail to see why the people that criticise this religion face such a backlash and condemnation in the United Kingdom.

In all honesty, England feels like is not the same country today as it was in 1999 when I first arrived. The Islamic population has risen dramatically and Islam is making more noise than ever through advocacy groups like the Muslim Council of Britain. While migration is not solely an issue concerned with Islam, it is the most pressing topic. I will return to Islam in future articles.

As an immigrant that arrived in England completely alone, I have never ever experienced any kind of racism based on my nationality, skin color, race or my status as an immigrant. I have only experienced fair treatment and acceptance. So please, I am asking you dear reader to take a step back and try and see things from the perspective of concerned citizens. The Britons have opened up their country, their communities, their welfare state and often their homes. To what end? Only to see a healthy proportion of us immigrants not being appreciative, taking advantage of their social systems, demanding their society changes and adapts so it fits our wills, disrespecting their laws, their history, their culture, their women and their soldiers. With the support of their own establishment and left-wing activists we criticise and slander them if they dare to raise any kind of concerns, brand them as fascists, ruin their careers, and point the finger.

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It is beyond the pale to my mind that this is not just allowed, but encouraged. To those who take advantage of this great nation, how dare you make me feel guilty and embarrassed by your actions? You shame us all, regardless of color or creed. Where is the outrage of my rest fellow immigrants that respect their adopted country? Where is your appreciation of Britain and its people, that took you in when you were in need? How dare you turn your back now that the country needs you the most? How dare you not condemn the actions of this significant few?

For propagating this idea I have been called crazy. I would be crazy if I supported the self-proclaimed refugee advocates that never miss a chance to roll out the banners bearing ‘refugees welcome’ or painting ‘sex with refugees is jasmine-scented and beautiful’ murals.

The same activists have punched and kicked me for my political beliefs. I would have gone crazy if I supported the people that were screaming at my Black Muslim friend Ishmael that he is a “white supremacist” because he attended an event with me, associated with Tommy Robinson.

My adopted family, my friends Tommy Robinson, Anne-Marie and their supporters are not Nazis. Actually, they couldn’t be further from that. So please, my leftist friends- nobody appointed you my bodyguard or my protector. I can speak for myself, as we are not in an Islamic theocracy. I am not a hijabi, I do not bear shame for being an outspoken woman- isn’t that feminist of me? Calling me a racist doesn’t work. I am not a Nazi.

The movement towards a free Britain is growing, and we are aware of the long road ahead. The name calling doesn’t work on us anymore. All we ask is for our shared concerns to be heard- as an immigrant myself, I am clearly not anti-migration; and nor is the Brexit movement itself at large. Being concerned with migration does not correlate with xenophobia, save for in the minds of the weak. We are a movement that wants Britain to reclaim a British identity that has been sorely wounded. Brexit and British patriotism itself is a movement of love, not hate. I love Britain as much as it has loved me, a Greek from far away.

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baltimoreantifascism-blog · 8 years ago

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Fascism’s national chauvinism, racism, sexism, and patriarchal values also served a conservative class interest. Fascist doctrine, especially the Nazi variety, makes an explicit commitment to racial supremacy. Human attributes, including class status, are said to be inherited through blood; one’s position in the social structure is taken as a measure of one’s innate nature. Genetics and biology are marshalled to justify the existing class structure, not unlike what academic racists today are doing with their “bell curve” theories and warmed-over eugenics claptrap.

Along with race and class inequality, fascism supports homophobia and sexual inequality. Among Nazism’s earliest victims were a group of Nazi homosexuals, leader of the SA storm troopers. [….]

The paramilitary SA had been used to win the battle of the streets against trade unionists and Reds. The storm troopers acted as a pseudo-revolutionary force that appealed to mass grievances with a rhetorical condemnation of finance capital. When SA membership skyrocketed to three million in 1933, this was too discomforting to the industrial barons and military patricians. SA street brawlers who denounced bourgeois decadence and called for sharing the wealth and completing the “Nazi revolution” would have to be dealt with.

Having used the SA to take state power, Hitler then used the state to neutralize the SA. Now suddenly Roehm’s homosexuality did conflict with National Socialist ideology. In truth, the SA had to be decapitated not because its leaders were homosexual—though that was the reason given—but because it threatened to turn into a serious problem. Roehm and about 300 other SA members were executed, not all of whom were gay. Among the victims was veteran Nazi propagandist Gregor Strasser, who was suspected of leftist leanings.

Of course, many Nazis were virulently homophobic. One of the most powerful of all, SS leader Heinrich Himmler, saw homosexuals as a threat to German manhood and the moral fiber of Teutonic peoples, for a “homosexual sissy” would not procreate or make a good soldier. [….]

In societies throughout the ages, if able to find the opportunity, women have attempted to limit the number of children they bear. This poses a potential problem for a fascist patriarchy that needs vast numbers of soldiers and armaments workers. Women are less able to assert their procreative rights if kept subservient and dependent. So fascist ideology extolled patriarchal authority. Every man must be a husband, a father, and a soldier, il Duce said. Woman’s greatest calling was to cultivate her domestic virtues, devotedly tending to the needs of her family while bearing as many offspring for the state as she could.

Patriarchal ideology was linked to a conservative class ideology that saw all forms of social equality as a threat to hierarchical control and privilege. The patriarchy buttressed the plutocracy: If women get out of line, what will happen to the family? And if the family goes, the entire social structure is threatened. What then will happen to the state and to the dominant class’s authority, privileges, and wealth? The fascists were big on what today is called “family values”—though most of the top Nazi leaders could hardly be described as devoted family men.

In Nazi Germany, racism and anti-Semitism served to misdirect legitimate grievances toward convenient scapegoats. Anti-Semitic propaganda was cleverly tailored to appeal to different audiences. Superpatriots were told that the Jew was an alien internationalist. Unemployed workers were told that their nemesis was the Jewish capitalist and Jewish banker. For debtor farmers, it was the Jewish usurer. For the middle class, it was the Jewish union leader and Jewish communist. Here again we have a consciously rational use of irrational images. The Nazis might have been crazy but they were not stupid.

What distinguishes fascism from ordinary right-wing patriarchal autocracies is the way it attempts to cultivate a revolutionary aura. Fascism offers a beguiling mix of revolutionary-sounding mass appeals and reactionary class politics. The Nazi party’s full name was the National Socialist German Workers Party, a left-sounding name. As already noted, the SA storm troopers had a militant share-the-wealth strain in their ranks that was suppressed by Hitler after he took state power.

Both the Italian fascists and the Nazis made a conscious effort to steal the Left’s thunder. There were mass mobilizations, youth organizations, work brigades, rallies, parades, banners, symbols, and slogans. There was much talk about a “Nazi revolution” that would revitalize society, sweeping away the old order and building the new.

For this reason, mainstream writers feel free to treat fascism and communism as totalitarian twins. It is a case of reducing essence to form. The similarity in form is taken as reason enough to blur the vast difference in actual class content. Writers like A. James Gregor and William Ebenstein, countless Western political leaders, and others who supposedly are on the democratic Left, regularly lump fascism with communism. Thus, Noam Chomsky claims, “The Rise of corporations was in fact a manifestation of the same phenomena that led to fascism and Bolshevism, which sprang out of the same totalitarian soil.” But in the Italy and Germany of that day, most workers and peasants made a firm distinction between fascism and communism, as did industrialists and bankers who supported fascism out of fear and hatred of communism, a judgment based largely on class realities.

Years ago, I used to say that fascism never succeeded in solving the irrational contradictions of capitalism. Today I am of the opinion that it did accomplish that goal—but only for the capitalists, not for the populace. Fascism never intended to offer a social solution that would serve the general populace, only a reactionary one, forcing all the burden and losses onto the working public. Divested of its ideological and organizational paraphernalia, fascism is nothing more than a final solution to the class struggle, the totalistic submergence and exploitation of democratic forces for the benefit and profit of higher financial circles.

Fascism is a false revolution. It cultivates the appearance of popular politics and a revolutionary aura without offering a genuine revolutionary class content. It propagates a “New Order” while serving the same old moneyed interests. Its leaders are not guilty of confusion but of deception. That they work hard to mislead the public does not mean they themselves are misled.

(from “Ch1: Rational Fascism” in Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds, pg 14-17)

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