Field Notes: Introductions

To tell you the truth, I was settling in for a spot of breakfast when I heard that the fascists had announced their intention to genocide me.

Oh, to be clear, I wasn’t exactly surprised by the news. I’ve been writing about, and warning about the rise of American fascism for more than seven years now, and if a society spends long enough dancing with the devil, eventually it gets burned. Furthermore, it had certainly not escaped my attention that fascists were organizing around repressing trans people and LBGTQ folks who work in public life; although, given the minuscule size of the trans minority in Amerikkka, I have been a little surprised at how effective that organizing has been.

As it turns out however, there is a rather significant difference between logically processing that eventually nazis are going to come and kill you, and watching them successfully generate a movement to start conducting pogroms. I discovered this difference in full force on the morning of October 20th when I learned that The Federalist had published a pile of fascist screeching that appropriated Nazi eliminationist language to discuss “the transgender question.” Purely for the purposes of demonstrating that I’m being quite literal here, I’ll quote the relevant paragraph:

 

“On the transgender question, conservatives will have to repudiate utterly the cowardly position of people like David French, in whose malformed worldview Drag Queen Story Hour at a taxpayer-funded library is a “blessing of liberty.” Conservatives need to get comfortable saying in reply to people like French that Drag Queen Story Hour should be outlawed; that parents who take their kids to drag shows should be arrested and charged with child abuse; that doctors who perform so-called “gender-affirming” interventions should be thrown in prison and have their medical licenses revoked; and that teachers who expose their students to sexually explicit material should not just be fired but be criminally prosecuted.”

 

There is of course a little subtext here, you have to realize that what the author means by sexually explicit material is simply discussing queer identities, or living them openly; a position confirmed by the GOP’s current attempts to pass a national persecution law against LGBTQ people that makes Ron DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida look like a Sunday picnic.

There is however not much subtext involved in echoing Nazi propaganda about “the Jewish question” when discussing driving LGBTQ people, especially trans women, out of public life and likely worse. After all what “is the transgender question” so mysteriously being referred to here? Why of course the question is “what is to be done about trans people” and simply asking it implies “leave them alone to live their lives in peace” isn’t on the table.

Naturally, and even despite this clear evocation of the reactionary language of genocide, there will still be some, invariably comfortable people reading this who are certain that I’m overreacting. They will note that street nazis have been talking about murdering trans folks for a very long time, and a pogrom has not occurred yet. They will state that the right’s current attempts to conflate being trans or even just gay with pedophilia, is somehow unrelated to their broader social organization against “the pedophile elites” ruining our society. This is all hogwash, and the type of thing you can only say when you’re not on the firing lines, and powerful nazis largely immune to prosecution are not organizing to exterminate you.

I will however entertain this idea long enough to simply point out that the author of this piece is not some random Proud Boy or Youtuber; John Daniel Davidson is the Politics Editor at The Federalist. The Federalist in turn, is a mainstream far right publication co-founded by disgraced former-Washington Post opinion blogger Ben Domenech. Ben is literally married to Meghan McCain; the “center-right” media personality and surviving daughter of one of the most powerful Senators in U.S. history. The Federalist is certainly fascist trash, but it is by no means fringe – and simply watching how the Republican Party is currently weaponizing attacks on trans people, there’s no reasonable way you can tell me that Davidson’s positions aren’t overwhelming supported in the broader American right these days.

Look folks, when mainstream right wing influencers and politicians are arguing that simply living or talking about LGBTQ lifestyles is child abuse because it sexualizes children, and fascist street gangs are shouting “kill your local pedophile” at rallies, it doesn’t take a genius to see where this all ends; it’s a program in progress, and I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.

And what pray tell is the liberal establishment, or even the so-called independent left media doing right now? More or less either screaming about a war in Eastern Europe or shouting “it’s the economy stupid” back and forth at each other like anyone else is even listening. Is it all right to laugh at your own funeral? I ask because I’m pretty much running out of other options here myself; presumably I’m supposed to just hide in my house and wait for the nazis to come get me while y’all sort this “political” situation out?

Buckle up buttercup; the cavalry is not coming and the ride doesn’t get smoother from here.

 

Make Fascists Uncomfortable

The sad and horrifying truth is that we live in a reactionary nation, that is openly embracing fascism, and has begun to use the language of pogroms against some of the most marginalized people in our society; specifically trans women, but as we’re seeing in real time, this hate-fuelled repression is also quickly spreading to all LGBTQ people in public life. As a history student, I can assure you that these folks aren’t going to stop at answering “the trans question” once and for all; so even if I can’t get you to care about my survival, this has a significant impact on every person reading this.

Furthermore, because this reactionary society is also more or less an open police state, designed primarily to protect capital and suppress the exploited when they rise up to throw off the shackles of a capitalist, violently exploitative ruling class, my options for discussing how to oppose this state of affairs on public social media are somewhat limited. I can, at least for now, describe to you in excruciating detail precisely how fascists are working to kill and enslave you, but I cannot, under threat of imprisonment, tell you to fight back in a manner appropriate for folks facing down literal extermination; whether now, or on a long enough timeline in a neofeudalist hellhole committed to boiling all life off the planet.

What I can say is that while there’s no harm in taking some time out of your day to vote against the fascists in upcoming elections, the fact that the mainstream establishment in the Pig Empire would greatly prefer a fascist dictatorship to sharing with poor people, dictates that this really isn’t going to be a long term solution. After all, you voted against Trump and the Democratic Party currently controls all three elected branches of government in Amerikka; has that stopped fascism? The foundational principle of effective anti-fascism is making it hard to be a fascist; voting is only a very small part of that principle, and so quite frankly, is punching nazis. Neither will be enough if we as a people don’t start learning to make the “semi-fascists” in our daily lives, very uncomfortable.

 

FF&F: Untold Tales in a Neofeudalist Society

Okay, so after giving it a couple of days of thought and at the risk of trivializing the nature of the material we’re covering, I’ve decided to name this ongoing Facebook feature; we’re calling it Fascist Fails & F*ckery – or FF&F for short. Yeah buddy, that’s a lotta F’s and believe me, those F’s strongly represent how I feel about all these fascists, and a capitalist society that seems content to let them seize power if it keeps the riff raff in line long enough to, umm, finish killing the planet.

In today’s FF&F, I’m going to stay firmly in the same theme as yesterday’s post, but shift our focus from DIY psy-ops run by random reactionaries and washed through conservative media, to a similar phenomenon being conducted by fascist politicians with very real political power. Let’s take a look at this October 11th piece over at the Daily Dot about the media blitz used to justify Ron DeSantis’s nightmare “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida:

Inside the right-wing press factory that pumped Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill

The “too long, didn’t read” here is that Ron DeSantis’s office got caught working over fifty right wing media sources from some surprising places, to spread what amounts to homophobic hate speech in the mainstream discourse, thus generating popular support and justification for what is objectively, a fascist law. This includes not only mainstream right wing media enjoying the freedom to let their reactionary dogsh*t out, but known fascist propagandists who’ve been banned on multiple social media platforms for inciting violence towards marginalized people; folks like the woman who runs the Libs of TickTok account on Twitter, Chaya Raichik.

In other words, this was a coordinated propaganda blitz to demonize and repress LGBTQ people working in the public sector by categorically portraying them as “groomers” (which is code for pedophile,) and it was coordinated by the Governor of Florida, mainstream conservative media, numerous Astroturf accounts online, and literal fascist hatemongers – more or less in the open.

So let me ask you a question; did you even hear about this on the news? And if so, did they explain to you that this was a gigantic fascist propaganda op, built on concealment, deception, hatespeech, and fascist conspiracy theories? Right.

On one hand, establishment media seems content to dismiss this as “how the game is played” in politics (which is why we’re looking at a Daily Dot expose to discuss it,) on the other hand, can you go back and re-read the paragraphs above for a second? Vast portions of the American right are actively coordinating to spread fascist propaganda about gay people, for the purposes of consolidating political power, and the mainstream capitalist establishment in our society simply shrugs because these types of relationships between the powerful, and those who pretend to hold them account, are absolutely the norm in a post-Citizens United America. Does anyone reading this think this state of affairs will end well; do you really believe there’s any way it possibly could?

Folks, this is not about conspiracy theories. This is what a world ruled by markets and profit motives ultimately looks like; if pointing out that our real national religion, the almighty dollar, is the gateway by which fascists are seizing power in our society represents a bridge too far for the mainstream media establishment, then they are of no use to anyone who doesn’t want to die under the fascist boot. And those are just the facts, no matter how unpleasant they may be.

 

The Roundup

The Last Days of Weimar America

Nina-Bytes: At Your Service

Journal: Getting Schooled All Over Again

Threat Categorization Error

Background Info: A Fascist Conspiracy Skeleton Key for Violence

Journal: In the crosshairs

Recommended Reading: Looper

Real Talk About Genocide and Fascism

Recommended Reading: Wages of Rage

Nina-Bytes: Rigging America In The Open

 

Scurvy’s Selection

To round out this first week, let’s get to my hot multi-media pick. I want to start by sharing one of my favorite channels, Andrewism, with an episode called “We Need A Library Economy.” In an inspiring and wide ranging discussion our host examines the proto-socialist historical principles of a library, and talks about how we might build a better society in that image. I am not exaggerating at all when I say this video made me exclaim “OMFG; so good” on our Discord, check it out below:

 

 

As always, all writing featured in Highlights and The Roundup comes from Nina Illingworth. Scurvy’s selection is my weekly pick and the content shared there is the product and property of the listed creator, or creators. Until next time!

 

• Scurvy

Anarcho-humanist; DIY Cyborg

System-Administrator at NIDC;

Triskelion; MakerCave.ca

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike” – Oscar Wilde