Trump, Musk, Vance, Kennedy and the rest of our new government’s murderous members now oversee political life in the USA. Things were already horrific and have been for ages. But now the worst garbage has fully risen. Humanity has seen this before and the view isn’t pretty. So where is the dump site? Where is the dump truck to remove all of this insidious and barely organic waste matter from public impact?
I know logic and pundits say we should not be diverted from addressing actual policy plans by jumping on our current rulers’ verbal excesses. We should not be diverted from their truly treasonous actions by the volume of their intensely hyperbolic rhetoric. We should not let the scale of their perverse agenda shock and awe us into submission. But while standing strong, we should also restrain our passions. We should be balanced, measured, and mature—you know, like the New York Times. We should not be overly passionate. To raise our voices too loud would look like a mindless rant. It would make us sound like them. We are told, don’t do that. But is this advice helpful? Yes, it has a certain wisdom. Nonetheless, I think it also has a degree of misfit.
I sit at my computer and survey YouTube videos, videocasts, and podcasts, late night TV talk shows and even The New York Times as they all now address current events. What I find isn’t remotely Chomskyian in scope or depth. Nonetheless, despite all the lying, all the obscurantism, all the eyes in your pocket self-inflicted blindness, at this point i wonder how people can not know what’s unfolding and more or less how bad it is. We can see the facts everywhere. Greed and cowardice assemble in high places. We can’t miss it. Oligarchs uber alles. Some mistakenly relish it. Some don’t want to know it is happening. Some are so isolated no information penetrates. Can activism still reverse those causes for passivity. I think so. At the top, however, Trump and his murderous appointees are beyond redemption.
So I find myself concluding that a whole lot of people below the top know, or sort of know, or actively suppress from their daily awareness that our situation is profoundly dangerous. In that respect fascism’s surge is not unlike global warming, profit driven AI, and nuclear gluttony. Murderous elites nurture and feast on each. They eat justice. They slip-slide us to hell. But where it all finally ends up is going to depend on us, not them, because they are not going to let up on their own. To plead with them for mercy, to seek from them compassion, is like to ask a tree to fly. Only to force them to meet our demands will work. Only to raise social costs they can’t bear so they must relent to avoid more losses will work.
So my first problem with talking or writing in detail but without providing appropriate passion about MAGA policies is that to do that is already happening. Detailed accounts of today’s facts are everywhere. Yes, such accounts are necessary. Sometimes they are even especially brilliant. But such accounts have already reached 1,000, 10,000, even 50,000 times as many people as you or I could hope to directly reach. And even if we could duplicate that scope much less if we only add infinitesimal redundancy, I doubt it would change anything because the facts are already widely evident. The circumstances are already widely known. Even what to do to resist is getting some serious and brilliant attention, though not yet quite enough.
People already have sufficient inescapable evidence of the unfolding horrifying situation. What people lack is sufficient inescapable evidence of effective, unwavering resistance. But without effective unwavering resistance, fascism will triumph. The good news is resistance has already begun and proposals for what more to do have emerged from many directions and many constituencies.
So what can a tiny-audience writer do, whether me or you or any other? What can a lone conversant person do, whether me or you or any other? What can even a publisher do? What words or acts might help unleash passionate activism appropriate to the facts of our situation?
I wish I knew for certain but I don’t. Not yet. So we keep trying to do whatever we can that is within our means. But what things? Caring about one’s own and oneself is valid and worthy. Local security, preparedness, and mutual aid is good. Self defense has an admirable place in these times, including mutual aid with one’s family, friends, and neighbors. But if we too narrowly focus on reducing our own risk and defending our own turf, murderous administration will surge like a wall of lava flowing from a gigantic persistent volcano, or like a tsunami that has a non-stop source. We have seen this before. It swept Germany, Europe, and the world. So we have to operate collectively, and sooner rather than later. Doing what?
Lots of separate defenses are not nothing, but lots of separate defenses will be less than enough to stop Trump. In fact, in the worst case, an overly defensive mindset could lead to our doing Trump’s work for him. It could cause us to cleanse our agendas, rewrite our mission statements, and even rid our communications of sentiments that Trump and Co. dislike. It could cause us to do what Trump and Co. intend us to do, even without their having to attack us. I get that things are scary. I get that we have an inclination to protect. But I also think that in too big doses that inclination can produce preventive submission that ironically enacts what it nominally seeks to prevent.
Even further, while lots of separate movements on the offense will be better than only defense, that too won’t be enough. Atomism has to become collectivism. Silos need to merge. We need to attain a movement of movements each component of which literally advocates for the rest, aids the rest, and shares the campaigns of the rest. Let the murderous administrators Texas death-fight each other. Meanwhile, all the while, we must unify.
To succeed we have to get ourselves together across issues and tactics and not just for us, but for all but a small sector of the whole population. Trump, Musk, Vance, Kennedy, other billionaires, and a good many politicians and rich owners throughout the land seem to have devolved too far toward greed, hypocrisy, and hate to even perceive much less embrace justice. But outside them, to achieve anti-fascist unity will be hard but not impossible.
We should favor restoration, not demolition. Construction, not destruction. Solidarity, not vengeance. But at the same time, we shouldn’t wishfully deny the obvious. At the head of today’s hate parade the orange commander in chief serves only himself. We should want movements to salvage wandering souls, often including our own, but not his. We should want movements to unify, in time even with our current opponents, but not him. The garbage that has risen way past reason that now scowls at us and at the world with hooded, sick eyes, wants only to claim all power for itself. Their dump site has to be where we designate it to be. Their dump truck has to be us.
I am sorry if the above is too aggressive to be seemly. I am also sorry if it isn’t sufficiently footnoted. I am sorry if it even sounds borderline hysterical, like a rant. I can’t help that possible impression and also express the anger I feel. Anger isn’t a posture I propose we should cultivate for a future better world. But anger may sadly be a mindset that we temporarily need if we are to attain a future better world.
All this is just to say that I am not ranting without prior consideration. And lots of prior sober, careful entreaty. I can’t help it. Sufficient passion seems to me to be precisely what’s now too often missing. We have ample smiling and even laughing with friends to help us through the dark, and we have plenty of overly abundant, tirelessly accurate, academically footnoted analysis as well. We now need to designate a dumpsite for the risen garbage. We need to become a gigantic collective dump truck to take out the trash. The new Administration will not go away on its own. Those following it will not escape fealty without encountering a very different tune. Is that even possible?
Suppose everyone who at least likes and agrees with Sanders were to unify not only in words but in deeds. Suppose we were to attain considerable unity of agenda. Suppose we each abet all. Suppose we all abet each. We do this as individuals and our organizations collectively do it as well. What would that look like? What would that do to MAGA’s unity? What costs could that generate for Trump and Co? Or even suppose just a tenth of that whole constituency of Sanders-likers started to work together to protect and advance all. Wouldn’t that energy say to the other nine tenths and to countless more beyond who currently feel there is no useful path forward and who therefore refrain from resistance—“Wait, fascism is not inevitable. Unified collective action can stop, reverse, and replace it. Come on.”
Elon Musk gives the Nazi salute with Nazified macho gusto and then does it again. Then he tells Holocaust jokes and celebrates and financially supports the growing neoNazi party in Germany. Is that a policy directive? No, but is it therefore irrelevant? I don’t think so. Some say it is a tic. Seriously, a tic? Some say he is just offering his audience, “here is my heart for you.” Really, he wants to give his heart to humanity? Some explain that it was just the Mussolini version of what Hitler later borrowed. But isn’t that at most a distinction without a difference?
The Proud Boys know what Musk’s move was. Every last neo-Nazi celebrant in the U.S. knows what it was. And so does the growing German fascist front that is enjoying Musk’s material aid in Germany. Should we nonetheless ignore his salute as mere expression, while we pile our attention on more specific policy actions like border closing, anti-trans directives, birth citizenship mayhem, ubiquitous deportations, demolishing DEI, imperial adventurism, tantrum-tariffs, pro fossil ecocide, and fascistically rebuilding the government itself? Yes, we should certainly pile on all that with our own collective actions, of course. We should produce teach ins, talks, marches, rallies, blockades, sanctuaries, occupations, encampments, and more to build our size and commitment so we are ever more able to impose steadily growing social costs on Trump and Co. But shouldn’t we also note some of what these murderous administrators say? Isn’t the huge irony of Trumpian insanity that along with countless lies aimed only at confusion—such as “they are eating our cats and dogs”—they also openly speak words that reveal their true intents. Next up, don’t be surprised to hear a new slogan, “hail victory,” which is english for “Seig Heil,” adopted to aggressively accompany Musk’s energetic hand from the heart to the sun Nazi salute. Forget about Gangnam style. These guys are into Hitler style. How does one calmly reply to a Nazi salute? What does calmness in that case communicate?
Decades back, I remember furiously screaming at my school’s administrators about Vietnam and their research policies like stabilizing helicopters to better shoot anything that moved on the ground. My substance was thoughtful but my tone was passion plus. They ignored the substance. They ordered me to drop the passion, calm down and grow up. You are out of control, you need therapy, they said. And I would think, no you and your calm demeanor are what is out of control. You are the ones detouring away from human sensibility. I am appropriately angry.
Many years after that but still decades ago, when I was at South End Press, we published a book titled Friendly Fascism. The author, Bertram Gross, made a case that a stylistically friendly version of fascism was coming our way. It would be fascism with a smile, fascism that urges us to have a nice day. It would be the real fascism, but in a deflecting disguise. Stealth fascism. Fascism with a human face. Who would have guessed that the word “friendly” was the mistaken part of the author’s warning?
Trump is a twisted thug with Oval Office authority. Trump has an array of cowardly satraps around the country ready to do his bidding. Malevolent moneybags now tout his virtues and genuflect their servile allegiance. Garbage has risen in a social setting that has long rewarded greed, hate, violence, and disdain. Time to get together. Time to turn the tide. Time to take out the worst garbage. Time to transform the social setting.
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1 Comment
Leader of the Afd in Germany is a lesbian with a sri lanken wife. Anedotal nazi fringe within the Afd have been purged. Should check the facts. That said, here is what I wrote, and was backed up by a long time former friend of Elon’s.
White nationalists have once again rallied behind Trump & Elon Musk, clinging to the delusion that Elon’s use of a gesture resembling the Nazi “Sieg Heil” salute, paired with his ambiguous statement about his “heart going out to the crowd,” signals alignment with their ideologies. This calculated ambiguity seems purposely designed to play multiple sides—provoking hysteria among critics while maintaining plausible deniability and leaving room to appeal to a wide array of supporters.
Musk’s actions and statements have helped solidify Trump’s base, where the H-1B visa controversy has now completely disappeared from the conversation. What was last week a point of contention intended to fracture the coalition, has instead failed spectacularly, leaving both factions reinvigorated. On one side, the multiracial, Mars-focused internationalist supporters are energized by Musk’s vision of space colonization to preserve human consciousness. On the other, the xenophobic majority and the smaller contingent of extremists remain focused on staying firmly rooted in America, surrounded by the symbolic wall that represents their ideology.
Critics—frequently accused of sensationalism, such as labeling “everyone as Hitler”—have inadvertently fueled this dynamic. Their heightened reactions have only amplified perceptions of them as hysterical, further unifying Musk’s coalition. By employing calculated ambiguity and gaslighting, Musk has managed to maintain his influence across conflicting groups while redirecting the opposition’s energy into what appears to be an increasingly futile effort to divide his support.
Elon’s former friend conquered…
https://www.facebook.com/brainmesser/posts/pfbid029QgxCsE3Xk2Dbh7UY6sGHPcP49ohCDVxViuK8rC4f3Qx4zNz13VFfjzNb9R6SeyEl?__cft__%5B0%5D=AZVfgCMTHM-0vtk6vdUwscSEQzusd70cGnFF3OpfIpBPUSWwK90WGJIKC6uksF3onoOI3gx6uwpLuQnnAz3ejE5cXD4qT6BGw5aqgItZ6yFYgiqXr2YGLr7bTksaZQSCNlA8YT1DG3abv7fMj0CtDrNI&__tn__=R%5D-R