perlmonger::metalog

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." - Maya Angelou

Yesterday infamous fraudster and US white suPresident Donald Trump retweeted a message calling himself a fascist. Later in the day at an on-the-record press conference he referred to white supremacists as "us" ("Okay, what about the alt-left that came charging at us – excuse me." ETA: now being claimed as an indistinct word despite all the initial reports and transcripts in which he is recorded as saying "us". My points in this post still stand, alas). The white supremacist who killed Heather Heyer by driving his car into her at speed on a crowded street was dressed as Donald Trump. His mother claims she believed he was attending a pro-Trump event. The white supremacist who killed Heather Heyer told the world he is a Trump supporter in words, dress, and deeds. We now know that white suPresident Donald Trump has publicly specifically supported the Trump Youth fascists in Charlottesville in addition to the many white supremacist policies his administration has already enforced. Apart from the murder of Heather Heyer and injuries caused to 19 other people (including another woman with a broken skull), the next most serious set of injuries resulted from about half a dozen white supremacists assaulting Deandre Harris (eight staples in his split head and a broken wrist) and again at least one of those men was dressed as Trump Youth while attacking alongside men self-identifying as Nazis and literally wearing Nazi insignia.

---

"Mr. Trump probably has trouble condemning white supremacists and neo-Nazis because he hired people with those affiliations to work for him. His chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has been accused of anti-Semitism, famed for running the racist website Breitbart. Other prominent staffers include Seb Gorka, whose family has ties to a Nazi group in Hungary, and Stephen Miller who worked with white supremacist Richard Spencer at Duke University. Mr. Trump’s Attorney-General, Jeff Sessions, is one of the most reviled civil rights antagonists in modern American history, denounced over three decades ago by Coretta Scott King, wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

For six months, this team has translated their long-standing racist rhetoric into policy: banning Muslims from travel and immigration, targeting voter rights through a 'voter fraud' commission based entirely on a xenophobic myth, refusing to mention Jews on Holocaust Remembrance Day, renaming the 'Countering Violent Extremism' program 'Countering Radical Islamic Extremism' and proclaiming that white supremacist terrorist groups would no longer be targeted by the government, cutting funding for groups that help white supremacists leave the fold – and that’s to name but a few initiatives." - Sarah Kendzior

(Source: Globe and Mail article August 13 2017, i.e. after Heather Heyer's murder but before yesterday's press conference.)

---

If we fail to learn from history we are condemned to repeat it. Fascists attempting to seize power invariably deputise fascist militias. The only successful armed coup in USian history involved white supremacist militias.

"How The Only Coup D'Etat In U.S. History Unfolded

Think of a coup d'etat and images of a far-flung banana republic* likely come to mind. So it might come as a surprise that it happened here in the United States - just once, in 1898.

A mob of white supremacists armed with rifles and pistols marched on City Hall in Wilmington, N.C., on Nov. 10 and overthrew the elected local government, forcing both black and white officials to resign and running many out of town. The coup was the culmination of a race riot in which whites torched the offices of a black newspaper and killed a number of black residents. No one is sure how many African-Americans died that day, but some estimates say as many as 90 were killed.

Especially chilling was the fact that the insurgency had been carefully planned - a conspiracy by powerful white Democrats.

Southern Democrats lost their grip on power in North Carolina in 1894 and plotted to wrest control from the biracial Republican Party in 1898 elections. They campaigned on a platform of white supremacy and protecting their women from black men.

As the Nov. 8, 1898, vote approached, whites in Wilmington mobilized. They held supremacist rallies and parades and organized militias of 'Red Shirts' to intimidate blacks from voting. The statewide election restored Democrats to power, and two days later, the white supremacists descended on Wilmington's City Hall.

Their leader, Col. Alfred Moore Waddell, had publicly threatened in a pre-election speech to 'choke the current of the Cape Fear River' with black bodies, according to a 2006 report chronicling the events by the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission. After the coup, Waddell was elected mayor of Wilmington."

* spiralsheep's note: please remember that "banana republic" = fascist dictatorships historically sponsored wholly by the US.

(Source: NPR, August 17, 2008, but I've cut the paragraphs specifically about their radio programme.)

---

P.S. Yes, the some of the most celebrated founding fathers of the US, including George Washington, were slave owners and personally committed genocide against Native Americans. Acknowledging reality-based history is necessary to prevent fascist propaganda from taking root in culture. Live with it.

- I haven't posted any music for too long so as I dug this link out for al_zorra: A Place Called England, by Maggie Holland (video and transcribed lyrics). Ms Holland is also well known as the writer of A Proper Sort of Gardener. And here's gratuitous C16th choral music sung by Stile Antico (18mins youtube) who I've seen live and would like to see in concert again.

- I've been having delicious Strawberry Switchblade flashbacks (3min, utu, iconic). I couldn't decide which cap I preferred and t'interwebz seems to like both equally on flickr. The arty bollocks generator says: "My work explores the relationship between Jungian archetypes and urban spaces."

.

- Reading, books 2017: 79

77. Zoology, by Gillian Clarke, 2017, poetry. Includes a whole and wholly wonderful poem cycle mostly about sheep! Ms Clarke is 80 years old but when she writes about what she knows then her voice is as fresh on the page as an alphabet of dew on the morning hills. My favourite poem was the short Alchemy, and there are five other extracts below because I couldn't choose fewer. (4/5, goodreads = 0ratings/0reviews)

• and still I see words on the radio as birds
or fish homing to settle in the hush
of long waves on a beach in Pembrokeshire,
a staircase in the sea, or in the air,
space humming with murmurations of words.

• chorus and choir of ewe and lamb:
Song of the mountains, a drumming
in the air, on the track.

cân o'r mynyddoedd, sŵn drwmio,
yn yr awyr, ar y trac

( Four more brief quotes. )

- Memory and reality: even at this distance I still don't have a clear understanding of which aspects of my childhood were productive for me and which were destructive. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy has stockholm syndrome in its own way." But that's also true of the limited social circles most children are trapped inside. And, of course, it's entirely possible and perhaps even usual to be un/happy simultaneously. And productive/destructive is a complex set of overlapping cycles.

- Three Things meme:
1. I've read some excellent books this year, including a heartening number published in 2017! Yay, reading! (I feel trepidation claiming this because it feels as if drawing attention to it might make me feel worse when my ability to read evaporates again, gah.)
2. COFFEE! I have enough time and energy in my life now, today, to allow myself to feel confused, and contemplate the idea that lowered expectations of life are probably an attitude I should adopt, because I have reached an age where feeling peaceful does me more good than most other experiences (not that I'm giving up on aiming for occasional highlights, obv).
3. naarmamo is making me happy, and not only the encouragement to make small regular creative works but also the people who have made and are making the community between us. ♥

- Wake up and watch the coffee: I stirred my coffee and filmed the reflections. This is a still from the film (sorry it's blurry but I've never made a film before). I wish I knew more about the fluid dynamics of coffee! [/mumble ? vortices ? mumble] Why stirred coffee is and isn't like solar wind, apparently. :-D



The arty bollocks generator says: "As spatial phenomena become frozen through emergent personal practice, the viewer is left with a hymn to our existence."