Bonjour, Theaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Get yourselves a strong cuppa Joe. I know I have.
It’s time for a reality check, Thriends. By the time I am through with today’s morning post I will perhaps have less followers. I am here to spread awareness with long strings and drink coffee. Not gonna run out of either anytime soon. Look for clickbait and ass kissing elsewhere.
So join me for a walk.
The current crisis in Europe, especially in France, has always reminded me of the tragedy in the missed opportunity of 1995. The year of Mathieu Kassovitz’s “La Haine”; the year I visited Paris a few times. “La Haine” can be translated into one word: Hate. Yet Kassovitz defined it in his title as “THE hate”, a very specific hate. Back then it was the year of Islamic terrorism in France, way before 9/11, with tight security everywhere and bombs going off in public places. I was there.
The ghosts of Algeria came back to haunt their colonizers. Walking around with a friend who looked Arab and being dark tanned myself I had a close call with the police. You could feel it in the air. The hate. In those days the Arab immigrants and their French born children weren’t as numerous as today. They lived in ghettos, away from the very French downtown areas and they dreamed of one day getting there. There was no sympathy for them, no matter how hard they tried to fit in.
Blowing bombs around didn’t help. They found themselves trapped in a free fall with a predictable ending, living in their decrepit high rises, illustrated by the falling guy joke in the movie that keeps telling to himself as he falls “so far so good”. It’s not how you fall, it’s how you land. As if the measure of your success is how the pool of blood looks like when you inevitably hit the ground. With enough time and the willful ignorance of those in power, the shift happened.
Today it’s the French of other descent who are telling to themselves “so far so good” as they free fall with their hubris for parachute, and the Arabs finally take to downtown Paris they were denied for so long and burn it. There is a time when hate must be addressed in a way that keeps it from spreading. If you miss that chance it will grow to a point where you can feel it in the air you breathe, everywhere. By then ignoring it is no longer possible and dealing with it much harder.
If you haven’t seen “La Haine”, please do. It’s a Time Capsule from the days the opportunity to deal with this problem rationally and prevent it from spreading was lost. It’s a masterpiece, a cautionary tale as much as a cry for help. It went unheard. And here we are.
After the people united to defeat right wing radicals in the UK and France we immediately felt hope the same can happen here. It’s possible, and truly the only way to victory.
The immediate goal of the British and French was the same as ours: to deny fascists access to power. As we recognize Project 2025 as the enemy we will band together as well to defeat their enablers and advocates, and the one person that personifies that evil. We will succeed just as the British and the French did. But we must remember this, which may be lost in the noise the MSM is making to distract us:
All we will win is time. Nothing else.
The immediate danger posed by right wing policies and plans that affect us today, even before they have absolute power, makes us resolutely deny them that power. However, if we don’t address the root causes of their present success and deal with them effectively, they will come back with a vengeance. Of course we should be happy the Neo-Nazi Le Pen was defeated. Of course we will rejoice when we defeat our very own orange turd. But we will still be living in the exact same world.
Don’t be fooled by the sweet taste of victory in battle when the war still rages on. The world that created these monsters we fight against will still exist after November. Just as it still exists in France. The most important question we need to ask ourselves right now is “Then what?”; don’t wait for after the victory to ask “Now what?”, you need to start thinking about it today.
Millions of French people took to the streets to celebrate victory over fascism, but what I saw immediately was how a few among them were riding another sort of wave. You’d expect that victory to bring out hope and genuine national pride, but watching the images on TV I saw Palestinian flags and Free Palestine banners and Paris burning in the night. The hate is jumping on the wagon as if itself was the victor.
Never mind the vast majority of voters voted against hate itself. It’s the job of these few radicals to make sure hate is alive and spreading. With all that is wrong in France today, the first declaration of these radicals was how next week France will recognize Palestine as a state. The day of glory has arrived. But did they win anything other than a free ride downtown to set it on fire? I don’t think so. I think most people who voted against Le Pen are sick of hate.
Not the hate for a specific group, the hate for the sake of hate itself. The hate that leads to nothing but chaos and division those fascists thrive on. The hate that will grow to the point where only hate will prevail. We’re also sick of it right here, in the US. Once we defeat fascism here at home I expect a few radicals to ride along and make you believe they won too. It’s our ability to finally face the monsters feeding the rise of fascism and end them that will matter.
The UK seems better positioned to do that, but the divisions in the victorious ranks exist, and the defeated are waiting. In France, although short of the victory they aspired to, fascists still got their best electoral results ever. And among us, after we beat Project 2025 at the polls, there will still be millions of people who voted for it, knowingly or not. Our world will not change after the elections, all we will win is the time we need to really change it.
Ignorance remains our worst enemy, for it breeds irrational fear of the other and eventually turns to hate. Confronted with serious problems that affect us all we tend to find immediate comfort in aesthetic solutions, designed to create the illusion the problem doesn’t exist or has been solved. No matter how you look at it, the main driver of populism is and will remain xenophobia. Fear of “the other”, where the other changes to fit the narrative.
The fearful find shelter in the strangest places, when their grievances are not addressed. Gay people flock with Islam, Jews believe Nazis will save them, the destitute look up to the billionaires as their saviors. Whatever illusion makes them feel safe. We cannot live in a world reluctant to accept reality. We must stop feeding the beasts that thrive on our fears. But to do that we have to understand reality, as ugly as it may be.
France bought a little more time to do just that. Should it fail, the beast will rise unchallenged and will eat it alive. It doesn’t matter which beast it is. Is there really a difference between being burned alive in the fire of Nazism or fundamentalist Islam? Would you feel better one way or the other? I don’t think so. They’re the same.
What comes next to the French and to us in the US is the courage to recognize the loop holes in our legitimate fight for tolerance. And close them.
The case study for all other issues we need to address is immigration. The radical right would have you believe treating immigrants worse than cattle is the way, just as the radical left wants to embrace every single immigrant as our brother and sister and in doing so actually treat them like cattle as well.
We should all agree each country has its own way to deal with immigration but the one common denominator is integration. Diversity around an existing set of core values. In Germany, because of their history, immigrants must embrace the idea of a Jewish state and accept Israel’s right to exist. In the United States the ultimate goal is democracy, so we should explicitly require any immigrant to uphold it and embrace it. Isn’t that what we are fighting for?
No one with two working brain cells thinks it’s unreasonable to deport an immigrant who stands for the death of democracy in our country. Or the violent overthrow of our government. Or the institution of their religion as the law and the only true faith. The freedom of speech we are born with as Americans comes with a set of limits we must respect or not at our own peril. Nothing stops an American citizen to publicly advocate for bombings and beheadings yet they will face consequences.
When it comes to immigrants, citizens or guests, the consequences should be more severe. How you define these parameters without fear of being perceived as just another xenophobic freak is the question. The humanity we expect to show those seeking a new life amongst us is the humanity we should expect from them. Anything else is not going to solve this problem. Showing tolerance for those who profess intolerance will be our doom.
As will our victory be short lived if we fail to see what needs to be done next. Don’t be afraid to say we should have voter identification, just make it free and standard issued to all citizens and not some cockamamie objective you need to jump over dozens of hurdles to get. Don’t be afraid to say Nazism must be illegal, just make it so in a way that doesn’t infringe your rights. Stand up for the humane treatment of immigrants, don’t just let them in aimlessly to be exploited.
And just as you recognize the danger posed by those who subscribe to Project 2025, recognize the one that fundamentalist Islam represents in our society. We must have the courage to tackle them both and stop them feeding from each other as our inaction allows them to exist. Most people are not extremist, they’re just afraid. Once you prove you can effectively help them feel safe, no matter what they fear, you stop feeding the beast. And it will die at last.
We will win, just like the French and the British, and with the time we buy ourselves with that victory we must confront the problems that perpetuate this lethal balancing act. We must address our concerns clearly and with courage and provide solutions that transcend aesthetics and trends. It’s time for a reality check. Right now. Unless you want your head cut off by a friendly face rather than one you don’t like. I don’t know about you, but that does nothing for me.
If you think all will be over the day after we beat fascism at the polls, take a good look at France tonight. We have a lot of soul searching and hard work ahead. You better prepare yourselves for it. I have confidence in our humanity and common sense. I feel we are on the right track and nothing will turn us back. I hope you do too.
Stay strong and fight.
This is our chance to set us on the right path.
Don’t waste it.
WeBackBidenHarris 💙🇺🇸
