Morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between.
Strong coffee; black coffee.
I’m following my own advice and taking a knee for a bit to recharge and breathe. It seems like the right time to leave a message up on my feed for the duration of the mental health break with food for thought. The kind that requires plenty of digestion. So walk with me with open minds and hearts.
We are resisting and opposing the establishment of a Christian Fascist inspired government in the United States. We watched this tendency rise and the truth is we were unable to stop it before it reached power. Now the fight got harder. History will tell us if the ball was dropped by the millions who stayed home last November or if the ball was yanked away in the shadows. But we’re here. And we’re still watching.
I write these words the day after Germany dodged a bullet, denying the neo-Nazi AfD a victory. And yet they got their best electoral results to date; it was a closer call than you think. We watched JD Vance point fingers at Europe, before the elections in Germany, as democracies are in danger. There were two ironies in his delusional, insulting speech: one was Vance is a fascist; the other was how fascists feel entitled to lecture us about the dangers of religious fundamentalism.
Their entitlement comes from the lack of courage democracies show in the face of the intolerance of others. Germany is not out of the woods yet. Should their democracy fail the test before it they will rise again. Stronger. We must stand against all extremism, not be selective about which we oppose. Our society learned poorly the lessons of history but still those lessons are remembered when we stand against neo-Nazis marching on our streets.
Most of us feel extremely uncomfortable, angered by the public manifestation of Nazi symbols and its hate. Most of us know what it means. And yet, when a similar hate shows up wrapped in Keffiyehs we look the other way or even join in. History lesson NOT learned: as if someone airbrushed the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem sitting with Adolf Hitler and that never happened. As if all the atrocities committed by Islamic fundamentalists against their own people don’t matter.
This is where it gets worse: it’s not just the lessons from the past that are ignored; it’s the ones before our eyes: from the horrors of October 7 to the ones perpetrated in Iran and Afghanistan. Some people among us are perfectly fine supporting these horrors and their authors. Christian fascism is bad but Islamic fascism is great. Just like that, “resistance is justified” and so is the murder of women who refuse to cover their hair. Or that of men who choose to love other men.
In a very complex world we go for the dumbest answers and pick sides based on immediate satisfactions. This is also valid for those who see fascism as a champion in the fight against antisemitism. Remember Musk jumping around a stage with a chainsaw? Of course you do. That was bad. But some pretend to forget who gave him the chainsaw because it was the same person who declared a national holiday in his country in honor of the murdered Shiri Bibas and her children. It’s a gray world.
A world we must live in with eyes open, minds open and hearts open. Fascists are not good when they happen to appease us by doing things we agree with because those things are not what they seem. A protest against the Israeli government seems legitimate on its face but the reality is 10 out of 10 times it’s not against Bibi or his fascist government: it’s against the very existence of Israel. Open your eyes.
Protests that seem to legitimately demand tolerance are quickly turned into hate fests aimed at destroying tolerance itself. And our democracies are being flooded with movements supporting those who wish to destroy them. We need to show our rejection of religious intolerance is unbiased and not selective. It extends to all beliefs and it must be called out at every turn.
Our fight is hard enough as it is but we have to resist the urge to over simplify it and ignore the wolves amongst us and those who willingly provide cover for them. Which brings us to those who, being on our side when it comes to fight the fascist government we now have, turn a blind eye to other fascists who are just as dangerous because they happen to be victims of their own follies. Because, how surprising, their children are victims of a war they started.
I feel for the Palestinian children killed in Gaza like I still feel for the German children killed in Dresden. But I do NOT forget who got them killed. Yes, the allies could have had a different strategy for bombing Germany and yes the Israeli war strategy could be better, but war is never a good thing, nor are its results no matter how careful the strategy. In the end, those who started the war are the ones responsible for its horrors. We should remember this.
Those trying to establish moral equivalences between the makers of horror and those fighting it are to blame for the confusion added to an already complex tragedy. They end up covering for horror itself and defining it as “inevitable” and even “justified”. In their righteous private jihad they compare the premeditated brutal murder of innocent children to the killing of innocent children victims of their parents’ own terror. In their minds it’s all the same.
The Russian bombing of Ukrainian hospitals is to these apologists the same as the Israeli bombing of hospitals in Gaza which, they not obliviously say, was an “open air prison” before October 7. But they conviniently leave out the fact Hamas turned Gaza into a terror base and most Palestinians killed in Gaza between 2005 and 2023 were murdered by Hamas. That “doesn’t matter”. It’s all good. Enter Joy Reid, stage left. Yes.
On October 9, 2023, Joy Reid immediately initiated the washing of all Hamas responsibility for October 7. Two days after the most horrific attack on Jews since the Holocaust she made a point of making clear it was all “the Jews” fault. And it just got worse since then. Like many of you I only watch Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. Others do speak up against the ongoing coup on that channel; Joy Reid was one of them.
For that reason alone I understand many are revolted by her termination, and I understand the solidarity shown by MeidasTouch and their offer of a place for Reid in their network at a time when they are kicking Fox News and Joe Rogan’s butts. I get that. We need all the help we can muster and I get that too. But the minute MeidasTouch starts making apologies for Islamic fundamentalism I will turn it off. Because I am against ALL fascists.
I will be back. Peace out.
Resist & Oppose!
