Let’s preface this by saying that I am...was..at this point I don't know.
I wish I could be a pacifist?
I haven’t blogged here in.. well lets check? Dang it, was just over a year ago. I think at that time I felt the country was going better places. Sure we had points of order that needed to be addressed but dang it, not going to lie, it felt like we were going places. We had the clown car of the GOP going on and felt like we had a first women president almost assured to come into the Oval.
Nothing like reality beating you into submission sometimes to shut your voice I guess?
Yet something about this last weekend that seems to have ignited me back into the fold.
I have always been a person espousing the mantra “Lets all be calm”, “Lets all come together and talk”, “It’s going to be ok, let us think about what we can do from now?” that has guided me for quite some time. Yet however something about this weekend has awakened a more gut reaction than I have to be quite honest with. I am not comfortable with where I have landed on the spectrum.
I was visceral at first. Then I tried to restrain myself though. Yet after another day of repudiation from one side came back to the same visceral nature. Then I watched the VICE report and went almost full bore anger. Took a break to try and rely on comedy...my one true passion and gift I love to watch...to bring my a salve to my pain. Yet when I watched it I saw the same pain I was feeling.
Here was the King’s fool telling me that no, things are as bad as you think. They are as bad as you perceived and just yet may be worse given Viceroy Bannons espousing's recently.
So now I look at the recent weekend with a different light, and indeed the actions I took in impulse during those days after with another refraction.
I helped exposed some of the, and lets not mince words..Nazis (with a capital N), and might have been likely responsible for some lost jobs, or community disorder, or even emotional distress. I may not have been out on the streets with the Antifa but I did during this hurricane of a time supported them via newsfeeds, police reports and squawks, follow tweets, spread news, medic relief, etc.
Which bring me to what is violence?
In my actions as an armchair activist, even despite my street creds from before, acted in violence against others who would bring physical violence against races and creeds. Exposing neo fascists who lost their jobs, exposing business owners who lost capital, and exposing government officials who give aid and comfort to those mentioned before… has effected violence against another person. Indeed it has effected a detrimental effect against those people around them.
And make no mistake...this is violence as defined
“Behavior or treatment in whichphysicalforce is exertedforthepurpose of causingdamage or injury”
I physically acted in a nature for the purpose of causing damage or injury in both physical space, economical space, and emotional space.
I take no pride in this.
I take no enjoyment in this.
If anything it PAINS me to actually have to go into this space.
I lay awake at times thinking of what I have done and the space in which it was done.
Yet at the same time...I have duality in knowing that we are at this point in history.
So literally this is where we are as a country. I cringe when I see diaries and stories on the supposed ‘alt-left’...seriously there is no alt left, there is the effing Nazis and there is those with truth… and I also cringe when I see those who call it the ‘alt-right’. Lets make no mistake here now though. There is no Alt Right. There is the is ‘Alt Wrong’.
And make no mistake. The ‘Alt Wrong’ wants us to divide ourselves amongst our economic and racial lines. They want to divide us among our political and activist natures. They want this to divide this country to set up a fascist system so that the state commanded by the leaders can siphon off the wealth off the backs of others.
I don’t know where this is going to be honest.
One thing I do now is after having spent a time in the dark, I realize it’s time to pull the fire alarm. And having watched it go down, having spent time outside watching in? I realize that the Antifa crowd really do have everyone’s here back….even if you don’t agree or accept it though.
But at the same time...sometimes like me.
You have to accept the hurt you bring as a Righteous cause for a good purpose.
