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To fully ascend, fascist leadership must assault the truth at all times, obliterating it wherever possible. These tactics are meant to disconnect people from a shared sense of reality. It allows some people to trade in a reality that displeases them for a more appealing one.
It envelops its adherents and leaves many others unable to form a coherent practice of defensive politics. After all, how can you develop a united front when you can barely focus on the same antic or disaster at the same time?
Defend the truth at all costs.
Defend the truth at all costs.
Each revelation of injustice is important, but those injustices are part of a larger narrative. They are not, themselves, the narrative. It's important to remember that. We need to focus on things that are fundamentally true and offer up these injustices as details.
It's not enough to tell the truth. We have to tell it strategically. The Democratic dash to the center hasn't helped w that any. As all of this danger closes in, I just keep thinking about how far we have to go, in terms of developing any effective, politically defensive posture.
We can. This is why I always come back to the value of human life. It has shifted in this society. Because that's what happens under fascism, and it doesn't just happen to fascists. Look around. People are giving up on other people more and more. That mindset must be fought.
We do not stand a chance against fascism without a major surge of collective empathy. That's why I talk so much about collective grief. Our hearts & minds need to step into that space, and for the sake of survival and the possibility of a future, we have to connect in that space.
A battle over what death means will decide the fates of many, many people, and soon. We all have a part in that fight.
Defend human decency at all costs, because their project involves the obliteration of that too. But they can't take it all, and what is kept alive can grow. It can reclaim people who have forgotten how to care and how to fight. It can move battered people to raise their fists.
The truth about Trump's COVID-19 response is rarely presented as a coherent narrative. Don't take for granted that people have internalized this story the way you have. We have all absorbed four years of manufactured right-wing chaos and ultra violence. We have all been affected.
I don't think most people absorb atrocity the way they used to. People begin to accept things that feel beyond their control. We can't function in a constant state of devastation or terror, so we develop new defensive layers. That's human. But some of those layers have to go.
We need to cling to the truth, to human decency and to the narratives we know to be true. If that sounds overly simplistic, that's because you don't understand how far gone things are. It's time to catch up and fight, whatever that means for you.
For me, it means organizing, which includes organizing moments of commemoration that connect people. There is a week of vigils coming up. I recommend people host one, attend one, or honor the moment in some other way. Here's one way of doing so remotely: https://twitter.com/MsKellyMHayes/status/1309845574884130817?s=20
Our distanced event is just one of the vigils that are happening Oct. 4-11. You can learn more about the larger effort here. http://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/week-of-mourning
The Mutual Aid Mourning & Healing Project is an effort I co-organized that connects people who are coping w grief during the pandemic with free support from a therapist or death doula, or help organizing an online service, if they need it. Learn more here: https://transformativespaces.org/2020/04/13/the-mutual-aid-mourning-and-healing-project/
