The important thing to realize about neo-nazis and modern nazi sympathizers, because it’s the one thing they can’t deny, is that they’ve learned to use their own absurdity as a defense mechanism, to a degree not even Sartre predicted. Having a cartoon frog as their symbol is a strength for them, because it means whenever the media reports on them, they get to turn the narrative into “haha, the mainstream media is talking about a cartoon frog! We got ‘em good!”.
This is part of a wider asset of modern neo-nazism. Truth means nothing to them, primarily with regard to their own members. “Trump’s Phantasmagoria” is an excellent article about this- it explains how trump’s complete disregard for facts actually helped him, because it let people who disagreed with some of the awful things he’s said say “oh, he didn’t really mean that.” And this attitude is everywhere on the right. When milo tells his fans to sexually harass women on his birthday, they respond “he didn’t really mean it! Lighten up!”. When he suggests women in STEM should be limited to 10 or 15%, they say “it was just a joke! He’s not a misogynist!” and laugh at all the people taking it seriously.
There’s no real limit to this. It could turn up that one of Trump’s cabinet picks has actually said “I agree with hitler” or “we should wipe out the jews”, and people would still defend him. This isn’t up for debate- countless internet conservatives have said things like this already, and yet we still have legions of people who don’t consider themselves anti-semites or racists lining up to defend them.
This leads to a really sickening mentality. The tumblr alt-right’s reaction to the current stream of articles about them is basically “Ha ha, this article about how nazism is experiencing an unprecedented resurgence and LGBT people, Jews, and Muslims fear for their lives said Richard Spencer is the leader of the movement, when it’s actually completely decentralized! Hilarious!”
And of course this is all richly flavored with the traditional reactionary bitter ironies. They expect us to ignore all the terrible things they’ve said because “it’s just a joke”, yet they insist that everyone who’s ever said “kill all men” was 100% serious. They adopted “facts over feelings” as their rallying cry, yet the ultimate fruit of their work is the post-truth world.
‘The goose-step, for instance, is one of the most horrible sights in the world, far more terrifying than a dive-bomber. It is simply an affirmation of naked power; contained in it, quite consciously and intentionally, is the vision of a boot crashing down on a face. Its ugliness is part of its essence, for what it is saying is ‘Yes, I am ugly, and you daren’t laugh at me’, like the bully who makes faces at his victim.’
– Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn
This is why making fun of nazis with anime avatars, while entertaining, never phases them because anime avatar or not these people have no shame. They wear their embarassing symbolism proudly so that you can’t hurt them for pointing it out.
When you struggle with your mental health on a daily basis, it can be hard to take action on the things that matter most to you. The mental barriers anxiety creates often appear insurmountable. But sometimes, when you really need to, you can break those barriers down. This week, with encouragement from some great people on the internet, I pushed against my anxiety and made some calls to members of our government. Here’s a comic about how you can do that, too. (Resources and transcript below.)
Motivational resources: There are a lot! Here are a few I really like:
Sharon Wong posted a great series of tweets that helped me manage my phone anxiety and make some calls.
Kelsey is tweeting pretty much daily with advice and reminders about calling representatives. I found this tweet an especially great reminder that calls aren’t nearly as big a deal as anxiety makes them out to be.
Informational resources: There are a lot of these, as well! These three are good places to start:
On Monday, de Blasio told the anti-hate rally audience at Cooper Union Hall that the city will sue Trump if the proposed Muslim registry database comes to fruition.
The “Muslim registry” is reportedly being talked about with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach
It would require Muslims to register their name in a database for tracking purposes.
He’s laying the groundwork for restricted access to the presidency.
He’s only going to let those who will write what he wants speak to his administration.
We’re only going to be reading and watching propaganda and expect real journalists to be starved out, fired, sued and smeared by the remaining press.
We already have laws on the books that make it illegal for journalists/cameras to go on farms to investigate how unsanitary they are, and their human rights and animal cruelty violations. How much easier will it be to concoct some “threat to national security” that necessitates restricted access to government?
Update: The New York Times said they didn’t even know the meeting with Trump was cancelled until they saw his tweet this morning. “We did not change the ground rules and made no attempt to.”
The First Amendment Defense Act is the nuclear version of the so-called “religious freedom” laws that have appeared across the country, most infamously in Mike Pence’s Indiana. The Republican House will surely pass it, the Senate will pass it unless it’s filibustered by Democrats, and President-elect Trump has promised to sign it.
If it becomes law, FADA will be the worst thing to happen to women and LGBT people in a generation.
Like state “religious freedom restoration acts,” FADA’s basic principle is that it’s not discrimination when businesses discriminate against LGBT people if they have a religious reason for doing so. The most famous situations have to do with marriage: wedding cake bakers who say that if they bake a cake, they’re violating their religion; Kim Davis, the government clerk who said that signing a secular marriage certificate was a religious act that she could not perform.
But those stories are a red herring. The more important cases are ones like hospitals refusing to treat LGBT people (or their children), pharmacies refusing to fill birth control prescriptions, businesses refusing to offer health benefits to a same-sex partner, and state-funded adoption agencies refusing to place kids with gay families. Underneath the rhetorical BS, that’s what FADA is all about.
First, the bill applies to any corporation, organization, or person who “believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.”
Notice how broad that is: any business, agency, or individual, including government employees, hospitals, or huge businesses like Hobby Lobby or Chick-Fil-A. Old-age homes and hospices that turn away gay people – yes, this has actually happened – are covered. Hospitals that refuse a same-sex partner visitation rights – covered. National hotel chains that refuse to rent rooms to gay couples (or unmarried straight ones) – covered.
And notice that it applies not just to religious beliefs about same-sex marriage, but also to sexual conduct in general. Translation: contraception, sex education, treatment of STDs – all of these are part of the bill. If a national pharmacy chain wants to refuse to fill prescriptions for the “morning after pill,” if a company wants to fire someone for being pregnant out of wedlock or becoming HIV positive, if a public school wants to stop teaching sex ed – all covered.
And finally, since “moral conviction” is added in there, it doesn’t matter that Jesus never mentioned health insurance coverage. No actual religious grounds are necessary; just some moral conviction that the only allowable sex is sex within a heterosexual marriage.
What does “covered” mean? Essentially, FADA prohibits the federal government from doing anything about any of these acts. Specifically, it lists revoking tax exempt status (as it did for Bob Jones University because of its racist policies, in the case that started the whole “religious freedom” movement) and refusing any federal grant, contract, or certification.
But then the bill adds “otherwise discriminate against such person,” which actually means anything at all, so long as the government is taking some adverse action. (“Person” includes companies and organizations, remember.) For example:
– The current government policy requiring federal contractors – 20% of the entire U.S. workforce – not to discriminate against LGBT people will be immediately revoked. Contractors can legally fire people for being gay (or transgender).
– A governor can order that, in his state, no clerk anywhere may certify a same-sex marriage, and the federal government could do nothing about it.
– If a restaurant or hotel posts a sign saying “NO FAGGOTS ALLOWED,” FADA prohibits the government from “discriminating” against it by initiating an enforcement action under public accommodations laws. Gay couples may be refused hotel rooms anywhere in the country.
– If a company refuses to let a person take time off to take care of her same-sex partner in the hospital, the government cannot pursue any action under relevant employment laws.
– If a state-funded adoption agency refuses to place children with legally married same-sex couples, the government cannot withdraw its contracts with that agency. (This was a key request by Catholic adoption agencies, which receive the bulk of their funding from the government.)
– An employee at the Department of Veterans Affairs could refuse to process a claim for survivor benefits for the same-sex spouse of a servicemember.
– All schools and universities can discriminate against LGBT people, regardless of Title IX (as long as they link that discrimination to a view about marriage, which is quite easy to do). Universities may turn away gay applicants, deny LGBT clubs, and fire all gay faculty and staff members, with no penalties from the federal government.
– Any hospital may refuse to provide contraception, reproductive health care (including consultations of any kind), or health care of any kind to unmarried people or gay people, and not lose accreditation.
– And yes, however unlikely, your boss could fire you for having (straight) premarital sex, and no federal agency could come after you.
Oh, and then there’s that third point to consider. FADA has one of the strangest “pre-emption” clauses of any bill I’ve ever seen. Normally, federal bills either pre-empt state ones, or have a “no pre-emption” clause, saying that state laws take precedence. FADA has some of each, stating that “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to preempt State law, or repeal Federal law, that is equally or more protective of free exercise of religious beliefs and moral convictions.”
In other words, if a state has a non-discrimination law against gay people, FADA supercedes it, prohibiting any federal action based on that law. But if a state has a law that protects the religious party more, FADA doesn’t supercede it.
Under that language, state level actions against anti-gay corporations, organizations, and individuals would not be prohibited – but the federal government could offer no assistance, and indeed could not do anything at all, even if the anti-gay party is in clear violation of state law. In other words, states with more protections for women or LGBT people – you’re on your own out there.
Overall, FADA makes LGBTs officially second-class citizens of the United States – more like those in anti-gay countries like Putin’s Russia. We may be fired, barred from entry, denied services, denied health care, denied education, and denied legitimacy in ways that straight married people (and probably most straight unmarried people) do not. My fully legal marriage isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, because no one anywhere has to respect it, not even a government employee.
As you can see, FADA effectively overturns Obergefell without anyone having to file a lawsuit, because it creates a loophole as large as the right to marry itself. Any governor, mayor, or clerk could proffer a “moral objection” to same-sex marriage, and stop all employees under his or her authority from registering gay couples or certifying gay weddings. And even absent such action, any employer or business can act as though the marriage simply does not exist.
But FADA goes much further than marriage. It attacks unmarried women, who may be denied health care by state hospitals, employers, and insurance companies. It makes it impossible for the federal government to do anything in a host of discriminatory situations. It turns back the clock not just two years, to before Obergefell, but twenty years, to a time when simply being gay was criminal.
And it has the support of the House, the Senate, and the President-Elect.
Fucking hell… I think a good step at this point is for the internet to try to compile a list of businesses and services that will NOT deny service based on LGBT or marital status. It would be good to have a database for safe businesses, hotels, hospitals, and campuses, for anyone who doesn’t know what is available in their area, or for anyone traveling in a new area.
I know there are businesses that are taking a stand and stating that they will not be denying services… I work for one myself.
So, Has this been done yet? If not, I can make a google form for people to submit places they know are safe, and try to create a map or spreadsheet so people can search areas and services…
President-elect Donald Trump is set to nominate Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as attorney general, Bloomberg reported Friday morning, marking the first major cabinet nomination of the Trump administration. Back in the 1980s, Sessions was not confirmed to a federal judgeship thanks to racist comments he reportedly made about African-Americans.
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