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JanuaryAugust, 20092019 http://www.poclad.org America 2019: A Pocket Guide To Life & Resistance in Times of Fascist Terror by Mel Figueroa I met Mel Figueroa in 2016, and was immediately impressed by her encyclopedic knowledge of movement history. Rarely have I meet someone with such a deep grounding in history and theory who was also such a skilled and practical organizer. In a nutshell, when Mel Figueroa speaks, I listen. Mel began to warn about emerging fascism in 2016 (well before the horror of the Unite the RIght tragedy of Charlottesville, VA in August of 2017). Her warning were not vague-- she showed me how hate groups were using 4-chan and 8-chan bulletin boards to recruit and educate a new generation. She explained how they were using memes to "weaponize irony" and proved how successful they were. It was chilling. So she and I spend most of 2017 conducting a series of "Movement Schools for Revolutionaries" which were workshops designed for people who recognized the critical need to restructure society. One of the core lessons was to understand the rise of neofascism and the universe of far-right extremist groups operating in the US today. This month Mel wrote an essay that lays out concrete and practical steps for what we can do--what we MUST do-- to defeat the emerging fascist threat in modern times. As a member of the POCLAD collective, I ask you to read, reflect and act on the information and analysis contained in this important piece. David Cobb Member of the POCLAD Collective experience to the cultures of generally comfortable layers of No, Werner Hertzog didn’t say racism, hate, and brutality that American society — especially this. But whoever they are, this until recently lurked in the if you are a person of Fake Werner Hertzog has a shadows beneath the seedy conscience who hasn’t had point. underbelly of our nation, it is all much experience with racism too familiar to many of us but are horrified, shocked and As I write this, the nation is whose roots come from various want to help end it. It is very, reeling yet again from the 250th peoples whose subjugation, VERY important, right now, to mass shooting to take place in enslavement, colonization, and just take a moment, close your the United States in 2019 — that genocide at the hands of an lips and open your ears: listen to is, 250 mass murders in the last array of colonial settlers, armies, people of color and think about 215 days. Sadly, what was plantation owners, and all kinds the ways our American remarkable about this shooting of folks identifying as “White,” experience is different from your at an El Paso Walmart, leaving are foundational chapters in the own. 20 dead and 26 wounded at last American story: Black folks count, was that it did elicit so whose ancestors were enslaved, You are the wild card, the X- much shock and outrage in the lynched and subject to police factor that can help make or general public, who had murders all the way up to today; break the reign of terror that is previously responded with Native peoples who suffered a trumpeting its battle cries as it varying degrees of sadness, hundred million losses from thunders into the mainstream. outrage, prayers and thoughts, disease, starvation and As we go down the nightmare but also creeping fatigue and systematic, state-sanctioned rabbit hole of an increasingly indifference over the last 249. genocide; Chinese forced labor violent, fascistic societal ‘coolies’ who built the railroads; trajectory, it is you who have the What is of note now is that we Latinx/indigenous workers and option of being in that middle have passed the more-than-daily farmers (many of whom, even third of society, caught in the mark for mass shootings; and now in the camps, are NOT midst of the conflict, who might one distinct pattern that appears immigrants to this continent); stand back and watch as the Japanese immigrants who still slaughter continues — you may remember their own not be happy about it, you wring to be emerging is a common concentration camp experience your hands, send your thoughts thread of white nationalist on American soil; LGBT and prayers — but at best, sentiment that motivates the communities; and my own sitting on the fence and playing shooters — most explicitly in people, from the Philippines, the part of a neutral spectator the most recent wave of colonized by the USA in 1899, renders you immobile and of no shootings, but a line that can be subjected to genocide in 1901, use to anyone; and at worst, a traced back to 2015, when and paraded in human zoos at bumbling hindrance whose Dylann Roof opened fire in a the 1904 World’s Fair. equivocations will endanger us Black church in Charleston, and strengthen the position of killing nine. So if you’re devastated by those who are killing us. There what’s happening in this will undoubtedly be more Welcome to the new dystopian country, feeling like a stranger random violence, more reality of the United States in in a strange land that is not terrorism, more state 2019: where you can’t go to recognizable as the America you collaboration and repression — school, enjoy a movie, have a grew up in and love, and are and you should at least day out with the family at a feeling rather lost as to how to be aware of where you stand, garlic festival, or just navigate this new reality — as a what you could choose to do, fucking be in nearly any public person of color, I’d like to say and how your choices affect the space without the constant, on behalf of my melanated overall trajectory of how all of looming threat of random mass brethren: this goes down. murder. While this may be disorienting to many Americans who have grown up in a Welcome to our world. The minimum fascists require relatively benign and civil to take over society and fulfill version of “America,” and have This guide is for you, our its murderous goals is your not had much exposure or erstwhile and aspiring “allies” inaction. among the White, White- passing, middle-class and So please, I invite you to sit down, grab a cup of tea, vodka, or whatever’s your jam, and men to fascist ideologies and critical thing to do, since he read on — here are a few truths, encourage acts of terror; gives all of this an air of state tips and tricks to navigate this sanction and legitimacy, this is new reality that you should - Efforts to demonize organized not the type of situation where know: anti-fascists (“Antifa”) as a we can wait for some Democrat terrorist group — although, or progressive savior to beat since Antifa is not actually a Trump at the Boss Stage and group but rather a moral and make everything right again. ideological conviction to stop 1. KNOW YOUR ENEMY: fascists from committing acts of The monster we are dealing THE SHOCK TROOPS OF terror, leaves any number of with, in these seemingly random AMERICAN FASCISM social justice minded groups and bursts of violence, is more like a Fascist elements are individuals vulnerable to Hydra: a loosely networked but converging in frightening and criminalization and repression; mutually reinforcing white violent ways, but this is NOT supremacist/proto-fascist milieu fascism (yet), and Trump is - Generalized public awareness that spontaneously breeds NOT the Generalissimo. that the U.S. Government is terrorists and acts of stochastic While emboldened by literally operating concentration terrorism. Driven particularly Trump’s rhetoric, these acts camps on our borders, as ICE by the online culture of 4chan, of violence are bred from a raids to kidnap and imprison 8chan, sites like Stormfront and loosely networked ecosystem immigrants and separate other platforms, they actively of extremist elements families intensify. inspire and anticipate violent determined to uphold White acts, but do not know where supremacy as a core American Indeed, El Paso showed a they will happen or coordinate value. frightening convergence of this them in advance: they stoke the last point with the shooting fires, celebrate the eruptions, When we map these white itself: as CNN reported shortly and egg on others to follow suit. nationalist-inspired mass after the incident, several Street-level groups such as the shooting incidents onto the potential victims and their Proud Boys and Identity Evropa larger context of national families avoided treatment and engage in recruitment and real- politics, the core features of a emergency servicesbecause of life intimidation of right-wing larger ecosystem centered the fear that ICE agents would targets (as they have done on around racism, White be patrolling hospitals and college campuses for the last 2 supremacy, violence, and reunification points looking for years). Official state actors, such exclusion are readily apparent: undocumented immigrants as ICE, are formally at a among the victims. distance, though many members - Trump’s increasingly overt of these agencies are known to racial attacks against people of To be clear: I do NOT believe share these views and color, including members of participate in racist discourse these groups are coordinating online; and, like in El Paso, act Congress; and plotting together according to some Grand Plan for Fascism opportunistically in ways that - The provocative actions of — quite the opposite actually, cause further terror and hardship organized white nationalist which makes it even more for target groups. As George groups (or “identitarian” as they dangerous. Trump, while being Ciciarello-Maher, an early target like to call themselves) such as the most public individual and a of alt-right harassment, said in the Proud Boys and Identity person of great influence within his comment on El Paso, anyone Evropa, who engage in doxxing, this milieu, is not functionally who becomes deeply involved confrontational demonstrations, its leader.

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