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the false equivalence concerning this "call to violence" stuff is pretty obvious: even if one accepts that it's somehow coherent for conservatives to point to stokley charmichael as a counterexample in 2011 (which presupposes---shall we say---relaxed standards for coherent argument) there was no point---ever----where he or anyone else "on the left" in the arbitrary gallery of figureheads adduced for red-baiting purposes at the moment had the kind of saturation media exposure that contemporary neo-fascist discourse has. period. on that basis there is NO comparison between the danger posed by contemporary neo-facist calls to political violence and those of people who were active on the left in the united states 40 years ago. the comparison is absurd, yet another example of conservative metaphysics---all fast and loose with context, fixate like a crackhead on some purely formal resemblance, repeat the claim over and over as if repetition gets rid of the speciousness of the claim. and this should be tolerated because hey, it's just my opinion man. i'm entitled to indulge shabby superficial thinking. it's my right as an american. blah blah blah.
i dont think anything more damaging could happen to american neo-fascism than for it to be exposed for what it is. i find it amazing that the tea party et al have been able to form, gain some momentum, lurch about on the national political scene doing whatever chump work they're doing for the big money people and not be subject to serious critique. it just hasn't happened. i'm not advocating any censorship or any legal action---but i do advocate the political destruction of the far right and this because their politics are incoherent AND dangerous and if this democracy business means anything, it should be able as a process to weed out the incoherent and dangerous. if it can't then we really are in trouble because the substitution of shopping for politics is complete and the fading empire is well and truly fucked because the central political feedback loop that was supposed to make democracy so wonderful has been eliminated. shoppers don't get to criticize the retail system---that system is neutral---they merely get to choose which peanut butter they like.
that the ultra-right is viable in the united states is in itself an indictment of the american political system.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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