22 October 2020

Stand Back and Stand By


One of the most depressing things about living in this day and age is that I have to keep saying things like:

  • Nazis are bad.
  • White supremacy is bad.
  • People who say they plan to start a race war are often telling the truth.
  • People who say only they have rights – to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, not to mention the Constitution – are dangerous.

Etc.

Look, even I know who the Proud Boys are. You can read some summaries of their "beliefs" here:

SPLC - Why are the Proud Boys so Violent?; Anti-Defamation League - Proud Boys; USA  Today - Who are the Proud Boys?

Meanwhile, we had some more proud militia types - the Michigan Wolverine Watchmen (???? - obviously they've been reading too many Marvel comics; that or they all went to UofM. Although I doubt it...) - who decided kidnapping Governor Gretchen Whitmir and trying her for treason at a kangaroo trial and then executing her on national television was a great idea, along with attacking police officers and starting a civil war “leading to societal collapse”.  (NYTimes)

NOTE:  Why, why, why do so damn many white militia types want societal collapse?  Where do they think they can buy their favorite gummy bears?  And lest you think these are rugged survivalists, remember that most of this gang was involved in the armed protest / assault / invasion at the Michigan Capitol building back in April as they sought... <checking her notes...> access to haircuts and hardware stores.  (The Guardian)

Update:  turns out the Michigan Wolverine Watchmen were planning to not only kidnap, try and execute their governor, but also the Governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam.  Listen, you rugged semi-constitutionalists, if states' rights are the most important of all, what the hell gives you the right to interfere in the governance of another whole state? 

And what is that they really want, anyway?  I've noticed that most white supremacist organizations - including the Proud Boys - have quit using the term "white supremacist" (puts people off) and instead call themselves "Western chauvinists".  And there's a key right there - because the mind set of these groups is predicated on a false idea, a toxic nostalgia, for a world in which (white) Americans (men) ruled the world, we were the wealthiest and strongest nation in history, everyone did what we said (except, of course, the Russians who back then were mortal enemy #1), and life was perfect.  Gas was cheap, a man - any [white] man - could earn enough to support a family, and the women could stay home and take care of the family as God intended.  Our suburban way of life was the envy of the world, and only we had it and we deserved each and every bit of it because we worked hard for it.

Granted, people did work hard for it - but the reason for our prosperity of the late 1940s through much of the 1960s was because we were the only industrialized country which had not had its major cities bombed to rubble in the almost 7 years of WW2.  70-80 million people worldwide died in WW2. Some 60 million Europeans became refugees during the entire World War II period. According to the United Nations, a million people had yet to find a place to settle by 1951, more than five years after the fighting stopped.  There was a need for massive rebuilding all across Europe, Asia, north Africa, and the Middle East:  buildings, infrastructure, factories, homes.  After a war that long, everybody needed consumer goods:  clothing, shoes, cars, furniture, etc.  And for years, the United States - relatively untouched by war - had a monopoly on production and sales of just about everything.  That was the economic miracle of the 1950s.  Based on the desperate poverty of almost everyone else in the world.*

And that is why I call it toxic nostalgia, because to bring back the glory days of the 1950s and 60s would require a return to that level of global poverty.  Instead, what we're seeing today (pandemic aside) is a world in which poverty is decreasing, countries are increasing production and prosperity - and instead of accepting it and joining in, some Americans are waxing way too nostalgic about when we "ruled the earth".  And dreaming about how to get back there. 

And that's not even nearly as bad as the superfund toxic nostalgia about the good old days of the ante-bellum South, in which slavery wasn't so bad, and somebody needed to pick all that cotton, and at least the slaves all got converted to Christianity and were saved.  That, too, lingers on - along with all the old BS about how slaves deserved to be slaves, because they were so inferior to whites.  Iowa Rep. Steve King asked a while back, "which nonwhite subgroups had contributed more than white people to “civilization.” 

Well, I taught a year-long class every year on World Civilizations which would have answered his question; but I think he would have flunked for citing Ancient Aliens as a source.**  See also SLATE on "Why It Makes No Sense to Judge Groups of People by Their Histories of Invention."  


This, and far too many other reasons are why we have a serious white supremacist problem in this country.  Thanks to Wikipedia, here's an incomplete list of White Supremacist Groups in the United States:

I can guarantee you that each and every member of all of these organizations knows what "Stand back and stand by" means.  

I've mentioned this before, but this incident will always haunt me.  Years ago right after the Timothy McVeigh bombing, one of our regular militia visitors at the courthouse told me, "War has been declared."  When I said the children in the day-care weren't soldiers (remember, 19 children were killed in a daycare there, as well as 3 pregnant women), he replied, "There are no innocent victims."  And he meant it.  And was not apologizing for it.  And was proud of it.  


White supremacist literature (see "The Turner Diaries") is all about "getting rid of" (i.e., killing) everyone who doesn't meet their standards, to the point where you wonder if even in our weapons-rich environment, there really are enough bullets to get that job done.  Because they are all about purity policing the world.  They really do want to create a white paradise, but of course, there are a lot of "whites" in their world who they don't consider truly white, or white enough. And as their immediate world gets whiter, they expand their list of undesirables, and make more and more "white people" non-white.  In the long run, there's no one "good enough" left. 
 
Remember, the Nazis declared European Slavic people to be non-white, and good for nothing, according to Hitler, but to be "slaves to our culture". That and be slaughtered to make room for more pure German Aryans.
 
Remember, Timothy McVeigh bombed a government building knowing there was a day care center in it full of children.  




 *I told this to someone last week, who was amazed - they'd never heard this explanation of the American 1950s before.  God knows what they're teaching about WW2 these days...

**Not to denigrate Ancient Aliens - it's a great piece of mental cotton candy. 

ALSO:  We finally got an update on the South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravsborg case - 4 weeks later - where Gov. Kristi Noem and Public Safety Secretary Craig Price on Tuesday gave an update on the Saturday, Sept. 12 crash that killed 55-year-old Joseph Boever. Noem and Price spoke to reporters from the Sioux Falls City Hall.  The audio of the 911 call made by South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was released, but otherwise, "The incident remains under investigation, and Price declined to answer some questions, saying he wants to release a full report when the matter is concluded."  (Argus Leader
 
Color us all suspicious.  Because if this had been anyone but a high government official, this investigation would be over and charges would have been filed.  

13 comments:

  1. A useful if depressing catalogue. We have made school level history both boring and detached from any present consequences, which is no doubt why so many people remember very little about it.

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  2. Sad but true, Janice. To the point where to be anti-fascist is now supposedly a bad thing. My father, a WW2 vet, must be whirling in his grave.

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  3. Thanks for this depressingly complete summary, Eve. It's a valuable service.

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  4. Clearly abandoning the Articles of Confederation was a mistake.(Jerry K. Sweeney)

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  5. A great piece Eve! I love your term "toxic nostalgia." That really sums up a lot of the backwards thinking you describe.

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  6. Thanks Kaye.
    Lawrence, I've been using that term for a long time, because there's no other way to describe a mindset determined to see everything through a Cecil B. DeMille haze.
    And Jerry, we may go back to that yet...

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  7. Great job Eve. I love the term "toxic nostalgic" also. I had no idea that there was so many organized hate groups in the United States. You did a great job explaining why the U.S. was a great world economic power in the 1950s. We had very little competition after world war II. Well researched blog.

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  8. It galls me that the previous generation fought a war to finish off the nazis, and they make a comeback in our own government.

    Even more than the disdain for non-whites, The Turner Diaries promised death to 'race traitors', those who would like to live in an integrated world where we look past a person's skin.

    Thanks for the update, Eve.

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  9. To me, it seems that many people who feel themselves to be disenfranchised of some entitlement they think should be theirs often believe that violence is the only answer, when in truth, instead of striving to improve their situation through education and working towards positive promotion, it’s probably their poor decisions in life that are keeping them where they are. For them, it’s easier to resort to violence in the manner and image of some glorious action figure, than to put in the work and the hours. Since they feel like they can’t control what’s happening in their lives, they will try to control yours, so they can feel better about their own.

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  10. R.T. - totally agree. That's what I've seen, over and over again.
    Thanks, Leigh & Jeff!

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  11. Thank you. A friend now in her fifties recently told me that when her USAF dad was stationed in Mississippi, she and her siblings were scared all the time except when they were on base. The scariest time was driving across country to the East Coast when they were being transferred overseas. I was this woman's teacher when she was a teen, and it hurts to think of her being afraid then. And now, anywhere in the U.S. The tragic thing about our fighting fascism in World War II is that we retained it in our own country. Thanks to Kaye George for sharing your post. I'll pass it along.

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