Aug 20, 2019
Be Careful Where You Wave Your Flag…
The Antifa is a group of people that are fighting to protect civil rights and liberties for ALL people. Antifa is just short for “Anti-Fascist”.
So basically, if you protest the Antifa, and say that they’re bad or that they’re a “terrorist group” you are saying that you don’t want anyone to spend their time and energy defending your rights and liberties, and you’re an idiot……Like this guy:
If you look at the video, Felarca did, indeed, go on the attack, but there were mitigating circumstances.
For one thing, the shoe has been on the other foot, until now, in that the fascist lovers and neo-nazis and other White Supremacists have often been the ones to start trouble. Not only that, but they tend to have the protection of our police forces…….even right here, in California, where we pride ourselves on adhering to a more equal form of democracy and justice.
Of course I’ve stooped, here to a very childish level of debate, in pointing out that it’s USUALLY the other guys that start it.
But since I’ve begun in that vein, let me just point out one more thing, in that vein: The guy was waving a neo-nazi flag, and walking into a group where he knew that the symbolism of his flag would trigger violent response.
If he knew what to expect, and did it anyway, then he’s an idiot, for intentionally inciting violence, because there’s always an “x factor”. There’s almost always an innocent person in the wrong place at the wrong time, or someone on social media who sees and thinks that they can pull off the same stupid stunt, and gets hurt or gets someone else hurt.
If he DIDN’T know what to expect, then he’s an idiot.
I would expect a violent reaction from a very Catholic or Christian person, in a Church, during Mass, if I walked in and started loudly cursing their god, praising Satan, and insisting that the Church goers should suffer or be jailed or otherwise punished for praying to the “wrong” deity.
When you knowingly make a public statement, whether it’s in what you say, carry, wear, or how you move, and that statement is a slap in the face to the crowd that you’ve decided to approach, then you probably realized before you left home, that you were likely to get slapped back.
The thing is that no one can really know what form that “slap back” will take and where it will end.
Justice these days, is also unpredictable.
Police officers, more and more often are being found to be “the bad guys”. Some have connections to hate groups, and can’t keep themselves from making that known on social media. Sometimes they’re even suspended for it. Others of their colleagues are less subtle about their bigotry. They abuse their authority, and their young, Black, Brown and or LGBTQAI prisoners:
https://www.theroot.com/tenn-deputies-repeatedly-tased-teen-who-was-strapped-i-1797461685
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32740523
Antifa fights for the victims of police abuse. They fight for any of our members of society that might not get their day in court, because Black or Brown, asylum seekers, poor Americans, rape victims or Atheists.
They’re fighting for our right to vote and protest. They’re fighting to make our politicians listen to ALL of us, when we’re talking about climate change and health care. They’re fighting for us, because they see that fascism is quickly eating away at our once proud democratic system.
I know that I’ve often taken the position that our “democratic republic” has lately done a less than stellar job of working in the best interest of all her people equally, and that “White Americans” have always been treated rather more equally than others. I’ve also elaborated, often upon the fact that WE (White Americans) are the “immigrants” and not the asylum seekers at our border and in our concentration camps.
And as much as I believe in the importance of humbling ourselves, when we remember our barbaric history of invasion and oppression of other races, it’s also important to note, that for a while, it looked like we were on track to improve ourselves, as a nation.
It looked like we were finally beginning to learn how to treat “The Other” as we would want to be treated, no matter what that “Other” looked like, what language they spoke, or who they had chosen to love.
I was proud of how civilized I believed we’d become.
I still thought that all police were good people, and trained to recognize and deal with conditions like Autism, Down Syndrome, and Childhood.
I saw only the cases in which justice was properly served, so that victims were protected and their attackers were jailed or required to make reparations for their crimes. ….
I was so innocent……
Now, every day, that I turn on the news and see that tRump is not yet impeached, and that he is still permitted to spew hate and divisiveness on the world stage, I see only more reasons to turn my back on the American flag, and pledge my allegiance instead to the budding NATION of California.
I pay homage here to that bright lady California, who is (as always) opening her heart and doors to asylum seekers, and mending fences with her Indigenous brothers and sisters.
I pin my hopes on California’s new beginning as an autonomous entity, who will lead the way in the battle against climate change, poverty and mass shootings. I see where we’ve been, and that tells me everything I need to know about how far we can go.
California has always lead by example. We’ve embraced clean energy, and organic farming. We’ve been enriched by our “immigrants”, artists, and entrepreneurs.
We have our problems, like a lack of affordable housing, Nestle stealing our water, and lately wildfires, and if we can get the US out of our backyard, a lot of that will go away. There’s plenty of Federal Land, that we could give to our Indigenous brothers and sisters, and we could treat with them, and ask that they help us to house “immigrants” on that land.
Becoming our own nation would mean that our tax dollars would stay in CA to help fix up buildings and turn them into more affordable housing for our own people, rather than that money going into more tanks to kill more people overseas, or to repair the infrastructure of other states. A lot of the citizens of many of those other states hate California, or simply share none of the same values as California.
Californians happen to like politicians and other people who are not pediphiles. We like them to keep expense records, and to not waste our tax dollars on yachts, strippers and steak and lobster for large parties of their friends. We like transparency, tact and fidelity.
We like it when our politicians finish their sentences and thoughts, and we love it when those thoughts aren’t constantly about their own greatness and how unfairly he or she has been treated by the media or the authors of the Constitution.
A few other things that we like are sensible gun control laws, clean air and water, and proof that our government is making policy that will protect the integrity of our ecosystem so that our kids and grandkids will have clean air and water, too.
In order to safeguard these ideals and our natural resources and citizens, we Californians mostly voted for Hillary. She had said something that we knew to be true: Stronger together.
It would be nearly impossible for any one person to clean up the mess that we’ve made of our ecosystem, by themselves. It will take many people coming up with may solutions and working side by side to see that our grandkids, and their grandkids will still have breathable air, and not need a level of sun protection that hasn’t been invented, yet.
Since California is standing behind movements, like Antifa, that stand for values like the ones I just mentioned, I will stand for California’s flag. I will wave her battlejack as I march in protest. I will shout “HURRAY FOR CALIFORNIA” at the top of my lungs, until I’ve helped her to realize that she’s outgrown her need for the current regime, and it’s time to cut the apron strings.
