Life in the Trenches

I hit my limit months ago.  I couldn’t take the incessant pounding, the non-stop barrage of racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, anti-environmentalism, war-mongering, collusion, nepotism, self-aggrandizement, and sheer idiocy coming out of the White House and Congress.  I couldn’t keep bearing unblinking witness to each and every horrendous, scandalous, apocalyptic thing day after day – not without spiraling into a nasty vortex of hopelessness and despair.  I needed some filters.  I needed some shields to protect me from becoming politically paralyzed or inured.

So I hunkered down in the trenches and made myself a spot of tea.

I kept thinking globally, but focused my actions locally, on immigration issues.  I kept sharing political info and politically-pithy memes, vids, and clips on my social media, but dropped my ToDo ToDay Tweets; Daily Action, the ACLU’s People Power, Indivisible, and a f**kload of other organizations have the on-going Resistance bases well covered.  I kept tuning in to NPR (National Public Radio) and PRI (Public Radio International), but didn’t hesitate to switch to a music station if the political BS got me too riled.  I kept scanning the headlines, but cut back my reading to a few full articles a day from a few select sources.  I kept making phone calls, but only when I actually had something to say to my mostly think-same, progressive representatives who are mostly doing the best they can.

In lieu of overwhelming doses of straight news, I started avidly following the comedy news.  To each their own, but for me (in order of keeps-me-sanest) it’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,  The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.  All three broadcast the ghastly truth, uncensored, unafraid, with incisive wit and irony, and with full respect for their viewers’ intelligence.  Just when the vile reality of a segment is about to send me spiraling back down to depression, John lands a devastatingly funny jab on exactly the right target, Trevor throws in a zinger, and Sam wraps up with a piece of unequivocally good news.

I’m not making any claims to hard times, here.  If I’ve been hunkering down in the trenches, I’ve been hunkering down in style.  As an aging female radical, I’m in the GOP’s sights, but that’s about it.  My multi-ethnic/racial heritage, devoutly Pagan beliefs, and mixed-religious (but primarily Jewish) upbringing largely go unnoticed by the police state and hate groups, thanks to my physical appearance and accidental membership in an economically-comfortable class (thanks, honey).  I don’t have the looks, the gender identity, the gender preferences, the nationality, or the faith to make me fair game in the tRump-incited Alt-White Alt-Universe.  I’m not in constant danger of deportation. I’m not risking my life every time I walk out the door.  I’m not anyone’s primary target.

While the present isn’t pleasant and the future looks bleak, people like me have bits of flotsam to cling to as we struggle to stay afloat in the wreckage of the Republic.  Ryan and his cronies haven’t yet managed to annihilate health care and steal social security.  The courts have thrown out a fair number of Muslim Bans and other unconstitutional garbage.  The Putz-in-Chief hasn’t yet pushed the button.  So far, I’ve personally suffered only mental anguish and emotional anxiety under #45’s Tweeted presidency.

Small daily acts of resistance, but also filtering, focusing, and spending big time on careless fun – like blogging about our summer travels, listening to fave podcasts, dinner-and-movie dates, reading aloud with my grand-nephew, discussing poetry late at night, making love, working out, sipping fine whiskey, doing standing meditation on our deck of a misty morning – that’s been my life in the trenches.  Pretty damn sweet.

I’m not the only one felt compelled by necessity or exhaustion to hunker down.  The posh, air-conditioned, Nor-Cal trenches are full of folks like me.

Or so I thought.

The thing about a trench, filthy or fine, it’s just a place to duck and cover.  In the trenches, you’re still on the battlefield, still at the front.  Trench warfare is still warfare.  You have to be ready to grab your gear, climb out, stand exposed, and fight at a moment’s notice.

Saturday 12 August was one of those moments.  On that day white nationalists came en masse to Charlottesville, VA to rub their unpatriotic agenda in America’s face by protesting the removal of a Confederate general’s statue from a city park.  They came armed.  They waved Confederate and Nazi flags.  They wore and bore the symbols and emblems of various oppressive regimes and their favorite white supremacist organizations.  They held (tiki) torches in homage to the KKK, raised their arms in the Nazi salute, and shouted fascist, racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic slogans for all to hear.

They were met by counter-protesters.  Some were from the ACLU, some were from Black Lives Matter.  Most were local, home-grown, concerned Charlottesville citizens.  All were anti-fascists.

For the record, this antifa/Alt-Left thing that’s running rampant in the media . . .

First, there is no Alt-Left, no consortium of left-wing hate groups intent on fomenting violence in our society.  The Alt-Left is an unsubstantiated lie, a piece of propaganda created to sell the illusion that fascists and those who stand against fascism are equal and opposite factions operating on perfectly parallel planes of morality.

Next, hate groups – as defined by the law and by those who study them – are groups that vilify people based on immutable characteristics, such as their race or ethnicity.  Black Lives Matter is not a hate-group.  Black Lives Matter does not vilify. It advocates for freedom, justice, and respect.

Finally, yes, the anti-fascist action movement (antifa) is a thing.  It was brought into being by militant leftists who brawled with fascists on the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s.  It resurged periodically in the later decades of the 20^th century.  It has resurfaced here and now in response to the alarming resurgence of the white nationalist movement.  Read THIS to get your historical and current antifa facts straight.

Antifas believe direct action is the appropriate response to fascism.   Their tactics (violence) and causes (which may involve depriving some groups and individuals of their constitutional rights), present a genuine ethical problem that the Left must address.  That said, putting antifa activists on a par with white supremacists is, again, a ploy to subvert reality.  Most antifas are anarchists.  Unlike the Alt-Right, the antifa movement has no political clout – no Bannon or Sessions furthering their agenda from within the administration, no Hunter or King forwarding their views in Congress, and no Agent Orange literally white-washing their sins from the White House.  Antifas don’t mourn the loss of a slave-based economy, don’t celebrate genocidal dictators, and don’t claim people of a particular race or religion are sub-human.  And, to be clear, they may have saved some lives in Charlottesville.  So there’s that.

And there’s this.  At the Unite the Right rally  on Saturday, 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. deliberately drove a car into a group of counter-protesters, injuring 19 and killing 32-year-old Heather D. Heyer.

Surely there is enough in that last sentence to compel resistance-weary liberals to peer out over the top of their comfy trenches?  And so they did, sharing the news on social media, recycling disturbing images, posting pertinent quotes.  Quick, clear denunciations Twittered in from every corner of the nation.  Even Marco Rubio’s corner.  Even Chuck Grassley’s corner.  Even, I kid you not, Ted Cruz’s corner.  It took him till that evening, but here’s his Tweet:  “I urge the Department of Justice to immediately investigate and prosecute this grotesque act of domestic terrorism.”

Yet, while the vast majority of politicos did not hesitate to put a name to the evil that had spawned this atrocity and express their opposition to it, #45 would go only so far as to lament the “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”  That’s the sound-bite, anyway.  Speaking from his corner, which for all practical purposes is the White House, but was in fact his New Jersey golf club, what the terrorist’s apologist actually said is:

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides. It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama, this has been going on for a long, long time. Our country is doing very well in so many ways, we have absolute record employment. We have on employment the lowest it has been in almost 17 years. We have companies pouring into our country. Car companies and so many others, they’re coming back to our country. We are renegotiating trade deals to make them great for country and great for the American worker. We have so many incredible things happening in our country. So when I watch Charlottesville, to me it is very, very sad.”

With his rambling, tepid, misleading statement, His Supreme Incompetence committed two unpardonable offenses.  His now-infamous “many sides” remark perpetuated the illusion that there is a dangerous Alt-Left who must share the blame for Heather’s murder.  By declining to mention “white nationalists” or “neo-Nazis” or any hate group by name, he vindicated his adoring white supremacist fans and confirmed that he is one of them.

Up to that point, social-media flurries and Tweet storms were a legitimate response to the day’s events.  When the President of the United States refused to name and condemn the evil that less than a lifetime ago led to the annihilation of 6-million people for the crime of being not-Christian and 5-million more for being not-white or not-straight, the evil that America reluctantly, tardily, but inevitably joined the world to resist and destroy, the evil by which all others are measured, you can’t – you just can’t – sit on your virtuous ass in your high-end trench tut-tutting over your Chardonnay and posting your sentiments.  You’ve got to get out there and do your part.

Your part is to show up.  To swell the numbers.  To be seen, standing up for what’s right, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with your community, and standing in-spirit with those who lack the health or mobility to be out on the streets.

Heather Heyer’s family suggested that those who wished to could show their support by stepping out of their homes on Sunday at 7:00pm Eastern holding lit candles.  Indivisible upped the ante and, through the ACLU, called for member groups to organize vigil-events where supporters could gather.

The City of Sonoma has an Indivisible group.  Sonoma has socially-active churches, a Democratic Club, an Action Coalition, a Sonoma Valley Resistance group, and more.  None of them called for a Sunday evening vigil at the plaza.

No worries.  The Indivisible group the next town over was having an event.  Perhaps that was why Sonoma had opted out; perhaps the idea was to consolidate, to have more people at less vigils, to make a stronger showing.

But no.  The Petaluma vigil was sweet . . . and small.

Congressman Jared Huffman was there, that was cool.

My husband and I saw only one other person we knew from Sonoma.   She was happy to see us, too.

The day after Agent Orange took office, 3-5 million Americans took to the streets in the largest protest this nation has ever seen.  I went to our state’s capital to march that day, but returned home to learn that a full 3,000 people had protested in Sonoma.  It was those numbers that helped me calm my fears about remaining in the United States under a right-wing, authoritarian government.  If even sleepy Slow-noma was woke to the danger, Resistance would not be futile.

So where were they?  Where were the Sonoma thousands the day after Charlottesville?  Where were the hundreds, the dozens?  Why didn’t even a handful of my friends and neighbors hear the call and come out of their trenches?  I cannot understand how Sunday dinner, previous engagements, a last chance to see that flick, other plans, being tired, having a headache, or literally anything that was not life-or-death could have seemed sufficient reason to say, “Sorry, today’s not good, can’t be bothered – but I did post a scathing article about it on Facebook.”

Using a tried-and-true terrorist tactic (vehicle-ramming attack), a Nazi killed a young woman on a public street in broad daylight on American soil – and the Secret Supremacist in the White House applauded.

If that didn’t set fire to our souls, if that didn’t propel each and every one of us into the streets in outrage and solidarity, I can only believe that the worst has happened.  The relentless undermining of our democratic institutions and ideals, the daily attacks on our rights and freedoms, the ever-increasing threat of nuclear war, the lunatic Tweets and actions of the Nazi-Sympathizer Who Would Be Emperor, the policies of his racist, misogynistic, unqualified cabinet, and the self-serving legislation from the right-wing Congress have become so normal that it’s business-as-usual, no matter the provocation.  If a heinous act of domestic terrorism didn’t drive all of us out of the trenches, I fear nothing will.