It IS happening HERE and NOW. Clear and present danger.
I remember years ago, during China’s student protests, I reference this picture a lot: “Hear us now or be us later.” We were deaf then. We adapted some tactics, but the masses were deaf then. It goes back farther, much farther than that; though we’re HERE now. This “democracy” is gone. To believe we’re not there yet, or we’ve got a ways to go before we’re cooked… God, it’s harrowing. It’s gut wrenching and heartbreaking that people can be so obtuse.
First off, the democracy we HAD wasn’t great, but that IS gone. And second, if you think it’s not THAT bad, it’s because you sit from an observational site of fucking privilege. Not THAT bad? How BAD does it have to get? When it affects YOU. This idea of, “we can get back” — NO! There will NEVER be a time that is before Trump.
This democracy is dead. And that term is apt because death, no matter your belief in a hereafter or not, is NOT the end. Our bodies decompose, we break down, our atoms and molecules shift and transform. So the democracy IS dead. It is decomposing, shifting, transforming. Into what, is irrelevant. Whatever taxonomy you want to ascribe to it, to popularize your take, who gives a fuck. A rose by ANY other name? Call a spade a spade. Oppression is HERE.
It’ll only get worse. While some wait till we “get back,” millions will suffer. And you’ll never get it back. Hungary, Bukele in El Salvador, Venezula, Italy, this domino effect is clear and present. Close your eyes if you must, but it’s still happening. Thrust your head in the sand if you will and get your ass kicked. Sit in that water till you’re cooked alive because “it’s not THAT hot.”
What will it take? Military in the state? Like L.A.? Undermining courts? Like Trump is doing? Snatch and grabs, black masks and vans? Like ICE? Travel bans, attacks on universities, on ANY independent checks and balances… as is ALL transpiring. What will it take people to wake up?
It’s not too late. It never is. Resistance IS essence, it’ll always have its merits. But the oppressor is ready for a fight. That’s why they train in cop cities. The oppressor is bent on oppression. They’ll take your freedom by any means. Change the law to do it legally or deploy jack boot fascists. Makes them no different.
I see that image, “hear us now or be us later,” we’re them… I think in lots of ways, we always have been, just American exceptionalism tells us it can’t happen here… But it is… that’s so clear. If you want peace, prepare for war. The pigs are ready for war. You will not unseat autocracy peacefully.
When we look at why other attempts at autocracy in, say, Brazil, South Korea, Poland. First, to Brazil and Korea, they don’t have white people. Let me be clear, white people make this dynamic different because of white supremacy. When in those nations, a party leader tried to consolidate power, it COULD be thwarted because the masses ALL get fucked. In the U.S., it’s whiteness, THEN capital, meaning not ALL will be fucked in a MAGA autocracy. MAGA has a base of folks who salivate for their fascist overlord because he’s white. They, even if poor, stand to benefit.
White supremacy is a plague, it sets apart this autocratic takeover, that AND the German tactic (well, all authoritarian tactics) of Others, persecution of Others, deplorables, the ones responsible for our woes. As for Poland, they DID consolidate and hold power for a while, and it’s not much better now, again, regime change is fine, so long as power resides in the same hands. The insanity of thinking it can’t happen here because America is the land of the free and American exceptionalism, but then comparing this to other nations without the scope of the thing that built America’s “exceptionalism,” that being 500 years of slavery, Jim Crow and Black Codes, extermination and genocide, oppression to this day, a militaristic police surveillance state, mass incarceration, ALL wrapped in a red, white, and blue flag of white supremacist virtue.
To not include what made the U.S. “exceptional” in your assessment is asinine. What we’re seeing in L.A., what we’ll see in cities across the U.S. is a crackdown, for the regime to hold power with force. That nonsense 3.5% of the population protesting is needed to thwart an autocratic takeover SOUNDS good, about as fanciful as the white supremacist logic of 3%ers, who say 3% of the colonists fought to usurp Britain. It SOUNDS good. It SOUNDS great when you say “peacefully,” it works best.
Though when I hear that, I hear either a delusional human or a counterinsurgent propagandist. Something like the U.S.’s agents of dissent in the Cold War who went around saying, “A nuclear war wouldn’t be THAT bad,” in order to give cause for Regan’s disgusting tactic of deterrent with nuclear arms build-ups. Like then, they’re lying, a nuclear war IS that bad, and our democracy doesn’t exist, for some of us, it never has, and 3.5% of the population “protesting” will NOT save us.
Viktor Orson in Hungary was strategic, calculating, his slow erosion took people by surprise. The brute force route Trump is taking works, too. Bukele is an example, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Putin, need I go on There are MANY ways a democracy dies. Thinking Trump is above using force to enact his will is just… stupid, what was J6th? And he calls L.A. an “insurrectionist mass”?
This would be laughable if it wasn’t real. If it was just TV, entertainment, we’d all be like, “you idiot, can’t you see???” … someone wrote me recently about Andor, I then heard the show described on NPR twice after. I believe in the rule of three. That is the universe signaling something if it occurs three times.
Two things stand out of those three. First, the “false flag” operation pulled, in which the empire stoked seeds of dissent, armed rebels, then pulled a Lexington and Concord “shot heard ’round the world” to initiate deployment of soldiers all throughout the galaxy… hmm. The cartoonish nature of this playing out is, uh, what’s the word? …
The second that stood out to me came courtesy of the wonderful human who wrote me, he discussed the show and ended with a quote and this character’s manifesto. No need to patronize Disney, I’ll leave them here. The character’s name is “Nemik,” the quote goes, “The pace of oppression outstrips our ability to understand it. And the real trick of the imperial thought machine: it’s easier to hide behind forty atrocities than a single incident.” Which should put into perspective Trump’s shock and awe tactic.
And lastly, the manifesto. There will be times where struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this: freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions, that have no idea they’ve already enlisted in the cause.
Remember that the frontier of rebellion is everywhere, and even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And remember this, the imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that.
And know this: the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the empire’s authority, and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege.
Remember this: try.