<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title></title><style type="text/css">p.MsoNormal,p.MsoNoSpacing{margin:0}</style></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">Glen,<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">A round about way to address your blown mind about my — apparent — lack of concern about the threat from the right.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Although I try very hard to avoid it, my views at the general are inevitably colored by my experiences at the personal.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">I (quite literally) took up arms against the government fifty years ago. My reasons then, and my continuing perspective, has consequences. Two contrasting examples: 1) empathy for others who feel that the feds are an oppressive and unreasonable force in their lives and may have seen Trump as a countervailing force; 2) antipathy with regard current protests/protesters who are, ultimately and in my studied opinion, advocating changes that would enhance and increase governmental control.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">My first ten years as an academic, obtaining tenure and the rank of full professor, was at a very conservative Catholic university. It was not my day job (which was graduate software development) but I taught undergraduate cultural anthropology there for six years. That course in particular, but other opportunities to teach inter-disciplinary honors courses, afforded an opportunity to "offend" my colleagues and the prevailing Catholic orthodoxy on a regular basis. I did not shy from those opportunities. My publications, my syllabi, my public comments aroused the ire of many colleagues, but I was never threatened, was never concerned with regard my job or my professional status. In contrast, I could not teach the exact same material today in almost any public university without being crucified and fired. The facts did not change, but the prevailing orthodoxy did.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">I used to worry — a lot — about the possibility of a theocracy arising in the US. Trump pretty much destroyed that possibility by 1) wresting control of the Republican party from the religious-right; and 2) exposing the idiocy and hypocrisy of the "religious" in a way from which they will, IMO, never recover.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Now I worry about a politically correct secular-ocracy that makes the government — <b><u>necessarily</u></b> <b>representing a minority of the populace</b> — the ultimate arbitrator of thought and behavior for all.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">So, I am not concerned about the "right" because I see them as an already defeated non-entity; cowards and isolationists, with no possibility of obtaining the power, discipline, or will necessary to impose themselves on me. I fear the exact opposite with regard the "left."<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">If Biden is elected in the fall, the armed crazies that everyone seems to be so concerned about will melt away to their remote enclaves and inbred sanctuaries and nothing much else will happen. "<i>Trump as existential threat to democracy"</i> will fade away as just another collective hysteria like "stranger danger" and recovered memories of satanic child abuse cults.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Personally I will feel increasingly oppressed and controlled by a government (mostly an enabled bureaucracy) that I abhor.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">If Trump wins (still a probability in my mind) I believe we will see armed insurrection and violence in the streets. This will be suppressed by inauguration day and we will have four years of weekly impeachment trials and daily Supreme Court cases while COVID and economic decline quietly decimates the population.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">End note: When Humphrey was defeated he took a position as professor at Macalester, where I was a student, until he could run for and win his Senate seat again. I organized a beautiful May Day, Maoist "Save the Children," protest blocking his office with barbed wire barricades. Lots of local media attention but the only "accolades" I received were from right wing crazies who hated Humphrey as a liberal, not as a enabler of continuation in Vietnam.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">On Wed, Aug 5, 2020, at 2:09 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Interesting. I'm frequently identified as right wing, but mostly <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> because of things I say, not because of what I wear, especially when I <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> cut my hair [⛧]. I wonder if that makes the difference? It might also <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> matter what you mean by "leftists". I've met plenty of violent <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> "leftists", but I don't regard them as "woke". I realize you're using <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> it as an insult and perhaps ironically. But there really is a <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> difference. I'm a fan of Frantz Fanon, who argued that political <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> violence is *necessary* for colonized peoples. But the people who use <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> "woke" almost universally disapprove of such violence. So, your use of <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> the word is hopelessly flawed.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Regardless, it kinda blows my mind that you're *not* equally worried <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> about the economic, social, and psychological violence that originates <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> from the "contemporary right". I don't even know how to respond to <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> that. And if you're equally worried about that, why do you more often <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> warn of the threat from the left?<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> [⛧] I have only 2 hair styles: 1) let it grow wherever/however and 2) <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> cut it all off.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> On 8/5/20 12:52 PM, Prof David West wrote:<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> > It is of little importance because it is idiosyncratic, but: while I have never had anyone from right or left put a gun in my face or try to run me over with a car; I have experienced, multiple times, physical violence from "leftists" purely because of political expression. Yes, I was asking for it, e.g. being deliberately provocative by wearing a MAGA hat in a public venue where I knew it would not be "welcomed."<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> > <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> > [[ IT WAS AN EXPERIMENT! I AM NOT PRO TRUMP!!! ]]<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> > <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> > And, also personal experience only, I have been the recipient of violence from troglodytes who took me for being gay (was with my friend Frank dressed in all black with long hair, me in paisley shirt and fringed buckskin leather jacket ala John Voigt — accosted in men's room of a movie theater in LA) and too many episodes of violence from "patriots" who (more or less correctly) saw me as a "hippie commie punk'.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> > <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> > However, physical violence is far less of a concern, for me, than the economic, social and psychological violence that, as far as I can tell, originates pretty much exclusively from the "contemporary left," i.e. the "woke."<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> -- <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 <a href="http://bit.ly/virtualfriam">bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> un/subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> archives: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">> FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a> <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">><br></div></body></html>