[FRIAM] curiosities ...

[Prof David West]

Glen,

A round about way to address your blown mind about my — apparent — lack of concern about the threat from the right.

Although I try very hard to avoid it, my views at the general are inevitably colored by my experiences at the personal.

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.

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.

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.

Now I worry about a politically correct secular-ocracy that makes the government — *_necessarily_* *representing a minority of the populace* — the ultimate arbitrator of thought and behavior for all.

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."

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. "*Trump as existential threat to democracy"* will fade away as just another collective hysteria like "stranger danger" and recovered memories of satanic child abuse cults.

Personally I will feel increasingly oppressed and controlled by a government (mostly an enabled bureaucracy) that I abhor.

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.

davew

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.




On Wed, Aug 5, 2020, at 2:09 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> Interesting. I'm frequently identified as right wing, but mostly 
> because of things I say, not because of what I wear, especially when I 
> cut my hair [⛧]. I wonder if that makes the difference? It might also 
> matter what you mean by "leftists". I've met plenty of violent 
> "leftists", but I don't regard them as "woke". I realize you're using 
> it as an insult and perhaps ironically. But there really is a 
> difference. I'm a fan of Frantz Fanon, who argued that political 
> violence is *necessary* for colonized peoples. But the people who use 
> "woke" almost universally disapprove of such violence. So, your use of 
> the word is hopelessly flawed.
> 
> Regardless, it kinda blows my mind that you're *not* equally worried 
> about the economic, social, and psychological violence that originates 
> from the "contemporary right". I don't even know how to respond to 
> that. And if you're equally worried about that, why do you more often 
> warn of the threat from the left?
> 
> 
> [⛧] I have only 2 hair styles: 1) let it grow wherever/however and 2) 
> cut it all off.
> 
> On 8/5/20 12:52 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> > 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."
> > 
> > [[  IT WAS AN EXPERIMENT! I AM NOT PRO TRUMP!!!  ]]
> > 
> > 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'.
> > 
> > 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."
> 
> 
> -- 
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
> 
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