Armaggedon, the prophetic war between the forces of good against the forces of evil has already started in America. It’s been coming to this for a number of years now, the start of which was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. This triggered the internal conflicts of the 60s which spawned radical groups on the right and the left. The groups on the left kind of fizzled out over the next few decades, but the groups on the right organized, weaponized, and bided their time recruiting and training until they rejoiced and expanded as a result of something quite unexpected: the internet and the World Wide Web. As a result of the social media phenomenon which took root in the 90s and greatly metastasized up to 2016 when the mainstream population gifted them with the election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States, perhaps the most powerful position in the world. This was the green light extreme right wing groups including white supremacists, nationalists, and militias were waiting for in order to fatten their coffers with funds, troops, and more sophisticated weaponry. It also allowed them to infiltrate key elements of society including the military, local police departments, and political institutions.
The extreme left was caught off guard as it watched fascism spill into the viscera of our country like a flash flood. Small groups of dedicated soldiers like Antifa formed and opposed the boisterous rallies of the radical right, but with Trump’s tweets casting aspersions on the group, he’s had some success branding them as villains and white supremacists the victims. But then the battlefield got much more intense and complicated when a police officer in Minneapolis put his knee to George Floyd’s neck, murdering a man they had just handcuffed and arrested. This touched off a firestorm of protest not only in this country but, amazingly, around the world. And the movement Black Lives Matter (BLM) was birthed and trained to walk/protest as quickly as a newborn foal.
This and the coronavirus pandemic caught Trump and the right wing extremists off guard, particularly seeing many white people supporting BLM and joining in their peaceful protests against police brutality targeting Black folk. So, Trump, panicking and seeing his popularity drop in the polls upped the ante and began to label Antifa and BLM as terrorists, rioters, looters, and thugs while instigating more violence by saying nothing about his cadres of well-armed militia followers. Commission via omission, a favorite tactic of his. As he had planned, the violence increased considerably, especially after he ordered his own poorly identified federal police to enter the fray, with military armaments and arrests without due process or Miranda rights read. Trump then conveniently used the violence to try to scare up, quite literally, some votes in the suburbs. The violence, stirred by even more police brutality (were some police acting to assist Trump in his reelection bid?) increased in such cities as Portland, Oregon, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, and is showing little sign of deescalating as long as Trump and his Fox News enablers keep up the harangue against the “radical left” with still practically nothing negative said about the aggressive militias.
People have now been shot on both sides, a Patriot Prayer soldier on the far right (gunman as yet unknown); and two on the far left (gunman a 17 year old vigilante, sanctioned by the police to help out, illegally carrying an automatic rifle, shuttled to the event by his mother, and praised–yes, praised–by Tucker Carlson of Fox and excused by Trump who claimed it “might have been self-defense. We’re looking into it.”
There’s been much press on the events unfolding in Portland and Kenosha, especially the former since the protests there have occurred every night for just over three months! They started peacefully but have turned violent. It is my belief, and that of Joe Biden’s, that the violence has been deliberately instigated by Trump and his media surrogates. They have given the green light to fascist groups like Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer to aggressivly challenge peaceful groups like BLM and the NAACP which then forces groups like Antifa to appear to oppose the fascists. Fights break out, leading to even more escalation when police get involved. It is my assertion that Antifa, contrary to how Trump portrays them, is the only group actively opposing such extreme right wing fascist groups. Antifa is doing our country a huge service on the front lines of a war for the heart and soul of our country. In spite of incessant accusations from Trump and Fox, these anti fascist soldiers are holding the line against this onslaught of Trump’s fascist brigades. We owe Antifa our support and thanks.
In Europe during WWII, such groups were known as Partisans or the Resistance or the People’s Guard in Poland, and many gave their lives in fighting Nazi terror. Hitler branded them the enemy, as Trump does now. But they were doing exactly what Antifa is doing at this equally critical time in history. White supremacy groups reveal their true purpose by carrying flags of the Confederacy, the Nazi swastika, Trump’s reelection flag, the former Mississippi state flag, and the once patriotic but now racist Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. They carry guns with them to intimidate as did Hitler’s Brown Shirts. They’ve attacked, killed, and injured scores of people in synagogues, churches, and mosques. They’ve attacked and killed peaceful demonstrators. Since the President of the United States seems to be giving them carte blanche, and police departments are starting to utilize them as vigilantes, we need groups like Antifa to oppose them.
I am too old to join the street lines of opposition to fascism, as I did in the 60s. I, having recently survived cancer and struggle with heart failure, am too infirm–with a high vulnerability to the coronavirus–to carry signs of opposition, other than from our car, as my wife and I did during an early BLM automobile protest. But I can still write of my opposition, and will continue to do so until my body or brain abandon me. There were also such patriots during the Revolutionary War who contributed to the struggle in ways that were appropriate to their life conditions and situations. My hope and prayer is that each of you reading this will find a way to help fight this 21st century Revolutionary War brought about by these fascists from the President on down to the Proud Boy with an AK-47 in the face of a peaceful protestor on the street. Our democracy, our freedoms, our form of government, our sense of decency, the very survival of our country depend upon it.
Thank you for your attention.
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