Thread by @JuliusGoat

Here's an extraordinary and all-too-common thing: comparing GOP rule-breaking, empowered oppression, general lawlessness, and violent threats to ... the civil rights struggle.

Remember these assholes? They thought they were fighting for their rights, also.

Their rights to not be "replaced."

"Replaced" as the only people who matter.

They saw themselves as overcoming something, only that "something" was ... everybody else.

"Unite the Right" leader Jason Kessler certainly saw things that way. “The… issue is being allowed to advocate for your interests as a white person, just like other groups are allowed to advocate for their interests politically."

Allowed.

An interesting thing to say for someone clearly already being allowed.

They didn't want us thinking “hate group”. They want us thinking “we shall overcome”.

But ... overcome WHAT?

Think now again to the Oregon GOP and their protecting militias, so fully enfranchised they can foment violent revolt without consequence against *climate change legislation* and get their way.

They overcame.

But overcame ... what?

The oppression of not being the only priority

If, as Martin Luther King famously suggested, a riot is the voice of the unheard, then what could it be that a mob of the very much heard might desire?

I remembered the chants. Apparently what a mob of the heard wants is to not be replaced.

Replaced. How interesting.

Fascinating, extraordinary — to fight to *not be replaced.*

As ... what?

This suggests they believe they presently hold some sort of position.

Which further suggests they believe the position they hold is one they are keeping others from.

It necessarily follows that they think holding this position is as good and right as is denying it to others.

Thus, privilege acknowledges its privilege even as it pleads oppressed inequality.

This is why villains such as "Unite the Right" and Oregon GOP would steal the aspect and bearing of heroes: because the moral clarity of civil rights is something others have, which they do not, and they cannot bear for others to have something that might otherwise come to them.

The civil rights movement fought and bled and died, so that everybody might have a chair at the table.

These venomous crybabies want to fight to make sure they sit in the only chair, and expect to have it credited to them as moral virtue.

Yes, and to hell with them.

If I were to name the sickness presently coursing through the national veins, I might name it this way: Too many of us have confused the idea of oppression with that of opposition.

Yes, the counter-sitters broke law, rules and norms. They did it with moral authority, from marginalization, to make MORE room

And yes, they were assaulted. Their assailants also broke the law. They did it with cowardice, from power, to make LESS

The difference is everything

Let's find the difference and live in it

Bring out chairs. Bring out chairs until there are more than are needed. We live in a world of plenty, not of lack

Everybody gets to sit

From the most comfortable chair, they'll cry "it's oppression!"

It's not. And to hell with them.

When they break a chair to prevent sitting, fix it

If they smash it, bring out another

If you have a chair, give it up

It's just space to live. It's just equality. There's as much as we want there to be.

Everybody gets to sit. They can't stop it b/c they can't understand it.

They can't understand it, but they'll try to steal the iconography by pointing out they too are just trying to sit.

Don't get confused. Ask yourself: If what these people want comes to pass, will it create MORE space or LESS?

Everybody gets to sit.

Ask yourself, if they fail, who will strip their vote?

Yes, and what if they succeed?

Everybody gets to sit.

If they fail, who will legally nullify their marriage?

What proposals have been made to keep bathrooms or bakeries safe from them?

Who will pack them into trucks and tear them from their homes and families?

Yes, and what if they succeed?

Everybody gets to sit.

Bring out chairs; never stop bringing them. Never stop fixing broken ones

Never stop opposing oppression

Confuse and terrify oppression—demand a world of equality and plenty

They'll fight. It's how you see it's working

Fight back. Fight back with chairs

Everybody gets to sit