I've now seen a couple of interpretations of @Schwarzenegger's video as going too easy on the Nazis. It's a very odd reflex that some people have to view any attempt to understand the *human* motivations of evil people as an excuse for their behavior. That's counterproductive.
@Schwarzenegger Schwarzenegger's story of his abusive ex-Nazi father is a warning to the Proud Boys--whom he compares to the villains of Kristallnacht--that if they continue down this path, they will be broken, guilt-ridden shells. That is, if they survive the fire they are trying to kindle.
See, the thing about the Nazis is that they were in fact humans, and they were motivated by human drives and beliefs. We have to understand how that happened and how it's happening again--but such understanding in no way justifies or excuses their crimes.
Frantz Fanon showed how torture inflicts psychopathology in not only the victim, but in the torturer as well. Arnold's father was lucky to have survived the war--who knows what he did during it--and his post-war life was the scar he had to bear for at least enabling atrocities.
Acknowledging the role of disinformation in the formation of racist and genocidal movements is critical in understanding how they form. It doesn't imply that those who greedily devour the lies are not culpable. They want to believe the lies, for a variety of reasons.
Imagine growing up the child of a literal Nazi--a Nazi who got drunk and beat you and your mother. Imagine knowing that your dad hurts you because he feels guilty, but ALSO that he feels guilty because he fought a war for genocide. Those are some complicated feelings for a kid.
Empathy is in short supply among white nationalists, but if some chud is convinced not to join up because he's scared of what might become of him or his family, that's something.

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More from @richterscale

12 Jan
It's really something that the unified messaging from the right, including elected officials, Fox News folks, and the seditious mob, has simply become "Let us do what we want and no one gets hurt."
The right has fully embraced the reality of white nationalist violence and decided that it works for them. They saw a tool that was too good not to pass up--and after all, they know that if they simply relied on democracy, they'd lose their grip on power.
The right's language is that of abusers. They don't *want* to hurt you, but if you don't stay in line and let them have their fun, they won't be able to control themselves.

"That's not me," the Cruzes and Hawleys say as the mob attacks.

But they're all one gaslighting abuser.
Read 4 tweets
6 Oct 20
please, my $2,000,000 home, she is very sick
here's free advice for these middle class people:

switch to public schools and move your toddler to a less chi-chi daycare.

boom, i just saved you about four grand a month, or way more than the average US individual income.

And you get to keep paying your $8800 house payment!
I know, I know, sending your kids tp *public school* doesn't feel *rich* enough.

But on the other hand, fuck you.
Read 8 tweets
6 Oct 20
A SCOTUS decision in a religious freedom case that goes against the petitioner is not "anti-religion," any more than one that upholds a claim to religious freedom is "pro-religion."

This phrasing feeds the idea that civil secularism is anti-religion.

thehill.com/opinion/judici…
I don't know if you've heard, but the line on the right for quite some time has been that the liberal courts are attacking religion every chance they get, and anything short of "do what thou wilt, evangelicals" is evidence of an atheistic hatred of all religion.
Which is why the primary goal of the right over the past four years has been to pack the federal bench with the most conservative judges they can find--it's to SAVE JESUS FROM THE HORRIBLE, GODLESS SECULARISTS.
Read 4 tweets
6 Oct 20
This is so true--Gen-Xers grew up with casual racism and sexism EVERYWHERE in our world, but because it wasn't wearing a hood, we* could ignore it.

It was so bad that when we all become "enlightened" in the 90s, Friends seemed like an IMPROVEMENT.

(*those of us with privilege)
The Clinton years gave white liberals a sense of extreme smugness, a dust-off-your-hands, stand-back-and-look-at-the-completed-work feeling of having fixed the country, and maybe even the world!

Gen-Xers coming of age in this era became complacent if they could afford to be.
The Boomers did the same thing--many a 70-year-old will tell you that the civil rights movement fixed racism, so what do "they" have to complain about now? (70yo in question likely spent 1968 in a crewcut wondering why "they" were rioting.)
Read 6 tweets
6 Oct 20
Years ago when I was still on Facebook, I hated to see so many of my gen-x classmates from my suburban Seattle high school ossifying into a simulacrum of their parents' boomer lifestyle and attitudes.
Thinking of all Gen-Xers as ironic, cooly detached, and disaffected authority-questioners is about as useful and accurate as thinking of all Boomers as hippies, war protestors, and civil rights marchers.
It's not the Gen-X "mentality" that leads them to support Trump more than other generations; it's the relative privilege and financial security of a large proportion of the cohort.
Read 4 tweets
6 Oct 20
Surely, not a single very online capital-A Atheist will use these statistics to argue that movement atheism doesn't have serious problems with sexism and racism and that they don't still have to take those issues seriously.
This is a very odd assumption to make about the FFRF--that the only commonality among its members is "a disbelief in God." FFRF is an organization with a clearly defined political purpose; it's not just a club for non-theists. They're gonna have stuff in common.
Precisely because it has a clear mandate, FFRF has remained relatively free from the more reactionary New Atheist tendencies, compared to other groups like American Atheists or Center for Inquiry. It's not surprising that its members would express these positions.
Read 5 tweets

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