1)Let’s talk about movements and counter-movements. The tweet below is an example of “bothsiderism” indicating both sides of an issue are equal in validity and intent; they're not. Movements tend to start with grassroots support, counter-movements astroturfed with corporate cash.
2)Grassroots movements start in the community looking to create change, equity, liberation. Usually, that community is being harmed by decision-makers, policy, dominant narratives. They elicit the support of the community, looking to bring attention to the issue, & change laws.
3)Countermovements are started by decision-makers, think tanks, religious institutions, and corporations that would "suffer" profit losses due to a grassroots movement. Bigotry, sexism, and queerphobia play a large part in counter-movements.
4) Countermovements tend to be well-funded through generational wealth, corporate profits, with the underlying objective of preserving white supremacy; they maintain and continuously craft dominant narratives to harm and dismantle movements, the press aids them in this objective.
5)Countermovements are threatened by movements that would regulate their corporations (Climate Justice), that would "force" them to pay a minimum/living wage (Economic Justice), that would stop discrimination and sexual harassment on the job (Racial & Gender & Queer Justice).
6)The Civil Rights movement was in large part to attain Voting Rights and strengthen our democracy. The Counter-movement to Voting Rights is by mostly wealthy white men in power and their donors trying to stop Black people from voting.
Are those two valid sides?
7)I need the media to stop being (or pretending to be) naïve about our past and current political landscape. The GOP is the countermovement. They want to harm anyone and everyone that is not wealthy and white (yes, including their base. They disdain their base).
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Since Jill Stein only shows up every 4 years I wanted to quickly remind everyone, not just of this photo, but how notoriously difficult to it is to have access to war criminal Vladimir Putin, let alone *a seat at a table with him*. Backing Jill Stein is willful ignorance.
Even Jill Stein’s Twitter account goes pretty silent every four years and then picks back up when she’s running for office again. Such an unbelievable scammer. I get if you’re frustrated by two-party system, our policies, but holy sh-t, she’s a grifter.
Jill Stein can’t win. She’s not even on the ballot in half the states, she’s been disqualified from the ballot in New York and Illinois. She can only be a spoiler for Kamala Harris. I can’t imagine who that helps except Trump and oh, Putin! ballotpedia.org/Jill_Stein
1. @RonDeSantisFL’s bigotry will destroy Florida’s economy. FL’s 47,500 farms bring an annual income of approx 7 billion; construction contributes over $58 billion annually. Most of this work is done by the skilled labor of undocumented workers. #SB1718
2. Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed SB1718 which goes into effective on July 1st. It’ll requires businesses with 25 workers or more to register employees under E-verify, and have hospitals ask for citizenship status. Many have stopped working worried about deportation.
3.
13 billion in taxes.‼️🤯
"Immigrant communities are 20% of our state workforce, they contribute with over 13 billion to the state in taxes every single year," said David Metellus, Director of Policy and Politics at the Florida Immigration Solution.”cbsnews.com/amp/miami/news…
1. This isn't how I wanted to start my thread on fascism, but here we go. Below is an example of how legacy media aids, abets, and normalizes fascism. The Proud Boys were there to promulgate antisemitism and other bigotry. Not a comedy show (I'll come back to this).🧵
2. As I say in my newest article, one reason why Republicans have been so successful in utilizing fascist tactics is that much of the public and press do not recognize these tactics even when witnessing them. open.substack.com/pub/mayatcontr…
3. Even if members of the press and public recognize fascist tactics, they may not fully comprehend the catastrophic danger of totalitarianism. My article below is a guide to the fascism much of The GOP has embraced. Next are a few "lowlights." mayatcontreras.substack.com/p/farewell-to-…
🚨New From Me. Republicans have been successful in utilizing fascist tactics because much of the public & press don't recognize these tactics even when witnessing them. If they do, they may not fully comprehend the catastrophic danger of totalitarianism. mayatcontreras.substack.com/p/farewell-to-…
The actions of Trump & MAGA Republicans have laid the groundwork for a totalitarian regime. As Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels said, “This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed.”
I hope my article will be a guide to the fascism that much of the GOP has embraced, and why it should never be acceptable or normalized by the press or the public. Understanding fascism & the danger it possesses is the only way we can potentially stop it. mayatcontreras.substack.com/p/farewell-to-…
1. As a reference, Sen. Chuck Grassley was born 2 yrs before Cudjo Kazoola Lewis died. Then there is William Casby, one of the last living Americans born into slavery (Photo by Avadon, 1963). Yet we have Representatives who ignore or deny intergenerational inequality and poverty.
2. We have representatives who’ve long ignored or denied the emotional and socioeconomic impact of the intergenerational transmission of inequality and poverty — and a media that has largely ignored the racist intent behind that denialism (mostly from Republican reps).
3. While some media outlets report how damaging cuts to the social safety net have been, many don’t make the historical connections of continuous discrimination, wage gaps, and other policies keeping people in cycles of poverty, low income, and lacking access to opportunities.
1. It's the 17th Anniversary of #HurricaneKatrina. Aug. 29, 2005. Below is a report from 2002. It warned that the Levees had only been built "to withstand a Category 3." Katrina was a Category 5. 1,833 died, and millions were displaced. Bush, cut the levee budget to pay for Iraq.
2. June 8, 2004: Walter Maestri, emergency management for Jefferson Parish, warned the Times-Picayune a year before Katrina: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq. I suppose that’s the price we pay..."
3. Walter Maestri, from the June 8, 2004 interview continued, "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us." pbs.org/wgbh/pages/fro…