Per Politico, Mark Meadows sent an email on Jan 5th about having National Guard on standby to protect "pro-Trump" people. Per previous reporting by the WAPO, some Pentagon leaders feared Trump would misuse the National Guard. Others feared the Guard would be baited into violence
Per the WAPO report, Top Brass even changed the chain of command for ordering deployment of the National Guard, which, reportedly, may have led to a delay on January 6th. washingtonpost.com/politics/inter…
Also per the WAPO, on 1/3, the Capitol Police Chief requested National Guard be stationed at the Capitol. He was rebuffed. Mayor Bowser was also worried about the Guard abandoning their posts on Jan 6 (being pro-Trump). Others, in military & in Congress, cited optics concerns
So what's going on here? Why did Meadows feel he had the Guard on standby to protect pro-Trumpers? Had he actually gotten assurances from the military? Or were military leaders, as they've intimated, hesitant about a preemptive guard presence?
The "keep general peace" excuse doesn't work in terms of Meadows' email. 1st of all, he specified Pro-Trump Protection. Also, Mayor Bowser was having different convos about the Guard: fearing they would turn on the gov't. Finally, the Cap Police requested the Guard & were denied
It's important to know what was going on w/ the military. Military involvement is what turns a soft-coup hard. If the military was at odds w/ each other, that's also a dangerous situation. If some military were at odds w/ the POTUS & others aligned w/ him, that's also dangerous
No matter what, if this Meadows email is real, that's a huge scandal. The President's CoS said the Guard was on standby to protect a specific group of "protesters" who were intent on overthrowing the results of an election, all while the CoS himself plotted to delay certification
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We need to address rising American antisemitism in leftwing & other spaces b/c it's the right thing to do. Secondarily: I will continue to stress that it's the right thing to do for *antifascism*. If we don't heal wounds on our own team, the right-wing will rip them wide open.
We can already see this happening. We are weaker in our coalition than ever before. Many different folks feel betrayed by many other folks. Meanwhile, the college protests were Trump's "Reichstag Fire" to go after DEI as well as entire fields of study & institutions in academia.
Failing to confront antisemitism is wrong. It's against my principles. It's even more vile given Jews who have been loyal *to our coalition* are expressing pain & fear & have been met w/ coldness, denialism, & gaslighting. This is immoral, in my view. It also leaves deep wounds.
I do not like sweeping people's concerns, fears, or pain under the rug. I do not like gaslighting people. If a significant number of people from a minority or otherwise vulnerable population express concerns, fears, or pain, I believe it is wrong to pretend they are not speaking
Perhaps, after hearing people from a group express their concerns, fears, or pain, you will enter all of this differently into your political calculus than I do. That is a more honorable step than not listening at all. If you are intellectually honest about it.
And not listening at all is still less gross than pretending people are not speaking. I do not like this mass act of gaslighting. It disgusts me on a very deep level. I am speaking, here, of American Jews who are expressing concerns, fears, or pain.
The comparisons between any modern protest movement we've seen & the Civil Rights Movement are simply inaccurate. The inaccuracy is beyond frustrating b/c it contributes to an erasure of history. An erasure of the nature of the movement itself. Here are notes from CORE, 1963
The purpose of the movement was to show the world the apartheid state. Nonviolence was a "philosophy" re: right/wrong, but it was also, perhaps more importantly, a tactic w/in a broader strategy. "You will be peaceful. And you will be beaten. And then the world will see."
Members would gather together & study the violence others had experienced. They would then carry out that violence against each other. In order to train themselves, they would hit each other, spit on each other, call each other the n-word. They practiced singing through it.
Here's what I think.
-We have never paid as much attention to any war as we have the Israel/Gaza war. Even our "own" wars.
-Israel has consistently been framed as the primary agent in this defensive war, with malicious (genocidal) intent against Palestinians
-Why?
-Just the fact that we pay more attention to this war should be illuminating.
Why.
Does it require more attention than the Syrian Civil War, Sudan, Ukraine, etc?
Why.
I'm going to tell you what the end of my thought process is, re: the "why"
It's because of Jews. Or, rather, not because of Jews but because of fucking gentile bullshit re: Jews.
I did know that, in fact. And now I know something else: You are wildly unqualified to make any comments on this topic. The depth of the ignorance that you proudly display as "knowledge" is so freaking profound that I don't think you even know what antisemitism is.
If you don't know that
-"Jewish" refers to an ethnicity, as well as a religion
-Western antisemitism has, for over a century (at least, maybe longer) been primarily an anti-ethnic phenomenon
&
-Being Christian hasn't saved ethnic Jews before
Please get out of the conversation.
I would laugh if this weren't so serious. These are profound errors. Is this where they're going now? "He was Christian so it wasn't antisemitic?" I cannot stress how profoundly ignorant that point is about what "Jewish" means & what "antisemitism" means.
Yes. I would count myself as having been sane about Israel pre-10/7, vis à vis other people, as well as careful about my conscious bias. After 10/7, I realized I--& other Westerners--were subject to greater bias than we knew & this bias can be linked to decades of propaganda.
This doesn't mean I approve of Netanyahu's conduct in war or his war-planning. It just means I did not view Israel w/ clarity of thought, nor did I understand its history vis à vis Palestine at all. And I would consider myself well-educated in history.
I'll firmly argue that this type of bias is not only unjust towards Israelis, but unjust towards Palestinians. Many have been indoctrinated by the very same propaganda that has intentionally held Palestinian people as a permanent refugee population to be exploited symbolically.