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Seth Cotlar, mostly now at the other places Profile picture
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Feb 11 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Thread w/ some historical context for this story about a right wing parents' group called "woke busters" who were served as the activist boots on the ground for Ron DeSantis's efforts to purge Florida's schools of the supposed scourge of "wokeness." salon.com/2023/02/03/cal…
Of course the group presents itself as an innocuous "moms" group or just "concerned parents." They want to fend off books and ideas they associate with "activism," so of course they do that through...activism? But it's not activism if you're conservative and white, apparently. Woke Buster’s Wanted Calling all Woke Busters!! We ALL havWoke Busters here is what I need: Warriors – Digital, Inve
But this is the real tell here. This is a classic antisemitic/anticommunist trope associated with the US, fascist-adjacent far right. Note particularly the reference to the seemingly innocuous 1988 film "They Live." Woke Buster’s Wanted Calling all Woke Busters!! We ALL h
In the mid-2010s John Carpenter had to go to great lengths to explain that his film was NOT ABOUT THE JEWISH CONSPIRACY TO RULE THE WORLD. He had to do that because the film had been appropriated by neo-Nazis to spread their ideology. indiewire.com/2017/01/john-c…
The framework of the "anti-wokeness" campaign in which there is an evil other who is secretly trying to indoctrinate your children to turn them into anti-American atheist socialists is nearly identical to the old fascist discourse about "Judeo-Bolshevism." fair.org/home/cultural-…
Interestingly, as recently as 1984, Manatee County was home to a [White] Citizens Council organization that wielded significant power in the area and was comprised of many leading citizens. Here are some excerpts from a 1984 speech by its leader. Might ring some bells. Among numerous other things we. have done to further the cauYou may be interested In knowing what the Citizens Council s
Tracing the genealogies of contemporary political movements (like these anti-woke "parents' groups" that have sprung up) is an imprecise science. Most would disavow the connections I point to. That doesn't mean that real continuities don't exist.
I'm most familiar with the Oregon iteration of this nationally coordinated but locally manifested far right "parents rights" attack on public education. Here's a thread on that.
When I look at today's right wing school warriors in Oregon, it's not hard for me to see the echoes of an earlier generation of Oregon activists who considered themselves to be fighting much the same battle.
FWIW, that Walter Huss guy featured in the previous tweet was a right wing Christian Nationalist activist in Oregon from the late 1950s into the early 2000s. He was chair of the OR GOP in 1978. Also, the FBI justifiably suspected him of being a Nazi.

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More from @SethCotlar

Seth Cotlar, mostly now at the other places Profile picture
Feb 12
It's kind of a cliche saying that when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross, but here's a 1970 letter from an organization comprised of many neo-Nazis who called themselves Christian defenders of the Constitution and Western Civilization. Image
A thread on Revilo Oliver and his multi-millionaire patron who lived in a mansion in West Palm Beach, Fl.
The "National Youth Alliance" was the organization that William Pierce, the author of The Turner Diaries, would soon take over.
Read 4 tweets
Seth Cotlar, mostly now at the other places Profile picture
Feb 12
Today I learned of a "conservative" organization in Pittsburgh called "The Appalachian Forum" that could more accurately be described as a white suprmacist/neo-Nazi organization. Note their emphasis on fighting "tyrannical" and "big brotherish" school boards. Image
Here's a fascinating snap shot of the policy preferences of that group ca. 1984.
"Should leftist television monopoly be broken up?"
No on ERA.
Apartheid is good.
Close the Mexican border
Use Army to prevent immigration
Don't stop reading before you get to #36 Image
Louis Byers was a speaker at that 1980 conference. His name stands out to me because he was the Pa organizer for "Students for Wallace" in 1968. That organization soon segued into the National Youth Alliance, a straight up neo-Nazi outfit.
Read 9 tweets
Seth Cotlar, mostly now at the other places Profile picture
Feb 12
The Council of Conservative Citizens was the 1980s/90s inheritor of the White Citizens Councils of the 1960s and 70s. I happened to be reading their Fall 1993 newsletter and look who showed up. The daddy of the current AK governor, right next to white nationalist Jared Taylor. Image
I was inspired to do this because yesterday I went down a bit of a rabbit hole in regards to the long history of anti-black and anti-liberal political mobilization in Manatee County that forms the backstory for this thread.
Manatee County had a very active [White] Citizens Council that then morphed into that county's "Council of Conservative Citizens" in the late 1980s. Here's a list of the local luminaries who were involved with that white supremacist group in 1984. Image
Read 13 tweets
Seth Cotlar, mostly now at the other places Profile picture
Feb 12
He tweeted this, and then a few hours later respond to a literal fake news site. ImageImage
How pray tell are people supposed to learn about things that happen outside their direct observation and experience other than through “the press?” Just look for some local people you don’t know who are tweeting about and then “do your own research?”
It’s either the case that Elon is so ignorant that he does not grasp the basics of Journalism and Media Studies 101, or he’s simply on a mission to use his wealth to destroy one of the few institutions that can actually check the power of mega-billionaires like himself.
Read 7 tweets
Seth Cotlar, mostly now at the other places Profile picture
Feb 10
It’s worth noting that there’s very little sunlight between James O’Keefe’s “critique” of the media and Elon Musk’s.
It’s also worth noting that O’Keefe started his work of anti-democratic institutional destruction with a 2009 racist attack on ACORN…
And that he was a close co-worker with Ginni Thomas in 2020.
Read 5 tweets
Seth Cotlar, mostly now at the other places Profile picture
Feb 9
Say what you will about the tenets of Ron DeSantis’s politics, but at least it’s an ethos. Or maybe it’s not. Anyway, whatever you do, don’t talk honestly about it because then you’ll just make more people embrace that terrible ethos who wouldn’t have before. Democrats need to grapple w...
This piece is a master class in how to write about politics while pretending like a well-funded and coordinated faux grass roots far right political mobilization is actually just an authentic expression of what “parents” want. As many liberals will quiet...
This is an excellent historical dissection of the right wing propaganda trope of “parental rights.” Anyone with a shred of historical knowledge could easily suss it out for what it is. But not a NYTimes op-Ed writer, apparently. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cit…
Read 7 tweets

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