How do you fight truly dangerous bad faith supremacist chaos monkeys intent on both doing harm and sucking more people into their mindset?
I think by being decent, by caring, by insisting on the humanity and worth of everyone. By being willing to be inconvenienced by helping. Their bigotry is corrosive and dehumanizing. They undermine the foundational structures of a functioning pluralistic society by targeting out groups - their world of supremacy won’t work unless they have targets. They are weak and need to be better than. It’s a lie, but deadly.

I woke to a call my Dad had a bad fall & my Mom's cell phone charging port melted. My beloved tree had a fall too - we lost a big limb & have to replace our water heater. Just A DAY in 2022.
But I also had a lovely exchange w/a city service On Here and I hope that doesn't change. I’m not sure when the tree fell, w/morning I had I may have walked right past it when I did my outdoor choring.
Ginger said, “Have you been outside?” I said, “Yes, I fed the outers & inner downers already.”
Sigh. When I joined her outside I was stunned.Perhaps it fell after.

Steady on, world. Find kindness and meaning in how we treat each other right here, now.

When a mean, unkind world demands we hoard, guard & close we can still react w/kindness. I choose to reject fear. I open to my neighbor in need. If the world feels cruel & out of control, be the kindness you desire.

It is w/in our power to be a beacon to each other & to lend a hand.

It is w/in our power to love and support each other while disrupting systems of harm and building systems of care.

Non-violent protest is not peaceful, it is not subservient it does not placate, cajole, or beg oppressors for permission. It is transgressive, disruptive, outrageous. UNCOMFORTABLE.

PROTEST IS WHAT WE DO TO STAY ALIVE.

Often unseemly, unconcerned w/decorum, UNPOLICEABLE.

https://twitter.com/sim_kern/status/1539965939675963392

Why do we allow those who are literally working to end lives and harm so many to dictate how we speak to them?

One of the most powerful street chants at the Stockley protests in 2017 for me was, "Whose streets? Our streets!"

Friends, Americans, Gentle People, the question of the moment seems to be, "WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF THE ABUSERS? WHO WILL COMFORT AND PROTECT THOSE WHO HARM OTHERS?"

And that is truly some bullshit.

Eradicate that kind of thinking. Look, I am all for building an onramp to a civilized pluralistic society. Orb knows I have personal experience helping men who harm stop harming & start doing better. I believe in that project with my whole heart.

We don't do that by centering them at expense of their victims.

Good Morning to all people like me who are engaging in the "abnormal lifestyle choice" of living, loving, paying taxes and a mortgage/rent all while choosing not to be bigoted harmful people.
Framing being a HOMO as more of a problem than being a corrosive bigot is A CHOICE. Its not unrelated to how much we continue catering to and center men who do bad things. We wrap them in protective cotton padding - especially when they are white.

So much of our entire culture is centering whiny and fearful white men and the people who cater to them.

The too common dynamic where an abuser takes on and performs the role of victim is not just projection I think it is a tell of future violence.

Grievance can curdle into delusion of the kind that leads to Proud Boys, mass shooters and partner violence/killings.

Not hyperbole. Being wounded doesn't have to turn into grievance.

Grievance is a poison and can warp us into paranoid and grandiose thinking.

I think one antidote is being grounded in community and accountability and also interestingly gratitude can save us from that path.

I do talk publicly sometimes on this bird site about things that elicit anger from me.

I’m not ashamed of that.

Working with my anger skillfully is a worthy practice I embrace. A lifelong effort. I’m pretty honest in how I represent all my emotions, the tough ones: Anger, anxiety, fear, sadness, depression and those that are easier: Joy, happiness, contentment, solidarity.
Emotions are simply energy that we should learn to work with and navigate.

The question of our now is how do we react to hearing truths that tilt the axis of our world when we realize our blissful ease exists because we are unaware of suffering of others. In many cases our ease is built from that suffering.

Will we truly listen or do we deny? We can’t talk justice or redemption or forgiveness until we have a reckoning.
Until truth is spoken and sinks into our bones.