The road ahead

The United States has been unravelling for a very long time. The Trump drive for an American style Fascism is the latest step in this disintegration. Underneath these efforts at domination and control are long-standing patterns that depend on violence. Increasingly, that violence is being rejected as more and more people are being subjected to it or are witnessing the consequences of it in the lives of their neighbors down the street and across the globe.

Violence made the USA. Since the first moments of colonization, we have chosen economic and technological development over the well-being of people and our social and political development.

Now we see the consequences of this way of thinking being played out in the deaths in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Nigeria, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Ocean.

The scale of this destruction is surrounded by unapologetic pronouncements, designed to denigrate any perspective on the world other than the use of brute force to protect an increasingly smaller group of very wealthy men.

Sometimes these pronouncements come from figures who are given extraordinary authority to harm and kill.  People like Gregory Bovino, the recently displaced head of ICE, embodied the ethos of lawless aggression and dehumanizing people. Or Pete Hegseth, the war infatuated Secretary of Defense, said of the bombings in Iran, “We negotiate with bombs.”

In a recent article looking at the violence that has shaped the US, Lydia Polgreen of the NY Times offers insights into the combination of ignorance and arrogance that has shaped this country as well as the uniquely destructive turn it is taking today. She writes of the attack on Iran:

It is, to be sure, the product of Trump’s unique recklessness, as he plunges heedlessly into a conflict his predecessors had been wise to avoid. Yet it is also the logical terminus of decades of American history — the country’s addiction to technological wizardry to wage war at a distance, the blinkered belief that it could shape events in faraway places by force, the steady whittling away of constitutional limits on the presidency.

Now we are entering a time of great uncertainty. The Iranian government will not give in to force. The global chaos being unleashed by US aggression will go far beyond anything we have experienced. Trump can proclaim “peace”, but the Iranians will have none of this. They are not inclined to accept anything that Trump wants. They understand they are in a strategic position to inflict great harm on the USA and anyone who supports them.

This weekend, the No Kings Rallies are a powerful reminder that the future is not controlled by the past but is shaped by what we do in the present. These demonstrations are critical forms of resistance. But much more is demanded of us after the marching and rallies are over.

Key to the establishment of American Fascism is the control and neutralization of Americans who oppose it. We should have no illusions about the extent to which money and power will be invoked against those of us who believe in a free, just, compassionate society.

The National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), signed earlier this year, lays the framework of “a comprehensive national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.”

It allows the Attorney General to designate “domestic terrorist organizations.” None of us should think this is an empty exercise.

To choose a different path, we need to be preparing for massive organizing on an intimate level. 

In a recent letter to Indivisible, Resistance Media raises thoughtful questions for all of us to consider as we expand our capacities to turn away from the violence of our past and toward creating a country that cares for each other and the planet upon which we depend.

Earlier this week, Trump made yet another pronouncement, saying, “Now with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy America has is the Radical Left, Highly Incompetent, Democrat Party! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT” 

We have a long road ahead of us. It will require our most imaginative, creative, and collective thinking to move toward the creation of something new.