I really would make a poor street warrior, on any side of any struggle.
I am old, have sore knees, heart disease and angina. I converted to Quakerism as a teenager, and I like to believe I have committed myself to a life of compassion, empathy and peace.
(Warning: If you are one of those many Americans who are outraged by disagreement or different opinions, or who simply cannot bear ideas that are different from yours, you might as well storm off in a huff now, and save some digital space for others. Sooner or later, you would leave me anyway. This is yet another chance to do it before your stomach gets upset, or your blood pressure rises.)
No one was more surprised than me when I ordered my $20 Antifa (pronounced ANtifa) bracelet last week and promised myself I would wear it until Nazi’s (I don’t believe in the idea of the Neo-Nazi, you are one or you are not) were no longer marching in our streets with lit torches promising to get rid of Jews and African-Americans.
There is confusion and hysteria about the antifa’s, as with everything else in our country these days.
The President refers to them as “bad dudes,” and compares them to Nazis. He suggests they are as much to blame for violence and hatred as Nazi’s or white supremacists. There is considerable evidence to suggest that there is some truth that.
But to me, that does not make them the same as Nazi’s.
I am so sorry to say that I am grateful they exist.
I wrote about the antifas and me a couple of days ago.
I got the bracelet for the reasons stated but also because I found myself being appreciating the antifas, as they are known.
I believe they are fighting in the streets to protect the lives of people like me, and many others, many of whom know that the Nazi’s mean it when they say they will kill off people who are not like them. I have the ghosts of so many members of my family in my head, I admit it. Those who survived all said they wished they had done something. The antifas are doing something.
I wrote that I would wear the bracelet until Nazi’s were not marching down our city streets with torches.
On the surface, I don’t have much in common with the antifas.
They are most often described as an extreme or militant movement of autonomous, self-styled, anti-fascist groups who tend to be anti-big government and anti-corporate.
They are also described as being on the “extreme” left, which is not very far left in America, including anarchists, communists and socialists. The media loves to label provocative or different political groups as extreme so that they can marginalize them. You will never see them on those awful panels.
I don’t really see myself in that description, yet in a way, I do. I think some of it is just in my blood, and I do not think of the antifas people as evil, even if they are not like me and do not do what I might do.
The idea of antifa is that the Nazi’s and their followers need to be stopped before they can’t be stopped. They don’t tweet about white supremacists or hold press conferences to denounce them, they believe in taking direct action.
They want to stop them before we get used to them marching in the streets with torches, and give them an entrenched foothold in our culture and communities while patting ourselves on the back for our progressiveness and commitment to free speech. Their tactics may be wrong to many, but their motives do not seem evil to me.
History tells us it is easier to keep these people out than get rid of them. And their history – what they do after they march with torches – is awash in blood and horror. If you are awake, its hard to be indifferent or optimistic about them. They are not just another political group out for a parade. They keep their promises.
The antifas are not new, they go back a long way in Western culture. Fascism is not new either, it seems to pop up from time to time, especially when demagogues arise to exploded the aggrieved..
I’m not writing about this to upset people, really, or to argue with strangers on social media. I don’t feel I have to defend my beliefs on Facebook or Twitter. I just have to be honest about them.
It’s a fascinating experience in America in 2017 when you cross a line, I do it from time to time in my writing, most often unconsciously. I crossed a line when I euthanized a dog who bit three people, including a child. I crossed a line when I put a blind pony down rather than build a new pasture for him. I crossed a line when I supported the New York Carriage Horses, and the elephant trainers in the circus.
People stormed off, people signed on. People are outraged, people are curious, people are approving, people just want to see the dogs and photos.
I certainly crossed a line when I wrote about my bracelet, which is sitting snugly on my right wrist now, and where it will live for a while, I hope not too long. It reminds me of the blurry boundaries between people who fight injustice, and people who fight injustice only in ways we approve of. I knew what I was in for, I can’t complain about it this time.
Since I wrote my post about the bracelet, I’ve gotten some lovely messages of support, some death threats, promises to rape or murder my loved ones, badly written Jew-hating screeds, many promises to wreak havoc with my life in ways I would be reluctant to share, open as I try to be.
What a happy day when I can take the bracelet off.
I am no hero, for sure, but if speaking my mind and my truth becomes a capital offense, there are a lot worse ways to go. I’d be proud to go that way, better than drooling to death in a nursing home. I feel close to my readers, and I don’t fear that, really. They can handle it. They have endured worse.
We live in a despairingly polarized country, and there should be no surprise that the antifa would rise up and grow quickly. For many Americans, our President is not just another Republican, According to a recent Suffolk poll, seventy-six per cent of all Democrats consider him a racist, 71 per cent agree that his campaign contains “fascist undertones.”
And so many people seem to love that about him.
That is a staggering statistic. What do we expect?
If you believe that is true, how far would you be willing to go to stop it? How far would I go? Can a pacifist believer in non-violence identify with a group of idealistic kids who will be violent, if necessary, to stop evil? Back to Hannah Arendt’s moral philosophy guide: you only have to respect yourself, you don’t need the approval of others.
I’m afraid I don’t have the answers. As our leader is fond of saying, we will just have to see.
In 2013, a group of young activists in Portland, Oregon objected to a group of Nazi’s who planned to march in their annual Rose Festival parade. The group declared that “Nazis will not march through Portland unopposed.”
The parade was cancelled. The Nazi’s did not march. Antifa was reborn here.
I became a reporter during the 70’s because I wanted to be an observer, not a warrior. I still don’t want to be a warrior. Is the war coming to me, busting open the sylvan peace of the farm?
I have never practiced any kind of violence in my life against people, but I don’t hate or condemn all of the people who sometimes do. Gandhi, a passionate advocate of non-violence, said if he had been fighting anyone but the British, he would have embraced violence right away. If he were fighting the Nazis, he said, hunger strikes and non-violence would have been useless.
They are fighting for me, these people, I feel it. I do appreciate it. The people who are paid to protect us don’t seem to be much interested in doing it, they are instead chasing after African-Americans athletes who are speaking their conscience, the most American thing there is.
It is not a fantasy to imagine what the people they are fighting against would do if they ever become powerful and accepted – to me, my wife, my daughter and granddaughter – there are many guides and precedents. What is my responsibility to them? These menacing and groups are growing rapidly, gaining political power.
Who else is stepping up to fight them? How many of our leaders are condemning them?
The danger sometimes feels closer to me than others. I do not believe every threat online is real, despite the pledges I read regularly. I’ve been doing this a long time, my hide is thick and hard.
if it were, we would all be dead, especially me. But I should not have people threatening to kill me because I wrote buying a bracelet that startled even me, and am trying to figure it out.
A number of people responded to my column about the bracelet by simply saying, “that’s it, I’m out of here.” I don’t know many of them, I suspect the bulk of them were never there at all, just fish swimming around on Facebook looking for something to be outraged about.
Some of course, are sincere, and just going where they want to go, doing what they believe is right. Bless them.
In America we use labels – communist, socialists, conservatives, liberals, right, left, urban, rural – to dismiss ideas that make us nervous or that we don’t understand. We just swat them away like no-see-um bugs in the Spring, we keep them off of cable news and out of our debates and politics, we push them to the margins.
How great are we doing with just the “left” and the “right?.” Do we have all the answers?
Mostly, and happily, I stick to dogs and sheep and farmers and rural life, our politicians have not yet figured out a way to polarize donkeys and Boston Terriers. I suspect they will.
That bracelet column was not an easy column to write, and my bracelet is not an easy one for me to wear. I don’t want to be a Jewish author, just an author. I don’t wish to be promoting violence and division. But sometimes, the world can catch up to you.
If people can’t bear to consider what I am writing, or handle a different opinion, they best be off, because this is not the right place for them.
I am always buoyed by readers and open, thoughtful people. Many people wrote me to say they couldn’t agree with me, that they couldn’t go across that line, but that they appreciated my writing openly and honestly about it. I share my life, not just the life others would like me to live.
So there it is, I’ve dipped my toe into the maelstrom, the boiling pot, that is public life in America these days. I’m joining the football players who are all over the news.
This morning, I was happy to be back taking photos of Gus on Fanny, and today, Red and I will go to the Mansion and see how the gang is doing.
I believe in crossing lines, that means my mind is open and I am willing to think and grow. When I stop crossing lines, it will be because my heart finally wore out. Not yet.
Tomorrow, I will be taking another picture of Gus and Red and Fate at work.
But today, I’m keeping my bracelet on.
