When I’m overwhelmed with complexity and questions, I try to express things visually. Following is the most recent iteration of something I’ve been working on for years.
The most recent change is the red line, representing how failing and corrupt institutions, authoritarianism, and environmental chaos, are blocking solutions like LANDBACK, Black Liberation, Abolition, and Mutual Aid. The forces being used by empire to crush dissent are escalating rapidly.
I still believe Mutual Aid, Abolition, and all the pieces of the Red/Green New Deal are how we will continue to build just communities. Those are the ways we will address the rising forces of injustice. But rather than just the goal of the Red/Green New Deal, they are also the means by which we defeat the forces of empire.
Authoritarianism
It has been apparent for decades that rapidly escalating environmental chaos would overwhelm the resources of our government and society. What I hadn’t given enough attention to was how rapidly authoritarianism would spread.
That is exactly what the idea is here, as it is with all these laws. It’s not just just about bloggers or kids or books. It’s about a strategy. That strategy is blitzkrieg. Again, a classic fascist maneuver. See how hard and fast these laws and bills are coming? You can scarcely catch your breath before there’s another one. The very same day news broke of the “we’re going to keep a file on you if you write about us” bill, news also broke of a bill to give women the death penalty for the crime of…miscarriages.
The point is to overwhelm the system, society, institutions. Sure, maybe all these bills won’t pass. But a few just might. And where they do, they set precedents. Those precedents are like cracks in a dam, that open whole fissures, and eventually — the deluge. This crackpot legislator, tomorrow, can point to that precedent, in that state. This lunatic lawyer can use to it to appeal, when a court strikes down some law.
The idea here is to accelerate. Propose a thousand crackpot bills. Pass maybe three. But those three become precedents, footholds, spearheads, for nine. And those nine become fifty. And those fifty become…and so it goes. This is a classic form of destabilizing democracy, loved by fanatics and extremists, who’ve failed at using hard power — open violence, like Jan 6th. They resort to a kind of blitzkrieg from the ground up, where a top down approach — storming Congress — failed. Accelerate the breakdown of democracy. Just one crackpot bill passes — and the precedent is set for another hundred.
Welcome to the GOP’s Vision for an Authoritarian America. The GOP’s Blitzkrieg of Hate on Peaceful, Innocent People — And Why It’s Fascism by umair ahque, Medium, March 4, 2023
The question is, how are we living today? Are we comfortable with a status quo based upon white superiority, materialism, militarism, and oppression, i.e. empire? To do nothing is to support this status quo.
I’ve been writing about a new campaign from the Climate Mobilization Network that hopes to build a movement of movements, a network of Mutual Aid groups.
(See: https://quakersandreligioussocialism.com/?s=climate+mobilization)
This collective visioning, movement incubation and learning gathering will equip you with space for reflection, new ideas, inspiration, and next steps to participate in this new campaign.
Together we will build relationships and explore:
- How survival and mutual aid programs can grow the movement
- New, creative approaches to taking action against fossil fuels
- Ways to integrate healing into our work
- And how to create space for reflection, intentionality and strategic clarity
Quakers and Religious Socialism 