a mystical möbius — curating facts, ideas, text, and media to create a contemplative space.
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“*Peak. White. Privilege.* Right. There.” That was the first subhead in my a mystical möbius missive for January 10, 2021: “Black vs White Protest.” The subhead was over the now-famous Saul Loeb image of Kevin Seefried carrying a Confederate battle flag inside the Capitol.
The following images were also included. I am reprising some image-related passages. as well.
This image was over a subhead, “Charlottesville to Capitol Hill” …
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Then:
“Last week, thousands of White Christian nationalists took the president at his word and came to Washington to take back their country.”
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“Intense anger last Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol:”
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It was probably far too soon, but this was my attempt at humor…. well, smart-ass satire:
“Of course, not every person part of last Wednesday’s events around the Capitol are violent insurrectionists. Josiah Colt, pictured here dropping into the Senate Chamber, says, ‘I just got caught-up.’ He’s now seeking legal advice:”
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“However, some White Christian nationalist groups are violently militant. They act-out and serve as avatars for the system of White supremacist racism—a system that has always been held in place by cruel violence. So, then, by association, Eric Munchel’s MAGA zip-tie restraints are for Christ’s sake?!!”
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“Adam Johnson’s (likely not-conscious) sense of White privilege allows him to believe it’s fine for him to move the furniture in his house:”
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“USCP were planning for ‘White protest,’ so no riot-gear-clad city police, or full camo-kit national guard troops (pictured below), would be needed, unlike as in the security plan for last June’s BLM “Black protest.”
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“So, Richard Barnet [pictured below] has been arrested and charged with multiple federal offenses. Somehow, I imagine he’s feeling terribly aggrieved about it and in a candid moment would tell you so, too. The cover image at the top captures the shadow-nature of White supremacy [Who, me?], and this image betrays its smugness:”
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Plus one year
We all saw what happened and what led up to it. The intervening year has provided many facts needed to interpret what happened. It’s also provided time to gain some perspective. For the remainder of this missive, I’ve curated what some are saying after a year of looking at and thinking about how best to describe the truth about the violent attack on our multi-racial democracy last January 6, 2021.
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The “BIG LIE”
I am not a fan of Meet the Press [MtP], and I don’t typically watch. However, I happened upon a clip of the program from January 2, 2022 that provides a reasonably helpful breakdown in a five-minute segment. “Anatomy of the Big Lie” gets to the roots of the problem —note: cued to the spot, 18:43 – 23:40 (end of segment).
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Coup attempt
It’s not like we didn’t know what to watch for on that fateful day. In September (before the 2020 election), Barton Gellman [video interview] published a piece in The Atlantic that foreshadowed January 6.
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Gellman has written a new 15,000-word piece for The Atlantic on the topic: “Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun.” He reports on research done by Professor Robert Pape and his associates of the University of Chicago. Pape’s research into the 700 Americans who have been indicted for their involvement in the events of January 6, 2021, reveals some very troubling things.
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Mainstream
Last week public radio’s 1A did a program entitled After The Riot: The Extremism That Fueled The Capitol Insurrection. Professor Pape made these very alarming observations from his team’s research:
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And, on a panel for MtP (1/2/2022), here’s Bart Gellman speaking about the racial component revealed in Pape’s research [cued to the spot, 30:15-31:38]:
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Rich irony! The very accurate description Gellman offers of the great replacement theory is essentially a conspiracy-theory-paraphrase of: “There’s a project to dismantle systemic White supremacy underway and growing”…. and, ‘we (i.e., “fragile” white people) don’t like it!!’
Impunity or accountability?
The open question is: will those who sent the ~2,500 (700+ indicted, so far) to stop the election-certification process in the Capitol that fateful day be held to account?
Will the gaslighters win in the end? Or, will those like Josh Hawley (and Roger Marshall) be held to account?
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tl;dr
“Houston, we have a problem.”
We all saw it with our own eyes. So, yeah…. will DJT be held to account?
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(NPR story):
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Next week: A new year! … Is it?
Your thoughts?
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a mystical möbius 
There are many ways to approach responding to your post. One could take the point-by-point factual method and embellish and analyze each one. Or, another way is to take the 40K’ view of where we are at in understanding the political, cultural and systemic picture in this country, the swirling forces, and where we see the ebbs and flows going right now. Or, as in my case, I am looking in the mirror and wondering how people delude themselves.
Last night I made it to the next documentary on a top 10 list Vox put together. It is called The Viewing Booth. https://rocofilms.com/viewingbooth/ The director has many short films from the Israeli occupied Arab lands made by soldiers and the Arabs (mostly Palestinians) who live there. He has different students from the American University in Israel watch the short films and films their responses.
The filmmaker is particularly intrigued by one woman, Maia, whose responses don’t fit the typical pattern he has seen. Her worldview is so front and center that it becomes apparent her mind is filling in blanks with assumptions that help dissolve her cognitive dissonance.
The filmmaker is perplexed because he came into the project believing that films of incidents in the occupied territories could wake up people in Israel and across the world to what is happening. He comes away with a troubling realization that what the viewer brings to the table with them is more important. No matter what images, data, facts, films, etc that are brought to the viewers attention, if it differs too much from what they already know is true, their cognitive dissonance is not going to let them substantively change their opinions and viewpoints.
That is how we in the US can look at the film from the Jan 6 insurrection and one person sees a frightening assault on the Capitol property and police along with an attack on democracy and the democratic institutions to defend democracy. And, conversely another person looks at the same film and somehow sees Antifa causing the chaos and patriots defending a sacred way of life. .
“We all saw it with our own eyes. So, yeah…. “
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hey now, Shasta Mike,
Thanks for writing!
> “We all saw it with our own eyes. So, yeah…. “
I took the term “irony” out of the title this week but it’s never too far away these days.
> one person sees a frightening assault on the Capitol property and police along with an attack on democracy and the democratic institutions to defend democracy. And, conversely another person looks at the same film and somehow sees Antifa causing the chaos and patriots defending a sacred way of life.
Yeah, the latter is a curious story, but on inspection it doesn’t check out. After a story has been debunked, as that story has been, to continue with it amounts to willful ignorance.
We need to rehearse the truth whenever appropriate even if some people will choose willful ignorance and deny it. These deniers are surely not a sufficient reason to fail to declare the truth.
Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out.
Respectfully,
Michael L. McKee
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“We need to rehearse the truth whenever appropriate even if some people will choose willful ignorance and deny it. These deniers are surely not a sufficient reason to fail to declare the truth.”
– I agree with you 100%. It seems like something more than willful ignorance when tens of millions do it though. Think about it! 70% of Republicans recently polled believe in The Big Lie. Some simple math. 35M Pubs x 0.70 = 24.5M people in the US believe it. This NPR article from a week ago delves into the phenomenon at little. Mostly what I see through my lens is people grappling with cognitive dissonance and looking for anything to soothe it.
And, back to the McIntyre book, Post-Truth, your prescription of repeating the truth is one of the antidotes/solutions. For me, I keep looking for something else, like a vax – haha.
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Here is the NPR article link >>> https://www.npr.org/2022/01/05/1070362852/trump-big-lie-election-jan-6-families
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hey now, Shasta Mike,
Thanks!! Excellent! I’d missed that story. I’ve edited it into this post now [just after the tl;dr]
Negative partisanship [“political sectarianism”] gone totally amuck.
Respectfully,
Michael L. McKee
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Very sobering stuff!
Here’s an article that pairs well (sobering wise) with this coup anniversary post. It’s entitled: “Imagine another American Civil War, but this time in every state”
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/10/1071082955/imagine-another-american-civil-war-but-this-time-in-every-state
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