Closing Society Down

Malicious harassment, assault, threats, arson and murder are standard fare for the Far Right when they don’t get their way. Sometimes religiously inspired, sometimes economic, sometimes ideological, it is this willingness to mobilize vigilantes (including wayward police) that has prevented democracy from taking hold in our country.

As pawns of industry and politics, militias wedded to the Wise Use and anti-immigrant movement exhibited similar behavior as abortion clinic bombers. Proponents of homophobia and xenophobia are similarly a public safety menace, yet we know — based on decades of experience — that law enforcement agencies do little to prevent violence, especially by white Christian businessmen.

So we are in a sense on our own in protecting ourselves and in preventing the bloodshed of others, yet one will rarely find progressive organizations taking effective action to do so. Largely, I think, because they don’t understand what they’re up against or are too frightened to get involved, and this is what is closing society down.

Lobbying and advocacy become somewhat pointless under such conditions, yet that is almost exclusively what progressives fund, while applied research (organizing) is starved. Until these priorities are reversed, the Far Right will continue drawing the noose tighter.

And the presidential election will not change any of that.