Every time I hear of one of these lowlifes, from Trump down, telling an immigrant or a Muslim or a protesting football player that they don't belong in this country, I think of these words from Arendt: "And just as you supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the earth with the Jewish people and the people of a number of other nations—as though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit the world—we find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you." Because the people who say these vile things to immigrants, Muslims, and protesters are my fellow citizens, my fellow residents of the earth, I have no choice but to share the country, and the earth, with them. But if they can't embrace others in a positive and welcoming way, I wish they could at least reconcile themselves to the presence of others in the way I have reconciled myself to the presence of them.Someone called Art McGee commented:
"Because the people who say these vile things to immigrants, Muslims, and protesters are my fellow citizens, my fellow residents of the earth, I have no choice but to share the country, and the earth, with them." Actually, you do have a choice, but the implications of that are not something you want to grapple with. We used to kill Nazis and fascists, now we want to understand and reason with them.Robin replied:
If you're serious about that program of killing Nazis and fascists in this country, you should be making the case for it, ceaselessly, and organizing for it, in real life, and not just troll people like me with false accusations that what I want to do is "understand and reason" with Nazis and fascists. Otherwise, it just seems like a bit of grandstanding.I'm not able to comment on Robin's posts on Facebook, so I'm going to do that here.
McGee was repeating, perhaps cut-and-pasting, a common claim from "antifa" hangers-on, that "we used to kill Nazis and fascists." I've seen it used often. That he was merely parroting a party line is clear from the fact that he chose to misunderstand Robin's reference to "fellow citizens." I'm not aware of a time when "Nazis and fascists" in the US were killed by their fellow citizens. If anything, it was the other way around: American fascists basically ran the country. That's one reason why it was difficult to get the US into the war against Nazism: there was very widespread sympathy and even allegiance to fascism at home and abroad among Americans. American businessmen were happy to do business with Nazis and fascists in Europe, whom they rightly saw as their allies against working people and democratic freedoms, but many ordinary citizens shared their attraction to swarthy men in uniform trampling on uppity wogs. World War II was really a blip in that respect. After it was over, the US went back to business as usual, rehabilitating and protecting Nazis and fascists around the world. You can deplore this, as I do and Robin does, but to ignore it, to pretend that the situation was otherwise, is at best to broadcast your ignorance in public, and at worst to engage in a whitewashing of history.
This is why I get picky about the use of pronouns. I'm not being pedantic. Usually it's "they," but "we" is also popular. Who's the "we" who killed Nazis and fascists in the US? Who's the "we" who allegedly want to "understand and reason with them"? This is just handwaving, intended to obfuscate not to clarify, and as Robin says, it's grandstanding. McGee isn't thinking, and doesn't want you to think either. I've come to expect this from the Right, though I criticize it there; I won't let the left get away with it either. Nor should "we." I have to share the earth with such people, but they also have to share it with me.
