OPINION: Fascism, A Thanksgiving Tradition

by Bypolar

The theme of this year's "Thanksgiving" is fascism, as many sit around their warmly lit dining room tables. Slicing into steaming turkey, enjoying the company of friends and family, and engaging with or escaping the reality of the fascist ideologies consuming the present narrative. Hiding from or facing the reality of this ideological plague that's spreading through this land — no, this world. Most dwelling on President Donald Trump's apparent links to white nationalists and letting the conversation stop there if, if it even happens at all.

When we start this conversation, we should start here, at that table with the cranberry sauce and sparkling cider. The day we so commonly celebrate is based on the greatest genocide in human history. From the Pequot Massacre, betraying the treatise with the Waponog and so many other Native nations, then leading to a genocide that would stretch from coast to coast. Hitler himself would derive his concepts leading to the attempted extermination of the Jewish people from this work. Even that did not reach the scale of what happened to the original peoples of Turtle Island (the so-called USA).

When we see the birth of modern day fascism, we often forget where it truly started. It was born from Trump, Bush, Obama, Clinton, and every president preceding. Most proud Americans are unaware of this truth, but most subjugated peoples understand it very well, and most political experts want to avoid admitting it due to their current investments and lack of perspective.

You might ask, "Wait, how do you know their perspective?"

Well, you might have a point, I might be making assumption when I assume political experts are observant people and are competent in their professions. If they are competent, they are wise enough to evaluate present realities and history honestly. The behaviors that define fascism define our nation and its rise to power — state control of social and economic life, extreme pride in country and race, militaristic, and totalitarian in nature. Geopolitically, our country always favors outright fascists. In present-day the Ukraine military and the Syrian rebels immediately comes to mind. The Ukraine military is embedded with groups like Azov Battalion, a neonazi extremist group which was a major part of establishing the present political power stratus. This same group has been training American alt right groups like RAM "Rise Above Movement"

So the training that was exported came back to the land it came from to terrorize its own people. Back to a land that birthed fascism's modern existence. If we are honest, we spread it like a plague across the world while simultaneously claiming to be the cure to what ails this planet.

Our own nation's eugenics projects and its so called "solution for the Indian problem" inspire the atrocities that happened under the Nazi party, the aftermath leaving million of people destitute, millions more dead meeting horrific ends.

As we see fascism manifesting, opening taking root in common political sphere, we often ignore that it was always there, that it is the common political sphere. Americans strive to separate from these ideologies of hate while celebrating their very existence, attempting to minimize or justify our ghoulish traditions, embracing the bounty of the ideologies that we say we are trying to fight, but in reality just want to sanitize, chasing a more effective and socially acceptable white nationalism.

You might ask, "What can we really do to make a difference?"

Well, we can start by outright ending those traditions in our community. Instead of spending money on this feast to come together around ethnic cleansing, we spend time and money — not just in November but all year — building up subjected peoples in any ways they see necessary. We could learn what local tribes ask of those who are sitting on this stolen land — the Duwamish here in Seattle.

Further we need to find ways to share knowledge with the generations coming up after us, find ways to be honest about this nation and its savage history and present. And what I would say is one of the most important things is to be an advocate for mental, spiritual, and material decolonization. When I say decolonization, I mean Algeria, I mean Haiti, I mean our future if we are to survive and change the trajectory of our reality.