Losing Our Shit

I am trying to keep in mind how insane this country went after 9/11 and not be overly concerned about the latest iteration.  On the other hand, it seems to me now that we didn't settle back down after that period so much as position ourselves at a new, higher benchmark of insanity.  Otherwise, I can't account for shit like this...

Last Friday night, the Union of White NYU Students, a “community” on Facebook, posted its first status update.

Linking to a student-run blog addressing diversity issues at New York University, the union’s Facebook admin mused, “What does ‘diversity’ mean other than ‘not white’? I’m not sure there is an answer to this. Is the word ‘diversity’ itself a discriminatory term against whites?”

  WaPo

Gee, I don't know, college dude. Is there maybe a dictionary on campus somewhere you could look that word up?

At around the same time, similar pages emerged in connection with other colleges in the U.S. and Canada — at the University of California Berkeley, Swarthmore College, the University of Missouri and the University of British Columbia. As of Tuesday morning, there are roughly 30 Facebook pages purporting to represent some form of a “White Students Union,” all of which were created within the past few days, according to a user on Medium who referred to an online spreadsheet of the pages.

Several of the pages feature the same statement of purpose, beginning with a welcome to “students of European descent (and allies)” and concluding with a “vision” of a future in which “every ethnic group has the right to organize and represent themselves and their interests.”

Vision of the future??  You haven't always had that right?

The Post article contends that most of these accounts are limited to social pages and not actual physical clubs. Maybe not yet.

NYU spokesman Matt Nagel said in a statement to NYULocal that the organization was never registered at the university and that the Facebook page was using the school’s logo illegally and without permission.

[...]

The White Students Union wave appears to have started with the “Illini White Students Union,” which accused the Black Lives Matter movement of “disrupting student daily life” and “marginalizing” white students.

[...]

Andrew Anglin, who runs the blog the Daily Stormer, which has been described as a “neo-Nazi website,” wrote in an e-mail to The Washington Post that he has been encouraging the formation of such groups for years, though he denies being directly involved with their sudden rise over the weekend.

[...]

“Whites need to organize and protect their interests in the face of rising Black terrorism,” he wrote. “The goal of a White Student Union would be to push back against this, and also to show Whites across the country that it is okay to be White, it is okay to defend your history and your civilization.”

Yes. You poor "marginalized" and "terrorized" white folk, denied the space to defend "your" history and "your" civilization. And worse - having your daily lives disrupted!

The Department of Homeland Security has stepped back for the past two years from conducting its own intelligence and analysis of home-grown extremism, according to current and former department officials, even though law enforcement and civil rights experts have warned of rising extremist threats.

The department has cut the number of personnel studying domestic terrorism unrelated to Islam, canceled numerous state and local law enforcement briefings, and held up dissemination of nearly a dozen reports on extremist groups, the officials and others said.

The decision to reduce the department’s role was provoked by conservative criticism of an intelligence report on “Rightwing Extremism” issued four months into the Obama administration, the officials said. The report warned that the poor economy and Obama’s election could stir “violent radicalization,” but it was pilloried as an attack on conservative ideologies, including opponents of abortion and immigration.

  WaPo

How very timely.

Five people were shot and wounded Monday night near a police precinct in Minneapolis where demonstrators have been protesting the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man, the police said.

[...]

Miski Noor, an organizer at the Minneapolis arm of Black Lives Matter, said the shooting happened as demonstrators were escorting three masked men who had been behaving suspiciously away from the site of the rally, where people have gathered for more than a week to protest the Nov. 15 shooting of Jamar Clark, 24.

When they reached a dark area, the men turned around and opened fire on the demonstrators before fleeing, Ms. Noor said.

[...]

In accounts given on social media and to Ms. Noor, witnesses described the gunmen as three men, two white and one Asian, wearing masks and bulletproof vests.

[...]

The police said on Twitter that they were looking for three white male suspects. There had been no arrests early Tuesday. Officials said investigators were still collecting evidence and seeking and interviewing witnesses.

  NYT

How on earth are we poor white folks in America supposed to defend ourselves on two fronts without these willing white avengers?  Aside from the terrorizing blacks in this country, we have to worry about the foreign terrorists which takes all our government resources.

It's clear now that the Paris attacks enormously energized the Trumpist movement. He's now speculating openly about invading Syria. Trump's proposals have gone from overt prejudice to things literally taken out of late Weimar history — closure of mosques and a national Muslim database. The rank-and-file have both fed off and stoked this behavior. When a lone protester started chanting "black lives matter" at a Trump rally, Trumpists jumped him (he was luckily not badly injured). Trump later said, "Maybe he should have been roughed up." Hours later he lied about witnessing Muslim crowds celebrating 9/11, and retweeted nonsense racist garbage from a literal neo-Nazi.

Conditions are clearly fertile to start organizing a Trumpist paramilitary wing, a key fascist institution. A pack of heavily armed white nationalist militants recently popped up at a mosque in Irving, Texas, announcing their intention to intimidate local Muslims. Trump's personal security squad is already made up of goons, assaulting people and threatening reporters.

[...]

If Trump wins the nomination and the economy turns down next year, I'd give him a decent chance of victory.

[...]

Violent white nationalism has not been so effectively mainstreamed since the 1920s.

  The Week

And Fox News, oh-so-helpfully, eggs us on.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.