Winter
Dark malefic clouds crowd the sky
winds carry the stench of carrion to every nostril,
the crazy ape has followed the faculty of hawks.
All around stand crows, magpies, jackdaws, vultures,
edacious eyes anticipating their putrid feast.
A weary Cassandra laments;
doves, hearts weeping for a better yesterday
forsake their olive branches.
There have been protests in America and elsewhere against the Trump presidency, with the usual calls that the protesters are just sore losers. However, this election was different, this is the gloves off, bare knuckles, raw capitalism at the fascist end of the spectrum. It is a flag waving triumphalism that will embolden the far right across the globe. They are already raising their ugly heads above the gutter in Europe and elsewhere. You can be sure that when fascism snakes its way into our lives it will not be wearing jackboots, it will be lead by men in suits. Now more than ever, is the time for those who want freedom and justice for all, to come together and make their presence felt, from the workplace to the community, and on the streets. If not us, then who? If not now, then when? Just remember, all of the meagre rights we have were not won in the
corridors of power, they were won on the streets, the factories and the
communities, those in the corridors of power had to be dragged kicking
and screaming to accept these rights.
On January 20, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. There to protest the know-nothing real estate mogul’s ascent to office will be many of the people he’s insulted and denigrated over the past year and a half: women, people of color, Muslims, immigrants – representatives of the majority of the population of the U.S.
Many of us protesters are anarchists.
Why anarchists?
Because this election really was different. It fed off and helped spread a new strain of racism, misogyny, and ultra-nationalism that’s receiving answering salutes from countries all over the world, from France to Hungary to the Philippines. We’re not here to protest just another in a long line of American warlords. We’re here to call a halt to New American Fascism and the hatred at its heart.
In the 18 months since Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the White House, we’ve seen Muslims and Hispanics terrorized. We’ve seen the legitimate anger of Black Lives Matter countered by a vicious backlash. We’ve seen a concerted and expanding effort to roll back the social acceptance that transgender people have just begun to make. We’ve seen a wealthy white man flaunt his privilege in ways that demean women – with only the mildest and rare peeps of protest from the Washington political establishment.
Trump didn’t create this ugliness, but he’s become its focal point, its megaphone, and its chief recruiting tool. He’s made racists and xenophobes feel powerful. He’s made sexists and homophobes feel justified. He’s given the corporate agenda to disempower and impoverish working people a smoke screen of phony populism to hide behind.
We’ve seen it too many times before in too many places to ignore it this time: a right-wing demagogue manoeuvres into power. Sensing the opportunity of a lifetime, a greedy and ruthless economic and political elite falls into line behind the new leader. Minorities and the economically vulnerable are the first to suffer. Eventually, everybody does.
This election could be just the beginning. France, Germany, and Hungary are just a few of the countries with national elections coming up in 2017 where the racist right is expected to make big gains. Now is the time to send an unmistakable message that fascism is not the answer. But we won’t do that in a voting booth. We’ll do it in our homes, our communities, and in the streets. We’ll do it by promoting the vision of a society without the State, without bought-and-paid-for politicians, without capitalism. The opposite of what we’ve got now.
