On civility vs. dictatorship

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Thread by @RinChupeco:

18 tweets 12 hours ago

Speaking as someone born in the last years of a dictatorship, you Americans are already several steps in one.

Ferdinand Marcos' greatest trick was convincing people all protesters were communist animals, so when they went missing, few cared. Even after bodies were discovered.

These white people & journalists talking about being civil? These were the rich people, the Fil-Chinese, the mestizos in the Philippines who knew they won't be affected by many of Marcos' policies, and therefore could ignore them even as the killings started.

Marcos was also adept at convincing regular Filipinos that "as long as you don't commit crimes I won't come for you. I'm only getting rid of the 'filth'." He lied, of course. He jailed his most vocal opponents, people whose businesses he wanted to confiscate for his use.

But Filipinos have always been susceptible to strongman personality cults, just like your Republicans.

(Yeah don't @ me on this one, Repubs still singing Reagan's praises despite the fact he was FRIENDS with Marcos and helped him retain power, making it 1000x worse for us.)

White people, journalists who insist on civility- you seem to think civility is a common ground you share with opponents like Trump et al. Here's a clue - whenever you offer these assholes middle ground, they will invade that space & then claim you never gave them ground at all.

Marcos kept pushing. First it was all protesters were communists. All student protesters. Then it was the free press. Then it was the people with businesses he coveted. And then it was anyone who looked at Imelda Marcos or his daughter, Imee, wrong. Arrested, raped, murdered.

And every step of the way there were the same kind of fuckwits here twittering on about how people should be civil, SURELY Marcos wouldn't go that far, the economy is flourishing surely it can't be THAT bad.

"It didn't happen to ME, so it must not be bad." up till Martial Law.

White people asking for performative civility do the same thing they did, for the same reason - they're afraid. You've never been raised to fear discrimination or prejudice against a system that has always been built in your favor for centuries.

Your argument for civility is a terrified lashing out against an uncertain future that your ancestors / fellow white people have subjected people of color to for centuries. It's built in POC culture to learn how to cope with this. You've had none, because you've never needed to.

Because regardless of whether you want it or not, status quo benefits white people best. In any upheaval, white people have the least casualties. That makes them the last demographic wanting to rock the boat, even if the boat is full of Nazis steering it straight into Auschwitz.

Because you know Auschwitz isn't going to be for you. It's gonna be Auschwitz for a lot of people in that same boat you're on, but you know that's not for you. And that's why you can afford to be compliant.

And here's the kicker: YOU KNOW THEY'RE NOT CIVIL. That's why it's the liberals you keep appealing to for decorum and politeness. You know you're not going to get most Trumpsters on board anything amounting to basic decency.

So you shift the goalposts, and you enable the gaslighting, even if inadvertently. "Maybe if YOU hadn't been so rude they wouldn't have done that."

Bullshit. You KNOW they'll do it anyway because again, your goddamn status quo.

People invested in putting kids in cages don't want your civility. They don't want you to extend them the same courtesy they never had - and never wanted - from you. What they want is for you to retreat.

And every ground you grudgingly give, hoping that they'll construe that as some good faith on your part, is only an incentive for them to push harder until you have no ground left.

Then they're going to tell you they've owned the land all along.

"So much for the tolerant left." This is why they say this all the fucking time. This is the bait they expect you to fall for. Your required "tolerance" for the things they do, even as they do the exact opposite to you.

The first requirement when approaching any discussion with civility is that both sides must come to the table with it. The side that advocates putting kids in cages and are now thinking of stripping citizenship from legal green card holders, never had that to begin with.

Now: if you are REALLY invested in still keeping civil after this, there are countless unaffiliated Red Hen places in the US (+one in Canada) being egged, getting death threats, etc.

Try discussing "civility" with those people this time, & see how well that works out for you.