One historian of abortion argues that abortion stays at pretty much the same rate per capita over time whether it's legal or banned. What changes when you make it illegal is how many women die from it.
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Kathleen Belew
@kathleen_belew
Historian, author, & teacher | Associate Prof. of History, | "Bring the War Home" | Speaking: | Media: website | Verified before
Kathleen Belew’s Tweets
The Boulder suspect was born three days before the Columbine shooting. That's how long we've failed to take action.
Re "stand back and standby," people who work in monitoring and de-radicalization and otherwise studying white power groups are sounding red alerts and sending emergency signals about increasing violence from now through the election, and after, regardless of winner.
Okay, trying again: to those asking why Patriot Front would target Pride: to the white power movement and some of the militant right, a host of social issues (abortion, gay rights, interracial contact, immigration, secularism) are all a problem for the same reason. (1)
The finally published DHS Homeland Threat Assessment shows what we have known for a long time: white power movement violence and affiliated violence is, by far, the greatest terrorist threat to our nation (1)
ok, so just to review: paramilitary group shows up to violently beat and mace students. someone breaks into pelosi's house and beats her husband (luckily she's not home). wealthy rightwing megalomaniac buys up the public square. violent intimidation at the polls in AZ (1)
Also here's your regular reminder that the Oath Keeper verdict, the Buffalo verdict, the Mar a Lago dinner, and the Proud Boys elections to local offices are part of THE SAME STORY about a rising and militant white power movement
For those new to this: "lone wolf" was a term adopted by white power activists in order to disguise the indisputable historical fact that they are part of a social movement. Using this term, and this category of understanding, ALLOWS THEM TO SUCCEED.
Quick primer: yes, the FBI has, over about a century, used its resources unequally against the right and the left. It has overwhelmingly targeted the left. (1)
#MichiganProtest Heavily armed people storming a government building is an attack, not a protest. It is at the very least an act of intimidation, if not terrorism.
Since the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a conversation, people may be interested in the longer history of the white power movement's investment in crunch (crunchiness) (1)
This morning, a lot of people thinking about The Turner Diaries, so here is some history. Turner Diaries is a novel that imagines a successful coup by white power activists who take over a homeland, then the US, then the world (1)
April 19 is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, the deadliest mass attack on the U.S. between Pearl Harbor & 9/11. Many people still don't realize it was an act of organized terrorism perpetrated by the white power movement, which still threatens our democracy today (1)
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Relatedly, if a kid gets sick in the woods and their dad is also in the woods, will the office still call their mom?
We aren't talking enough about the Trump rally in Waco this weekend. This site is important to the white power movement and other extremist groups because it signifies not only a moment of federal overreach, but a response by extremists: the Oklahoma City bombing. (1)
Allen, Texas mall shooting fact roundup: reports say gunman was an Army gunman who now worked as a security guard; had a Right-Wing Death Squad patch; posted neo-Nazi materials online. The fact that his name is Mauricio Garcia shouldn't confuse us. This was a white power shooting
I have been very reluctant to speak about this without direct evidence, but here it is: this is material evidence of white power ideology and activism in the Trump Administration. splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019
So honored to testify before Congress today--I've dedicated my life to the study of white power violence because I think it's such a huge social problem, and I thank my fellow panelists & everyone who tuned in to watch. This topic deserves our attention & our good-faith efforts.
The Airman Teixiera story is not confusing, friends. It is about online radicalization and infiltration of the Armed Forces, and a shocking lack of either monitoring of this problem (which the DOD has known about at least since the early 1980s) or stopgaps to stop such breaches.
Let me do this properly: THREE GENERALS ARE WORRIED ABOUT A COUP across the armed forces and also casually mention that national guard command ignored a PRESIDENTIAL command this week
Happy to announce that I have joined CNN as a contributor--very grateful to them for bringing historical analysis forward to help us make sense of these troubled times.
This just came out so this is an early take, but the DoD just updated the language it uses to decide what is "active participation" in "extremist group(s)"--which is prohibits Armed Services personnel from doing these things (DoDI 1325.06) (1)
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White power activists have long seen all of these issues as part of an interconnected conspiracy to lower the white birth rate, attacking their race and nation. They see this as an apocalyptic threat. (2)
It is incredible to me that an elected state senator being charged with domestic terrorism and involvement with the "Patriot Movement" (often meaning the white power movement) isn't even national news in many outlets.
I'm delighted to announce that I'll be moving to Northwestern University this summer, where I will join the History Department as an Associate Professor. I am excited about this next chapter!
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This is what connects attacks on the black community (Buffalo, Charleston) with attacks on immigrants (El Paso) with attacks on Jews (Pittsburgh) with attacks on Pride (Idaho, SF) (3)
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(5) we are decades, if not generations, into this problem. A green light like "stand back and standby" is catastrophic.
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(3) we are talking about the movement responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, the largest deliberate mass casualty on American soil between Pearl Harbor and 9/11 (yet we don't remember it was the work of a movement)
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(6) Please listen to the whistleblowers like who are leaving DHS after sounding the alarm about white power violence. Please. And please be safe out there, because the next step is mass casualty targets.
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We are on a trajectory that leads NOT ONLY to mass shootings and violent attacks, but also to continuing, intense activation of cell-style action across the country, in every region, in cities and suburbs and rural areas (6)
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Coeur d'Alene has a long history of white power activity going back to the late '70s. It was the site of the Aryan Nations compound and remains symbolic both for the militant right and for peace activists that want to stop white power activism. But this is not an Idaho thing. (4)
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(2) this is a movement that has sought not only poll intimidation--although it has done that--but also major mass casualties. There is no reason to think that strategy will change.
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We should be thinking back way before the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville (2017), because these groups have been working out of this playbook for decades, if not generations. The history of the earlier period can illuminate what comes next (5)
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Concrete things you can do right now about the problem of white power violence: 1) Watch the Jan 6 hearings and talk about the findings, especially with people who are checked out or have different views. It was an attack on our nation and our democracy. (8)
Not learning about the history of the Ku Klux Klan is a problem because there is a straight line from the Klan to January 6.
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So besides the fact that an idea of shared humanity is, in this historian's opinion, a good place to begin any social project, we will get better accountability if we employ it. Take it seriously. Respond accordingly. (14)
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Public-facing recruitment actions will play out alongside mass violence. This impacts all of us, activity is escalating dramatically, and time is running short to do something about it. (7)
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Concrete things you can do right now about the problem of white power violence, continued: 3) Go to your local school board meetings and pay attention to what's happening there. (10)
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1) They have not stopped killing people while we ignored them and called them names and 2) They have repeatedly used the idea of their ineptitude to avoid prosecution for serious crimes (13)
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Sorry, my kingdom for an edit button: how many people seeking abortion die from it.
Do we need a new definitions thread? This mob is not anarchist. They are certainly anti-democratic, since they are using terrorism to attack fair electoral process. The word you want, I think, is fascist.
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Concrete things you can do right now about the problem of white power violence, continued: 4) Volunteer at your local library and/or high school to encourage conversation about civics and responsible media consumption (11)
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(4) And even though we don't remember, this is a movement that has been using online social network activism since 1983/84, that has repeatedly targeted people and infrastructure, that has continued largely un-confronted
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Concrete things you can do right now about the problem of white power violence, continued: 2) Read news stories about these different groups and ask yourself and others, how is this part of a groundswell? (9)
Just in case anybody needs a refresher, as The Guardian recently reported, of nearly 900 politically motivated acts of domestic terror since 1994, only one attack by an anti-fascist led to fatalities, and in that case, the one person killed was the perpetrator.
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and that's just in the last few days (3)
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If you would like to learn more, please don't purchase The Turner Diaries as money sometimes still flows back to white power groups from those purchases. Get a pirated copy. Or read summaries. (11)
Not for nothing, but my gratitude to the FBI agents who stopped the Whitmer plot in spite of tremendous pressure to ignore the threat white power terrorism poses to American democracy.
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2) This didn't come out of nowhere, but follows a history we can learn and understand in order to combat this very dangerous ideology. As a reminder, the nation in white nationalism is the Aryan nation, not the US. This movement is anti-American (10)
My job tonight is to talk about the history of the white power movement and the danger it poses to all of us, but are we also gonna get into the testimony that Twitter had foreknowledge of violence and didn't take action?
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Turner Diaries also prominently features an attack on the U.S. Capitol, though somewhat different than what we saw. In the book it's a mortar attack. But significantly, the point of the attack is NOT mass casualty, but showing people that even the Capitol can be attacked (4)
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Please get these rallies covered by extremism reporters with experience in the field. We need stories on the crowd, because we need to be ready to understand the violence that will follow. (10)
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Several of the methods used in the book appeared in yesterday's insurrection. One is the "Day of the Rope," in which "traitors" (including members of Congress, people in interracial relationships, journalists, etc) are publicly hanged. Yesterday the mob erected a gallows (2)
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Also, just my regular reminder that people in the white power movement are PEOPLE, motivated by a political ideology. We can take cheap shots at them all we want, and I see a lot of this on social. Here's the thing though (12)
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(7) as always, if you would like to read about the history of all this, check out Bring the War Home...other books coming out soon about what happens after 1996
We really still haven't found the pipe bomb suspect and also I think people have forgotten about the bomb part of January 6 entirely.
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We really still haven't found the pipe bomb suspect?
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This shows us 1) at least some of the people who stormed the Capitol yesterday come from the same movement that has been threatening democracy and killing civilians for decades if not generations (9)
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The reason this is important: Turner Diaries has been enormously important to white power, militant right, and accelerationist activists not because it's a good novel, but because it explains how a small number of people might overthrow the United States (7)
Coming on the heels of missing C4 from Twentynine Palms and several decades of theft of weapons and equipment from military posts and bases by the white power movement...every one of these stories should ring alarm bells
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Turner Diaries places enormous importance on the protection of white women. The fact that a white woman was shot yesterday will fit into this narrative (a story that also goes back to Vicky Weaver's death in the Ruby Ridge standoff) (5)
Just finished watching The Day After from 1983 for my undergrad 20th cen class. Anybody remember viewing it on television when it came out? I'd love to hear your reactions...
The document believed to be the Buffalo shooter's manifesto not only references the Christchurch shooter as inspiration, but lifts huge portions of text directly from that manifesto. The shootings in Christchurch were livestreamed, too. (1)
My twitter people, the category of "whiteness" we use right now in the US is not the only one. We've only had this one for about a century (1)
The text of the complaint filed by three Harvard graduate students against the school, with extensive documented harassment going back over decades.
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To be clear, the plan outlined in Turner Diaries is ***PROFOUNDLY*** genocidal and anti-democratic, eventually involving the annihilation of all nonwhite people throughout the world through chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons. (6)
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These include organic farming, macrobiotic diet, paganism, avoiding fluoride, traditional midwifery (3)
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...Yesterday the mob erected a gallows and people took selfies in front of it. (3)
Some good news: federal agents now have to ID themselves to protestors
AND UNIVERSITIES.
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Black members of Mississippi's senate walk out of the chamber before the final vote on a bill to ban teaching critical race theory in schools and universities. The vote passed.
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Someone could write a great book on whether all of this was 1) genuine belief 2) a way to recruit from the leftist fringe that was also anti-state and was very crunchy or 3) (my bet) a mix of both) (4)
PSA: It would be a very big mistake to look at those early votes and think your vote isn't needed. YOUR VOTE IS NEEDED. Please vote.
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In case anybody is confused, yes, the Ku Klux Klan was and is bad and yes, our children can handle learning this history. AMA
Not going to lie, I am pretty happy about this. I will take happy wherever I can get it
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Cactus. Succulents. Power plant player. Pineapple for the win. 10/10 @kathleen_belew
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I'm talking about the text of the speech, where Trump talks about the importance of a new baby boom immediately after referencing "Western Civilization." This isn't even coded enough to decode. This means whiteness. This means protecting the white birth rate. (7)
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It is completely ahistorical and completely incorrect to argue for equal FBI resources for white power (huge, armed, anti-government, very dangerous, death counts in the several hundreds) and "antifa and the left" (which is not trying to violently overthrow the country) (12)
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(And we know it's important because the book itself appears all over the place in the white power movement--stacks of them at paramilitary training camps, copies handed out at rallies, OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh sold the book and carried it with him, and more) (8)
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(The place that this started in the most recent iteration of the movement is, I suspect, in antivaccination--not covid antivaxxing, but the anti-measles and anti-childhood vaccinations discussions in mom groups.) (8)
Many of you have questions about the #OathKeepers in light of the #Sedition charges filed against group members today. Here's a quick overview: (Thread) (1)
I teach a class called The American Vigilante, about the history of lynching, and we start by discussing "Beer for My Horses," which is the source of this phrase and is absolutely about lynching.
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"There's old sayings in Texas about find all the rope in Texas and get a tall oak tree. You know, we take justice very seriously, & we ought to do that. Round up the bad guys." -- here's Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) glorifying lynchings during hearing on violence against Asian-Americans
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All the way back in the 1970s and '80s, white power women (in the Klan, skinhead groups, Christian Identity churches, and beyond) were interested in a bunch of things you might think of as crunchy: (2)
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It is inescapable. Experts agree. Watchdogs agree. Whistleblowers agree. Deradicalizers agree. Scholars agree. Everyone, it seems, but the upper echelons of the Trump Administration, and the most unreachable of his base, agree. White power violence has been unleashed (3)
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The Klan, the white power movement, the militant right, the alt-right have all been opportunistic social movements. That means they have always tacked to the prevailing cultural winds and taken advantage of whatever recruitment avenues were available. Crunch is this now (5)
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If you are crunchy and not an extremist and feel offended by this, well, yeah, you should. It's an attempt to manipulate you into an ideology. (7)
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We are talking about that middle line. And look: "2019 was the most lethal year for extremism in the United States since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995" (2)
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This is no longer just a story about elections, or about a megalomaniac candidate. This is a movement that has been at war on the nation for decades, & is using this candidate for its own purposes. This is not just a story about Trump. (9)
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Waco is significant because it is used as the alibi for domestic terrorism: because the federal government killed Branch Davidians at Waco, the story goes, violence against the federal government (and collateral damage against civilians) can be justified. (2)
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This was nowhere more evident than in the violent infiltration of the Black Panther Party, where FBI action resulted in deaths and in damage to even peaceful actions of that group. People of color were MUCH more targeted than other leftists (5)
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But Waco is different in a few important ways. 1) The Oklahoma City Bombing is the largest act of mass casualty violence between WWII and 9/11. Did you know it was a bombing organized by the white power movement? (4)
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This is also a really good example of how the white power/militant right is not just men marching in the street, it's also women sharing antistatist cultural materials through social networks. (10, end)
It has never taken more than a whisper of approval to fan the flames of militant right action, and the Kenosha acquittal is a shout
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However, and this is a big however, this OF COURSE does not mean that crunchiness is the same thing as being in or being vulnerable to extremism. What it is, is a window of opportunity being manipulated and exploited BY extremists (6)
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Anyway, that's your historical context for today as you listen to FBI Director Christopher Wray explaining why January 6 has nothing to do with antifa and why it constitutes an act of domestic terrorism.
Another day, another example of the risks routine in women's medicine that seem unacceptable for the general public (compare our general level of worry about clotting side effects in oral contraceptives with those in the vaccine studies)