Alright, time to stop ignoring the J6 discourse...

It is necessary to confront the Proud Boys because the Proud Boys are only coming to DC to fight "antifa," and if there are no antifascists there, they will simply assault whoever they determine is "antifa."

Because the Proud Boys are racist, sexist homophobes, this generally ends up being racial, ethnic, or sexual minorities.

This happens and the police allow this to happen. Some form of pushback is necessary.
The Proud Boys exist only to create violence. They are not a drinking club, they are a militant political wing of the Republican Party, and their mission is to generate a cultural notion of right wing immunity.
This is the violent obverse of the same coin that has the Republican Party's other immunities on the reverse: the ability to tamper with elections, engage in financial fraud, ignore the Constitution, and in general participate in corruption.
However, while the Proud Boys must be confronted, we must also recognize that their entire raison d'être is that antifa also shows up to face this confrontation.
Therefore, we can hold two positions simultaneously:

- that it is necesssary to confront the acute, instantaneous threat the Proud Boys represent;
- that the sustained, cumulative threat is not mitigated by these instantaneous confrontations.
For the past three+ years people have been fighting the Proud Boys from Charlottesville to Portland and everyplace in between.

While this helps safeguard those communities in those moments, there is no outcome-based lens in which this represents sustained progress
Progress is not represented as a sum of parts. Fighting off the Proud Boys one day does very little to discourage them from coming back another day, despite it being necessary to fight them off in the first place.
Proud Boys and their affiliates have been fought, arrested, stabbed, shot, and killed at events, but this has not dampened their enthusiasm to commit more violence.

And, as I said, not showing up will also not dampen that enthusiam, either.
What we need is a more comprehensive strategy for addressing the threat of fascist street violence that exists in the moments in between their actions.

Some of this exists--doxing campaigns and other activism does have some effect, but it is not enough.
So we cannot claim the threat is gone if antifascists don't show up. That would be catastrophic.

But also we cannot claim that showing up is winning, even when that moment is won.
The Alt-Right was devastated partly because people showed up to oppose them in the streets, but also partly because of numerous arrests, doxes, and immense lawsuits.
The Alt-Right also found the idea of dominating their enemies fun, but it turned out a bunch of pencil-neck twenty-somethings couldn't dominate so much in the street.
It stopped being fun for them when their crows of 12 attendees didn't meet their vision of grandeur AND they went and got their asses kicked anyways and then got arrested for doing a terrorism, and then got sued to oblivion.
For the Proud Boys, they enjoy the street combat. So to fight the Proud Boys we need not just a strategy for J6, but a strategy for J7 and beyond.
Anyhow, the Proud Boys have changed very little since I covered them and their violence a couple years ago for PRA:

https://t.co/bgSaceID4i

More from Emily of the State

Ok so there’s a conspiracy theory going around that this woman was faking her injury with an onion.

This is likely false. Onions are a folk remedy for pepper spray.


The theory, which has some merit, is that since onions make you cry, it helps flush the irritants from your eyes with natural tears.

However, this is not recommended as a treatment for pepper spray and is ultimately not very effective.

Pepper spray, tear gas, mace, CN, HC, and other agents are best removed with a flush of water or, if you have the proper mixture, saline. Nothing else.

We do not do chemistry in our eyeballs. We are not putting chemicals in our eyes. We are not putting produce in our eyes. We are removing the chemicals with safe, neutral water.

More from Society

Imagine if Christians actually had to live according to their Bibles.


Imagine if Christians actually sacrificed themselves for the good of those they considered their enemies, with no thought of any recompense or reward, but only to honor the essential humanity of all people.

Imagine if Christians sold all their possessions and gave it to the poor.

Imagine if they relentlessly stood up for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner.

Imagine if they worshipped a God whose response to political power was to reject it.

Or cancelled all debt owed them?

Imagine if the primary orientation of Christians was what others needed, not what they deserved.

Imagine Christians with no interest in protecting what they had.

Imagine Christians who made room for other beliefs, and honored the truths they found there.

Imagine Christians who saved their forgiveness and mercy for others, rather than saving it for themselves.

Whose empathy went first to the abused, not the abuser.

Who didn't see tax as theft; who didn't need to control distribution of public good to the deserving.

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https://t.co/6cRR2B3jBE
Viruses and other pathogens are often studied as stand-alone entities, despite that, in nature, they mostly live in multispecies associations called biofilms—both externally and within the host.

https://t.co/FBfXhUrH5d


Microorganisms in biofilms are enclosed by an extracellular matrix that confers protection and improves survival. Previous studies have shown that viruses can secondarily colonize preexisting biofilms, and viral biofilms have also been described.


...we raise the perspective that CoVs can persistently infect bats due to their association with biofilm structures. This phenomenon potentially provides an optimal environment for nonpathogenic & well-adapted viruses to interact with the host, as well as for viral recombination.


Biofilms can also enhance virion viability in extracellular environments, such as on fomites and in aquatic sediments, allowing viral persistence and dissemination.