Michael Knowles-ism needs to be Eradicated.
Society has taken a turn for the worse. Once again we find ourselves in an environment where minorities are under threat. We are experiencing a rebirth of far right movements and social conservatism. Public discourse has seen a shift to the extremes with the boundaries of hate speech being tested. Calls for violence seethe and grow daily.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”. That is why I feel it is an astute idea to peer back into the dim past and look for rhyming elements.
At the end of WW2, a small organisation of Jewish Holocaust survivors took it as their duty to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust to exact revenge.
This organisation was called Nakam.
They had an ideology or motto: a nation for a nation. This being in line with the idea of an eye for an eye or in this case 6 000 000 Germans for 6 000 000 Jews.
The first operation Nakam seriously attempted was to poison the municipal water supply in Nuremberg. The desired result being the death of six million Germans.
You may baulk at the indiscriminate murder of 6 000 000 innocent Germans. Except, in 1945 Germany, there was no such thing as 6 000 000 innocent Germans. The Nazis were not coy about their intentions with the Jews, Queers and other “useless eaters” prior to 1945. Germany had indiscriminately killed 6 000 000 Jews, Romani, LGBTQIA people and the disabled.
Either through conscience or the intervention of the still young Mossad, the plan was cancelled. A more targeted plan was devised to poison the bread supply destined for Langwasser Internment camp. An internment camp exclusively meant for holding SS members. This plan was carried through and did achieve some level of success.
I say some success because almost certainly some SS personnel were killed or severely injured by the arsenic based poison used.
This brings to mind two facts about the end of WW2 that we cannot ignore. Facts that we must now consider in the context of the present.
The greatest crime of the 20th century was certainly the Holocaust. The second greatest crime was letting a single SS member live. While there are several studies that show when absolved of accountability by the presence of authority; any person can commit the most terrible atrocities. The defences of the accused at the Nuremberg trials bear this out as well. Several Nazi officials attempted to claim they were merely following orders. These people moved beyond the hypothetical capacity for inhumanity to committing very real atrocities.
The day we let the people who had killed 6 000 000 people back into society, we said we will tolerate anything. We acknowledged that if we have a rational explanation for a crime, the crime, no matter its nature ceases to be a crime. Not a single SS member or Nazi party member should have been allowed to escape the gallows.
Anyone can be a monster, but no one can be excused for being a monster. We let them live and now they fester amongst us again.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for the death penalty for criminals. I am not advocating for the killing of anyone on the basis of race or religion. I am saying that which has made itself inhuman by its own hand should not be tolerated.
The other thing we need to consider is that there was no Pink Triangle Nakam. This is because when the concentration camps were liberated, Jews, Romani and other political prisoners were set free. The Queers on the other hand, were made to complete their sentences in regular jails.
Our liberation didn’t come in 1945. While the holocaust may have ended in terms of concentration camps and state sanctioned eradication. It was only in the late part of the 20th century that LGBTQIA rights started to become viewed as human rights. The fact is, our complete liberation is still denied.
Recently, Michael Knowles, a failed actor, made an appearance at CPAC. Where he told his trivial audience about the need to eradicate “transgenderism” from society.
I saw some echoes of Weimar Germany. I see a current society echoing Magnus Hirschfeld and his drive toward LGBTQIA liberation. I also hear Echoes of a young Adolf Hitler labelling Magnus Hirshfeld “The most dangerous jew in Germany”
I don’t think Michael Knowles is an Adolf Hitler incarnate, that would be melodramatic and over estimation. Michael Knowles is simply too pathetic to be more than an exploitive wannabe. He sees a buck to be made and will channel the ghost of anyone who can be used in service of his avarice.
When noting the parallels between Mr Knowles, the current ascendance of the far right and the trans moral panic; I think it’s time we discussed what needs to be done to cement the gains made towards Queer Liberation.
In the pursuit of Queer liberation, we need to eradicate fascism from society. The ideas that lead to homophobia and transphobia need to be dragged from the minds of the victims of this false ideology of bigotry, and shot in the street like dogs. Bigoted mindsets need to be herded up in cattle cars and shipped off to gas chambers disguised as showers and the remains burnt in crematoria. Ideologies and religions that drive hate need to be isolated from the population and bottled up in ghettos.
Figuratively.
Metaphorically.
I don’t mean we should literally eradicate people. I mean we must eradicate Ideas ideologies and religions.
Not people.
This raises the question though, can the individual ever truly be separated from the ideology? Can bigotry be separated from the bigot?
Hold on.
Did I just call for violence? Did I make the case for a Far Right genocide? Did I write a detailed yet brief description of a “final solution” for bigots steeped in historical precedent? Replete with brave avengers and justifications for aggressive and dramatic calls to action. Based on factual history meant to tug at the heartstrings of the reader and goad them to righteous indignation?
That depends on who you ask. Ask Michael Knowles and the answer is no, I did not call for violence. In MIchael Knowles’ opinion I have merely expressed the need to remove a dangerous ideology from society. MIchael Knowles would have us believe one can eradicate an ideology without harming the individual. Mr Knowles thinks we are idiots, he thinks we do not understand rhetoric.
However, I am no such dishonest coward, ask me and everything you have read above this paragraph is a carefully constructed manipulation of your emotions. A barely disguised hate speech rant written just well enough to skirt hate speech laws and protect me from jail time and accusations of bigotry. Whilst still inspiring the mob to violence. You thought we were discussing Queer Liberation through the lens of the holocaust. We were not. I was telling you to accept violence as the only rational way to deal with the far right today. I force fed you the narrative of an all powerful, yet pathetic and easily destroyed sub human enemy, Michael Knowles. Then I told you to kill that enemy.
To me, that is a disgusting dehumanisation and a call to violence. I did that purposefully and I want you to note how awful and uneasy that made you feel when you read it. You know what I wrote and you know what I intended it to mean.
It’s a weaselly trick, incite rage and hate through misquotation, context stripping and outright lies. Then absolve myself with a linguistic fig leaf by saying “metaphorically” or “not the people to whom it’s intrinsic, I meant the ideology”.
I don’t care what you believe or what god you pray to. I don’t care if you think me and my fellow queers are icky. I only care about what you do and how you treat us and anyone else. I will treat you with respect, kindness, empathy and compassion. I will do nothing to purposely harm you. In fact, I will go out of my way to accommodate you. All I ask is the same in return.
Nakam were brave, but a nation for a nation is not moral. Killing every SS soldier and Nazi would have been a holocaust in itself. How should we have dealt with them? I don’t know and I don’t think we can judge harshly those that decided denazification was the best route. The cold fact is, the killing had to stop.
We do need to recognise the mistakes we are making now in society and the dangers posed by populist commentators if left unchecked. We need to maintain a cool head and avoid melodrama. Labelling everything in opposition to Queer Liberation “Nazi”is not helpful and it should be avoided.
We don’t need to tolerate the rhetoric of Michael Knowles, the shitheads at the daily wire, Jordan Peterson, Donald Trump, Klan Mom Greene, Posie Parker, JK Rowling or Meatball Ron.
We need to recognise the harm they do to society and find strategies to educate, inform and discuss. I am not advocating for meekness, I am advocating for strong, moral, compassionate and inclusive resistance to the dark path the far right wants to drag society down. It is not just Queer Liberation that is threatened, it is the ideals of free and just societies these people erode. We must be cautious in how we resist their advances, lest we become them.
Mr Knowles, you are a Fascist, you have called for the eradication of transgender people. We have seen this trick before, we have watched this game already and we have seen the end score you want. We are not idiots, we understand very well what you said. We know that today it’s trans people and tomorrow will be anyone who is not white, male and Christian.
You can expect both my disdain and my resistance. Be thankful I won’t stoop to your level.
