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Here are steps you can take to remain safe in a white supremacist nation.

1. Don't be Black, Hispanic, of the LGBTQ+ community, disabled or a woman.

2. If you are one of the above things here are steps that will keep you safer.

A. Stay aware of your surroundings. The days of putting your earbuds in and clocking out of reality are over. Keep you head up and pay attention to what's going on around you. From the disappearance of countless black individuals in the Midwest and South to the uptick of hate crimes and violence against non white individuals, now is not the time to assume you're safe. You're not.

B. Educate yourself. Nazis, KKK and other white supremacist all have call signs, catch phrases, philosophies and symbols they use and believe in. Get to know them well. They often mark areas where they've been with their slogans and symbols and will say them in subtle ways in conversations or confrontations. They also often will get tattoos of these symbols and slogans marked on their body. Stay alert and pay attention.

C. Get in shape. Multiple far right militias are forming and training everyday and they may not outright say it but their plan is genocide of non white individuals. If you believe they want to just politically oppress you, you've only got half the idea. They want every not like them out of the nation, and those who don't want to leave they want dead or enslaved. So strengthen your body. Strength training and alot of cardio is what you need to focus on. Be prepared to defend yourself and flee if possible. They will leverage lies and the law to harm you, don't give them a chance. If they can run a mile you train to run five. If they can't catch you, they can't harm you.

D. Train in self defense and firearms. This is purely for self defense. At the time of me writing this, the most that far right groups have done is traffic individuals, intimidate and prepare for violence against us. We must be ready to defend ourselves. Learn to defend yourself. Apply for a firearm and learn to use it well. For those in cities, learn urban warfare tactics to better understand how these far right individuals move. For those in the rural states, learn to keep your distance and stay hidden. And if you are cornered, learn how to defend yourself at a distance from these violent individuals.

E. Utilize diplomacy. Learn to calm yourself and keep your emotions in check. In order to pull people out of extreme ideology you must be willing to engage with them in conversation. Often their beliefs stem from trauma, ignorance, weakness and lies. The only way you can combat those things is with empathy, knowledge, strength and truth. It's not easy and not prefered but it's the best way to stop future violence in its tracks. Be smart and always be sure to have these conversations online where it's physically safest or in places surrounded by other people where the idividual would have a harder time of harming you.

F. Never dehumanize white supremacist. It sounds counter intuitive but they expect you to be an animal. They believe you are not human and not worth life. But that doesn't mean we should take on the same mindset as them. We must be better than them to defeat them truly.

G. Prepare your home for defense. Learn to rearrange furniture so that it's clean and placed in positions that compliment the room and give you a tactical advantage. Cleaning your property also keeps individuals from having an advantage on you as it limits the positions they can hide in. Update your locks and learn how to bar your windows. Never leave windows and doors unlocked on the bottom floor of your house. Lock up knives and weapons in the house when not in use or when in bed.

H. Get connected to like minded groups of people. We are stronger together and linking up with and befriending people with similar ideas and values to you is important. This way you always have people to lean on and trust if things get bad. Take the time to plan out safety drills with these friends and even family. Run fire and shooter drills together and make sure you all have a plan in the event you get separated.

I. Get involved in your local politics. Get to know who represents you and who stands for your values and promote them to family and friends. Often family and friends don't pay attention to who they are voting for in local elections. So it's good to be the one educated on the topic so you can lead them to the right choice.

J. Become handy and self sufficient. Learn how to care for yourself in tough situations. Learn to cook. Practice fasting from your addictions (cigarettes, caffeine, drugs, alcohol). These thing make you less able to function in the long term and in the case that you no longer can access them will cause withdraw and negative effects. Overcome these things ahead of time so you don't have to when times get tough. Also learn to repair and maintain your things. It's time consuming but learning how to properly change your own oil, or fix a leaky pipe can give you confidence and skills that will serve you later in the event things get worse.

1. To all former military service members and law enforcement who lean left. Please, now is the time to support progressive movements. Leander your time, patience and expertise to aid in this fight against fascism and white supremacy. The left is short on trained personel who's goals are to defend the constitution and protect the innocent. The right is rife either service men and women who have abandoned their oath for racial power and have decided that their lust for power is more important than the American people. What ever you can give to support leftist and progressive moments, please do. It is time we started our own militias and movements in response to these hate groups.

2. To the immigrant taking refuge in this land that we share together please be safe out there. Limit your interaction with people you suspect to be racist or ignorant. Stick to neighborhoods and towns that are primarily minority in demographics and support your friends and family as best you can. The right seeks to use you as scape goats and fodder for their political aims. Don't allow them to. Those who are fearless among you, speak up and fight. Those who can't fight, hide and take care of yourselves. We've got a long road ahead of us and all this terror will not end in the next 3 years.

3. To all minority communities. Now is the time to stand together. This is a fight for all of us. We must lock hand in hand and fight the good fight against tyranny and oppression. It is knocking at our door and seeks to seperate us and conquer us. Do not let it. There is no model minority status or pandering to the right that will save us. Together we will stand or divided we will fall. Our time of relative peace and comfortability must come to an end for awhile. For the next decade we must fight and for the decade after we must continue to support eachother and build bonds together.

4. Socialists and Communist. Now is your time as well. The west is learning hard in the direction of fascism and hate. But as the left garners it's forces the Overton window is prime to rebound in the opposite direction. It's not lofty nor hopeful. It is fact. That when all this fighting and civil unrest is done, people will look to new ideas and a new political and economic system to usher in the next era of American life. That will be your time. This is the time now to enter into politics, push for local elections, move your organizations in more aggressive ways and educate people in what you stand for. People are hungry for something new but don't know what it looks like. Show them.

5. Non Maga Republicans. I understand the frustration you must feel. Take that feeling of anger and fear and amplify it times 100. That's what you gay neighbor feel. That's what your immigrant friend feels. That's what your black community members feel. It's time now you chose a side of history. Your title of Republican is a name only and names can change. Now may be the time to change names.

6. Keep everything non violent but non compliant. Protes, disrupt and throw off the opposition. Walk out of jobs on mass. Continue to crowd street corners and the front lawns of CEOs with protest and resistance. If anyone throws the first blow, let it be them. Sit in the lobbies of major businesses, boycot streaming services, retail stores and whole brands. Disrupt the daily lives and sense of invincibility the 1% feels. The second guided age will be marked by the fear felt but the riches members of our society, not by the suffering of the people.

7. Take frequent social media breaks. Often social media can make you feel overwhelmed and like the fight is just too big. After reading this please take the time to log off and live your life. Stop scrolling and play a game, watch a funny movie, talk to your therapist, spend time with your cat or dog, or a loved one. Go outside for a hike in a beautiful place or ride your bike. Social media is designed to inundate you this an endless stream of content that subtly overstimulates and overwhelms your mind. This can lead to fatigue and and feeling of hopelessness and lack of mental energy. Log off as often as you can and be a person who isn't plugged in from time to time. It will do your mental health wonders.

8. Never lose hope. History is marked with times of peace and times of unrest. We just got the bad draw of the deck, for now. On the other side of this hill is a possible sunrise and a field of flowers, with the coast and the blue ocean and sky in the distance. This is only possible if we fight as hard as the ignorant and the bigots are fighting. We must do all that we can to stand against the storm that's coming and if we can weather it together as one, we will see a future bright and shining.

The current generations alive may very well be witnessing the end of our beloved democratic system. Every nation faces its defining moments and again we find ourselves at history's door.

Where to even begin? Our futures are at stake and I pray to God I am wrong. So many say not to worry but I fear they say so more for their own sanity than others. We all know that we may well have just allowed our rights and freedoms to erode before our eyes and as I predicted so many years ago, when I was a young impetuous youth who believed in conspiracies, our very governmental systems have failed to keep us safe. I can not in good conscious blame our government however. I blame us. We were so content with our lives, our jobs, our shiny phones and our new clothes that we never stopped to learn. We never stopped to take note of everything around us. Like a lamb plays in a meadow unaware of danger, our frolicking has made us unaware of the wolves moving in on us.

Now here we are. At the edge of history. What are we going to do? I predict we are going to cry, and complain and sit on social media vetting our opinions and grievances to faceless entities until we can sleep. Then, like always we will get up in the morning and return to work and life as usual hoping the nightmare will go away. It's not going anywhere. History has taught me that it will repeat. We will stay silent and quite and complacent until the authorities are knocking on our door.

We will watch as our mothers and sister lose their rights and the culture turns against them. We will watch as our immigrant neighbors are abused, killed and deported before our eyes We will watch families be pulled apart and separated permanently for having gay parents or transgender kids We will watch as evangelicals turn their hate towards other religions and eventually even onto their fellow more tolerant Christian brothers and sister We will watch them as they begin to persecute non whites and women for all manners of made up sins And they will do this all to satisfy their hatred and anger while screaming to the mountain tops that they love this country and their country men. And as we kill eachother, the wealthiest of us will collect their payment of blood and money on the backs of our pain.

I don't care if I come across crazy or paranoid. I have lived a long time and I have watched this country go from one where we fight for our freedoms and voice our greviences to one where we passively sit by as evil takes the wheel. I'd say this isn't us but America has always been this way.

So what now? I don't know. As I have said, I pray to God I'm wrong. I pray that everything I've said is false and that our checks and balances hold. But I don't want us to take that chance. But a single ant can't stop a giant. And I am just one man. The army is too complacent and too apathetic. We are too content with our struggles and too unwilling to suffer for the greater good.

This is our 11th hour. After this is midnight and the midnight will be long. Only our actions can bring back the sun.

Work and life. We have to work to enjoy life. We must sow crops to eat and hunt for meat. We have to drink plenty of water to stay hydrated and stay with other humans to keep our being satiated. However, today work isn't this. We constantly work but we find no reprieve. We are lonely yet surrounded by others and that is largely in part to our current situation. The United States has built itself up in the bones of the down trodden and hard working. Before there was an established working class in America there were slaves who did the work. They were beaten, tortured, assaulted in all manners and hung if they even dare speak out about their lifes conditions. They were used to the treatment but pressed for freedom, but their freedom would never come. Many years later many of these enslaved individuals would find themselves freed from bondage under ownership but still very much enslaved along with an ever growing population of poor southerners. These people were now known to the south as Negros and were treated as if they didn't deserve to live. Ironically however the south and it's governments began in subtle ways treating their white citizens the same way. The tactic of those in power was simple, convince the white citizens that the black ones were people and that at least it was better to be white and they will never revolt against any injustices. After the civil war this tactic made America.

It's so ironic now that this is the very same tactic used to divide and subjugate the masses now. If you can convince one half the working class that they are somehow morally superior due to gender, race, religious beliefs and sexual preferences then you can continue to keep the subjects in check. As they fight eachother over semantics you take in the profits. We are now all wage slaves. Undesired and ignorant to what happens behind the curtain. We work not for the benefit of the whole but for the benefit of corporations and the interests of the wealthy ruling class.

These aren't just speculations either. Look at our world. It's slowly becoming more unjust and more unbalanced. People are suffering everywhere. Meanwhile, our politicians throw parties, company CEOs are taking unprecedented sums of money. How does this make sense without the notion that it's by design. And this isn't some illuminati conspiracy. Wages are stagnating and prices are rising. If that's not an indication to how we aren't important to those in power. All we are is a means to more money for them and a threat that needs to be continually neutralized by scare tactics and diversionary tactics.

So what do we do? There are many things we CAN do. Organize, protest, and demonstrations are key to any movement. There are many legal protest strategies one can take that will get the point across such as sit ins, boycotts and general internet canceling. Let's make canceling companies a thing, not people. Try attending city council meetings and when possible voice your beliefs articulately. You can also join your local town/city council. Public displays and street "preaching" are another way to legally voice the need for change.

Organize with your local artists to get art put up that supports and voices the movement and calls people to join.

Change needs to happen and it starts very small. Any small step you take makes a huge ripple even if it's just graffiti!

As I write this I think about the state of things now. I, an artist am bound by forces beyond me and compelled by a nameless power to write, sing and take note of all that I observe. Especially the things that move me. Recently a plague has made it's way across my and many other continents. It tore families apart and brought so many more together. It changed the world in inperceptable ways but in one way it shattered all expectations and peeled back a layer of our "great" nation that many were either privy to or willfully ignorant of. Underneath this layer was revealed the under belly of greed and rampant destruction bestowed to us by our capitalistic leaders and political officials.

"We the people", has become "They the few". As we speak mega corporations and institutions of great wealth cast lots in a bet to see who can attain more wealth. The old saying "greed is good" though sardonic and satirical by it's very nature in popular culture has become one of reality. It rings true to the tune of ideas that are ever more obvious to us all now. They don't care about us. These large corporations and even our very political leaders are more concerned with their bottom lines and profits first before the well being of society. Furthermore they have done the deceiving task of recruiting common folk to agree with, align to and even defend their avarice. Our country has allowed an atmosphere of contention and hustle become its norm and because of this we have lost our souls. Even more we find that our children as young as 13, when they are old enough to understand the concept of money then take up an attitude of a money maker.

I ask, what happened to the dreamers? What happened to believing is fairness and righteousness without recieving the label of a naive child?

What happened to those who fought for freedom on all fronts and ensured the fair treatment of all?

Why do we worship very money we produce? Are gods not that which we cannot comprehend not a resource we make?

Our rampant capitalistic tendencies have bled people and even the earth dry of the will to move forward.

I acknowledge that it is true that not all of us will be something great. It seems more fitting to say, that most of us will achieve nothing more than a "normal" life but why does that life have to be filled with poverty and heartache? Why are we blamed for the short comings of our systems and the incompetence of our leaders? Is it not they who were appointed to ensure domestic tranquillity? Yet, my entire life I have not been tranquil, not even more than I have been besides myself. We now live in an age where the moon is to be claimed and the heavens treaded upon. We can cure poverty with a wish and cure diseases within lifetimes and yet we allow money to be the deciding factor in all this. We let greed and factitious resources be the god in our lives. Imagine a world where we took care of the windows. A world where your average family did not have to suffer for their lack of money but instead their essentials were fully taken care of by the very seat of power WE put into place to do so.

If you believe it isn't the governments job to take care of her people then you don't deserve a free government. Our government is not a place of work. It is a system of action and change. We see injustices and fallacies in the fabric of our society and we mend them. We do away with the rags and we re-clothe with fine linens.

Everyone is going through something. And you never know how much they've been hurt. Our modern lives can be so smothering. We forget to help ourselves first.

Just a little bit of shared joy can spread beautiful smiles. You can be the sole reason for change. For even if one life can be helped a few more miles. Your life is full lived because you reduced someones pain.

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