Down the Rabbit-Hole

That is where we are heading and I don’t know anyway to stop it. If it was just right-wingers stirring the flame at least that would be a place to start. But when it is a whole political party who are members of Congress where would you start? November 2024 is so far away, I am afraid of what can happen between now and then.

Armed Neo-Nazis With Swastika Flags Disrupt Wisconsin Pride Event

“It was so terrifying to have Nazis there that even the religious protestors and Gays Against Groomers left,” an organizer said.

The Advocate

By Christopher Wiggins

July 31, 2023

Swastika flag-bearing neo-Nazis, some of them armed, descended upon a Wisconsin LGBTQ+ Pride celebration on Saturday.

Members of Blood Tribe, a neo-Nazi extremist group, joined other right-wing hate groups, like Gays Against Groomers and anti-LGBTQ+ religious organizations, in protesting the presence of drag queens as part of a Pride in the Park event in Watertown.

Gays Against Groomers, an anti-trans group, had been promoting disruptions at the event for days, highlighting it online and urging its extremist followers to join in protest at Riverside Park, the location of the festivities.

The Pride event organizers, Unity Project of Watertown, brought in food trucks, artisans and vendors, a drag performance, and a drag queen story hour event for kids.

But then the wackos arrived… armed!

A group arrived with guns and swastika flags in hand. Their faces were covered with balaclavas and sunglasses, and they wore khaki pants and black shirts. They started call-and-response style chants. “Us or the pedophiles,” they chanted. “There will be blood, blood, blood!”

What can you do? What can you do when the former President of the United States called them “very fine people.” What can you do when the governor of the state of Florida keeps silent when there is a protest at the entrance to Disney World by neo-Nazis waving swastika flags and DeSantis signs?

Julie Janowak, a board member of the Unitiy Project of Watertown, the group that organized the Pride in the Park event, tells The Advocate that around 9 a.m., about 50 people from far-right religious groups arrived, followed by about a dozen members of Gays Against Groomers. She says that the neo-Nazis arrived around 10:45 a.m. and remained until after 11:30 a.m.

The police said that they can’t do anything because of First Amendment rights but I don’t think that the First Amendment cover making threats… “There will be blood, blood, blood!” I don’t think that the amendment protects against that.

Then on top of all that they tried to gaslight people;

The hate group tried to push the conspiracy theory that federal agents were conspiring to appear like neo-Nazis. Far-right extremists and those who are terminally online believe that FBI agents generate “false-flag” or staged events and dress like members of extremist groups to get negative attention.

These people are sick with hate. They are white supremacists. They are against everything except white Christian straight.

Wisconsin’s Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, condemned the protest and the display of neo-Nazi insignia.

“This is a disgusting and direct attack on our state’s LGBTQ community, communities of color, and Jewish Wisconsinites,” Evers said in a statement to The Advocate. “Nazis, swastikas, and any other anti-LGBTQ, white supremacist, or anti-Semitic messages, symbols, or groups are unacceptable and unwelcome in Wisconsin. Period.”

He said that he was particularly worried by the public display of hatred, which disrupted, intimidated, and harassed kids and families just trying to honor the LGBTQ+ community.

“This is dangerous, hateful behavior, and it should be condemned in all of its forms and by every elected official at every level, and that includes all those who continue to push radical rhetoric, divisive legislation and litigation, and falsehoods and disinformation about the LGBTQ community—those words, those actions, and those policies have real and harmful consequences,” Evers said.

“LGBTQ Wisconsinites deserve to be treated with dignity, decency, kindness, and respect just like every other Wisconsinite, and they deserve to be safe being who they are without fear or threat of shame, harassment, intimidation, or violence. I will continue to support and protect them,” he concluded.

We need more than rhetoric, we need arrests to be made. We need long term prison sentences. We need you to get out and not only vote but take an active part in the elections, volunteer. 

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Heading up to the Cape today this morning, I hate the drive but love the Cape.

You got to be flexible and roll with the punches. I was supposed to go to the Cape but something came up and I decided not to go this week and instead buy a new washing machine. I've been putting it off because they needed a few days to deliver it and I was home long enough to do it. So I had a change in my schedule and decided to go up next week after the new washer is delivered.