I've been interested in human xenophobia (which I think is instinctive) and race and class warfare since I become politically aware some time in my 20's.  The more I study the less I know, other than that people naturally cling to those who are like them and mistrust those who are different.  Other than that humans are more emotional than rational.

Human xenophobia is functional in an evolutionary sense: members of a tribe are far more likely to have survived in the past, hence we are biologically wired to be tribal in this way.  Without even knowing we do it, we will dehumanize those who we do not like or trust, those who look and sound too different.  Once we have placed someone in a "not like me" category, it becomes OK to treat them badly, even kill them.  This instinct is difficult to manage in modern society.  Our founding documents speak of "domestic tranquility" but we have precious little of that in these interesting times.

The Wolverine Watchmen is a newer group that became active in response to efforts to flatten the pandemic curve in Michigan, and in response to the president's exhortations to "liberate Michigan" from the Covid-19 sparked lockdown.  Trump has repeatedly attacked Michigan's Governor in speech and writing, making the target quite clear.

The Wolverine Watchmen of Michigan intended to kidnap the Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and to put her "on trial" for treason.  How they think that their version of a trial will be more just than that agreed upon by broader society speaks to their ignorance and isolation.  They want to form "a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient".  I can understand that, though their methods leave a great deal to be desired.

The WW website has been deleted.  Their social media activity revealed particular concern about taxes, gun control and the "Deep State".  Michigan is also home to the Boogaloo Bois who, like other Boogaloo groups are focussed on fomenting civil war.

Thirteen people were arrested by the feds for two separate plots on the Governor.  The arrests include 7 members of the WW.  They wanted to use bombs to blow up police vehicles and storm the Capitol with 200 men.  The militia leader and others were charged with "threat of terrorism, gang membership, providing material support for terrorist ats, and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony".  I presume that the feds waited until they had ample evidence to bust the militia because the last federal case again a militia in Michigan ended poorly for the feds in 2012 when all seven defendants were cleared.

One young member of the arrested WW group talked about sending a bomb to the governor, saying "I just wanna make the world glow, dude," "we're just gonna conquer" everything and it will all "have to be annihilated".  Comments like this do not suggest that this young man in particular has any ability to think critically or to comprehend what the law or the rest of society might have to say about his ideas.

An expert named Amy Cooter (Vanderbilt U) estimates that there are 24-36 similar militia groups in Michigan with the potential for violence.  Michigan's militias are the envy of armed groups nationwide.  Most of them are law abiding and predominantly interested in protecting what they believe are constitutional rights.  They may not start out racist but they could easily end up that way in an environment of racial tension and with the influence of social media, which has increased collaboration between white supremacy and conspiracy groups.  Talk of inciting a civil war is becoming more common especially by the militarized portion of Trump's base.

Meanwhile the president has been stoking fear about the next election.  I suspect that when he loses he'll do his best to invalidate the election.  He'll use these thugs to tie up law enforcement efforts, and sue to stop a vote count in some battleground state.  From there he expects that a conservative-stacked supreme court will make him POTUS for a second term, from which platform he'll be trying to keep the office for life.

This story is just the beginning of the intended violence, and it is not the anti-fa that is plotting it.

Interesting times, indeed.

SOME SOURCES
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/10/08/michigan-militia-wolverine-watchmen-gretchen-whitmer/5924615002/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-we-know-about-wolverine-watchmen-accused-of-terror-kidnap-plot-against-michigan-gov-gretchen-whitmer

Betsy Ross Flag (flying at ringleader's house) significance: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/betsy-ross-flag-nike-colin-kaepernick-patriot-movement-ku-klux-klan-854612/

https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/2020/10/10085589/wolverine-watchmen-michigan-militia-history-boogaloo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement

Trump is the first antidemocratic president in modern U.S. history.  On too many days, beginning in the early hours, he flaunts his disdain for democratic institutions, the ideals of equality and social justice, civil discourse, civic virtues, and America itself.  If transplanted to a country with fewer democratic safeguards, he would audition for dictator, because that is where his instincts lead.  This frightening fact has consequences.  The herd mentality is powerful in international affairs.  Leaders around the globe observe, learn from, and mimic one another.  They see where their peers are heading, what they can get away with, and how they can augment and perpetuate their power.  The walk in one another's footsteps, as Hitler did with Mussolini--and today the herd is moving in a Fascist direction.
--Madeleine Albright in Fascism: A Warning, page 246 (in what I think is the final chapter).

"You can kill a man,
but you can't kill an idea."
--Medgar Evers before his own assasination 

 “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” 

—Frederick Douglass

 Your confusion is not pathology, it is path. It has something to show you that clarity could never reveal. The nature of chaos is wisdom, but you must provide a home for it to receive its mysteries.

Your feeling of disconnection is not neurotic, it is intelligent. It has something to show you that oneness could never reveal. If you will practice the yoga of non-abandonment and provide safe passage – it will disclose an unmet doorway.

Your loneliness, your shakiness, and your fear are not mistakes. They are not obstacles on your path. They *are* the path. The freedom you are longing for will never be found in the eradication of the unwanted, but only in the core of the love and information it carries.

There are surges of somatic activity that contain very important information for your journey. If you will offer safe passage for the unknown aliveness, you will meet the messengers of illumination. Nothing is missing, nothing is out of place, and nothing need be sent away.

Yes, you may burn until you are translucent, but it is by way of this burning that your wholeness will be revealed.

~ Matt Licata

To learn who
rules over you,
Simply find out
who you are not
allowed to criticize.
--Voltaire

I have often said "it's a free will universe" as a basis for extolling choice as a power, whether conscious or unconscious, for determining your experience. To "choice" I always connect the concept of responsibility. Responsibility always follows immediately upon choice. Those who tremble before this power of choice may even habitually refuse to make choices, unwilling to take on the responsibility that choice of necessity implies. This is a choice in itself, a pattern of omission and passivity with it's own distinct effects and power to manipulate. All this having been said, what if in fact it's not "a free will universe" after all? The concept of "predestination" also has a long history in philosophical and religious thought and stands as a counterpoint to "free will" with it's own ardent supporters. When I look at an average day, things happen and I respond. Needs arise and I must act. My breath and heartbeat and peristalsis are events occurring to me, gifts freely given from what great source I cannot truly fathom. I won't pretend to resolve here a millennia-long question. And in the face of it, perhaps, at the very least, we might choose with lighter hearts, and enjoy the uncertainty knowing that our every action is effected upon waves of permission from powers greater than our own.
--Gil Hedley, Integral Anatomy

This is the after-elementary-school program being offered by an organization called The Satanic Temple.   It was news to me, but the Satanists I met tonight at the FFRF meeting consider themselves to be atheists.  They do not believe in a metaphysical God or Satan.  Satan instead is a symbol of individual liberty, of the ability we each have to say "I'm out" when someone offers us a load of dogma.  Lucifer, of course, is the fallen angel in Christian mythology who refused to tow the line.  "...Our metaphor of Satan is a literary construct inspired by authors such as Anatole France and Milton--a rebel angel defiant of autocratic structure and concerned with the material world. Satanism as a rejection of superstitious supernaturalism."

This take on Satan is all fine and good if you're inside that particular literary bubble.  If you, like me, grew up surrounded by Christian mythology, Satan is THE bad guy.  So I was a bit taken aback that they want to call their program this, and their club, and so on.  Why choose such a hot button for Christians?  Why not call it after school Humanism, or Atheism, or Evolution???  Well they do have a reason.  The concept is that Satanists can assert their rights as a religious organization and influence public affairs, reminding the dominant religious groups that in America such privileges are for all religions, not just the chosen ones.

I also learned that the legal definition of a religious organization is one that takes a stand about god.  Hence an atheist organization is a religious organization in the good old US of A.

The Oregon chapter of The Satanic Temple is brand new.  They've offered After School Satan Clubs at two elementary schools where Good News Clubs are already offered.  They plan to teach evolution, and how the world was formed.  The only problem is that when the local chaper offered an open house at a local school, the superintendent of the school (Karen Gray) let all the students and teachers go home an hour early, effectively eliminating the curious audience while also ticking off the parents who had to get out of work an hour early to pick up their babies.  Only two students signed up.  I wonder how many would have signed up if it was the After School Spaghettimonster Club?

The 2001 Supreme Court Decision called Good News Club vs Milford Central School resulted in a decision that the Milford school's restriction of the Good News Club violated the Club's free speech rights, and that no Establishment Clause concern justified that violation.  If you don't remember the Establishment Clause, it's the part of the First (free speech) Amendment that prohibits the establishment of religion by Congress.  So after school programs are allowed access to school premises regardless of content.  Free speech is allowed by religious groups as well as boy scouts, debate and chess club...and Corporations, but that's a separate ball of wax.

The Good News Club is a private Christian organization for children.  Their goal is to Christianize the next generation.  They teach elementary school kids that they are sinners and that they are going to hell if they don't repent and do right by this one particular version of God.  The Child Evangelism Fellowship creates the curriculum and trains instructors.  They have over 40,000 volunteers in the US and in 2011 there were 3560 clubs in public schools in the US and over 42,000 clubs worldwide.  THIS is how they get off calling it a Christian Nation.  And they are effectively brainwashing children before they've developed the powers of discimination to know they've been hoodwinked.    A 5th grader is unlikely to really comprehend that the teachings after school are of a different nature from the teachings in school.

Because of the 2001 SCOTUS decision, Satanists have the same rights of access to public schools as Christians, so After School Satan is one answer to the Christianization.  The name is intended to provoke Christians, and it does.  There have been ample protests.  The goal is simple: to get the Christians to remove their programs from public schools, so that then the Satanists will go back into private and stop enticing their children with cool programs and rebelliousness.

One of the coolest things I heard from tonight's programs was the 7 Tenets of The Satanic Temple.  They are beautifully enlightened so I will share:

I. One should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason.

II. The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

III. One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

IV. The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo your own.

V. Beliefs should conform to our best scientific understanding of the world. We should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit our beliefs.

VI. People are fallible. If we make a mistake, we should do our best to rectify it and resolve any harm that may have been caused.

VII. Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

Wouldn't it be nice if THESE were American Values?

 It is man's pretense that because he has choice, he is free.
--Krishnamurti