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JuliusGoat

@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social

A.R. Moxon (he/him) is author of the novel THE REVISIONARIES and the upcoming essay book VERY FINE PEOPLE.

His newsletter is The Reframe: www.the-reframe.com
He can climb trees, but chooses not to, recognizing that trees do not attempt to climb him.

This is where he toots.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

JuliusGoat, to random
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I would like to clarify my previous statement about the worm that ate part of my brain

I have the sort of brain that can be eaten and it will not affect my performance, at all, my brain is so god damned eatable it's insane—you want a bite? you can take a bite, it's fine, it will not affect my ability to be president one way or another

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/rfk-jr-says-his-brain-was-partially-eaten-by-a-worm-that-crawled-inside-and-died-everything-you-need-to-know

JuliusGoat, to random
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Today seems like the right day to remind you that my book, VERY FINE PEOPLE, is available for preorder, and that you can get a signed personalized copy from my local bookseller—they'll ship anywhere in the world except for the realms beneath earth's crust.

https://www.schulerbooks.com/very-fine-people/9798989994908?ref=the-reframe.com

JuliusGoat, to random
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Sometimes a story comes along that makes so much sense it feels as though you knew it all along.

JuliusGoat, to random
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This is not the proclamation of an expert. This is the confession of a fool.

I should explain.

I wrote the words you’ll find between these covers after August 2017, which was a key date in my rapidly dawning awareness of the true nature of my country.

https://www.the-reframe.com/very-fine-people/

JuliusGoat,
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August 2017 is when tiki-torch waving Nazis invaded Charlottesville, Virginia, in defense of treasonous slaveholders and their own perceived supremacy.

August 2017 was also when the White Christian president defended those who marched with the Nazis as “very fine people.”

JuliusGoat,
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We know the Nazis were Nazis because they were chanting “Jews will not replace us,” and “blood and soil,” and all the other Nazi hits, and because they believed in Nazi causes and utilized Nazi symbology, and so on.

JuliusGoat,
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We know the president was the White Christian president because the people who support him overwhelmingly identify as "white" and “Christian,” and the White Christian president makes quite a show of representing U.S. citizens exclusively based on whether or not they support him.

JuliusGoat,
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And there were those who noticed that the White Christian president’s words amounted to a defense of the Nazis, and this act of observation offends his mostly white Christian supporters to no end.

JuliusGoat,
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Presidential defenders drew a distinction they expected us to find important: he was not defending the Nazis who were there, he was defending all the other people there, who were not Nazis. The very fine people didn’t chant the slogans, I suppose; they just marched for the same basic cause.

JuliusGoat,
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But I knew better then, and I imagine you did, too. The White Christian president’s words were clearly meant as a defense of the Nazis, because the presence of the very fine people did what it always does whenever very fine people find common cause with Nazis.

JuliusGoat,
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Christian nationalists and other authoritarian supremacists only ever rise on the permissive shoulders of masses of very fine people willing to lend moral authority to a monstrous cause. Their very fine presence in solidarity with monsters defends and enables the monstrousness.

JuliusGoat,
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I find myself thinking a lot about them—the very fine people.

They’re my people. I am somebody deemed “white.” I was raised Evangelical Christian. When the White Christian president made a show of representing white Christians, it is people exactly like me that he means.

JuliusGoat,
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In August 2017, the White Christian president, like all cheap hucksters, knew well which lies people would believe, knew well what lies his people wanted to hear, and knew quite well the lies they depended on for fortune and identity.

So he told the lie of the very fine people.

JuliusGoat,
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It’s a popular lie. It’s a traditional lie. It says that if you think yourself nice, and you seem nice to other nice people, then you can't possibly support evil, so what you support must be good.

For most of my life, to one extent or another, I believed it.

And so I am a fool.

JuliusGoat,
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Once upon a time, and for most of my life, I believed in the lie of very fine people.

This made me think that fascism would be unpopular, particularly with people such as us. That white supremacy had been defeated, specifically by people such as us.

And so I am a fool.

JuliusGoat,
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This was the rapidly dawning horror for me as 2015 bled into 2016: the understanding that this—THIS—was not only what my very fine people were willing to go along with, it’s what they had wanted all along.

JuliusGoat,
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This was the anointed one they’d been waiting for, the pain messiah they’d finally summoned to hurt the people they wanted to see hurt, to control the people they believed it was their natural right to control, and to ensure their comfort would continue to be treated as supreme.

JuliusGoat,
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The answer to the question “what outrages against humanity will white Christians in the United States tolerate?” proved the same as the answer to the question “what proofs of its own inhumanity will they look the other way to avoid knowing?”—that is, "anything and everything."

JuliusGoat,
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What I learned was this: the moment of falling away won’t ever come, not because very fine people don’t see the disastrous and unsustainable course we’ve set, but because they perceive some advantage within it for themselves, and so have decided to decide that the course is good.

Not just good, but goodness. Not just right, but righteousness. Not just a way of living, but “our way of living”—a phrase in which the most interesting word to ponder is “our.”

JuliusGoat,
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What is OUR meaning when we say "our?"

Who do WE mean when we say "we?"

"We" sure don’t mean everyone.

My overwhelming thought as Trump won was: “A lot of people will suffer and die because of this, and the people who voted for this know it, and knowing it makes them feel happy and safe.”

I was right about that one. Even a fool could see it.

And that left the question: so now what?

https://www.the-reframe.com/very-fine-people/

JuliusGoat, to random
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In the free newsletter today, I'm excerpting the introduction of Very Fine People, now available for presale wherever books are sold.

It's a charting of my journey of the last 7 yrs—my confession of a country I'd failed to see. I really hope you read/share it.

https://www.the-reframe.com/very-fine-people/

JuliusGoat,
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All questions (I hope) about how to preorder are answered here. See if you can come up with one I didn't address!

https://www.the-reframe.com/a-very-fine-announcement/

JuliusGoat,
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Preordering is how all the instruments of publishing decide if a book matters and is worth reviews and attention and so forth, so if you want to help me in that way, I would not hate it.

Also, personalized signed copies can be preordered here:

https://www.schulerbooks.com/very-fine-people/9798989994908?ref=the-reframe.com

JuliusGoat,
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I'm probably going to be pretty promote-y about this book for the while. Bear with me; I worked hard on it for years so I'd like it to do well, and the reality is social media is probably how that's going to happen if it's going to happen. If you want to help me in that way, I would not hate it.

JuliusGoat, to random
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Hey everyone, Very Fine People releases on June 25, and the paperback version is available for presale right now! (eBook preorders will be available later this month.)

More details right here:

https://www.the-reframe.com/a-very-fine-announcement/

JuliusGoat,
@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social avatar

This is a journey, and I'm still a fool, and the darkness we're facing is very dark indeed.

But this book is a decent snapshot of the farthest point I've come, and I have to say, looking back, I've come a long way, and have good company, which is encouraging.

https://www.the-reframe.com/a-very-fine-announcement/

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