AR15s Descend On Valley Life

The man walked slowly. He appeared in no hurry to reach a destination. This was strange as it was a bitter cold, New England evening. While a hood shrouded his face, he may have had a beard. There was nothing distinctive about him until he turned. A passing car’s lights revealed an object which reached from his chest to a narrowing pointing to his toes. It was an AR15. https://www.npr.org/2018/02/28/588861820/a-brief-history-of-the-ar-15

At first it seemed that he was alone. Not so. Some twenty paces behind him another man strolled as if in a park on a summer day. His knit hat made his round, hair-stubbled face clearly visible. As he passed Republican Headquarters across from the old Hopkin’s block in downtown Naugatuck, the street light revealed his AR15, also vertical and descending his body.

As if by design, the hooded man turned 180 degrees. He meandered past the second armed man simply nodding his head while doing so. Another car coming down Church Street helped illuminate the situation further. A flag indicating the late 1700s colonies of North America circled the back of the first man. Why this flag? The far-right tries to coopt this early flag as a time when women and African Americans had no or little power.

Awhile latter, a street light brought the second man, his flowing gray hair now visible, into view. There was a symbol on the back of his jacket. It was the territorial rooster of the ultra-right Proud Boys. Used by this neofascist group, it is supposed to signify masculinity and white supremist turf.

But why this display of bravado? A local businessman complained about the initials BLM chalked on a sidewalk outside his business and on the windows of his property. The local BLM group is being investigated by local police. The gun-totting men claimed, not substantiated as of this writing, that they were asked to protect downtown businesses.

Does this above fictional account seem far-fetched to you? Think again.

While we need leadership to pull our country away from Rittenhouse-type killings and displays of violence, above is a picture of Congressman Masse’s ( (R) of Kentucky) idea of a holiday card.

In 2020, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities hosted a series of regional conferences on racial equity. It promoted a “tool kit” to promote their approaches. Clearly, these conferences with racial equality on the agenda would not have happened without the large demonstrations and marches after the televised police killing of George Floyd of 2020 in June . Two such mass actions happened in Waterbury and Naugatuck.

What happened using this tool kit? Nothing, until two mass actions by students at Naugatuck High School. These were the result of racist statements by a young student and member of the Hunt Family. Implicated was the Naugatuck police chief and father of the student. The mother was an administrator at Naugatuck High School.

What happened at this juncture? Two African American women were hired in professional positions, one in the high school and one, part-time, in the police department. The Hunts continued working administratively, albeit the mother in a different school. The father has since “retired.” The student returned to Naugatuck High School. Questions about Hunt family computers being forensically investigated remain unanswered.

It all begs the most important question. What happened in the halls of political power in Naugatuck? Nothing again. When new, younger, and women of color ran for local  Burgess positions, the corporate Democrats ran for cover. When State Senator Jorge Cabrera (D) came to aid the election effort and the new candidates, one member of the Naugatuck Democratic Town Committee bothered to show up. ONE!

 After the 2021 local elections, the Board of Mayor and Burgess remains an all-white, mostly male body. The one change, it is now Republican dominated with the same republicrat, corporate Democrat Mayor Hess.

Mayor Pete Hess is so loved by both corporate Democrats and Republicans that there was a move among the Rs to cross-endorse him. The ultra-right Rs prevented the love-fest from moving forward. Extreme right-wingers like Aaron McCool (R), elected to the Board of Education, and George Andrew Maudry V (R) elected to the Board of Mayor and Burgesses, now sit in positions of power. The latter bragged on U-Tube of being at the January 6th Trump rally and march on the Capitol.

At a youth forum in October, Mr. Maudry called for more money into police department coffers. That is the exact opposite of what the Black Lives Matter marchers called for in June of 2020. Defunding translated is money moved from police departments to meet human needs e.g. housing, youth and family services, preventive health, pandemic relief, and outdoor passive recreation.

These happenings in Naugatuck are reflective of other parts of the country. Along with Republicans moving into elected positions, the threat of using violent means of accessing power remain as an option. A University of Chicago study found 21 million people believed ardently that the National election was stollen from Trump. Further they accept violent means as a way a power. https://cpost.uchicago.edu/research/domestic_extremism/why_we_cannot_afford_to_ignore_the_american_insurrectionist_movement/

A Maris poll showed 88% of Rs are dissatisfied with government’s direction. When this is combined with elected officials willing to stoke this dissatisfaction through violent means, fascism remains a clear, developing threat. https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/npr-marist-national-poll-biden-economic-stimulus-december-2021/

The reading of Martin Luther king’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech was one unified way to repudiate the racist ideology, violence, and war mongering that animates the ultra-right. The answer to the current saber-rattling at Russia over the Ukraine, and street violence, can be found in MLK’s analysis in 1967.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

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