Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  14 The History of Christianity II in order to worship Christ and learn his teachings. By contrast, the reformers wanted the Bible to be printed and widely distributed in the local languages of Christian communities. õ Protestants disagreed about how to solve these problems. We can map their points of disagreement on a spectrum that runs roughly from the conservatives, who wanted to keep many structures and doctrines of Catholicism intact, to the radical, who wanted to throw almost everything away and start over. MARTIN LUTHER õ The Protestant spectrum begins with Martin Luther, a German monk on the conservative side. Cloistered away in an austere monastery, he found himself frustrated; the more he tried to live by God’s law, the more he just thought about his own failings. He couldn’t stop thinking about what a sinner he was. This paradox of his holy outer life and his inner selfishness drove him nearly mad. õ He was also horrified by the corruption and greed he saw in the church, like the sale of indulgences to pay off local bishops’ debts and to fund the rebuilding of a new St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Indulgences gave Catholics partial remission of punishment in Purgatory, a place of purification between heaven and hell where the soul goes after death to be purged of the lingering effects of sins committed on earth. õ In October of 1517 Luther’s anger moved him to scribble down 95 complaints about the church—the 95 Theses . Tradition says that he nailed these theses to the Wittenberg church door, but this is probably a myth. It is certain, though, that he sent his theses to his archbishop. This set in motion a series of events that would have an extraordinary impact on Western history and faith. 15Lecture 2—Luther and the Dawn of Protestantism õ The 95 Theses criticized abuses of indulgences, but this was a fairly conservative document. Luther did not call for abolishing indulgences altogether, and while he revised the doctrine of Purgatory, he still allowed for the idea of a transition place between death and heaven where people could to atone for sins in life.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  in order to worship Christ and learn his teachings. By contrast, the reformers wanted the Bible to be printed and widely distributed in the local languages of Christian communities. õ Protestants disagreed about how to solve these problems. We can map their points of disagreement on a spectrum that runs roughly from the conservatives, who wanted to keep many structures and doctrines of Catholicism intact, to the radical, who wanted to throw almost everything away and start over. MARTIN LUTHER õ The Protestant spectrum begins with Martin Luther, a German monk on the conservative side. Cloistered away in an austere monastery, he found himself frustrated; the more he tried to live by God’s law, the more he just thought about his own failings. He couldn’t stop thinking about what a sinner he was. This paradox of his holy outer life and his inner selfishness drove him nearly mad. õ He was also horrified by the corruption and greed he saw in the church, like the sale of indulgences to pay off local bishops’ debts and to fund the rebuilding of a new St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Indulgences gave Catholics partial remission of punishment in Purgatory, a place of purification between heaven and hell where the soul goes after death to be purged of the lingering effects of sins committed on earth. õ In October of 1517 Luther’s anger moved him to scribble down 95 complaints about the church—the 95 Theses. Tradition says that he nailed these theses to the Wittenberg church door, but this is probably a myth. It is certain, though, that he sent his theses to his archbishop. This set in motion a series of events that would have an extraordinary impact on Western history and faith. 14 The History of Christianity II õ The 95 Theses criticized abuses of indulgences, but this was a fairly conservative document. Luther did not call for abolishing indulgences altogether, and while he revised the doctrine of Purgatory, he still allowed for the idea of a transition place between death and heaven where people could to atone for sins in life. Lecture 2—Luther and the Dawn of Protestantism 15

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  In certain moments, however, we find it hard to accept these limits. We cannot advance in our careers or make a lot of money as quickly as we would like. We cannot get people to work with us to the degree that we want them to, so we feel frustrated. Or perhaps an old wound from childhood is suddenly reopened. If we anticipate that a partner could be ending the relationship, and we have a great fear of being abandoned stemming from parental coldness, we could easily overreact and try to control him or her, using all of our manipulative powers and turning quite aggressive. (Feelings of love often turn to hostility and aggression in people, because it is in love that we feel most dependent, vulnerable, and helpless.) In these cases, our hunger for more money, power, love, or attention overwhelms any patience we might have had. We might then be tempted to go outside the guardrails, to seek power and control in a way that violates tacit codes and even laws. But for most of us, when we cross the line, we feel uncomfortable and perhaps remorseful. We scurry back to within the guardrails, to our normal ways of trying for power and control. Such aggressive acts can occur at moments in our lives, but they do not become a pattern. This is not the case, however, with more chronically aggressive types. The sense of helplessness or frustration that we may feel upon occasion plagues them more deeply and more often. They feel chronically insecure and fragile and must cover this with an inordinate amount of power and control. Their need for power is too immediate and strong for them to accept the limits, and overrides any sense of compunction or social responsibility. It is possible that there is a genetic component to this. The psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, who specialized in the study of infants, noticed that some babies were decidedly more anxious and greedier than others. From their very first days, they would suckle on the mother’s breast as if they were attacking it and wanting to suck it dry. They needed more coddling and attention than others. Their crying and tantrums were almost impossible to stop. They felt a higher degree of helplessness that verged on continual hysteria. Such babies were in the minority, but she noticed them often enough. She speculated that those who are chronically aggressive could be adult versions of the greedy baby. They are simply born with a greater need to control everything around them. They brood more over feelings of hurt or envy—“Why should other people have more than me?”

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  business; she would work harder than all of them; she would reduce expenditures for the court, sacrificing her own income in the process; and all activity was to be directed toward lifting England out of the hole it had fallen into. She showed early on her superior knowledge of the finances of the country and the tough side of herself in any negotiation. Upon occasion, she would flash her anger if a minister seemed to be furthering a personal agenda, and such outbursts could be quite intimidating. Mostly, though, she was warm and empathetic, attuned to the various moods of these men. Soon they wanted to please her and win her approval. To not work hard or smart enough could mean isolation and some coldness, and unconsciously they wanted to avoid this. They respected the fact that she lived up to her own high standards. In this way, she slowly placed these ministers into the same position that she had found herself in: needing to gain her trust and respect through their actions. Now, instead of a cabal of conspiring, selfish ministers, the queen had a team working to further her agenda, and the results soon spoke for themselves. By these methods, Elizabeth acquired the credibility she needed, but she made one major mistake—her handling of Mary, Queen of Scots. Elizabeth had become somewhat entitled herself, feeling in this case that she knew better than her ministers and that her personal qualms about executing a fellow queen trumped everything else. She paid a price for this policy, as she felt the people’s respect for her draining away, and it pained her. Her sense of the greater good was what guided her, but in this case the greater good would be served by having Mary executed. She was violating her own principles. It took some time, but she realized her mistake. She tasked the head of her secret service to lure Mary into her most far-reaching conspiracy to get rid of Elizabeth. Now with solid evidence of Mary’s complicity, Elizabeth could take the dreaded step. In the end, going against her own feelings for the sake of the country, in essence admitting her mistake, gained her even more trust from the English. It was the kind of response to public opinion that almost no rulers of the time were capable of. When it came to her foreign rivals, particularly Philip II, Elizabeth was not naive and understood the situation: Nothing she had done had earned her any respect or respite from their endless conspiracies to get rid of her. They disrespected her as an unmarried queen and as a woman who seemed to fear conflict and warfare. She largely ignored all of this and kept to her mission of securing England’s finances. But when the invasion of England seemed imminent, she knew it was time to finally prove herself as the great strategist that she was. She would play on Philip’s underestimating of her craftiness and her toughness as a leader.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  The point of this strategy is to make you feel bad in a way that gets under your skin and causes you to think of the insinuation for days. They want to strike blows at your self-esteem. Most often they are operating out of envy. The best counter is to show that their insinuations have no effect on you. You remain calm. You “agree” with their faint praise, and perhaps you return it in kind. They want to get a rise out of you, and you will not give them this pleasure. Hinting that you might see through them will perhaps infect them with their own doubts, a lesson worth delivering. The Blame-Shifter Strategy: With certain people, you feel irritated and upset by something they have done. Perhaps you have felt used by them, or they’ve been insensitive or ignored your pleas to stop behavior that is unpleasant. Even before you express your annoyance, they seem to have picked up your mood, and you can detect some sulking on their part. And when you do confront them, they grow silent, wearing a hurt or disappointed look. It is not the silence of someone with remorse. They may respond with a “Fine. Whatever. If that’s how you feel.” Any apologies on their part are said in a way (through tone of voice or facial expressions) that subtly conveys some disbelief that they have done anything wrong. If they are really clever, in response they might conjure up something you’ve said or done in the past, which you’ve forgotten but which still rankles them, as if you are not so innocent. It doesn’t sound like something you’ve said or done, but you can’t be sure. Perhaps they will say something in their defense that pushes your buttons, and as you get angry, they can now accuse you of being hostile, aggressive, and unfair. Whatever their type of response, you are left with the feeling that perhaps you were wrong all along. Maybe you overreacted or were paranoid. You might even slightly doubt your sanity—you know you felt upset, but maybe you can’t trust your own feelings. Now you are the one to feel guilty, as if you were to blame for the tension. Better to reassess yourself and not repeat this unpleasant experience, you tell yourself. As an adjunct to this strategy, passive aggressors are often quite nice and polite to other people, only playing their games on you, since you are the one they want to control. If you try to confide in people your confusion and anger, you get no sympathy, and the blame shifting has double the effect. This strategy is a way of covering up all kinds of unpleasant behavior, of deflecting any kind of criticism, and of making people skittish about ever calling them on what they are doing.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  I saw all the blocks in our city you were too busy at work to know about, blocks where things happend. Things even Trevor, having lived all his life on this side of the river, the white side, the one I was now riding on, never saw. I saw the lights on Asylum Ave., where there used to be an asylum (that was actually a school for the deaf) that caught fire and killed half a ward back in 18-something and to this day no one knows what caused it. But I know it as the street where my friend Sid lived with his family after they came over from India in ’95. How his mom, a schoolteacher back in New Delhi, went door-to-door, hobbling on her bloated diabetic feet selling hunting knives for Cutco to make ninety-seven dollars a week—cash. There were the Canino brothers, whose father was in jail for what seemed like two lifetimes for going seventy on a sixty-five in front of a state trooper on 91. That and the twenty bags of heroin and the Glock under his passenger seat. Still, still. There was Marin, who took the bus forty-five minutes each way to work at the Sears in Farmington, who always had gold around her neck and ears, whose high heels clacked like the slowest, most deliberate applause when she walked to the corner store for cigarettes and Hot Cheetos, her Adam’s apple jutting out, a middle finger to the men who called her faggot, called her homomaphedite. Who’d say, holding their daughter’s or son’s hand, “I’m gonna kill you, bitch, I’m gonna cut you, AIDS gonna take you out. Don’t sleep tonight, don’t sleep tonight, don’t sleep tonight. Don’t sleep.”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “It’s bullshit,” I told them both. When they went back to yelling at the scabs and the cops, I stood next to Duffy. “What’s up?” he asked. I shrugged. “Are you a communist?” I was hoping he’d laugh, or at least look startled, but instead he had a sad look in his eyes. “Do we need to talk about it now?” he asked. “T told them it was bullshit,” I said. “It is bullshit, isn’t it?” “Can we talk about it later?” he asked me again. I nodded, but I wished we could have worked it out right there. I just wanted to hear him say it wasn’t true. The cops suddenly put on their riot helmets and took out their clubs. We all tensed and gathered in front of the barricades. They were ready to bring the scabs in past us. We roared so loud that people from the nearby projects came out to watch. We rattled the barricades to remind the cops and scabs how frail the wood was, and held up our signs, loosely stapled to two-by-fours. As the scabs moved closer, one of them pulled out a blackjack and hit Frankie’s fingers which were resting on the barricade. Jan got so mad when she saw that happen she cracked the scab over the head with Stone Butch Blues 105 her picket sign. The cops grabbed Jan and pulled her right over the barricades. They threw her up against the police van and roughed her up. Three strikers tried to jump the barricades to help Jan, but the cops nabbed them and handcuffed them. All four were thrown into the back of the police van. “Duffy,” I yelled, over the confusion. “Duffy, we got to get her out of there. Help her!” Duffy worked his way through the crowd. “Jess, we got four union people in the van.” “Duffy, you don’t understand. Think about it. It’s different for her to get busted. Please listen.” I didn’t have time to explain. Duffy took my arm and looked into my face for the answer. I let him see the fear and the shame in a way I’d never voluntarily let a man see before. Duffy nodded. He understood. Duffy pushed his way to the barricade, lifted his work boot, and kicked it over. “C’mon,” he signaled the strikers. The cops were caught off-guard as we surged past them. There were skirmishes, but most of us made it to the police wagon and surrounded it. People from the projects formed an outer circle around us. “Let them go,” we rocked the van. “Let them go! Let them go!” An ashen-faced cop wearing gold bars whispered to the officers nearby. We closed in around 106 = Leslie Feinberg them. Quickly they opened the van. Four sets of handcuffs were unlocked. Just as fast as they'd been busted, the four were free.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  larger and offered better positions; others joined the Red Rebels because they hated Fangpu and Little Bawang; and others thought one group or the other was more revolutionary. Jianhua joined the Red Rebels, as did his friend Zongwei. Each side felt certain it represented the true spirit of the Cultural Revolution, and as they yelled at one another and argued, fistfights broke out, and there was nobody to stop them. Soon students were bringing bats and sticks to the fights, and the injuries mounted. One day some members of the East-Is-Red Corps captured some Red Rebels and held them prisoners. The Red Rebels could not find out anything about their fate. In the middle of this tense moment, the Red Rebels discovered that one of their members, a female student named Yulan, was actually a spy for the other side. Infuriated by such tactics, they tied Yulan up and began to beat her, to find out if there were more spies. Much to the dismay of Jianhua, who considered this a betrayal of their ideals, they battered and bruised her, but she revealed nothing. Soon Yulan was exchanged for the prisoners held by the East-Is- Red Corps, but now the antipathy between the two sides had reached a breaking point. A few weeks later, the East-Is-Red Corps suddenly left school en masse and established their headquarters in a building in town that they seized. Mengzhe decided to form a team of guerrilla fighters who would operate in Yizhen at night to keep an eye on the Corps and do some sabotage work. Jianhua was assigned to them as a reporter. It was an exciting job. As they encountered the enemy in town, battles with slingshots erupted. Then the Corps captured one of the Rebel guerrillas, named Heping. A few days later, he was discovered in a hospital, dead. The Corps had taken him for a ride in a jeep in the desert, with a sock in his mouth, and he had suffocated along the way. Now even Mengzhe had had enough and vowed revenge for this horrible deed. Jianhua could only agree with him. As the skirmishes spread throughout the town, citizens fled and entire buildings were abandoned, and looters scoured them for goods. The Red Rebels were soon on the offensive. Working with local craftsmen, they manufactured the highest-quality swords and spears. Casualties mounted. Finally the Rebels encircled the Corps’s stronghold in town and prepared for a final offensive. The Corps fled, leaving behind a small band of student soldiers in the building. The Rebels demanded their surrender, and suddenly, from a third-floor window, there was the young student Yulan screaming out, “I’d rather die than surrender to you!” With the Corps’s bright red flag in her hand, she shouted, “Long live Chairman Mao!” and jumped. Jianhua found her lifeless body wrapped up in the flag on the ground. Her devotion to the cause astounded and impressed him. Now in control, the Red Rebels established their headquarters at

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “Bullshit,” Boney waved his arms around. “It was a fucking accident, that’s all”’ We wanted to kill him. “The bet’s off?’ Grant shouted. “You fucking cowards,” Boney said. The bet was back on. Duffy paced. “This is a mistake,” he muttered. “Yeah?” I asked him angrily. “Who’re you rooting for?” “The union,” he shot back at me. “Then you better hope that our team wins, not Boney’s and Jack’s,” I told him. Duffy mulled that over for a second and then smiled. “You're right.” Duffy clapped his hands and shouted, “C’mon, Jan,” as she headed to the plate. Jan hit the ball up high in the air. We all poised and watched it fall—right into Jack’s glove. It was our third out. We were up one run, but our opponents had another inning. Sammy was up to bat first. He hit the ball smack into Grant’s glove. Before he dropped the bat, he gave me a wink I could see all the way from my position on first base. Tommy was up next. He hit a weak grounder that Grant scooped up at third base, but he made it to first. 94 Leslie Feinberg “Tm sorry,” he whispered. “Fuck you.” I was still mad at him. Jack drove a low grounder into our weak spot in center field and loped toward my base. “After Boney gets done with you, I want sloppy seconds,” Jack sneered. I tried to keep my mind on the game. Walter was up next. He stepped up to the plate, tapped the dirt off his shoes with the bat, and wiggled his butt into position. He hit a pop-fly high into the ait. We all pushed our caps back and watched it fall easily into Jan’s glove. Walter pulled the brim of his cap and walked away from home plate with a spring in his step. Boney stepped up to the plate. We directed every bit of our hatred toward him, but he seemed unscathed. He swung at the first pitch with power and missed. “Strike one,” we all yelled. He swung angrily at the second pitch and missed. “Strike two,” we called out in elation. We began to heckle him for all we were worth. The crack of Boney’s bat against the third pitch silenced us. We all looked up in the sky as the ball seemed to float in midair. Tommy hovered around third base, as mesmerized as we were. Jack ran toward third and shouted at Tommy to run. Jim Boney slid toward first base.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  He sighed. “So I'd be willing to file a grievance to get you or any of the other women a Grade Five job. Just not that job.” I wanted to punch him out. “Why the fuck not, Duffy?” He put his arm lightly on my shoulder. I shook it off. My fists were balled up at my sides. “Listen, Goldberg, Jack and Boney are setting you up.” I was confused. “What’s Jim Boney got to do with this? Duffy pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I took it. “You know Leroy? Well, he’s a Grade Four. Most of the time they have him sweeping up.” I exhaled slowly. “Shit, I didn’t know that.” Duffy nodded. “He’s been bidding for the Grade Five job now for more than a year. When Freddie got drafted last month, Leroy told Jack he wanted the job. Jack kept stalling him. Leroy finally came to me and asked me to help him fight for the job, so we filed a grievance.” The picture was coming into focus. “Jack is using you. Boney’s a union man, but he’s such a fucking racist he’d rather block with Jack than work with the Black guy. Leroy deserves that job,” Duffy added. “Well, so do I,” I argued, but I said it without much steam. Duffy could see me wrestling with what he said. “Yeah, you do. And [ll help you push to get a higher grade job if you want to fight for it, just not this job. Stick with me on this one, Goldberg. It’s really important for the union right now.” “Why now?” I asked. “Our contract’s up at the end of October. The company will do anything to split us up right now to make it harder for us to strike if we have to. We need to stick together.” I sulked. “Look, Duffy, ?'m for the union, you know that. But butches can’t even come to union meetings.” Duffy looked confused. I explained to him that we were allowed to drink downstairs at the union hall, but we weren’t allowed to go upstairs to the meeting. Stone Butch Blues 81 “Who says?” he wanted to know. “That’s the way it is. That’s the way it’s always been, as far as I’ve heard.” Duffy put his arm around my shoulder. “Look, help Leroy win this one. As soon as the strike’s over, you get the butches together, and I’ll get as many of the stewards as possible, and we’ll all go into the ratification meeting as a group and insist on your right to be there.” It sounded like change. “I guess,” I told him. “But how come we have to wait till after the strike?” He knitted his eyebrows. “Well, we don’t. It’s just that there’s gonna be an explosion about Leroy, one way ot the other. ’m trying to hold things together this summer, so that we’re strong if we need to strike, you know?”

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  The soldiers became drunk. They shouted cheers to the king and oaths to the monarchy. They sang ballads ridiculing the French people in the raunchiest terms. They grabbed handfuls of the tricolor badges and ribbons that symbolized the revolution and trampled them with their boots. The king and the queen, so despondent of late, took this all in with undisguised delight—it was a taste of years gone by, when the very sight of the royal couple inspired such displays of affection. But news of what had transpired at this banquet quickly spread to Paris, and it caused outrage and panic. Parisians of all classes suspected that the king was planning some sort of countercoup. They imagined the nobility returning under Louis’s command and exacting revenge on the French people. Within days, the king learned that thousands of Parisians were now marching on Versailles. They were armed and dragging cannons. He thought of escaping with his family but hesitated. Soon it was too late, as the mob arrived. On the morning of October 6, a group of citizens penetrated into the palace, killing everyone in their path. They demanded that Louis and his family be escorted back to Paris, so that the French citizens could keep an eye on him and ensure his loyalty to the new order. Louis had no choice: he and his traumatized family piled into a single carriage. As they made their way to Paris, surrounded by the crowd, Louis could see the heads of the king’s personal guard paraded on long pikes. What shocked him even more was the sight of so many men and women surrounding the carriage, dressed in rags, thinned by hunger, pressing their faces to the window and swearing at him and the queen in the vilest language. He could not recognize his own subjects. These were not the French people he had known. They must be outside agitators, brought in by enemies to destroy the monarchy. Somehow the world had gone mad. In Paris the king, his family, and the few courtiers who had remained with them were housed in the Tuileries, a royal residence that had been uninhabited for over a hundred years. Within a week of his arrival in Paris, the king received a visit from a strange man whose face and manner frightened him. It was Georges-Jacques Danton, now one of the leaders of the French Revolution. On behalf of the French people, he had come to welcome the king to Paris. He explained that he had been a member of the King’s Council, and he reassured the king that the people were grateful for his submission to their will and that there was still an important part for him to play as a monarch who swore allegiance to a new constitution. Louis could barely listen. He was transfixed by the man’s enormous head, by the strange outfit he wore (black satin breeches over white silk stockings, and buckled shoes, a mix of fashion styles

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Annie introduced me to all her people who’d traveled up to Buffalo for the wedding. She stayed on my atm the whole time. I met Cousin Wilma. She flashed an evil smile. “How wonderful it was of you to agree to come with Annie today.” Annie squeezed my arm like a tourniquet. “It’s my pleasure.” I put my hand on Annie’s hand which was cutting off the circulation in my arm. Without taking my eyes off Annie’s I told Wilma, “It isn’t everyday that a woman as strong and beautiful as Annie will give me the time of day.” Wilma turned on her heel, and Annie chuckled into my shoulder. “Get us a bottle of champagne,” she said. I did. “How many glasses, sir?” the bartender asked me. “One.” I picked up a small bottle of club soda. “Can I have this?” The bartender nodded. “What’s that for?” Annie wanted to know. “Hell, somebody’s got to drive us home.” She kissed me so tenderly right then and there under the tent that not a man or a woman within eyesight didn’t stare wistfully. Annie and I found a shady place under a tree where we could watch all the goings-on. She kicked off her shoes. I put my suit jacket down for her to sit on. Annie shook her head. “Your momma sute taught her little boy some mannets.” She gave me the lowdown on all her folks: who was a closet drunk, who beat ot cheated on their wife and who was giving it to the milkman. “That fag,” she said contemptuously. I was stunned at the hatred in her eyes. She was glaring at a man in his early fifties. His arm was around the shoulder of one of the many aunts who roamed the reception. “Who let that queer in here?” Annie hissed. “Ts he really gay?” I asked her. “You bet. Probably fuckin’ all the children in the family.” “Jeez, Annie.” My blood ran cold. “How can you hate somebody just because of who they love?” She looked at me with shock. “You like faggots?” I shrugged. “We aren’t all the same, Annie. So what?” She shook her head and spat on the ground. “I wouldn’t let a faggot near my daughter.” I thought before I spoke. “Annie, if anybody was gonna fuck with Kathy it would probably be a straight guy, not a gay man.” “Yeahr” she yelled. Annie stood up and gripped the champagne bottle tightly at her side. “Well, I ain’t lettin’ no funny men around my daughter. I left my own husband ’cause I caught him molesting Kathy. I tried to kill the man with my bare hands. No fucking fags are coming near my girl, you understand?” I did understand that this conversation could go no further. Annie kicked up some dirt and grass with her pumps and then sat down again. “Aw, shit, what’re we wasting our time talkin’ about queers for anyway?”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  In the US., the media works around the clock to “justify” covert and overt wars for economic and geo-strategic advantage—from threatening “regime change” through fomenting and arming reaction and counter-revolution, lynching leaders of other countries, psychological operations, overwhelming military force, troop occupations, formations of mercenary armies, and emboldening fascist forces. LESSONS OF THE PINK TRIANGLE As a white, working-class, Jewish, transgender lesbian revolutionary, I too have studied the historical lessons of the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain— attempts to save capitalism for the 1%. These lessons inform my life’s direct action. ... I see that the Kolektiv Queer Beograd, the Belgrade Pride organizers, and “Antifa in Action” are 345 Stone Butch Blues showing great bravery and steadfastness in the face of attacks and threats from fascist forces, with reported state and police collusion. FIGHTING RACISM, FASCISM & WAR FROM INSIDE THE USS. Domestically in the U.S.—during this period of capitalist economic crisis—apartheid passbook laws are being written into law; undocumented workers are being rounded up, detained and face mass deportations; Muslims are targets of this state “war of terror’; and white supremacist, fascist shock troops are receiving arms and funding. Racist, fascist massacres targeted Black people in Tulsa, Oklahama—the second anti-Black massacre in the city’s history—and took the lives of Sikhs at a temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Police gun down people of color with virtual legal impunity. Youth of color in the U.S. are facing no jobs, no recreation centers, no education or massive student debt, police “stop and frisk” actions, racist passbook laws, the school-to-prison pipeline, homelessness, lack of health care, no place to gather, and curtailed freedom of travel due to curfews—official and unofficial. 346 = Leslie Feinberg The rise of fascist bullying has led many opptessed youths to end their own lives. Others are organizing, and winning activist support from all generations, to fight back! ‘FREE CECE NOW? A war against transwomen—particularly women of color—is claiming lives from Oakland, California; to Chicago, Illinois; to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But CeCe McDonald survived! CeCe McDonald, a young Black (trans)woman, and her friends were violently attacked by a group of whites who identified themselves as fascist by their actions, slurs, and swastika tattoo. CeCe was badly cut at the onset of the attack, in which one fascist died. Today, CeCe is in prison, and her friends have reported ongoing racist, fascist harassment. CeCe McDonald’s courage and tenacity has inspired liberationist currents in the U.S. political struggle, and in countries around the world. I took direct action on June 4, 2012—on the one-year anniversary of the attack, and the day CeCe McDonald was sentenced to prison. I wrote the peoples’ verdict on the jailhouse wall: “FREE CECE NOW!” As a journalist, author and proud member of the National Writers Union/UAW Local 1981—I’m most proud of writing those three words.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “It’s just so fucking dangerous for you to go back to the life,” I argued. “Don’t you remember why you quit?” That last thing I said was a big mistake. I realized it when she picked up the nearest dish and sent it sailing across the room in my direction. I ducked. “You condescending, motherfucking son-of-a- bitch,” she shouted. “Don’t you think I know the life better than you do, you bastard?” We were both quiet for a moment. I decided to do the dishes. Milli leaned up against the kitchen counter with her arms folded across her breasts watching me. “T just can’t stand the thought of any guy, anybody hurting you.” I said it as quietly as I could. Milli grabbed a dishtowel and started drying the dishes. It was a good sign. “How do you think I feel,’ she asked, “when you’re bouncer at the bar on the weekends and there’s a fight?” She got herself all worked up again. “For christsakes what’s the fucking difference between you being a bouncer and me working as a hostess?” “A dancer,” I clarified. “You know I’d be wortied every fucking minute you were late from your shift.” “Well, fuck you then. That’s your problem, baby, not mine.” Milli did a double take at me and dropped her gaze. I thought maybe she was sorry she had said that. “T’m sorry,” she told me. “It’s just I can’t stand it when someone does this moral thing with me.” “Goddamn you!” Now I was yelling. “Ever since you met me you’ve been waiting for me to make one fucking mistake, say one wrong thing about you being a pro.” “An ex-pro,” she said sarcastically. “It’s no goddamn joke. I never laid any bullshit on you about it. You know that. But every time we have a fight you’re lying in wait, just hoping you'll make me so mad I'll make a mistake. Then you could leave.” Milli smiled for the first time since I came home and told her I’d been laid off. “What’s so funny?” I asked sullenly. Stone Butch Blues W5 “T like you,” she said softly. I turned back to the sink and shook my head so she could see that I was exasperated. She turned me around. There was a teally warm look on her face. She kissed me on the mouth. I kissed her back. Then I turned around to finish the dishes. She turned me around again. “We have to pay the rent. It’s just for a while. I don’t like it any better than you do.” I laughed. “Bullshit!” She raised one eyebrow, daring me to pursue it. “There’s parts of the life you like a lot,’ I told her. “I know that.”

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  His father never quite recovered from her early death and passed away two years later. Now, at the age of nineteen, young Howard was alone in the world, having lost the two people who had been his closest companions and who had directed every phase of his life. His relatives decided they would have to fill the void and give the young man the guidance he needed. But in the months after the death of his father, they suddenly had to confront a Howard Hughes Jr. they had never seen before or suspected. The soft-spoken young man suddenly became rather abusive. The obedient boy was now the complete rebel. He would not continue college as they advised. He would not follow any of their recommendations. The more they insisted, the more belligerent he became. Inheriting the family wealth, young Howard could now become completely independent, and he meant to take this as far as he could. He immediately went to work to buy out all of the shares in the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company that his relatives possessed and to gain complete control of the highly lucrative business. Under Texas law he could petition the courts to declare him an adult, if he could prove himself competent enough to assume the role. Hughes befriended a local judge and soon got the declaration he wanted. Now he could run his own life and the tool company with no interference. His relatives were shocked by all of this, and soon both sides would cut off almost all contact with each other for the rest of their lives. What had changed the sweet boy they had known into this hyperaggressive, rebellious young man? It was a mystery they would never solve. Shortly after declaring his independence, Howard settled in Los Angeles, where he was determined to follow his two newest passions—filmmaking and piloting airplanes. He had the money to indulge himself in both of these interests, and in 1927 he decided to combine them, producing an epic, high-budget film about airmen during World War I, to be called Hell’s Angels . He hired a director and a team of writers to come up with the script, but he had a falling- out with the director and fired him. He then hired another director, Luther Reed, a man who was also an aviation buff and could relate better to the project, but soon he quit, tired of Hughes’s constant interfering in the project. His last words to Hughes were “If you know so much, why don’t you direct it yourself?” Hughes followed his advice and named himself the director. The budget began to soar as he strove for the utmost in realism.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  16 The History of Christianity II õ The key factor is that Luther said the pope did not have the control over Purgatory that he claimed to have. Only God could grant forgiveness. When the pope at the time, Pope Leo X, got wind of this, he wasn’t too concerned at first. He only started to worry when Luther began gathering followers all over Germany and seriously cutting into his profits from indulgences. õ The 95 Theses are famous, and the day Luther made them known, October 31, 1517, is commonly called Reformation Day and marked as the start of the Protestant Reformation. But the insight that truly caused Luther to break from the Catholic Church was a personal revelation. õ Luther’s personal revelation, which came after studying the Bible for hours and days on end, was this: Good works alone can’t earn you a place in heaven. Luther concluded that when we believe that Jesus is our savior, then God decides to view us differently, even though we remain as sinful as ever. We can sum up Luther’s idea with the slogan sola fide , meaning “by faith alone.” Following the law doesn’t save people, but faith, which is a gift by God’s grace, does. õ Luther found this liberating. He gave up the monastic life and married a former nun—he noted, as many reformers did, that there was nothing in the Bible saying priests had to be celibate. And he let his dirty mouth run wild, insulting his targets with colorful language. õ Luther taught that the priesthood is a profession just like any other; clergy are not special. Catholic theology elevated priests and monks above laypeople, but according to Luther, priests were just as depraved as everyone else, and if works don’t save people, then there was no longer any rationale for monasticism at all.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  She dropped her eyes. “I’ve done something terrible. Jess, I was just trying to help. I let myself in next door and found the name of the company where you work on the check stubs you keep on the kitchen table. I thought if I called you in sick, you might be able to keep your job. I told them you got mugged and you’d be out for a week or two. Jess, I referred to you as she. I wasn’t thinking. They heard it. ’m so sorry. I know it means I lost that job for you.” 288 = Leslie Feinberg Ruth touched my face. “I know you must be really mad at me.” I shook my head. It was a mistake, that’s all. I thought about Duffy, the union organizer who'd done the same thing, and I forgave him in retrospect. I fluttered my hand to ask for something to write with. Ruth came back with a pen and paper. My right hand was stiff and sore, but the words I wrote were legible—the message life had given me another chance to deliver. Ruth read the words out loud: Thank _you for your love. And then we cried together. I visited the graphic arts employment agency in person and wrote down that I was looking for work. I started a new job the same night. That’s when I realized ’'d become a valuable typesetter. Christmas was a month and a half away and the third shift could hardly handle the volume of work the ad agencies were sending over. I took all the overtime they offered. I wanted a chunk of money, fast. At night I lived inside the coding strings, my face illuminated by the ghostly light of the terminal. The code phrases became my poetry. The curves of type against space sang to me: the melody meant everything, the words meant very little. At dawn I worked out at the gym, pausing only when the throbbing in my head frightened me. I moved my will to live down deeper into my body. Since my rage and frustration couldn’t escape through my clamped jaws, I screamed through my muscles. I thought I might explode with rage. At first working out at the gym reduced the pressure, but after a while the frenzied workouts became part of it. I was a time bomb, ticking, ticking, moments away from detonation. I didn’t sleep very much, just a few hours in the morning and late afternoon. I feared losing consciousness, afraid ’'d never find my way back. Ruth seemed worried about how much time I spent away from the apartment. I could tell by the relief on her face every day when I knocked on her door to check in with her. “Where do you go?” she’d sigh as she poured me a protein shake. I could tell she didn’t expect an answer.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  If people take an action that seems out of character, you will take note: what often appears out of character is actually more of their true character. If people are essentially lazy or foolish, they leave clues to this in the smallest of details that you can pick up well before their behavior harms you. The ability to gauge people’s true worth, their degree of loyalty and conscientiousness, is one of the most important skills you can possess, helping you avoid the bad hires, partnerships, and relationships that can make your life miserable. Third, the Laws will empower you to take on and outthink the toxic types who inevitably cross your path and who tend to cause long- term emotional damage. Aggressive, envious, and manipulative people don’t usually announce themselves as such. They have learned to appear charming in initial encounters, to use flattery and other means of disarming us. When they surprise us with their ugly behavior, we feel betrayed, angry, and helpless. They create constant pressure, knowing that in doing so they overwhelm our minds with their presence, making it doubly hard to think straight or strategize. The Laws will teach you how to identify these types in advance, which is your greatest defense against them. Either you will steer clear of them or, foreseeing their manipulative actions, you will not be blindsided and thus will be better able to maintain your emotional balance. You will learn to mentally cut them down to size and focus on the glaring weaknesses and insecurities behind all of their bluster. You will not fall for their myth, and this will neutralize the intimidation they depend on. You will scoff at their cover stories and elaborate explanations for their selfish behavior. Your ability to stay calm will infuriate them and often push them into overreaching or making a mistake. Instead of being weighed down by these encounters, you might even come to appreciate them as a chance to hone your skills of self-mastery and toughen yourself up. Outsmarting just one of these types will give you a great deal of confidence that you can handle the worst in human nature. Fourth, the Laws will teach you the true levers for motivating and influencing people, making your path in life that much easier. Normally, when we meet resistance to our ideas or plans, we cannot help trying to directly change people’s minds by arguing, lecturing, or cajoling them, all of which makes them more defensive. The Laws will teach you that people are naturally stubborn and resistant to influence. You must begin any attempt by lowering their resistance and never inadvertently feeding their defensive tendencies.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Occasionally, they have had the opportunity to carry out this impulse in action. Some of these women have been tried and sentenced for murder because the time elapsed was viewed as evidence of premeditation. Injustices have most certainly occurred due to general ignorance of the biological drama those women were playing out. A number of these women may have been acting upon the profound (and delayed) self-protective responses of rage and counterattack that they experienced as they came out of agitated immobility; and thus their reprisal (though much delayed) may have been biologically motivated, and not necessarily premeditated revenge, despite the outward appearance. These killings might have been prevented if effective treatment for the traumatized women had been available at the time. In contrast, non-traumatized individuals who feel angry are well aware that (as much as they may “feel like murdering” even a spouse or their children) they obviously wouldn’t actually try to kill the object of their anger. As traumatized individuals begin to come out of immobility, they frequently experience eruptions of intense anger or rage. But fearing that they may actually hurt others (or themselves), they exert a tremendous effort to deflect and suppress that rage, almost before they feel it. When one is flooded by rage, the frontal parts of the brain “shut down.” 50 Because of this extreme imbalance, the capacity to stand back and observe one’s sensations and emotions is lost; rather, one becomes those emotions and sensations. f Hence, the rage can become utterly overwhelming, causing panic and the stifling of such primitive impulses, turning them inward and preventing a natural exit from the immobility reaction. Maintaining this suppression requires a tremendous expenditure of energy. One is, essentially, doing to oneself what experimenters have done to animals to reinforce and protract their immobilization. Traumatized individuals repeatedly frighten themselves as they begin to come out of immobility. The “fear-potentiated immobility” is maintained from within. The vicious cycle of intense sensation/rage/fear locks a person in the biological trauma response. A traumatized individual is literally imprisoned, repeatedly frightened and restrained—by his or her own persistent physiological reactions and by fear of those reactions and emotions. This vicious cycle of fear and immobility (a.k.a. fear-potentiated immobility) prevents the response from ever fully completing and resolving as it does in wild animals. The Living Dead Rage/counterattack is one consequence of repetitive fear-induced immobilization; the other is death. Death might occur, for example, when the cat persists in recapturing the mouse, repeating the cycle many times. The cat bats his prey until the mouse finally goes so deeply into immobility that it dies, even though uninjured.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, All the causes of anger are reduced to slight. For slight is of three kinds, as stated in Rhet. ii, 2, viz. “contempt,” “despiteful treatment,” i.e. hindering one from doing one’s will, and “insolence”: and all motives of anger are reduced to these three. Two reasons may be assigned for this. First, because anger seeks another’s hurt as being a means of just vengeance: wherefore it seeks vengeance in so far as it seems just. Now just vengeance is taken only for that which is done unjustly; hence that which provokes anger is always something considered in the light of an injustice. Wherefore the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 3) that “men are not angry—if they think they have wronged some one and are suffering justly on that account; because there is no anger at what is just.” Now injury is done to another in three ways: namely, through ignorance, through passion, and through choice. Then, most of all, a man does an injustice, when he does an injury from choice, on purpose, or from deliberate malice, as stated in Ethic. v, 8. Wherefore we are most of all angry with those who, in our opinion, have hurt us on purpose. For if we think that some one has done us an injury through ignorance or through passion, either we are not angry with them at all, or very much less: since to do anything through ignorance or through passion takes away from the notion of injury, and to a certain extent calls for mercy and forgiveness. Those, on the other hand, who do an injury on purpose, seem to sin from contempt; wherefore we are angry with them most of all. Hence the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 3) that “we are either not angry at all, or not very angry with those who have acted through anger, because they do not seem to have acted slightingly.” The second reason is because a slight is opposed to a man’s excellence: because “men think little of things that are not worth much ado” (Rhet. ii, 2). Now we seek for some kind of excellence from all our goods. Consequently whatever injury is inflicted on us, in so far as it is derogatory to our excellence, seems to savor of a slight. Reply to Objection 1: Any other cause, besides contempt, through which a man suffers an injury, takes away from the notion of injury: contempt or slight alone adds to the motive of anger, and consequently is of itself the cause of anger. Reply to Objection 2: Although a dumb animal does not seek honor as such, yet it naturally seeks a certain superiority, and is angry with anything derogatory thereto.