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This might be basic, but thought I'd share today's epiphany after talking through the Martin Sostre project with my editor, in case it's helpful to anyone else grappling with liberalism as fascism and all states as fundamentally violent and coercive.
Between 1973-75, Sostre, a political prisoner in solitary confinement, refused to shave his 1/4 inch length beard and submit to cavity searches, claiming these were incursions into the "final citadels of my personality, human dignity and self respect." /2
He was beaten by "goon squads" almost a dozen times for refusing, but argued he'd prefer death rather than "submit to injustices, even minor ones. Once one starts submitting to minor injustices and rationalizing them away, their accumulation creates a major oppression." /3
Sostre understood the state as necessarily violent and coercive. He called his release from prison in 1975 as moving from "maximum" to "minimum security." If the state is violent and coercive, it is so *all the time*, and thus relies on people's consent to mask that violence. /4
When we stop consenting to everyday forms of domination, like Sostre did, the state responds with extreme and visible violence. So when we see "incipient fascism," what we're actually seeing is incipient movements rejecting daily consent to legalized and legitimate violence. /5
Sostre's reasoning, and that of other radicals, is that revoking consent emboldens individuals and movements. It pulls back the mask from the fascist racist militarism, that we call the liberal state, and demonstrates how small acts of resistant can fight wholesale domination /6
It is because wholesale domination of states is actually the sum of small acts of consent to everyday forms of violence and coercion by large masses of people. /7
Sostre, if known at all, is often considered one of the most significant jailhouse lawyers to win constitutional rights for incarcerated people. But he was also a brilliant organizer and theorist of power. Hope this is helpful to someone. Can't wait to write the book! /8
