Against All Enemies: A Battle Cry For Help

Against All Enemies is a new documentary directed by Charlie Sadoff that explores the origins of hate groups in America, and why so many veterans become parts of them. With a plethora of information and across the political spectrum insights, this is a documentary that should be paid close attention to as it shows us much that needs to be healed in this country.

why are we so far from uniity?

The film focuses on the rise of extremist, right wing political groups the likes of The Proud Boys and Q Anon, and those who stormed the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

With the aid of former veterans both in the political arena and out, Sadoff explores these extremist groups from their leaders, their recruiting sites, their grooming of lost veterans and the misinformation that they spread.

These groups hail from a long history of white supremacy, racism, and other white nationalist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, in an intricate web of lies and deception. They feed off of fear, insecurity, low education and conspiracy theories.

Using these fears and insecurities, others who want power see opportunities for success in the political arena, and create platforms that feed into them. Trump, of course, is the biggest con artist of the myriad of politicians, who spread misinformation in order to incite violent action, to realize his own dream of fascism and dictatorship, which isn’t surprising, as his own father was in the KKK.

AP

Trump’s followers in the senate and other government positions continue to do whatever they can to push the white, cis, hetero normative, including banning books, not allowing LGBTQ+ to be seen, heard or protected, abolishing the right to choose, gerrymandering and suppression of voting for black and brown communities.

With the unbelievable amount of poisonous lies, these people continue to have strong platforms to keep spreading their malcontent because no one is taking them to task.

why recruit veterans?

According to the film, these sorts of extremist groups purposely focus on our vets. They need people who are armed/know how to use weapons, have an undeniably twisted sense of patriotism and who are most susceptible to radicalization, for a sense of purpose, belonging and “family”.

The leaders tend to all be white men, educated at white, bought-in, “elite” schools, who know the law, but are generally amoral and use it to their advantages.

As I’ve seen, with a hearty history of mental health education and counseling experience, US Veterans are not taken care of. Most of the men going into the military are young and inexperienced, who come home from political wars with PTSD and all kinds of other mental health needs, only to be shutdown and not cared for by our government for their service.

Take a group of people who have been traumatized; initiated by violence and war, then left to their own devices and not slowly reintegrated back to normal society coming home; add guns to the mixture and you’ve got an explosive concoction of vitriol, misdirected pain and the need for relevance.

It’s become astonishingly difficult to know who we can trust in politics and our daily lives and many inadvertently fall victim to those who con.

Mighty Pictures

in all honesty…

Sadoff has given us such an abundance of information packed into one film that it’s hard to know where to start.

We have had a crisis of military mental health since the beginning of military history. As a supporter of our troops, I have seen the toll that war takes on them. I’ve also seen a lot of people who get denied treatment from the government programs, such as the VA, that have promised to take care of them and their families.

What makes me most angry about this subject are the rich people who continue to use and exploit them as pawns, knowing full well that they would never do the job themselves nor expect their children to go to war.

The indoctrination involved, also explained in the movie, is sickening. More laws against disinformation and the online presence of these extremist predators need to be made before anything. There’s nothing “constitutional” about conning others and creating violence against other groups of people through hatred. We have laws against hate speech so why not online?

Sadoff also has a section comparing Isis with the domestic US extremist groups. Though they have many similarities, the US doesn’t crack down on the groups here like overseas, most likely because our perps are white.

The biggest threat to our democracy are cons like Trump and those who support him. I don’t know what hold he has over his supporters, but I do know that all he cares about is becoming an all powerful dictator. He has literally said it before and praised dictators across the world.

He is using Hitler’s words and tactics in his speeches trying to convince his supporters that dictators aren’t
”so bad”, and many of his political pawns are now in jail. Trump himself has almost 100 charges against him for fraud, sexual assault and mishandling of classified government documents. What else will it take to convince his supporters? It’s so blatant it’s frightening.

Absolutely zero legitimate presidents have ever had so many lawsuits against them in US history. Is racism so powerful that many citizens would vote for someone who is showing you who they are? It’s all “Fake News” unless Trump agrees with it.

MSNBC

The battle of “wokeness” is also being manipulated by the same MAGA politicians to mean something ugly, when it’s literally just being awakened to all of the injustices of our world. When we are able to see with more clarity, we are better able to fix the problems around us. Why would anyone want to stay “asleep”?

Our political system on both sides is rigged for the super wealthy only and needs to be overhauled, no question. Replacing this with fascist, hate filled politicians and rhetoric would be epically worse than what we have now, and there is a real possibility that the US could be walking itself ignorantly and apathetically into it.

Against All Enemies brings us a multifaceted buffet of the problems at hand, asking its audience to come up with answers that most of us don’t have the knowledge or power to answer. There is little here to keep us hopeful.

Trump’s presidency has left America with multiple questions regarding legality and how to handle a corrupt president. We need to come together and demand from our elected officials that laws to protect our democracy are vitally needed now.

The rise of authoritarianism is a real threat that needs real answers and effective measures taken against it. I personally am less afraid of a second Civil War, as mentioned in the film, than Trump getting the chance to change more of the government to his liking than he already has.

We’ve been there historically in the 1940’s and fought against it. Where is that same enthusiasm now? Why haven’t we learned?

Those of us who are awakened have an obligation to fight the rise of fascism with our votes and help those who can’t see clearly to wake up and find the clarity they need.

Fighting each other will only keep us divided without the ability to break from our self created gridlock and allow fascists to slip in in the meantime.

Do we continue to support and uphold the rubbish sold to us by the 1% and toxic capitalism, or will we have the courage to do the tough work of our own healing, and demand in large numbers that this non-sustainable society, hatred and malfeasance be banished for good?

The choice is ours. Vote like your lives depend on it, because they very well may.