OMG, Patris! I'm so sorry you lived through the fascist coup in Greece. I hope everyone in your family survived. My father took my family to see the movie "Z" by Costa-Gavras, which is based on that era in Greece, when it came out in December of 1969. I was young then and don't remember it very well. I'd like to see it again.
Tanks in the street, coming up the boulevard where we lived. Soldiers in the street, one who pointed his rifle at my sister at the corner as I watched from the balcony of our apartment. My father taking my brother and his friend with him to line up to buy groceries so that we’d have supplies in the house if everything collapsed.
Surreal. and her husband, who’d taken part in student protests in the past were arrested, their 2 year old attaching himself to her leg, pulled away by my aunt crying as his parents were taken to a prison camp.
As Americans we were protected. But it was all around us. Curfews, knowing agents were everywhere - in restaurants listening to people talk.
Terrifying. Most Americans other than immigrants have never been out of the country, speak only English, "don't know much about his-tor-y, don't know much geography", and therefore have no idea what living in an authoritartian or fascist police state would be like. They flatter themselves that only the people they don't like would be targeted by the authorities.
I deeply wish that student exchange programs were more widely offered. Not to authoritarian states though - simply any relatively sane country - so that our children would get some idea of the wider world.
I don’t think that you are being paranoid at all. Trump’s followers and “Christian Nationalists” are salivating for the chance to do this. I am reminded of the series “The Man in the High Castle”, a show that imagines a dystopian future where the Nazis win and the United States becomes a part of the Greater German Reich, and Americans are the Nazis running it.
I don’t think that what you say is out of the realm of possibility.
We are moving closer and closer to being able to make a valid comparison between t-Rump and Hitler. In order to capture every illegal, they'd have to round up everyone with an even vaguely Hispanic-or Arabic-sounding surname, and that would include naturalized citizens and people who have lived in the USA for generations. Does this sound a little like Germany and Jews? T-rump hasn't yet assured his faithful worshipers that his TRUE plan is to put all "those people" to death-- he says he’s just gonna deport them-- but we can be sure our home-grown madman and his minions dream of exterminating everyone who isn't a white Christian. Sounds exaggerated and insane? No more so than what Hitler actually attempted to carry out. (With support from most of those white-Christian Germans.)
But the Nazi leadership soon realized this was impractical (tentative plans to force the Jews to Madagascar were dropped in the face of the logistical difficulties, plus the war) and too expensive, and after all, it was so much easier to simply work them to death or kill them outright.
Just wait. If trump does win by some fuckery, we had better hope that Canada and/or Mexico treats us better than we've treated many. Imagine if those borders closed.🔒
Well, during the demonstrations in Portland, they were just grabbing people off the streets and throwing them into unmarked minivans. That was perilously close to being disappeared.
True enough as far as it goes. It's also a reminder of just how toxic it is to have violent anarchists repeatedly attempt to hijack nonviolent protest movements, going all the way back and before the "Days of Rage" in 1969 staged by the split from the Students for a Democratic Society aka "The Weathermen." For sure the language in the Port Huron Statement* (1962) never countenanced that, and it was a disastrous development for progressive politics.
"The Port Huron Statement[1] is a 1962 political manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).[2] It was written by SDS members, and completed on June 15, 1962, at a United Auto Workers (UAW) retreat outside of Port Huron, Michigan (now part of Lakeport State Park), for the group's first national convention.[3] Under Walter Reuther's leadership, the UAW paid for a range of expenses for the 1962 convention, including use of the UAW summer retreat in Port Huron.[4]
Origins and impact
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SDS developed from the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), the youth branch of a socialist educational organization known as the League for Industrial Democracy (LID).[5] LID descended from the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, started in 1905. Early in 1960, the SLID changed its name into Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Port Huron Statement was adopted at the organization's first convention in 1962, and was based on an earlier draft by staff member Tom Hayden.[6]
The Port Huron Statement was a broad critique of the political and social system of the United States for failing to achieve international peace and economic justice. In foreign policy, the statement took issue with the American government's handling of the Cold War,[5] both the existential threat of nuclear war, and the actual arms race. In domestic matters, it criticized racial discrimination, economic inequality, big businesses, trade unions, and political parties. In addition to its critique and analysis of the American system, the statement also suggested a series of reforms: it proclaimed a need to reshape into two genuine political parties to attain greater democracy, for stronger power for individuals through citizen's lobbies, for more substantial involvement by workers in business management, and for an enlarged public sector with increased government welfare, including a "program against poverty." The document provided ideas of what and how to work for and to improve, and also advocated nonviolent civil disobedience as the means by which student youth could bring forth the concept of "participatory democracy."
The statement also presented SDS's break from the mainstream liberal policies of the postwar years.[3] It was written to reflect their view that all problems in every area were linked to each other. The statement expressed SDS's willingness to work with groups whatever their political inclination. In doing so, they sought the rejection of the extant anti-communism of the time. In the concurrent Cold War environment, such a statement of inclusion for the heretofore "evil" Communist ideology, and by extension, socialist concepts, was definitely seen as a new, radical view contrasting with the position of much of the traditional American Left. The latter had developed a largely anti-communist orthodoxy in the wake of the HUAC and Army-McCarthy hearings. Without being Marxist or pro-communism, the Port Huron conference denounced anti-communism as being a social problem and an obstruction to democracy. They also criticized the United States for its exaggerated paranoia and exclusive condemnation of the Soviet Union, and blamed this for being the reason for failing to achieve disarmament and to assure peace. " *******
It's really not possible to make sense out of all sorts of subsequent developments with some
Yes. The most effective way for Americans to protest en masse would be to emulate Gandhi with massive passive resistance and a national strike. Refusing to work or consume or pay taxes; blocking roadways; non-cooperation with authorities; all that succeeded in convincing the British they couldn't maintain rule in India in the face of universal disobedience nor could they shoot or arrest their way out of the problem.
If anyone really wants to understand where the Port Huron Statement came from, it helps to think where the country was in 1962. The Freedom Riders and other civil rights activists were gaining momentum -- and so was the white backlash against them. Joe McCarthy was dead, but McCarthyism sure wasn't. Neither U.S. political party was particularly democratic. The CIA had been destabilizing potentially democratic governments for at least a decade. It backed the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 -- and before anyone starts trashing Castro, please take a harder look at the U.S.-backed Batista.
SDS as I knew it as a young college student toward the end of the decade was male-dominated and sexist as hell, but in understanding what was going on in the country it was way ahead of the mainstream political parties, and of the ossified CPUSA. In Robin Morgan's classic essay "Goodbye to All That," the "All That" was SDS and the male left more generally. (RYM-2 and Weatherman said their goodbyes with violence.)
You sure highlighted a major flaw that soon received determined pushback: "male-dominated" (understandable in the sense that it was males routinely allowed access to higher ed & the leisure time combined with perhaps some direct experience of oppression in a work setting, or through direct observation, so there's going to be, at first, in any of those waves of progress - fights going back hundreds or even thousands of years, since the odds are overwhelming some kind of patriarchy will be "running the show" - many more male participants) "and sexist as hell," since there simply cannot be any even vaguely fair, humanistic, progressive, enlightened "arguments and considerations" for sexism, so for THAT every single male in SDS who either enthusiastically or unconsciously, obviously (?) i.e. "cluelessly," allowed that kind of oppressive, demeaning culture to flourish simply failed big time. And you then point out that AT LEAST they were raising some of the most crucial issues, with most people like that, there's always a chance for growth, for realizing deep biases and problems remain in their views.
Damn good thing the feminist movement began creatively raising hell through protests in the late 1950s and in the 60s, as well as engaging in creating extended scholarly publications and manifestos, films, theater, you name it, to counter that backwardness and the psychological blind spots "among those who should really have been among the FIRST males to appreciate the necessity, but didn't," with as we all can see, plenty more needed to be done - and that's just here in the USA, I confess my mind boggles at what women in a nation like Iran or Afghanistan are up against.
Richard, we're talking about the '60s. The decade that came after the '50s. I'm not aware of much overt feminist activity in the '50s -- what are you thinking of? Betty Friedan's FEMININE MYSTIQUE was a sensation among white middle-class-and-up women when it came out in 1963. Sexism in the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, and the New Left was a big catalyst for activist women as the '60s rolled on.
OK, this is from 1949 - but you get the point, correct? I do realize now that I will have to start explicitly mentioning that I am routinely used to discussing feminist philosophy as necessarily being a world-wide phenomenon, connected with the larger struggles for universal human rights. It was clear enough to me but of course, that's no good online where you and I are necessarily not engaged in ongoing discussions about this and connected issues!
People owning the streets during Nixon especially in DC?
Perhaps someday John Dean, the Curator of all things Nixon, might share what he learned about that Sunday morning when AG Mitchell speaking for Nixon inside the bowels of the Pentagon made a pitch for Martial law or if you prefer the R/con spelling of Marshall Law. Nixon knew better than to advance the absurdity himself allowing him complete deniability.
Wouldn't be surprised if Trump or one of his sycophants did the same during his term to "my generals." There was no shortage of reporting on Trump looking for ways to unleash the US mil post-George Floyd killing. Nor be surprised if Trump's current brain trust floated the idea to Trump in a second term.
So, I don't find Lucian to be paranoid at all. Do expect casting ballots in person to be an opportunity for Trump trouble making. The same holds for the tallying of ballots in large urban areas locations that consolidate early votes. Rs still hold more state delegations than the Ds so chaotic elections with less than full results favor Trump and the GOP. Point being, Trump is likely to do chit if elected and knows the surest way to get elected is by disrupting the election itself.
Watching camouflage vehicles rolling up K Street, Wisconsin Ave., etc., made a big impression. Since I wasn't quite 20 at the time, I wasn't hard to impress.
My brother was there (i was out of state or I would have been) but my impression has been DC is a fortress even in the everyday (in my experience) which did not concern me overmuch in the past - given everything.
Which is one reason January 6th was such a punch. Not because of people demonstrating, but the overt, blatant and violent intent of causing harm. Without the Orange jackass welcoming and encouraging it, it could never have happened.
Yet somehow rightwing media, a majority of Rs in Congress, Trump, and his MAGA supporters continue to spin the storming, desecration, and occupation of the USCB as no big deal and/or orchestrated by the deep state. The old parlor trick of having it both ways.
I have to tell you that the Portland BLM protests/demonstrations were incredibly disturbing. To have our "local" anarchists show up just because they could do violence was bad. Also bad were the counter protesters, the pro-police folks were generally OK, but factor in the proud boys/oath keepers factions, and the inevitable conflicts between those two extreme groups was awful. Then you've got PPB's "response" teams, augmented by "outside agency assists" and you've got people disappearing into vans...
I know it was awful. I wasn't there, but I was sitting here in my house about 4 hours south from you guys and I was watching the coverage with absolute horror.
I live in Eugene, and I have friends that went up with a "mom's" group to protect the protesters. I am completely disgusted with PPB and their antics. We dealt with the "anarchists" for quite a while in Eugene, but the "protest scene" seems to have died out. (I'm retired from Lane County SO)
I live in Roseburg, so I guess I'm closer than four hours away. I thought you were in Portland. I'm sure that there were some active anarchists in the crowd, but I honestly wonder just what was the percentage of bad actors who were there that day. People who were purported to be "antifa" or anarchists, but who were there with a different agenda. The reporting seems to be fairly anecdotal, as far as that goes.
It is hard to determine the organization of unorganized groups. Allegedly, there was some overlap between "antifa" and "the anarchists" but most of what I know about the local area is that the "anarchists" preferred to be in larger communities (Portland/Seattle) and "antifa" were more local. I am by no means an expert; I know that the local demonstrations we had simply involved riot/disorderly conduct, and were not specifically oriented towards particular aims or goals that were stated.
My daughter lives in downtown Portland. At one point the anarchists pounded on doors and threatened those within if they didn't join the protest. Some did. It was all bullshit. Nerds who couldn't be picked at dodgeball finally, as a group of fuckups, had a voice as a whole only to discover that when it was all over they were still the same fuckups as when it all started.
Btw some of the "scuttlebutt" that's never been conclusively verified or falsified, is that the far right lunatic fringe had at least some success POSING as "antifa," the classic agents provocateur trip.
Plausible yes, but who knows.
In Minneapolis where I live, this stuff (factions of the Left engaged in long term internecine struggles) goes back at least to the so-called "Coop Wars" of the 1970s.
I'll bet I can find a link almost immediately and the material will resonate far beyond what went on in the Twin Cities...lemme see..
Jeez, a PBS documentary, oh no I might almost "HAVE to watch this," what have I done - good thing I'm retired and already took bus trips downtown and to the SE library, plus they are pounding and grinding away at absolutely necessary waterpipe replacements, so it will distract me from that...
In the 1970s, young people in Minnesota radicalized by the Vietnam War created a unique alternative economy featuring dozens of food cooperatives, but a shadowy revolutionary group used conflicts over class and race to try to seize the movement. The ensuing clash pitted friends and comrades in a sometimes violent conflict over the future of the counterculture. ******
It was REALLY bitter, and I wasn't even living here until July 1982, voing back to the Twin Cities from Tempe, AZ., but given where I and my GF lived in the city, and our politics, we encountered lingering after-effects almost immediately... *******
he Minnesota Food Cooperative Wars took place in 1975-1976 time period and revolved around the many food cooperatives in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota. Initially, the disputes and confrontations within the Twin Cities Cooperative movement were not referred to as "Wars", but the nomenclature developed in part as a result of the title of a documentary made decades later.
Despite the usage of the term "coop", most Twin Cities coops were not organized as consumer or producer cooperatives. Some were worker collectives and others were non-profit organizations.[1] The local counter-culture food cooperative movement was started in 1970 by The People's Pantry, an establishment in the Cedar-Riverside People's Center that aimed to provide bulk-supplied "natural" foods to the surrounding community at wholesale prices.[2] Coop Organization or CO expanded because their focus on centralized distribution and revolutionary political organizing appealed to leftist co-op workers who were frustrated with the marijuana smoking and casual attitude of their fellow counter-culture co-op workers.[3] In 1975, polarization amongst different types of co-operatives led to vigorous competition, violent altercations, and the territorial seizure of some co-ops.[4] The conflict began to fade out for various reasons during the summer of the following year.[2] ***** This long article continues, etc.
Portland was outright anarchy. Those 'Patriots' and 'Freedom Fighters' pretty much wrecked the entire downtown. Some of them probably should have been "Disappeared."
Sorry, but I can't sign off on disappearing any American citizens, any more than I could advocate for shooting people in a crowd of rioters. Disappearing people is always the first thing in a fascists toolbox, and it never stops at the people you might think deserve it.
Oh ok. I did misread your intention there then. Sorry about that. I have actually heard people advocating for such things without a trace of irony to be found, so I'm on guard for it I suppose.
Yes - you are right. What the cult-of-Trump members don't get is that they too will become targets. The disenfranchised are loathed by him - "losers" because of their class. He will march them into war, disappearing them as well, just like Hitler did with his lumpen proletariat. Fools, all of them. And then there are Americans who don;t believe this could happen and don't show up to vote. We are at the precipice of the 4th Reich - American style.
Most Germans watched their Jewish neighbors being taken away and did nothing. Some were happy about what they were seeing. And only a very small minority tried to resist.
Think about how terrifying that would be to see, and then ask yourself if you could be brave enough to intervene. I don't know if I would be able to be brave enough. We all like to think we would be, and in spirit, I am sure that most everyone's feelings in that way are honest and sincere. But in the heat of the moment, under intense fear, perhaps fearing for not only my life, but my children's lives...I don't know. I hope we don't have to know. Fervently.
Interesting today that thousands of Americans, knowing full well that Hamas killers slaughtered over a thousand people, took to the streets in support of the slaughterers. Earlier I posted: You'll know you are in the End of Days when the innocent are judged guilty and the guilty are set free. We are there, and I'm about as religious as a mushroom.
The Palestinians have fabricated the world's most successful sob story. Somehow, these people who want to see Israel wiped off the face of the earth, along with all Jews, are supposed to be the victims.
Are you really this ignorant of history? 700,000+ Palestinians were evicted from their homes to make way for a Jewish state. Also, Palestinians do NOT advocate for Israel being "wiped off the face of the earth". Good grief, the ignorance is unreal.
Before you sneer and toss around the word "ignorance," kckitty, you might want to consider the implications of the 700,000 figure you quote. The paragraphs below are from an individual who has spent his life studying the region:
"The United Nations plan for the land to be partitioned into Jewish and Arab regions was accepted by the Jewish population, but rejected by the Arab states, seven of which began a war to destroy the Jewish State. In that war, 700,000 Arabs were displaced from their homes -- it's disputed what fraction were expelled or fled and what fraction left at the request of the Arab powers to facilitate the conquest (there are claims that there were pleas from the Jews for them to remain and also claims that vigilante Jewish bands terrorized some of them to leave -- both things are true). What isn't in dispute is that at the end of the war, 180,000 Arabs remained in the area conquered by the Jewish forces and became instant citizens. In contrast, in the area conquered by the Arab forces, not a single Jew remained alive. Today there are 2,000,000 Arab citizens of Israel -- a heck of a "genocide."
The partition of India at about the same time (in 1947) led to the creation of over 14,000,000 refugees. Guess how many refugees there are today from that event? Zero. (Not to mention, not a single refugee is left anywhere in the world from World War II). The only people in the world who inherit the title of "refugees" from their grandparents are the Palestinians. Why do you suppose that is?
Finally, there were more than 800,000 Jews displaced from Moslem lands in 1948, so there was actually an exchange in populations. These ancient Jewish communities were wiped out, and most of them were there a millenium before the Arab conquest. Arab and Iranian Moslims strangle minorities. Bethlehem and Nazareth used to be majority Christian towns. No more."
The Hamas charter explicitly states that the total destruction of the State of Israel is their goal, along with the killing of all Jews throughout the world. I’m under the impression that this can be accurately paraphrased as wanting Israel and all Jews “wiped off the face of the earth.” And Hamas claims to represent the Palestinian cause.
Of course I do. The indiscriminate slaughter of 1200 Jewish people that Hamas performed cannot be excused by the 700K political comeback. Regardless of the the living conditions in Palestine GAZA, it was wanton murder. MURDER. Theses killers ended the lives of human beings, and almost all were personally innocent. In this case it was a sex-driven, barbaric insanity of blood lust and there are no series of words in all of human language that excuses it. Here's a thought: Next time someone gets evicted down the street from you, does that give them a reason to rape your newborn and splatter the baby's father's brains against the wall? If your answer is yes, then you're part of the problem not the solution.
As I said above and will say again: The Hamas charter explicitly states that the total destruction of the State of Israel is their goal, along with the killing of all Jews throughout the world. I’m under the impression that this can be accurately paraphrased as wanting Israel and all Jews “wiped off the face of the earth.” And Hamas claims to represent the Palestinian cause.
Bravo!!! Thank you, Mike Marvin, for this cogent comment, in answer to the simplistic "poor persecuted Palestinians" rhetoric! That is nothing more than yet another disguise for anti-Semitism.
It also depends on (at least) (1) how far into the process the box trucks are and (2) which neighborhood, but that said - it remains the fact that it isn't at all "paranoid," hell, it's astute and almost pure common sense at this stage!
Eleven Films is a husband-wife team out of Portland OR who make anti-Trump videos and one of their latest, Trump's New America, is their vision of a second Trump term. Some might think it over the top. I don't. Your comment reminds me of the "Vermin Surveillance System" score they made up in this video. It's short. Worth your time, IMO
This one is less realistic to me simply because I can't see California and Texas on the same team. I realize it's just a movie - as Eleven Films video is just a video. But they're both valuable in predicting what will come our way if we don't stop it. BTW, how's YOUR "Vermin Surveillance System" score? Probably as high as mine!
That's a thought. But, in the end, is it practical to arrest 165,000,000 Americans and intern them in camps? I don't think so. That's how many people are firmly on one side or the other.
Such sweeping up of citizens is not a new concept. Is a tried and tested method around the globe. There is no need to disappear such a high number (165M) to achieve the end effects and sought-after results.
The actual goal is to sweep up the minimum number from preselected groups whether oppo-leaders, journos, people in the arts, in academia, and the cherry-picking of everyday citizens to instill fear, uncertainty, and ultimately compliance.
History on nearly every continent is replete with such tactics. Brits did it here and the US did it to its ~indigenous~ population many times. South and Latin America? Still happens. Same in Africa. And in Asia. Brits recently did it in N. Ireland. Putin does it in Ru. PRC does it. Junior's DPRK does it. ROK did it for decades. Same in Indonesia, the Philippines, and on and on. America is not immune from anything else experienced in
We are all concerned enough to be paranoid. I am terrified myself of what could happen should Trump get back into office.
It's not just the disappearing that I'm worried about-it's the nationwide abortion ban, the ban on contraceptives, all kinds of bad things that Trump and his fascist brigade want to bring in.
It used to be a joke.
Not it's not even remotely funny because this country has done it once or twice before..or does the Japanese internment camps ring any bells?
Did you know that the West Virginia legislature just passed a bill to prosecute librarians?
And then there was Executive Order 9066, which in 1942 ordered the internment of Japanese American citizens as threats to national security. No comparable order was issued to intern Americans of German or Italian descent. Around the same time, the U.S. was turning its back on Jews fleeing the advancing Nazis. A significant portion of the U.S. citizenry was fine with letting the fascists have all of Europe as long as they stayed out of our hemisphere and didn't mess with the Monroe Doctrine. This isn't all that surprising because for decades most of the white citizenry hadn't given a damn about what was happening to Black people in the South.
Short version: If/when push comes to shove, I don't trust most of my fellow citizens to do the right thing. We've been at "shove" for quite a while now, so I don't think I'm being paranoid. At the same time "they" aren't likely to come for white people like me (unless of course someone rats me out as a lesbian), so most white people are likely to go about their business. Some of them support Trump because they'd love to see it happen.
In the summer of 2016, when I became convinced Donald Trump would win in November, I read Shirer for the first time (I don't know what took me so long--perhaps because Berlin Diary and The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich had never before seemed especially relevant).
Over subsequent years I've read a lot of books about fallen democracies and rising fascist/authoritarian movements, including Iris Origo's War Diaries, Caroline Moorehead's Resistance Quartet, and Philip Gourevitch's We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.
Currently, knowing that there are ardent admirers of the sadistic authoritarian Francisco Franco in Trump's circle of advisers and sycophants, I'm reading Paul Preston's The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition And Extermination In Twentieth-Century Spain.
It has all made for a depressing course of reading. Taken in a combined dose with today's headlines, it has cured me of any optimistic notion that "it can't happen here," and made me aware of how high the stakes are, how many people are vulnerable to the unimaginable excesses of successful authoritarian movements. Our dying democracy is worth defending: it's all that stands between us and real horror.
And it turns out Hennepin County Library has the book, now on hold for me, in fact I can return and get Dress Grey on hold asap., and finally finish it, these almost endless vicissitudes of either scrambling to deal with unavoidable preps FOR my apt's total renovation, or during - in non-salubrious hotel environs for "reading anything ya really really want to read," - or after, are essentially finished, and I can devote the time (especially with what is a much shorter book like Badenheim 1939)
without suddenly realizing I really NEED to get something else done, having the entire sixth and seventh floor ALSO being renovated and having the %$ED! grinding concrete on steel hammering disrupting unexpectedly at any time from 7AM (how they start that early is beyond me) to 5PM (or have shifts finishing that late, either!) is ovuh!!!
Bloodlands was a revelation to me, too, Jesse, what a powerful book. Nightmarish as well, I had to stop reading and take a walk as it was summer, or just "zone out" to mull over the practically endless moral crises people faced.
One thing that has always bothered me is the smugness of most Americans as to how the French people re-acted to the 4 years of Nazi occupation. When faced with a murderous enemy occupier, I think a vast majority of Americans would bow down abjectly, or even fight against Americans who resisted.
We have never been tested, fortunately, but we will be if Trump wins.
Under Jim Crow American Whites were the oppressors, not the oppressed, in the South and the North; I saw it in Illinois. I was an Illinois Senate page in the 1950's, and there was as much Jim Crow in Springfield, IL, as there was in any Southern city. It was an eye-opener for me.
This chilling scenario has, to a degree, begun. I am so crazed with the possibilities that my wish is a preventive strike. I have thought for a while that Trump is so seditious and traitorous that he should be locked up and shut up someplace where he cannot babble his vicious, rabble rousing, addled threats and lies. Better to let the chips fall where they may *now* than after Trump has nine more months to rip the country apart. To let him continue to spew his demented call to arms is to capitulate to crazy. Let them call us a banana republic while we still have a republic.
The go-to for dictators who do not accept criticism, spoken outright or implied.
Anyone who likes his suggested policies believe they’d be immune - until they’re not, of course. He likes the poorly educated, this is why.
Being incapable of critical thinking or knowledge of history.
I hasten to alert those on here who don't know it: Patris lived through the fascist coup in Athens in the 1960s. She KNOWS whereof she speaks.
Nika, yasou!
I also believe him to be mentally ill.
Try “Nuts”. It works
OMG, Patris! I'm so sorry you lived through the fascist coup in Greece. I hope everyone in your family survived. My father took my family to see the movie "Z" by Costa-Gavras, which is based on that era in Greece, when it came out in December of 1969. I was young then and don't remember it very well. I'd like to see it again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_(1969_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa-Gavras
Tanks in the street, coming up the boulevard where we lived. Soldiers in the street, one who pointed his rifle at my sister at the corner as I watched from the balcony of our apartment. My father taking my brother and his friend with him to line up to buy groceries so that we’d have supplies in the house if everything collapsed.
Surreal. and her husband, who’d taken part in student protests in the past were arrested, their 2 year old attaching himself to her leg, pulled away by my aunt crying as his parents were taken to a prison camp.
As Americans we were protected. But it was all around us. Curfews, knowing agents were everywhere - in restaurants listening to people talk.
Terrifying. Most Americans other than immigrants have never been out of the country, speak only English, "don't know much about his-tor-y, don't know much geography", and therefore have no idea what living in an authoritartian or fascist police state would be like. They flatter themselves that only the people they don't like would be targeted by the authorities.
I deeply wish that student exchange programs were more widely offered. Not to authoritarian states though - simply any relatively sane country - so that our children would get some idea of the wider world.
Terrifying, Patris!! You know, firsthand, the horrors. I know of my grandparents taken from their home by the Nazis. We are of kindred spirit.
No where near the horrors they confronted but we witnessed it.
I’m praying both of your grandparents survived..
Lucian,
I don’t think that you are being paranoid at all. Trump’s followers and “Christian Nationalists” are salivating for the chance to do this. I am reminded of the series “The Man in the High Castle”, a show that imagines a dystopian future where the Nazis win and the United States becomes a part of the Greater German Reich, and Americans are the Nazis running it.
I don’t think that what you say is out of the realm of possibility.
Peace,
Steve Dundas
We are moving closer and closer to being able to make a valid comparison between t-Rump and Hitler. In order to capture every illegal, they'd have to round up everyone with an even vaguely Hispanic-or Arabic-sounding surname, and that would include naturalized citizens and people who have lived in the USA for generations. Does this sound a little like Germany and Jews? T-rump hasn't yet assured his faithful worshipers that his TRUE plan is to put all "those people" to death-- he says he’s just gonna deport them-- but we can be sure our home-grown madman and his minions dream of exterminating everyone who isn't a white Christian. Sounds exaggerated and insane? No more so than what Hitler actually attempted to carry out. (With support from most of those white-Christian Germans.)
Hitler's original plan was deportation.
But the Nazi leadership soon realized this was impractical (tentative plans to force the Jews to Madagascar were dropped in the face of the logistical difficulties, plus the war) and too expensive, and after all, it was so much easier to simply work them to death or kill them outright.
Yes, indeed. Seems to be a common progression.
And then bullets were too expensive… what hell they created on earth.
Yes, and America refused to accept Jewish refugees at the time, if I recall correctly.
Just so. SS St. Louis.
If you really want to be depressed:
"Bloodlands" by Tim Snyder
Just wait. If trump does win by some fuckery, we had better hope that Canada and/or Mexico treats us better than we've treated many. Imagine if those borders closed.🔒
Anti-Semitism pervaded the ranks of US govt. officials in that era.
😣😓
Well, during the demonstrations in Portland, they were just grabbing people off the streets and throwing them into unmarked minivans. That was perilously close to being disappeared.
True enough as far as it goes. It's also a reminder of just how toxic it is to have violent anarchists repeatedly attempt to hijack nonviolent protest movements, going all the way back and before the "Days of Rage" in 1969 staged by the split from the Students for a Democratic Society aka "The Weathermen." For sure the language in the Port Huron Statement* (1962) never countenanced that, and it was a disastrous development for progressive politics.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Huron_Statement
Excerpt:
"The Port Huron Statement[1] is a 1962 political manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).[2] It was written by SDS members, and completed on June 15, 1962, at a United Auto Workers (UAW) retreat outside of Port Huron, Michigan (now part of Lakeport State Park), for the group's first national convention.[3] Under Walter Reuther's leadership, the UAW paid for a range of expenses for the 1962 convention, including use of the UAW summer retreat in Port Huron.[4]
Origins and impact
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SDS developed from the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), the youth branch of a socialist educational organization known as the League for Industrial Democracy (LID).[5] LID descended from the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, started in 1905. Early in 1960, the SLID changed its name into Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Port Huron Statement was adopted at the organization's first convention in 1962, and was based on an earlier draft by staff member Tom Hayden.[6]
The Port Huron Statement was a broad critique of the political and social system of the United States for failing to achieve international peace and economic justice. In foreign policy, the statement took issue with the American government's handling of the Cold War,[5] both the existential threat of nuclear war, and the actual arms race. In domestic matters, it criticized racial discrimination, economic inequality, big businesses, trade unions, and political parties. In addition to its critique and analysis of the American system, the statement also suggested a series of reforms: it proclaimed a need to reshape into two genuine political parties to attain greater democracy, for stronger power for individuals through citizen's lobbies, for more substantial involvement by workers in business management, and for an enlarged public sector with increased government welfare, including a "program against poverty." The document provided ideas of what and how to work for and to improve, and also advocated nonviolent civil disobedience as the means by which student youth could bring forth the concept of "participatory democracy."
The statement also presented SDS's break from the mainstream liberal policies of the postwar years.[3] It was written to reflect their view that all problems in every area were linked to each other. The statement expressed SDS's willingness to work with groups whatever their political inclination. In doing so, they sought the rejection of the extant anti-communism of the time. In the concurrent Cold War environment, such a statement of inclusion for the heretofore "evil" Communist ideology, and by extension, socialist concepts, was definitely seen as a new, radical view contrasting with the position of much of the traditional American Left. The latter had developed a largely anti-communist orthodoxy in the wake of the HUAC and Army-McCarthy hearings. Without being Marxist or pro-communism, the Port Huron conference denounced anti-communism as being a social problem and an obstruction to democracy. They also criticized the United States for its exaggerated paranoia and exclusive condemnation of the Soviet Union, and blamed this for being the reason for failing to achieve disarmament and to assure peace. " *******
It's really not possible to make sense out of all sorts of subsequent developments with some
grasp of this material.
Yes. The most effective way for Americans to protest en masse would be to emulate Gandhi with massive passive resistance and a national strike. Refusing to work or consume or pay taxes; blocking roadways; non-cooperation with authorities; all that succeeded in convincing the British they couldn't maintain rule in India in the face of universal disobedience nor could they shoot or arrest their way out of the problem.
Thanks
If anyone really wants to understand where the Port Huron Statement came from, it helps to think where the country was in 1962. The Freedom Riders and other civil rights activists were gaining momentum -- and so was the white backlash against them. Joe McCarthy was dead, but McCarthyism sure wasn't. Neither U.S. political party was particularly democratic. The CIA had been destabilizing potentially democratic governments for at least a decade. It backed the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 -- and before anyone starts trashing Castro, please take a harder look at the U.S.-backed Batista.
SDS as I knew it as a young college student toward the end of the decade was male-dominated and sexist as hell, but in understanding what was going on in the country it was way ahead of the mainstream political parties, and of the ossified CPUSA. In Robin Morgan's classic essay "Goodbye to All That," the "All That" was SDS and the male left more generally. (RYM-2 and Weatherman said their goodbyes with violence.)
You sure highlighted a major flaw that soon received determined pushback: "male-dominated" (understandable in the sense that it was males routinely allowed access to higher ed & the leisure time combined with perhaps some direct experience of oppression in a work setting, or through direct observation, so there's going to be, at first, in any of those waves of progress - fights going back hundreds or even thousands of years, since the odds are overwhelming some kind of patriarchy will be "running the show" - many more male participants) "and sexist as hell," since there simply cannot be any even vaguely fair, humanistic, progressive, enlightened "arguments and considerations" for sexism, so for THAT every single male in SDS who either enthusiastically or unconsciously, obviously (?) i.e. "cluelessly," allowed that kind of oppressive, demeaning culture to flourish simply failed big time. And you then point out that AT LEAST they were raising some of the most crucial issues, with most people like that, there's always a chance for growth, for realizing deep biases and problems remain in their views.
Damn good thing the feminist movement began creatively raising hell through protests in the late 1950s and in the 60s, as well as engaging in creating extended scholarly publications and manifestos, films, theater, you name it, to counter that backwardness and the psychological blind spots "among those who should really have been among the FIRST males to appreciate the necessity, but didn't," with as we all can see, plenty more needed to be done - and that's just here in the USA, I confess my mind boggles at what women in a nation like Iran or Afghanistan are up against.
Richard, we're talking about the '60s. The decade that came after the '50s. I'm not aware of much overt feminist activity in the '50s -- what are you thinking of? Betty Friedan's FEMININE MYSTIQUE was a sensation among white middle-class-and-up women when it came out in 1963. Sexism in the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, and the New Left was a big catalyst for activist women as the '60s rolled on.
Europe.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=swg_facpubs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Sex
OK, this is from 1949 - but you get the point, correct? I do realize now that I will have to start explicitly mentioning that I am routinely used to discussing feminist philosophy as necessarily being a world-wide phenomenon, connected with the larger struggles for universal human rights. It was clear enough to me but of course, that's no good online where you and I are necessarily not engaged in ongoing discussions about this and connected issues!
That happened in D.C. in May 1971. You didn't have to be near a demonstration; people got rounded up for gathering in groups of more than two.
People owning the streets during Nixon especially in DC?
Perhaps someday John Dean, the Curator of all things Nixon, might share what he learned about that Sunday morning when AG Mitchell speaking for Nixon inside the bowels of the Pentagon made a pitch for Martial law or if you prefer the R/con spelling of Marshall Law. Nixon knew better than to advance the absurdity himself allowing him complete deniability.
Wouldn't be surprised if Trump or one of his sycophants did the same during his term to "my generals." There was no shortage of reporting on Trump looking for ways to unleash the US mil post-George Floyd killing. Nor be surprised if Trump's current brain trust floated the idea to Trump in a second term.
So, I don't find Lucian to be paranoid at all. Do expect casting ballots in person to be an opportunity for Trump trouble making. The same holds for the tallying of ballots in large urban areas locations that consolidate early votes. Rs still hold more state delegations than the Ds so chaotic elections with less than full results favor Trump and the GOP. Point being, Trump is likely to do chit if elected and knows the surest way to get elected is by disrupting the election itself.
Penned in.
Watching camouflage vehicles rolling up K Street, Wisconsin Ave., etc., made a big impression. Since I wasn't quite 20 at the time, I wasn't hard to impress.
My brother was there (i was out of state or I would have been) but my impression has been DC is a fortress even in the everyday (in my experience) which did not concern me overmuch in the past - given everything.
Which is one reason January 6th was such a punch. Not because of people demonstrating, but the overt, blatant and violent intent of causing harm. Without the Orange jackass welcoming and encouraging it, it could never have happened.
Yet somehow rightwing media, a majority of Rs in Congress, Trump, and his MAGA supporters continue to spin the storming, desecration, and occupation of the USCB as no big deal and/or orchestrated by the deep state. The old parlor trick of having it both ways.
Hence the term “morally bankrupt”..
That would be utterly terrifying.
I have to tell you that the Portland BLM protests/demonstrations were incredibly disturbing. To have our "local" anarchists show up just because they could do violence was bad. Also bad were the counter protesters, the pro-police folks were generally OK, but factor in the proud boys/oath keepers factions, and the inevitable conflicts between those two extreme groups was awful. Then you've got PPB's "response" teams, augmented by "outside agency assists" and you've got people disappearing into vans...
I know it was awful. I wasn't there, but I was sitting here in my house about 4 hours south from you guys and I was watching the coverage with absolute horror.
I live in Eugene, and I have friends that went up with a "mom's" group to protect the protesters. I am completely disgusted with PPB and their antics. We dealt with the "anarchists" for quite a while in Eugene, but the "protest scene" seems to have died out. (I'm retired from Lane County SO)
I live in Roseburg, so I guess I'm closer than four hours away. I thought you were in Portland. I'm sure that there were some active anarchists in the crowd, but I honestly wonder just what was the percentage of bad actors who were there that day. People who were purported to be "antifa" or anarchists, but who were there with a different agenda. The reporting seems to be fairly anecdotal, as far as that goes.
It is hard to determine the organization of unorganized groups. Allegedly, there was some overlap between "antifa" and "the anarchists" but most of what I know about the local area is that the "anarchists" preferred to be in larger communities (Portland/Seattle) and "antifa" were more local. I am by no means an expert; I know that the local demonstrations we had simply involved riot/disorderly conduct, and were not specifically oriented towards particular aims or goals that were stated.
My daughter lives in downtown Portland. At one point the anarchists pounded on doors and threatened those within if they didn't join the protest. Some did. It was all bullshit. Nerds who couldn't be picked at dodgeball finally, as a group of fuckups, had a voice as a whole only to discover that when it was all over they were still the same fuckups as when it all started.
Btw some of the "scuttlebutt" that's never been conclusively verified or falsified, is that the far right lunatic fringe had at least some success POSING as "antifa," the classic agents provocateur trip.
Plausible yes, but who knows.
In Minneapolis where I live, this stuff (factions of the Left engaged in long term internecine struggles) goes back at least to the so-called "Coop Wars" of the 1970s.
I'll bet I can find a link almost immediately and the material will resonate far beyond what went on in the Twin Cities...lemme see..
Jeez, a PBS documentary, oh no I might almost "HAVE to watch this," what have I done - good thing I'm retired and already took bus trips downtown and to the SE library, plus they are pounding and grinding away at absolutely necessary waterpipe replacements, so it will distract me from that...
https://www.pbs.org/video/co-op-wars-wvkjo0/
Co-Op Wars
Season 4 Episode 1 | 56m 40s |
In the 1970s, young people in Minnesota radicalized by the Vietnam War created a unique alternative economy featuring dozens of food cooperatives, but a shadowy revolutionary group used conflicts over class and race to try to seize the movement. The ensuing clash pitted friends and comrades in a sometimes violent conflict over the future of the counterculture. ******
It was REALLY bitter, and I wasn't even living here until July 1982, voing back to the Twin Cities from Tempe, AZ., but given where I and my GF lived in the city, and our politics, we encountered lingering after-effects almost immediately... *******
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Food_Cooperative_Wars
he Minnesota Food Cooperative Wars took place in 1975-1976 time period and revolved around the many food cooperatives in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota. Initially, the disputes and confrontations within the Twin Cities Cooperative movement were not referred to as "Wars", but the nomenclature developed in part as a result of the title of a documentary made decades later.
Despite the usage of the term "coop", most Twin Cities coops were not organized as consumer or producer cooperatives. Some were worker collectives and others were non-profit organizations.[1] The local counter-culture food cooperative movement was started in 1970 by The People's Pantry, an establishment in the Cedar-Riverside People's Center that aimed to provide bulk-supplied "natural" foods to the surrounding community at wholesale prices.[2] Coop Organization or CO expanded because their focus on centralized distribution and revolutionary political organizing appealed to leftist co-op workers who were frustrated with the marijuana smoking and casual attitude of their fellow counter-culture co-op workers.[3] In 1975, polarization amongst different types of co-operatives led to vigorous competition, violent altercations, and the territorial seizure of some co-ops.[4] The conflict began to fade out for various reasons during the summer of the following year.[2] ***** This long article continues, etc.
Thanks for this, Doc. I know that in the mid 1980's, food co-ops were alive and well in the bay area (Palo Alto, specifically).
I think I'll read that article when I've got the time to focus.
Woah! That is really interesting actually. I'm going to read about it more at length! Thank you for that tidbit of info! 😁
Very much
Portland was outright anarchy. Those 'Patriots' and 'Freedom Fighters' pretty much wrecked the entire downtown. Some of them probably should have been "Disappeared."
Sorry, but I can't sign off on disappearing any American citizens, any more than I could advocate for shooting people in a crowd of rioters. Disappearing people is always the first thing in a fascists toolbox, and it never stops at the people you might think deserve it.
If you think I was serious, you missed my point. Those people pretty much wrecked any good that could have come out of it all.
Oh ok. I did misread your intention there then. Sorry about that. I have actually heard people advocating for such things without a trace of irony to be found, so I'm on guard for it I suppose.
Yes - you are right. What the cult-of-Trump members don't get is that they too will become targets. The disenfranchised are loathed by him - "losers" because of their class. He will march them into war, disappearing them as well, just like Hitler did with his lumpen proletariat. Fools, all of them. And then there are Americans who don;t believe this could happen and don't show up to vote. We are at the precipice of the 4th Reich - American style.
You are not paranoid. When the box truck rolls up no one will lift a finger. If they did it would be outside their house next.
Most Germans watched their Jewish neighbors being taken away and did nothing. Some were happy about what they were seeing. And only a very small minority tried to resist.
Think about how terrifying that would be to see, and then ask yourself if you could be brave enough to intervene. I don't know if I would be able to be brave enough. We all like to think we would be, and in spirit, I am sure that most everyone's feelings in that way are honest and sincere. But in the heat of the moment, under intense fear, perhaps fearing for not only my life, but my children's lives...I don't know. I hope we don't have to know. Fervently.
Optics. Stephen Miller made the threat. It looks scary because 11,000,000 people are here illegally in the last 36 months. Numbers. Optics. Numbers.
Interesting today that thousands of Americans, knowing full well that Hamas killers slaughtered over a thousand people, took to the streets in support of the slaughterers. Earlier I posted: You'll know you are in the End of Days when the innocent are judged guilty and the guilty are set free. We are there, and I'm about as religious as a mushroom.
The Palestinians have fabricated the world's most successful sob story. Somehow, these people who want to see Israel wiped off the face of the earth, along with all Jews, are supposed to be the victims.
Are you really this ignorant of history? 700,000+ Palestinians were evicted from their homes to make way for a Jewish state. Also, Palestinians do NOT advocate for Israel being "wiped off the face of the earth". Good grief, the ignorance is unreal.
Before you sneer and toss around the word "ignorance," kckitty, you might want to consider the implications of the 700,000 figure you quote. The paragraphs below are from an individual who has spent his life studying the region:
"The United Nations plan for the land to be partitioned into Jewish and Arab regions was accepted by the Jewish population, but rejected by the Arab states, seven of which began a war to destroy the Jewish State. In that war, 700,000 Arabs were displaced from their homes -- it's disputed what fraction were expelled or fled and what fraction left at the request of the Arab powers to facilitate the conquest (there are claims that there were pleas from the Jews for them to remain and also claims that vigilante Jewish bands terrorized some of them to leave -- both things are true). What isn't in dispute is that at the end of the war, 180,000 Arabs remained in the area conquered by the Jewish forces and became instant citizens. In contrast, in the area conquered by the Arab forces, not a single Jew remained alive. Today there are 2,000,000 Arab citizens of Israel -- a heck of a "genocide."
The partition of India at about the same time (in 1947) led to the creation of over 14,000,000 refugees. Guess how many refugees there are today from that event? Zero. (Not to mention, not a single refugee is left anywhere in the world from World War II). The only people in the world who inherit the title of "refugees" from their grandparents are the Palestinians. Why do you suppose that is?
Finally, there were more than 800,000 Jews displaced from Moslem lands in 1948, so there was actually an exchange in populations. These ancient Jewish communities were wiped out, and most of them were there a millenium before the Arab conquest. Arab and Iranian Moslims strangle minorities. Bethlehem and Nazareth used to be majority Christian towns. No more."
The Hamas charter explicitly states that the total destruction of the State of Israel is their goal, along with the killing of all Jews throughout the world. I’m under the impression that this can be accurately paraphrased as wanting Israel and all Jews “wiped off the face of the earth.” And Hamas claims to represent the Palestinian cause.
Do you have no knowledge of the history of 700,000+ Palestinians being expelled from their homes to create the state of Israel?
Of course I do. The indiscriminate slaughter of 1200 Jewish people that Hamas performed cannot be excused by the 700K political comeback. Regardless of the the living conditions in Palestine GAZA, it was wanton murder. MURDER. Theses killers ended the lives of human beings, and almost all were personally innocent. In this case it was a sex-driven, barbaric insanity of blood lust and there are no series of words in all of human language that excuses it. Here's a thought: Next time someone gets evicted down the street from you, does that give them a reason to rape your newborn and splatter the baby's father's brains against the wall? If your answer is yes, then you're part of the problem not the solution.
As I said above and will say again: The Hamas charter explicitly states that the total destruction of the State of Israel is their goal, along with the killing of all Jews throughout the world. I’m under the impression that this can be accurately paraphrased as wanting Israel and all Jews “wiped off the face of the earth.” And Hamas claims to represent the Palestinian cause.
Bravo!!! Thank you, Mike Marvin, for this cogent comment, in answer to the simplistic "poor persecuted Palestinians" rhetoric! That is nothing more than yet another disguise for anti-Semitism.
It also depends on (at least) (1) how far into the process the box trucks are and (2) which neighborhood, but that said - it remains the fact that it isn't at all "paranoid," hell, it's astute and almost pure common sense at this stage!
How many of us thought about that our names could be going into some computer database when we comment favorably on articles like this.?
Eleven Films is a husband-wife team out of Portland OR who make anti-Trump videos and one of their latest, Trump's New America, is their vision of a second Trump term. Some might think it over the top. I don't. Your comment reminds me of the "Vermin Surveillance System" score they made up in this video. It's short. Worth your time, IMO
https://youtu.be/gIvHf-GbpuQ?si=A6AQEVxMW9FosZOz
I’ll be coming back to this post with all these comments recommending books and movies. Thanks to all of you!
I just watched the video. YEEESH!! Let's vote BLUE so as not to go there.
Also a must-see, check out the trailer for the upcoming movie, "Civil War."
Chilling.
https://youtu.be/cA4wVhs3HC0?si=7Zx3t0Z9Ar9bstwX
This one is less realistic to me simply because I can't see California and Texas on the same team. I realize it's just a movie - as Eleven Films video is just a video. But they're both valuable in predicting what will come our way if we don't stop it. BTW, how's YOUR "Vermin Surveillance System" score? Probably as high as mine!
Very, very high.
Oh, it's off the charts, I'm sure.
That's been my concern for awhile.
That's a thought. But, in the end, is it practical to arrest 165,000,000 Americans and intern them in camps? I don't think so. That's how many people are firmly on one side or the other.
Such sweeping up of citizens is not a new concept. Is a tried and tested method around the globe. There is no need to disappear such a high number (165M) to achieve the end effects and sought-after results.
The actual goal is to sweep up the minimum number from preselected groups whether oppo-leaders, journos, people in the arts, in academia, and the cherry-picking of everyday citizens to instill fear, uncertainty, and ultimately compliance.
History on nearly every continent is replete with such tactics. Brits did it here and the US did it to its ~indigenous~ population many times. South and Latin America? Still happens. Same in Africa. And in Asia. Brits recently did it in N. Ireland. Putin does it in Ru. PRC does it. Junior's DPRK does it. ROK did it for decades. Same in Indonesia, the Philippines, and on and on. America is not immune from anything else experienced in
the world. ,
I assume so.
I think about that aspect each and every time I comment. Fortunately, I have a new passport and we live near the Canadian border.
All of this, of course, requires t-Rump to WIN the 2024 election.
We are all concerned enough to be paranoid. I am terrified myself of what could happen should Trump get back into office.
It's not just the disappearing that I'm worried about-it's the nationwide abortion ban, the ban on contraceptives, all kinds of bad things that Trump and his fascist brigade want to bring in.
It used to be a joke.
Not it's not even remotely funny because this country has done it once or twice before..or does the Japanese internment camps ring any bells?
Did you know that the West Virginia legislature just passed a bill to prosecute librarians?
No shit, no joke and this is terrifying: https://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/local-news/2024/02/west-virginia-house-passes-bill-allowing-prosecution-of-librarians/
It's gotten so that I'm seriously worried that if he should get into office, a lot of writers will be arrested.
Don't think it can't happen.
It can and has before.
Vote Blue, no matter who, because this time your freedom really IS on the line.
I cannot "like" this* although I am horrified.
Ms. Hilton's post on West Virginia's asinine new law allowing prosecution of librarians.
For the love of God, what is wrong with those people???
The parade of Nazis in Nashville over the weekend is proof that you are not paranoid; this movement is already underway.
Indeed it is.
And then there was Executive Order 9066, which in 1942 ordered the internment of Japanese American citizens as threats to national security. No comparable order was issued to intern Americans of German or Italian descent. Around the same time, the U.S. was turning its back on Jews fleeing the advancing Nazis. A significant portion of the U.S. citizenry was fine with letting the fascists have all of Europe as long as they stayed out of our hemisphere and didn't mess with the Monroe Doctrine. This isn't all that surprising because for decades most of the white citizenry hadn't given a damn about what was happening to Black people in the South.
Short version: If/when push comes to shove, I don't trust most of my fellow citizens to do the right thing. We've been at "shove" for quite a while now, so I don't think I'm being paranoid. At the same time "they" aren't likely to come for white people like me (unless of course someone rats me out as a lesbian), so most white people are likely to go about their business. Some of them support Trump because they'd love to see it happen.
After I posted this, I realized I'd left out the Palmer Raids after WWI, Sacco and Vanzetti, McCarthyism after WWII . . .
Your assessment in your last paragraph is 100% accurate; many of them support exactly what fpotus is spouting.
In the summer of 2016, when I became convinced Donald Trump would win in November, I read Shirer for the first time (I don't know what took me so long--perhaps because Berlin Diary and The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich had never before seemed especially relevant).
Over subsequent years I've read a lot of books about fallen democracies and rising fascist/authoritarian movements, including Iris Origo's War Diaries, Caroline Moorehead's Resistance Quartet, and Philip Gourevitch's We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.
Currently, knowing that there are ardent admirers of the sadistic authoritarian Francisco Franco in Trump's circle of advisers and sycophants, I'm reading Paul Preston's The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition And Extermination In Twentieth-Century Spain.
It has all made for a depressing course of reading. Taken in a combined dose with today's headlines, it has cured me of any optimistic notion that "it can't happen here," and made me aware of how high the stakes are, how many people are vulnerable to the unimaginable excesses of successful authoritarian movements. Our dying democracy is worth defending: it's all that stands between us and real horror.
This book, especially the end: https://headbutler.com/reviews/badenheim-1939/
Thanks for posting this link, Jesse!
You wrote a wonderfully written review. Thank you.
And it turns out Hennepin County Library has the book, now on hold for me, in fact I can return and get Dress Grey on hold asap., and finally finish it, these almost endless vicissitudes of either scrambling to deal with unavoidable preps FOR my apt's total renovation, or during - in non-salubrious hotel environs for "reading anything ya really really want to read," - or after, are essentially finished, and I can devote the time (especially with what is a much shorter book like Badenheim 1939)
without suddenly realizing I really NEED to get something else done, having the entire sixth and seventh floor ALSO being renovated and having the %$ED! grinding concrete on steel hammering disrupting unexpectedly at any time from 7AM (how they start that early is beyond me) to 5PM (or have shifts finishing that late, either!) is ovuh!!!
Bloodlands was a revelation to me, too, Jesse, what a powerful book. Nightmarish as well, I had to stop reading and take a walk as it was summer, or just "zone out" to mull over the practically endless moral crises people faced.
One of my nephews, a pretty darn good cinematographer, just yesterday implored me to watch Zone of Interest.
We shared, along with tens of thousands of other GIs and Foreign Service people, a Forrest Gump-like peek into post-war Germany.
One thing that has always bothered me is the smugness of most Americans as to how the French people re-acted to the 4 years of Nazi occupation. When faced with a murderous enemy occupier, I think a vast majority of Americans would bow down abjectly, or even fight against Americans who resisted.
We have never been tested, fortunately, but we will be if Trump wins.
Good point, but I disagree that "we have never been tested." Jim Crow was a test, and most white people, in the North as well as the South, failed.
Under Jim Crow American Whites were the oppressors, not the oppressed, in the South and the North; I saw it in Illinois. I was an Illinois Senate page in the 1950's, and there was as much Jim Crow in Springfield, IL, as there was in any Southern city. It was an eye-opener for me.
Is anyone claiming that *white people* were oppressed under Jim Crow??
Seen this. The silence is deafening.
This chilling scenario has, to a degree, begun. I am so crazed with the possibilities that my wish is a preventive strike. I have thought for a while that Trump is so seditious and traitorous that he should be locked up and shut up someplace where he cannot babble his vicious, rabble rousing, addled threats and lies. Better to let the chips fall where they may *now* than after Trump has nine more months to rip the country apart. To let him continue to spew his demented call to arms is to capitulate to crazy. Let them call us a banana republic while we still have a republic.
Yes, Margo. Why give them more time to destroy and organize even worse destruction? It's not going away and it can only get worse.