This is so deeply frightening. I spent @ 20 of my younger years living in a California cult led by an older, charismatic narcissistic man with many similarities to the now ex-president. I know how exciting and compelling it was to feel like I belonged to a special in-the-know, superior group, and how willing I was for many years to deny obvious facts in order to be in the good graces of the leader and the group — and how hard it was to break from that. There are parts of all of us that want someone else to figure out the hard stuff and shift all responsibility and blame off ourselves or our in-group. What we are witnessing is the growth of a massive cult, but much more along the lines of the burgeoning Hitler/Nazi movement in Germany between the wars than my small group of oddballs in San Francisco in the '70s and '80s. The naked white Christian supremacy that it stands on, and the moves to permanently entrench the unilateral rule of that minority, are terrifying. We have eked out a reprieve, but the clock is still running. What do we do?
Your comment and perspective is important and reflects my own deep concerns. I have been trying to learn about how people get swayed, taken in, even radicalized. I can see this happening to a few people I know and nothing I say makes any difference. I am now trying to keep any comments I make in response to their outrageous delusions and falsehoods to a focus on the importance of media literacy, encouraging them to check the factual basis of their information sources, at a minimum, but I feel as if I am whistling into the wind. It is exhausting and terrifying.
If you study how Germany was mesmerized by Hitler, early on, and witnessed any of his rallies, you would not be able to have missed that Tr**p used the exact same tactics as Hitler in his own campaign, and continued to hold his disinformational brainwashing rallies, as continual booster shots, throughout his so-called "presidency." Hitler used the microphone and rallies, the TT**p Regime used rallies, Twitter, Faux News and cyber warfare propaganda. His cult followers were able to have 24-hour "programming" in their own homes.
It was so fetchingly obvious the first time I heard our grandest of narcissists speak at an early rally and observe how he very cleverly controlled his followers with lies and repetition (repetitive messaging, at least three times per issue). A master cult leader, he then tested his neurolinguistic programming of his sheep by stating he could shoot someone on 5th Ave. and they would still vote for him. And they cheered. Take note: THEY CHEERED. No one spoke against that horrific statement...and obvious test. The press loved him because their rates went up. They ignorantly, in my mind, assisted him in constant headlines and talking heads. I guess not everyone is trained to understand what feeds a narcissist. You must starve their egos. America did exactly the opposite.
With that 5th Ave Moment, he (and many of us who study how masses are controlled) knew his brainwashing strategy was firmly rooted. Mass consciousness control, negative chanting, cruelty of words, behaviors, threats against the press and opposing party (another tactic installing division, fear and paranoia) was so clearly evident, whilst Reason and Logic were buried deeply. He absolutely petrified me and people like Katie Tur way before the November 2016 election. But Teflon Don was allowed to get away with it all with a lot of support by conspiratorial, global oligarchs bent on destroying our democracy.
This is not a movie. This is our reality show under the trumplican regime. Very early on Rachel Maddow did segments on the wicked web of those such as the Mercers, Kochs, Murdoch, Putin and others and their internecine web and their funding of Breitbart, Bannon, Conway, Manafort, (Flynn?) Cambridge Analytica, money laundering and Deutsche Bank. It has taken the radical crazies of the Right ("Reich" is more apt) decades to set this up and place their masked "evangelicals" in significant positions throughout our government systems. I read about their infiltrative intentions 30+ years ago and thought people would be alerted to this and it would never happen.And look at us today.
What is heartening, somewhere in this forum or a link from it, was an observation that
once a country that has fallen siege to a radical dictator, and he is successfully removed from his pulpit and public, many of the cult simmer way down, some fading completely away. This is why it is absolutely critical to remove all the "heads" (metaphorically) of this seditious beast clawing at us. Taking them down and out of sight of the public forum is the only way we can begin to undo their power over their mind-numbed followers.
I am grateful to have discovered this oasis of thoughtful sanity. The comments express a wide range of sentiment, expressing and provoking an enormous amount of nuanced thinking. It gives me optimism to read so many people who are wrestling seriously with these issues.
People have been suggesting books to read to help us understand the landscape.
I would add a podcast. Gaslit Nation has been amazingly prescient for the past four years in predicting the worst excesses of the Trump regime. Sarah Kendzior, author of Hiding in Plain Sight and Andrea Chalupa are magnificent and pull no punches. They are regularly accused of being Cassandras by some who listen to them, but Cassandra’s prophecies were true despite being ignored. I find this to be the case with Gaslit Nation. Sarah and Andrea are sometimes repetitive, occasionally undisciplined in their conversation, but a magnificent listen nonetheless. I strongly recommend Gaslit Nation. Their action guide is very helpful.
I do believe that this beast can be contained. I did think it was “one and done” as a previous commenter noted in regard to January 6. But that was naive. A titanic struggle is shaping up and people must be ready for it. I don’t know if the Democratic Party has the will to act ruthlessly - they have lacked this in the past. I do believe that the Department of Justice must attack this beast head on. The legal system has to be used to send a clear message that if you are going to try to unseat democracy, you will be brought to justice.
This will be a hard struggle. The other side has true believers in spades as well as nauseating opportunists (Cruz, Hawley and McCarthy spring to mind).
*I think one simple thought will be clarifying if doubts arise during this struggle. Marjorie Taylor Greene sits as an elected Republican representative. And she has been appointed to the Education Committee by McCarthy.*
I am reading Kendzior’s book right now. It is horrifying how many people are involved in this regime! And yes, the Russians have been grooming Fake45 for decades. Putin programmed Fake45 and his pals by using psychological warfare. The targets were the uneducated and the radicals such as the Proud Boys, KKKers, Oath Keepers, Hell’s Angels, etc. Democrats have to learn this lesson by not bringing plungers to the fight but swords! I want them to poke their eyes out with their resolutions and whatever tool they can and must employ.
I am also a fan of Gaslit Nation podcast. Sarah Kendzior was a guest with Ruth Ben Ghiat on Strange Days podcast Jan 11 episode and had a very powerful conversation about the implications of the near coup attempt of Jan 6 and what needs to be done to stop this slide to autocracy. I recommend it highly!
Yes, the parallel between hitler’s rise to power and trump is all there. The alarm has been sounding for years. That our congress has been infiltrated by people who actually believe it is their job to be loyal to a narcissistic dictator-wanna-be and take down the government is going to make it a really difficult task to neutralize these terrorists. They need to be removed and the oxygen that feeds them (constant media attention) cut off. Simultaneously, their actions (open or clandestine) cannot be ignored. We also need to recognize and come to terms that some people are just plain evil and when they are put in places of power, really bad things happen to the masses.
There is no stronger or more sickening visual than the fact in January 2021 we have RAZOR wire fencing around the Capitol to protect our government from the enemy within. The blame lies completely at the feet of trump, a deranged person who republicans refuse to convict. How far we have fallen.
Maybe instead of studying why people get duped by Hitlers and Trumps, we need to focus on why people (like us) do NOT get duped. Prevention will need to be more than education, economic opportunity and The Fairness Doctrine.
An interesting, and eminently sane, proposition. But I wonder if a certain amount of resistance to or submission to duping is innate. Several of us on this forum have revealed that we are the only ones in our natal families who turned out resistant to the H's and T's.
Trying to understand the minds of the delusional is fascinating, but crazy-making. The less brain time I waste understanding how/why, the better. I am not a trained neuropsychologist, and after reading some Lakoff recently, I don't want to be. Other people's minds can be very frightening.
Very good analysis. Trump's path to power is extremely troubling. We are at a frightening juncture right now, because if his tactics and goals aren't widely exposed, and rejected, and decisively defeated by the public at large it will show our susceptibility to future horrors of dictatorship and fascism.
Thank you Penelope. An apt description of Trumps tactics. His former wife Ivana said he kept a copy of Hitlers book on his bedside table and it looks like he made good use of it to come to power in the Republican Party.
I think we can all agree on this! The question is, how does this happen? So far, it would seem, these malicious forces are growing angrier since 1/6 and are rallying to whip up even more hatred and opposition, causing us to have this country’s first domestic terrorism threat alert. It is, as you say. a Medusa-headed problem that may take years to counteract. In the meantime, what are our options?
Hey, Ellie. Just read the first of your links about QAnon. A very informative piece.
There is a well-known horse trainer who has said for years to "cause your idea to become their idea" as a way to get horses to succumb to what we humans want them to do. So it came as no surprise when I read this: "Guiding people to arrive at YOUR conclusions is a perfect way to get people to accept a new and conflicting ideology."
Thank you for these links, Ellie. Wow. I think we would all need to be trained by a professional in order to maintain the constructive conversation that is recommended in the last link. That might be a very good idea, with role-playing practice. We all have friends and family that instantly trigger us and learning, and practicing, how to interact with them, while having group support in this, would be VERY helpful on every level.
Just read your first link Ellie. My head nearly exploded with recognition. Apophenia is a new word to me and an apt explanation for the QAnon phenomenon. Thank you.
"Apophenia is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. The term was coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the beginning stages of schizophrenia. He defined it as "unmotivated seeing of connections [accompanied by] a specific feeling of abnormal meaningfulness". So QAnon's goal is to subtly drive all its followers crazy?
Q is a mystery to all, including its/his/her followers. But, if you want to undermine democracy what better weapons than confusion, distrust & anarchy? Why do I sense Putin in all this?
Crazyness is a relative concept and is judged in relation to the norms of society. Different norms=different definition of crazyness. In the USSR and elsewhere they locked up people in Psychiatric Institutions because they didn't think, speak and function in a desired way....they opposed the norms being imposed upon society!
Add to these Anne Applebaum’s book Twilight of Democracy, The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, chapter titled Cascades of Falsehood. Did you know Spain’s Vox party used a slogan similar to Trump’s? Hacer Espana Grande Otra Vez? Make Spain Great Again
I was getting ready to recommend The Twilight of Democracy by Pulitzer prize winner, Anne Applebaum. It's a world view of what is taking place today, and shows that Democracies are indeed fragile. Her book is eye opening, not a fun read, but well worth it. She will be a virtual guest on March 7th at the Tucson Festival of Books. Go online for details.
When you think in historical time, Democracy is a very "young" concept....it hasn't actually been around or postulated for very long for other than the city state of ancient Greece. Between 500BC and 1800AD the idea didn't get very far.
Ellie, I'm quite unable to find the place where you asked me this, but I received a message about who censored a comment on DT that mentioned Hitler, and when:
NYT thread in 2016. This drew attention to the extraordinary success gained by Hitler in using barrack-room and beer-hall language in a land where political speaking was modeled on the funeral oration… Info gained from my Dad who had it in 1943 from a retired British foreign correspondent who’d covered both the Russian revolution and civil war and Hitler’s coming to power in 1933… I didn’t regard drawing attention to the dangers of such language as being contentious, but thought it might be useful… Stupid me. Yet, among my friends, I was derided for regarding a Trump victory as probable.
I’d be happier if my pessimism was more often mistaken. At the same time, we must remember that light illumines darkness but darkness cannot negate the light.
Yesterday, I was driving home with the radio on and heard a brief piece about the Capitol insurrectionists and QAnon (don't remember what program or other specifics), and I said to myself, "These people play too many ARGs!" Then I read the game designer's analysis of QAnon and, bingo!
I do not bring up these references to the Hitler Administration and the NSDAP in order to shock people. I bring them up because they are part of history, and many Americans are not familiar with the history. They only know Hitler and Nazi as evil words, taboo words, to be shunned and turned away from.
(National-sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, the National Socialist German Worker's Party, the "Nazi" Party.
Deutsche = German (that's where the word "Dutch" originated, btw, in the Germany of my grandparents era the Netherlands were sometimes referred to as "low-lying German provinces.")
Arbeiter = Workers
Partei = Party
Nazi = 1st 2 syllables of "National" pronounced in German, the Socialists (Sozialisten) were called "Sozis" for short.
Even the Germans didn't want to say that incredibly long name of the party, so it was "Nazis" and "Sozis."
My attention span after a day of teaching is rather exhausted. I just fall asleep trying to read anything. But Rick Steve’s Fascism in Europe on PBS is really enlightening! He full on calls out what is happening in America is
what happened in Europe pre Nazi. I knew bits and pieces from my school days. But I had not ever been given the full scope and breadth of it all.
Texas just mandated all schools acknowledge Holocaust Remembrance. Everyone seemed shocked that elementary students should be required to learn about this. My art students are doing projects for peace like Picasso’s Dove for Peace and Flowers for Peace. I emphasize this was for a peace conference after WWII. So far, no complaints from parents. When it something remotely controversial, everyone seems to forget knowledge is power.
Rick is an (inter)national treasure: gifted tour guide, humane employer, deep thinker on public affairs. I've watched the Fascism show twice now. Regular episodes inform, entertain and sparkle for 1/2 hr each. The concluding bloopers segment is always a hoot.
I find that heartening. I can't even bring up Hitler's Germany with one of my own sisters, who was raised for part of her childhood in Germany just as I was. She doesn't want to go there. Can't blame her, of course, but it's our family heritage. We have a grandmother who was totally into Hitler, thinking of Hitler of course as Germany's FDR. The Holocaust was not exactly being broadcast in the news, it was the U.S. Army arriving in Germany that publicized the Holocaust.
I believe they are actually labeled as 'entertainment'...except for the actual news shows they have. Someone tried to sue Tucker Carlson for defamation and the judge threw the case out citing that 'no one who watches Tucker Carlson seriously..it's entertainment, not news...!'
Fox's legal designation is an entertainment network because it doesn't meet basic norms of journalism like fact-checking. But freedom of speech allows it to call itself whatever it pleases.
I was talking to my daughter anout what you said. Before I could say a word she said oh yeah the tattoo numbers were an IBM organizing system. But she’s way smarter than me! So there are people who know.
Yes we do need to find better (any?) ways for some kind of dialogue & communication to happen, but it is so hard to make any headway when beliefs are held so dear and are mostly emotionally based. Some folks will likely come out of the fog in their own time, but many die-hards will not. I don't know where to start... but good you are trying!
My dad is completely unmovable. Completely. I have spent 20 years speaking with him weekly, on every social and political subject, since my parents retired here to my town. It's like talking to a brick wall.
It is no consolation to discover, as I was googling to find Hitler's propaganda chief, so see that Heinrich Himmler is from Munich like my dad is. The architect of the Holocaust, no less.
Roland, I am truly sorry to hear about this, which is the painful personal loss which so many people here speak of. I sense you to be a kind, thoughtful person who might have the best shot at reaching a closed mind. This is discouraging to hear. Ugh!
I can't speak for Roland but i can say that I have exactly the same experience with my own dad, and it is on every issue. He is intelligent and highly educated and completely unmovable. People believe what they want to believe, I guess.
Dad is a diehard conservative. Loyal to the Republican party until the day he dies, Fox News in his retirement home most of the time he’s awake. Unmovable and unshakable on subjects of tradition and the old social order, versus the new social order. In other words, there’s no way to scrub the stain of whites come first, males come first, straights come first. Anyone who isn’t white male and straight is inferior, second-class. It will never change.
Thanks, Maggie. Yes, the KGB has been grooming Fake45 for decades. They knew he was the perfect stool pigeon for the job. If you haven’t read Hiding In Plain Sight by Sarah Kendzior, do! She is an expert on Russian affairs as she lived there off and on for years. She delves into how Russians would lure him into thinking he would get a hotel built there. He never has.
Thanks Marlene - I think you mentioned this book before - will ask for it at my library - I dont buy books anymore - have far too many already! But I can ask for what I want at the library.
Thank you Eve. I've been describing Trump's U.S. Capitol riot as America's version of Kristallnacht, the "night of broken glass" when Hitler's brown shirt "storm trooper" (S.A. = Sturm Abteilung, "Storm Division") lackeys trashed looted and burned the German Congress, the Reichstag.
The German people, my grandparents and ancestors, were enthralled by a cult leader, and so are the Trumpsters. Deprogramming and un-brainwashing is needed, sorely needed. Cult extraction and intervention.
That’s how The Arnold described it as well. Our version of the crystal night. My Republican coworkers have suddenly gotten very quiet about all of this. But man they are so anxious to have me give them the link to sign up for the vaccine. Even a friend I thought I’d lost to the Dark Side is now following Heather on Facebook. So maybe the non-cult Republicans are starting to realize voting one issue and supporting dumpty was not the right thing to do. They think I’m extremist radical liberal. I guess cause I helped at the polls? I have always said I would have made a terrible nazi. So sorry for your father! That is hard to stomach!
Denise, in Germany or U.K. you might be right down the center. Believe it or not, you might be just right of center. Bernie is center left. In the U.S., we are called extreme radical liberals by none other than, you guessed it, white supremacists and believers in the suppression of women and libertarian gun arsenal owners who don't even know that they are off. They can't admit it to themselves. And I mean OFF, off balance, off in lots of ways.
Europe is more intellectual, more educated, more informed and, dare I say it, smarter than the U.S. Way smarter. This forum might even be considered conservative in Germany. The U.S. has such a strong conservative minority, and so many extreme conservatives, it makes the rest of us look like wild anarchists in comparison. Think RBG 20 years ago compared to now, when the Supreme Court has migrated so far to the right.
Don't kid yourself, your co-workers are incapable of viewing you clearly or stereotyping you properly, if stereotyping you politically is even a palatable subject on this forum. Simpler words: they have no freaking idea what they're talking about, too ignorant to know reality.
You’re preaching to the choir! These women will flat out tell you they are voting Republican because 1. Abortion, one issue voter. 2. Their minister told them too. Christain submissiveness. 3. Their husband/boyfriend/father told them to. Again submissive to be a good god fearing Christain. It’s mind boggling! They say they are not political! Um you just stated why you vote Republucan and you teach in public schools! Can’t get much more political than that!
Ick. As much as I like your writing on this forum, that was a very unsavory image. My first thought was Ted Cruz in the acceptance position; my eyes! They're burning! My eyes!
Glad I read this before lunch. The images I get in my mind (Cruz, Hawley, Gaetz, McCarthy, et al) makes me wanna hurl my cookies. I guess we really are big, naked apes after all...
My sister is one of those women who will walk on hot coals if her husband tells her to.. She quotes all the passages of the bible that speak of women's submission. She's gotten worse since Trump, if that's possible. She's not speaking to me right now because she thinks that I'm naive to think that Biden won fair and square. She also thinks the pandemic is a hoax, and living in Florida, she has not changed her life at all. She still travels, does not wear a mask, etc. She used to be smart - I'm not sure what happened.
Some Friday morning ramblings...to my mind, this type of giving oneself totally over to one's religion stems from a desire, a laziness really, of turning over all responsibility of having to make any decisions to some sort of ideology. It really isn't at all unlike cult behaviour. It is submitting totally to, in the case of evangelical Christianity, a spiritual dictatorship. It then absolves one of having to be responsible for--gadzooks!--individual, independent thought. Thinking freely (observe the root word for "free" is "libera", the basis for "liberal") is anathema to these people because they, and others (the ones wanting to control them), believe their group has all the answers. They don't need to think. It's done for them. It's terrifying, really, because these people are then simply malleable into whatever their "leaders" want them to be. It's one of those features of the human animal I have never understood, the seeming desire to follow some sort of illogical ideology, to the death even.
People wonder then how I, someone who calls himself a Christian, can still even remotely follow something like Christianity. Aren't I somewhat guilty of doing this as well? Umm...no. I don't see what I believe, do, and follow as a cult, mainly because I joined it freely, after having been atheist, agnostic, and I know I could walk away from it tomorrow. My faith, or what my version of Christianity follows, does not rule by fear. We don't bang on about "Now, if you do this, this, and this, you will burn eternally in the fiery pits of hell, etc. etc. etc." No faith should have to scare it adherents into believing, and this is what almost all of these sects eventually end up doing. It's part of what drives them to feel superior to the rest of us "heathens". They're going on to heavenly glory (they think), and the rest of us won't. They feel they have to evangelize and convert everyone they encounter over to their way of thinking. This not only gives them better cred with God (the more souls they "bring to the Lord" the greater their "reward" in heaven), but it gives them a certain sense of satisfaction. A cult is like an organism. The first thing it has to do is replicate/reproduce i.e. find adherents in order to survive. Notice anything familiar? Well, my faith does NOT preach this.
As I've pointed out before, these loud-mouthed zealots have done a pretty shitty PR job for Christianity and have given us ALL a bad name. It is a huge disservice to what can be, in its bare essence, a very beautiful faith and spiritual path to follow. Now, when you take these zealots and combine their zealotry with a political force and a host of other human frailties, it is all a very dangerous mix indeed, as we've seen.
That sort of unheading and unlistening political unilogue that you describe is just as common in Europe.....only we have moved the goalposts over the years......just like the hours we keep. We start the day later than you, eat later and sleep later. We give different labels to political points of view because of where they sit on the "acceptable spectrum".....which is in a different spectrum to the US but ideological conflict is still too often reduced to a 2 bulls crashing heads to see who is strongest and can thus commandeer the herd. It used to be essential for survival of the species but now instead endangers it.
My wife and I read this column out loud daily. Part of the way through the comments I asked her, what do we do if the bastards win? Do we shut up and live or do we stand up and possibly self sacrifice? This is really really scary.
We must fight and fight hard. We must do it intelligently and quite frankly, Joe and Kamala are doing just that. Smarter people than us have tools they can use even without having the GOP’s permission. Joe will bypass them if they refuse to comply on this budget. That makes me feel good.
Exactly Roland. I have to just laugh (when I am not curled up in a ball hiding) at people who call President Biden a Socialist and Communist. What??? People no longer understand these terms, and are so extremely to the right they cannot fathom what actual liberals are talking about.
Yes we do = I keep remembering how it galled Fox & others that Obama wouldnt call Islam RADICAL Islam - remember that? Guess its time for the title of radical right to get put where it belongs.
You know, I am not a huge fan of Arnold. I didn't even watch his video, maybe because I'm one of the few people in American who probably wouldn't have learned anything new from it. But that video wasn't for me. It was for everyone with no Hitler-era German heritage, or in denial (or ignorance) of their Hitler-era German heritage. I heard he mentioned domestic abuse from his dad, etc. All of that is part of my family heritage, my mother and her siblings. Arnold is in my Dad's generation. He is from Austria, the country where Hitler was born. My dad is from Munich, the place Hitler came to power. So Arnold and I have plenty in common re: heritage.
I don't read or listen to everything I see about the subject, it ain't pretty, and I've spent a lifetime having to accept it as my heritage. This from the kid who grew up watching Hogan's Heroes and all that.
Werner Klemperer (Colonel Klink) of HH was vehemently anti-Nazi and insisted that every episode end with the Germans, especially Klink, defeated and humiliated. He was a far more serious person than one imagines from his bumbling character; some of that comes through in Judgment at Nuremburg. The whole Klemperer family has a fascinating history in that period, documented in several memoirs and biographies.
Werner Klemperer IS Hogan's Heroes. All the uniforms and military artifacts in that series are part of his personal collection, I understand. Thank you so much for mentioning his biographies and memoirs, I imagine he and I have much in common. Going to look into that.
Interesting that you bring up Hogan’s Heros. My father was a Private 1st Class Infantryman in WWII, liberating one of the Nazi work camps. He despised that TV show. He told us it minimized the horrors of the war and the death and destruction it caused. As I write this, I hold him in my heart...my Dad, who witnessed the evidence of Hitler’s control, power, and hatred of all who were not pure and loyal.
I read the letters he sent to my mother, his then Dearest Darling, during the time of his deployment in Europe and I weep. We cannot let this happen, ever again!
I highly recommend the memoir "I Will Bear Witness" by Viktor Klemperer. A detailed account of living under the Nazis as a Jew married to a Gentile, then surviving the bombing of Dresden.
Paradoxically, the actor playing a German camp commandant was a more admirable person than Bob Crane (Hogan), whose ties to organized crime led to his still-unsolved gangland slaying. Col. Klink was German but not a Nazi; he frequently clashed with them, e.g. Gestapo Major Hochstetter.
Leon Askin, the actor portraying Gen. Burkhalter, was an Austrian refugee whose family suffered greatly during the Holocaust. His politics are not as well-known as the Klemperer family's, but a glance at Wikipedia shows that he too fought the good fight in his own way.
Roland, you clearly managed to distance yourself from your heritage. Obviously, you made a decision to reject the stain of your father's experiences and deeds. Congratulations. You are not him, and that's what counts.
In an nation of immigrants, what else? I seem to recollect a study some years ago about the economic contribution of different "waves" of immigration...looking specifically at California...and the impact of growth was appreciable and high, coming with a time lag of 4 years. I think they looked particularly at the influx of Vietnamese after the war.
Here in Central Florida ,through Catholic Charities, each parish sponsored a Vietnamese family. Within an amazingly short period of time these families (with the initial church support (atonement????) and, more critically, by the way they pulled together to help one another) became industrious social and economic contributors and remain so today.
May I draw attention to Caste, by Wilkerson? working my way through her discussion of how we came to be where we are in terms of 'racial' identity. Using the single quotes because so many of us are blends - collateral member of my family was identified only as "he came up the Mississippi on a river boat". Never could figure out exactly where he fit in - family apocrypha.
The name Fairness Doctrine is somewhat misleading, implying that balance is its essence. The requirement to produce verifiable, fact-based reporting is at least as important.
Hello Ronald, it's astute to compare the Trump Insurrection to the rise of Nazism. However, it probably conflates different events in German history. Kristallnacht occurred in 1938; the Reichstag fire was in 1933, and blamed on a lone individual. Though he may have been framed, it was arson at night, not an open mass assault on the German legislature while in session.
Still, any comparison along these lines is deeply disturbing and should be a call to action against the worst angels of our nature.
You are correct, I am conflating events. However, Hitler is personally responsible for both events. In the case of the 1933 Reichstag fire, he managed to pull a disinformation stunt so that he could blame the Communist Party for his own political ends. His attacks on the German Congress are several, and each is comparable to Trump's attack on our Capitol, our Congress.
So I wanted to add to your list of companies and people who supported Hitler. Porsche, Ford, and Volkswagen. Henry Ford was in love with Adolf. His vans as well as the ones from Volkswagen were used to gas Jews and non-Jews. That’s how my grandparents died.
"During the Second World War, Ford Werke employed slave laborers although not required by the Nazi regime.[10] The deployment of slave labor began before the Ford-Werke was separated from the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan, while America had not yet entered the War.
Robert Hans Schmidt presided over Ford-Werke during the Second World War, and engaged slave labor and the illegal manufacture of munitions, including such manufacturing during the period before the U.S. entry into the War. Once the War was over, "notwithstanding all his carefully publicized efforts to erase the stain of the company's past, no evidence emerged that either Henry Ford II or any other top-level Ford Motor Company executive ever raised any moral objects to rehiring [Schmidt], who had presided over one of the company's darkest chapters.[11]
In 1942, German soldiers swept into the city of Rostov in the Soviet Union, moving among the homes of Rostov families, forcing them to register at a labor registration center. Elsa Iwanowa, who was 16 years old at the time, and many other Russians were transported in cattle cars to Wuppertal in the western part of Germany, where they were exhibited to visiting businessmen. From there Elsa Iwanowa and others were forced to become slave laborers for Ford-Werke. "On March 4, 1998, fifty-three years after she was liberated from the German Ford plant, Elsa Iwanowa demanded justice, filing a class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Ford Motor Company."[12] In court, Ford acknowledged that Elsa Iwanowa and many others like her were "forced to endure a sad and terrible experience" at Ford-Werke; Ford, however, maintained that cases like that of Elsa Iwanowa are best redressed on "a nation-to-nation, government-to-government" basis.[9] In 1999, the court dismissed Elsa Iwanowa's suit; however, a number of German companies, including GM subsidiary Opel, agreed to contribute $5.1 billion to a fund that would compensate the surviving slave laborers.[9] After being the subject of much adverse publicity, Ford, in March 2000, reversed direction, and agreed to contribute $13 million to the compensation fund.[citation needed"
Many Americans and British supported Hitler. I believe Lindbergh was also a big supporter. Social Darwinism swept the world in the early 20th C. It's so important to read history and the consequences of movements.
Thanks for this! Please remember that JFKs father, Joe Sr. was against the US entering the war and acceptance of the immigrants trying to escape persecution by the Nazis.
I was shocked to learn that at Lindbergh. This is terrible to say, but I feel for certain things, supporters of influence should be permanently and prominently branded as such so it is never forgotten.
Yech. I knew about using engine exhaust fumes, but not which vehicles. Disturbing. Didn't know about Ford, either, but I can't say I am surprised. A lot of industrialists were racist and sexist as hell.
Oh my! I’m so sorry Marlene! This brings tears to my eyes. I have to wonder if living in these times feels even more frightening to someone such as yourself, given your family’s history. Never in a million years would I have thought America would be at such a similarly dark precipice.
Neither did I... it’s so frightening. And such cognitive dissonance! But is the confusion based in some horrible change that seems to have evolved under our noses without our awareness...or, is it that things were always this way, and likely always will be, and we just weren’t aware? Ignoring the man behind the curtain?!
Marlene, I’m so sad and sorry for the loss of you grandparents.
So many atrocities can be blamed on the rise of Hitler and all of his enablers. As he rose to power, I’m wondering if his loyalists and those who “went along to get along” became numb to his despicable acts and no longer reacted with shock and awe at his actions.
Makes me wonder, what if Trumps army of insurgents stormed the Capitol in early 2017? Do you think that all Americans, including those in the Republican Party, would be as accommodating as they are today...after being numbed to his behavior?
I really cannot say. I do believe that people are very attracted to Fake45’s overall “I don’t give a shit” demeanor and rhetoric. He bucked the system for 4 years and he mucked things up big time! These followers are like Mary’s little lambs except, they are dangerous. Fake45 appeals to these people because he speaks their lingo. If things are said repetitively, people listening become programmed to believing in what they hear.
Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. Your comment illustrates succinctly and vividly the immediacy of your connection to the Holocaust. I cannot even imagine.
Let's stay with the facts. Volkswagen only produced the beetle and German jeep during the war. The VW transporter/van/bus was created by a Dutch businessman named Ben Pon after the war in 1947. Please leave the revisionist history with the wacknut Republican fascists.
Easy there, Big Guy, we're all learning from each other here. You're bringing good information into the discussion, thank you very much. No one is engaging in revisionist history here, not that I've seen. Personally I do not know what types of engines and/or engine-driven vehicles were used during the Holocaust, so I appreciate very much Marlene and you, Craig, informing me. Take a look at Marlene's final line. "That's how my grandparents died." We are delving into painful subjects, personally very painful subjects, this is not history from afar, this is history up close and personal, way too personal. Both my parents grew up in that period in Germany. All of us are trying to learn about that period of history, we are students trying to heal painful family heritage, no one is engaging in revisionism or misinformation, from what I have seen there are no attempts here to engage in altering facts. We are just trying to get to the bottom of events that are disturbing to look at.
Unfortunately, VW was founded by the Nazi Party Government's German labour Front and was heavily implicated in the use of slave labour and concentration camp victims to produce the "jeep" based on the beetle chassis.
There are no nicknames for Hitler. We use his name to identify him in an attempt to never diminish or forget who and what he was and what he symbolizes today.
Using a nickname for Trump may be personally satisfying, even humorous, but it takes the edge off of his criminality and fails to accurately reflect who he is and what he stands for.
I mean no disrespect but if we are going to be successful in making Trump accountable for his crimes, now and in the years to come, we must identify and call him by his name in the same way we call Hitler by his name.
Sorry, Ronald. I endorse your point about deprogramming and un-brainwashing (i.e. denazification) -- one hell of a challenge for America and the world after nearly 30 years of getting steeped to the point of drowning in "virtual reality"... But I didn't notice the confusion that came before it.
I tried to draw attention to the Nazi precedents before Trump was elected, but all such references, however factual, were censored.
I'll add that, however horrified they were by candidate DT, most of the supporters of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party whom I know couldn't take the threat seriously enough and didn't want to be seen making comparisons with prewar dictators. Likewise, too many people in Germany just couldn't take Hitler seriously before 1933.
Read Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen's Diary of a Man in Despair...
Two ❤️❤️, 3 ❤️❤️❤️, 4 ❤️s. Not a soul in this country, certainly not any established media source, would touch the subject of comparing trump to Hitler. My how that has changed. Because the subject of Hitler’s tactics is so relevant to understanding 🍊 greaseball, *especially* since he studied Hitler, and *especially* in January 2021.
I don't have time for a detailed reply to your message, but I do want to point out that the affinities between these two run far deeper than tactics, and the danger DT still poses is consequently far greater than if he was just a streetwise mobster with mastery of diversion and confusion.
Try reading C.G. Jung on the German dictator and his Voice. Jung said of Hitler “There is nobody there”...
It's not the man himself, it's the combination between him and a voiceless mass whose hidden thoughts and feelings he voices.
Roland--I appreciate your repeatedly bringing attention to lessons to be learned from German (and other European) history and development. As you have indicated, there isn't direct repetition of the patterns of authoritarian takeover, but there are lots of things that stand as warning signs. Historical analogies are flexible, and are at times stretched too far. No, Trump ≠ Hitler, and the current GOP ≠ fascism. But the old saying that history does give us rhymes remains a useful guide. I'll take advantage of your admirably expressed willingness to look further ("working, working")--which we should all emulate--to suggest another reference. On the issues involved in corporate support for Naziism I have found Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" to be enlightening. It's long and detailed, something of a slog if read straight through. But with the help of chapter titles and the index you can pursue the shifts and dodges undertaken by leaders of large corporations--both in and outside of Germany--to keep their companies and profits healthy while adapting to Hitler's economically unsustainable demands. A few were either enthusiastic supporters or opponents from early on; lots hedged their bets as long as possible. All compromised to varying degrees good sense--both business and human. Many readers of these letters have commented on the links between Hitler and Trump's authoritarian appeals angry, alienated or dispossessed [see Tooze on Hitler's needs to focus on the German peasantry]. But I found myself hearing rhymes of how plutocrats, pursuing their own interests, potentiated political and human disaster.
Thank you Tom for this thoughtful and exceedingly well written piece. I’m on the job tonight with only my iPhone, so that precludes the thorough response your excellent treatment deserves. I am pleased at what you’ve written, because it indicates clearly that I am being well heard. Also thank you for the word plutocrat, I had to look it up even though I’ve seen it before of course, and now I finally have a word for a concept I’ve been trying to express but doing so poorly. America is a plutocracy. Bernie talks about the billionaires, and I guess if even I didn’t know the word plutocracy, clearer and simpler languaging is necy to amplify visibility of that odious reality here in our beloved nation. Among other pleasing statements you observe that Hitler does not equal Trump. That there are rhymes, resonances, echoes. That is the message I’ve been trying to express, that there are parallels, and that Trump actually studied Hitler. People have been listening because I have found my words being echoed throughout this entire day’s discussion. Your insightful and beautiful contribution is that the American plutocracy, which Heather called the business side of the Republican party, is not to be trusted and actually wants to tear the democratic system down. And of course that is in keeping with the amorality of business and corporations. I use IBM Holocaust tattoos, + now we know Ford was complicit in the Holocaust, indirectly if not directly, you bring up that detailed study, and similarly the big businesses of today like perhaps Facebook and Twitter are complicit in the attacks on the US Capitol, which is our Congress, which is *US*, We the People.
Roland, thanks for your kind words. I'm glad you enjoyed my comment. Your thoughts about the appropriateness of "plutocracy" to describe our current situation are spot on. I would add another possible source to your reading pile if you are so inclined. Political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have written several books about the winner-take-all society. I highly recommend heir latest (2020), "Let Them Eat Tweets." Like Prof. Richardson they analyze the take-over of the country's economy and politics since 1980 (gee, what happened then?).Their term for it is "plutocratic populism": the toxic mix of reactionary economic priorities with right-wing cultural and racial appeals. The book is an easy, if infuriating, read, but if your to-be-read pile is stacked as high as mine, Hacker has written a number of op-ed pieces that should be easily available on line.
I don't recall any mention of studies about the racial attitudes of peasants and small farmers. Tooze, as a political economist, focuses on they're being at the bottom of the economic barrel as the German economy began its slow climb out of the multiple shocks of the '20s-'30s. What does seem to be a rhyme is that they were a substantial minority of the population whose ability to profit off their absolutely necessary support for the industrial drive was strictly curtailed by the government's need to keep food prices low for the urban workers. What the farmers got was lavished propaganda attention, featuring them nationally as the heart of the heartland. All of the pervasive racial suprematist slogans and images prominently featured the hardworking bauer, and bounties were given to the bauerin who produced large numbers of children.
I think the Kristallnacht and Reichstag fire comparison only goes so far and we should be wary of considering Trump times as a leitmotif. It should also be accurately reported.
Kristallnacht was a minor (by comparison to the Holocaust) explosion against the Jews in 1838. It had nothing to do with the Reichstag Fire five years earlier.
For one thing, German democracy was fledgling. It was imposed after World War I and the German people had precious little experience with it. In theory, at least, American democracy should be far more durable.
The Reichstag fire was an attempt to demonize the Communists in Germany who had been engaged in a running battle with Hitler’s Fascists. Hitler, by then in power, used it to consolidate his position and mortally wound the Communists.
In America Trump was on his way out and the acts of January 6 were a wild attempt to prevent this. America’s angry underbelly was prepared to be guided into such an attack. It failed ultimately, partly due to luck, but more because the rioters cannot neatly be packaged into a coherent whole. There are in that group, MAGA onlookers, hate-filled white supremacists, and strands of organized militias who are truly dangerous.
In truth there was only some planning. The enterprise for the most part was as stupid and half-baked as most of Trump’s ideas. That it was somewhat successful was due to the fecklessness of Capitol Police, a general belief that it couldn’t happen here, and the machinations of a few politicians.
Hitler was impossible to stop because he was always a step ahead in his planning, and because the German population was quiescent. Goethe had described them, “so estimable in the individual, so wretched in the mass”. And this latter vice prevailed in the Thirties.
Decisive action now will further fragment Trump’s supporters. He’s out of power and unable to help them. The justice system must shed its pro-white bias and flatten the movement with legal, but brutally efficient resolve.
The comparisons with Nazi Germany will become instructive, rather than convenient and overblown, should the importance of American democracy not be upheld by swift action. If that not be the case, then we will have sown the wind and the whirlwind will be reaped.
"The fecklessness of Capitol Police" was seemingly on display in the first days after Trumpsky's vile insurrection. Now that more details and more video are available, we can see that approval or collusion may have marked the first minutes in storming the Capitol, but most CP quickly regrouped and performed heroically. The number and extent of injuries testifies to their dedication.
Carla's superb, heart-rending comment from yesterday, detailing her connections to the late Officer Howard Liebengood, provides essential insight into the CP. Any failure of theirs should be blamed on the few abettors who welcomed the mob, and still more on superiors who wittingly or unwittingly deprived the Capitol's defenders of critical resources. The latter aspect is especially disturbing and should be a major priority as investigations and prosecutions proceed.
Very nicely expressed. The German monarchy ended around about World War I, so absolutely it was a fledgling democracy, hence Hitler‘s success in damaging it. At that time in history, are the 20s and 30s and 40s, the US democratic experiment was already 140+ years old. Now in 2021 our democracy is close to a quarter millennium. So we have to presume some durability, some strength, and sure enough, damage was done this month but it was not severe. At least I don’t think so.
What can/what should we do? At first I thought of writing to every Republican Senator and Representative who voted against Trump's impeachment and telling them off. LOL - like they would even see that letter! Then I got real. So here's my plan. I realized that I can't vote all Trump legislators out, but I can contribute to their Democratic opponents. I also can and do contribute to the Lincoln Project. Of course, I can't contribute millions, but if we all send what we can afford to the opponents of those folks who are particularly heinous, we could make a difference. And if that's not feasible for some folks, well, letter writing to those companies who pledged not to support any one involved in the Capital riot and pressuring them to honor their word may well be productive.
Your idea has merit. Last year I contributed to Matt Gaetz’s opponent, Phil Ehr, but Phil lost. Next time I will publicize his opponent more broadly, especially here, to get a concerted effort to get Gaetz out.
Thanks for this effort, Annette! We need that madman out! My concern is about the gerrymandering and how much of an obstacle that poses to these efforts in some of these far-right areas. And we could really use a Stacey Abrams here in FL. I would imagine she is working on replicating her efforts in other states, which I will look into.
I too sent money to Phil Ehr (I live down in Tampa so not from his county) and although he didn't win - his numbers were very good and I truly hope he runs against Gaetz again in 2 years because I think he may well win next time -- those retired military may not approve of all of his shennigans).
I'm trying to make the suggestion in as many places as I can. Unfortunately, we can no longer think locally or statewide. We have to work where the crazies are - or they will end up making decisions that affect us all. Thank-you for your reply.
As another long-term action, postcard campaigns are ongoing. I just sent out 50 postcards via Flip the West to voters in California about voting out the complicit Devin Nunes in 2022.
That has been my approach as well. I also contribute to Emily's List when I can. Sometimes my candidate wins and sometimes not, but at least I feel that my little bit might count for something in the bigger scheme of things. I also share HCR with friends on FB and Twitter and in emails. I have been successful in changing a few minds through HER reasoned accounts of the events of the day.
I am hearing people use the words “ personal responsibility “ to mean “do whatever you want to do or you personally think is best for you”. It is so disheartening that we don’t have common agreement on what words mean. This is fascism, correct?
I am committed to not succumbing to cynicism. We have got to pull together and move away from the cliff to which fascism has taken our country. Cynicism and division plays right into the fascism.
Google and read anything you can from Dr Lee. It’s been linked here before. And the book ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump’ by the community of respected psychiatrists. Dr Lee lays out cult behavior and exactly what our nation must do. Biden is mirroring a lot of what she suggests.
How exciting it must be to be a QAnon/Trump believer! It must be like living inside a Tom Cruise movie. Dashing heroes, evil villains, amazingly unlikely and convoluted conspiracies; so much more interesting than the boring reality of bills, committee meetings, infrastructure maintenance, and an uncertain future.
There’s the dopamine hit, the brain neurotransmitter, that gives a sense of “aliveness.” It’s a very real thing and children raised in traumatic or neglectful families are predisposed to this due to how the brain is wired in those years. The brain is “plastic” and it can be remodeled at any time in our lives. But there has to be awareness of the problem and a conscious effort to address it.
Terror is one emotion. Was it terror, another emotion or a combination of emotions, that moved you into waking up to the authentic nature of the leader and the cult - and most importantly, yourself? You possess a precious knowledge of the process of liberation and maturation that can teach us what is required in moving from a lonely, dependent fragility into self-responsibility as a woman strengthened by wisdom. If it feels right, please share your insights. Thank you.
Thanks for your response. My transition out of the cult was gradual, aided not by outsiders but by other insiders who also grew out of it over time. A complicated story. There are some parallels to the trump cult but in other ways it was different. I am trying to sort out my own experience to see what if anything can be extracted that might useful now. So far it is helpful mostly in my own ability to understand some of the mindset of cultists... but not on how to penetrate it. Still searching for answers!
What a mystery that experience must be! To have managed to release it thanks to your friends also traveling the path with whom you could sort things through, and find it still an enigma on this side of it emphasizes how complicated emotionally and psychologically indeed it must have been. I've lived outside the US for a time in a place where there's more connection among people, celebrations, strangers invite you to supper, classmates readily befriend you, lots of religious commemorations, lots of art made by regular people. When I come back home, I feel depressed for a month or so. People aren't on the streets, if they are, they don't look at you; people seem more distant, individual, separate,into their own lives, less into community.
I really appreciate this observation and hearing your experience of being in another country and returning here. I have had a similar experience and you have described it so well. It’s as if there is a kind of deadening of the spirit, here. And people feel closed off and even walled off in their homes. I agree.. I don’t feel the sense of community here that I would like to.
That sense of community is a big part of it I think. We were young idealistic hippies at the start of my cult life (I didnʻt think of it as a cult til way later... before, we were supposedly an egalitarian commune!), trying to escape the alienation & social fragmentation of modern american life. But the belong-to-a-tribe impulse can turn into an even more intense us vs. them alienation. That link someone posted in this thread about how people get strung out on QAnon & the likes is pretty interesting, and fits with this.
Now that we have a huge thread, and my note to you might get lost in the avalanche, I just want to say I think your last name is particularly noteworthy considering the subject. Grüss Gott and Fürch Gott are expressions I grew up with in the Germany of my teens.
Yes. My ancestors emigrated to the US in the late 1800s from German-speaking parts of eastern Europe. All Jewish; considering history, I would call my origins Ashkenazi, not German, and this adds an additional shudder when I contemplate our current crazy political/cultural situation.
I realized when filling out the census form last year that nothing in their lists really described my ethnic or national origins. Caucasian, yes, but German? No way! Czech? Polish? Maybe our families were there for many generations but ultimately so many were chased or frightened out of all those places. It was then I thought that for American Jews, the census ought to have Ashkenazi & Sephardic as choices.
Maybe but not all Jews are aware of their origins. And not all Jews are white. The Spanish Insurrection displaced Jews from Spain and they ended up all over Europe and Jerusalem. Others were in Ethiopia and they were black.
Eve, I am sure that you bear scars from the experience you had. Those of us who have also lived in the thrall of narcissists hear you and share your alarm and distress. You're an exceptionally brave person to break free of the syndrome.
I have something concrete you can do. Join a national community of citizen volunteers who are working strategically and ethically to build an inclusive democracy by countering voter suppression in key geographies around the country. We are all volunteer and you and can look up “Walk the Walk 2020.” This is all truly terrifying but much less so when you can connect the historical dots (via Professor Richardson’s summaries and analyses) and the pragmatic dots (via Walk the Walk’s informed research and strategic interventions.
I've been wondering if people with expertise in extracting people from cults might be useful here, but the scope of the problem is daunting. Should there be programs to train family members? Is there anything that can be done on a mass scale? Countering with facts is apparently ineffective.
I think about "re-education" as it's been carried out in other, non-democratic countries. It's anti-American in my view. Technically, public schools exist (or used to exist) to turn out good citizens. Obviously they haven't been doing a good job.
There is some sharing of written works under this comment that have been on my reading list, and prompts me to move them up a notch. Thank you. When speaking of the path towards healing generations of colonialism and oppression, here is a book that should not be missed, from a perspective that has long been dismissed. And that has been to our world’s great disadvantage: https://sacredinstructions.life/
The presentation of evidence at the Senate trial is vitally important for the American public to witness, whether seditious Republican Senators turn a blind eye or not. Everything and everyone that contributed to The Big Lie and the Capitol insurrection, whether specific individuals were physically present or not, needs to be revealed in graphic detail. At a minimum, this travesty needs to be detailed and documented for history.
Moreover, I think we need to be demanding every day for all of this to be taken deadly seriously by our Senators, as well as our Representatives, and the loudest voices need to be from anyone who has a Republican Senator representing their State. We cannot assume that the trial is for naught, because 45 Senators have already tried to weasel out of their Constitutional duty by claiming that the impeachment is unconstitutional. Talk about gaslighting! Impeachment is a political process. Make it so. What can we make the cost be to them if they don’t convict? Do anything you can to get their attention. Call their offices, write letters, repeatedly, and get everyone you know to commit to making calls and writing letters. We have to keep the heat on. The staff in the legislators’ offices keep a record of constituents’ calls and report the data to the Senators and Reps. It has made a difference before... Remember the outcry when the ACA was threatened a few years ago? American voters’ voices - incessant, loud and clear - made a difference then. Our voices could make a difference now.
It is insane that these right-wing extremists have gotten away with as much as they have already. I didn’t think it was possible for me to be more outraged than I was every day that Trump was in office, but the events in January and the Republican response to the insurrection have sent my outrage into the stratosphere and it is coupled with a deep, profound sadness. I know that I am not alone. We need to use our outrage as fuel to raise our voices to demand justice and accountability from our legislative representatives.
I’ll admit I wasn’t one to use my voice to express my concerns with my legislative representatives until recently. I’ve always recognized the importance of my vote, my voice, in determining the outcomes of elections. But I failed to make the connection that my legislative representatives are my voice in ACTION. That I have an ongoing obligation to communicate my concerns to them so that they can actually “represent” me. They are legislators. They will cast votes as representatives of their constituency. How they decide to cast those votes is directly influenced by the voices of the people they represent. Duh. So now that I “get” this, I have begun communicating my thoughts, concerns, and opinions. At first, I did this through emails (a lot less scary than a phone call!). But now I have contact info for all my representatives saved on my phone and use a sample script to help me articulate what I want to say when I call. Yes, it’s still a bit scary for me, but it gets easier with each call I make.
For those interested, here’s a helpful link with a script to get started.
“ the events in January and the Republican response to the insurrection have sent my outrage into the stratosphere and it is coupled with a deep, profound sadness.”
This clearly and succinctly states how I feel, every damn day.
I said to my wife last night that this trial in the US Senate will be THE evidence to move our Sen Susan Collins to convict. Currently, Collins states she believes in a censure. We must move her. We must apply pressure.
This pressure can happen through other means, such as the business community, specific businesses and their owners, our local newspapers, and radio call-in programs.
We all could vigil at our local city hall during the trial. With a unified message. “Democracy Demands Conviction.” Regardless of where one lives, there is a local Democratic Party, and we each can encourage our party to take leadership.
Now is the time to be visible, persuasive, and to fly ‘Old Glory.'
I hope she will do the right thing, but she has proven too often to lead us all to believe one thing and she then does the other. I find her the most infuriating as she poses herself to be so righteous.
I concur Margaret. I almost threw the TV during her defense of Kavanaugh! I’m trusting that the evidence will so clearly be heard on tape and seen on video that she has NO other choice but to convict. Perhaps, she could rise to the occasion, as did her supposed mentor in the 1950s, Margaret Chase Chase?
Well, today’s Letter sums up a rather starkly, the challenge we are all facing. I’ve got nothing to add to Professor Richardson’s analysis, but I would like to share a thought.
Those of us who played sports (or the younger among us who still do) know that preparation/training is key. For the battle ahead, my first step is doing such much needed homework.
Here’s the short list of what is on my nightstand:
Caste: The Lies That Divide Us, by Isabel Wilkerson
How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Fixing our Democracy
I want to thank the people in this space for these suggestions and look forward to hearing more.
Each of those books and resources is brilliant in its own right. It’s a weighty amount of reading, so you might want to also consider an Audible subscription or checking the audible versions out of the library, so you can listen to one, while reading another. Now that I suggested that, I’d like to recommend one more to add to your list: Stamped From the Beginning , also by Ibram Kendi. I read How to Be an Antiracist first, then Stamped, which was fine, but in hindsight, I wished I had read them in the opposite order: Stamped first, then How to Be an Antiracist, because the first book sets the stage for the second. In any order, however, they are eye-opening and packed with information and insights. Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste is also phenomenal, and the quality of her writing is exceptional. When you finish all of those, The New Jim Crow and The Color of Law are also excellent.
I already have the books, and I don't listen to books anymore because I don't drive here. And - I love to read. I'll add the others to the list. Thank you so much for the suggestions!
I don’t drive much anymore, either, which does reduce opportunities to listen to audio books. During the spring and summer months, I had an enormous amount of work to do in my yard for months on end, so I listened while I was working. It’s harder to find opportunities to listen during these isolated, pandemic winter months. I have actually been listening to Heather’s video chats while I exercise or do necessary housecleaning, which makes the time pass more quickly and enjoyably.
Listening while gardening - I hadn't considered that. My only concern is that it might hinder my conversations with the small robins that follow me around from bed to bed, waiting for the insects, seeds and worms I unearth while planting or weeding.
You talk with the small birds in your garden? Isn't it fun. One of the beds I care for is a mature rose bed with 30+ bushes, and in summer, you have to crawl around under the thorny branches to weed. We have a small community of European Robins (Rotkehlchen, in German) and inevitably one of them will become curious and visit me while I’m digging. They come quite close, and I can’t resist talking with them. It’s mostly a one-way conversation, but the more one talks to them, the more comfortable they seem to become.
There is a book coming out in Feb you might want to check out: The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, by Heather McGhee
I was impressed by “Hiding in Plain Sight” by Sarah Kendzior. I’d like to add “Strongmen” by Ruth Bem-Ghiat, and “How Fascism Works” by Jason Stanley. I feel that these books show that Trump’s behavior was pretty predictable and they provide context.
German infiltrated white supremacy groups, and was able to prevent a church bombing. If I recall this was in the 80s. The briefing and training materials he submitted to FBI supervisors was rejected. Basically, if they are not accepted as official documents, then they are not official "federal records".
One of German's observations was that as long as the various hate groups keep focusing on their difference, they are not a big threat. If they get over their difference and band together, then they are a very serious threat... this is where we are now.
Caste is good but IMO , me and white supremacy is better. This book will force you to look at yourself. Caste is unnecessarily over-intellectual and somewhat repetitive. I did not finish her book with a clear understanding of the concept of caste. A friend of mine who is a more avid reader than I suggested that I read the book review instead. That was smart suggestion that I did not follow. I may look for Ms. Wilkerson’s first book, however.
I just did a catch-up viewing of the film “Harriett” last night. Most of my film viewing happens in the winter. After seeing that rousing story, I thought about those long lines of folks back in November, braving disease and weather to “vote the bum out”. That’s the kind of passion this piece of history demands — the passion for justice. The rage to break things and threaten people does not compare in any way to the passion for justice.
I find it interesting that Republicans base their actions on what is wrong with Democrats, not what is right with their own party. Yelling loudly enough about how bad the "libs" are shows how little Republicans themselves have to offer. When you have no game, attack, suppress votes and point fingers. But when you point at someone three fingers are pointing back at yourself.
It's amazing to me that Republicans are putting party first, not the good of the nation. If when a president incites insurrection is not an impeachable offense, then what is? Unfortunately, politicians have fallen back into survival mode, which requires them to gingerly remove their own spines. The notion of doing the right thing for the country disappears, which opens the door for a real, well-organized coup in the future.
Randy I sympathize, but this spinelessness, love of autocracy, and the whole racist/sexist/homophobic program has been the platform of the GOP for at least 4 decades. What the EX-"president" did was simply reveal the monster underneath the dark grey suit. The fact that there are plenty of people in the USA who seem to think that totalitarianism is a good replacement for democracy--many of them in elected office all over the country--has more to do with human nature and the difficulties of becoming self-aware and maintaining that self-awareness than it does, I think, with the all-too-predictable gormlessness and jingoism of the GOP. As has been revealed all over the world at numerous times--especially the 20th century--blind obedience to a dictator or demagogue is the go-to option for all the people for whom rational, informed thought is a frightening concept.
It is hard to develop the skills to become a humane and rational person. It requires time, maturity, and the ability to look inside and say "crap: I was wrong about that." In my experience, remarkably few people, even highly "educated" people, are willing to engage that very hard work. And so it makes them easy prey for cynical opportunists like Hawley and Cruz and total crazies like Greene.
To be found all around the world as you say. In France we have a similar situation where radical Islamic integrism (often in association with the local "caïde" controlling the drug traffic) is being used to control significant parts of the Muslim community in many suburbs of major cities and towns forming areas that have effectively seceded from the Republic where their "particular" interpretation of the Koran holds sway and not the police or more generally the law; women are chattel and must submit to their men, cover themselves from head to foot, are not allowed in cafés and can be married off as adolescents etc. Of course the government denounces it "on the tip of their tongues" but does too little too late....even when teachers are beheaded in the street....because they are afraid of being labeled "racist" or restrictive of "individual freedoms", guarrantteed by the European Court of Human Rights no less, by the very "caring, politicized associations" that they have themselves funded from tax monies.....with the best of intentions, of course.
And in the meantime, the French people moan and mumble, say they will vote for the extreme right wing while getting on with their daily lives! Not much growing up here either.
This is fascinating to learn about France, however unpleasant. It is easy to have an idealized notion of a place and not be aware of real life conditions.
Thanks for you comments, Linda. One would think that we as a species would have progressed to the point where at least a few of us would understand the concept of Being. Unfortunately, social media sites like Facebook (the ANTI-social network) have made us morally lazy. Keyboard courage abounds. I can imagine that one day we will have a Moral Computer to guide us.
Thank you Prof. Richardson for reminding us that Trump isn't off playing golf in La-La Land. He's meeting with the House Minority Leader to plan a Republican takeover of the House. We have an overwhelming wish to believe that he's not just out of sight and mind, but out of our world. He is not. And his violent lackies, who supported the execution of the Speaker and the Squad (hardly allies), have vowed on a Bible to be loyal to the Constitution and are skirting the metal detectors on their way into the People's House, armed, to legislate. In the words of W. Shakespeare: "Clarence, we are not safe."
Professor Richardson, first thing this morning I read your urgent, sharply focused snapshot of where-we-stand-today—the reality of this moment in America. I knew this reality, but once you’d summed it up so clearly I scrolled down and read the first few comments, coming to one that read “Lord, deliver us from evil”. At which point I could take no more and retired for hours to pray for the strength to face up to the foul reality show the New York hoodlum has unleashed on our suffering world.
At the weekend, mass demonstrations in over a hundred Russian cities from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok against Trump’s model for America, his mentor Putin’s bandit oligarchy, met with lies, jail and the knout. Worse will likely follow. Covid-19 mutated and spread.
Question: does the United States possess the means to deal with the armed insurgency fomented by the racketeer who made it to president, and who, having struck once, is following time-honored mafia tactics and threatening more of the same until he has his way? I'd long seen America’s politics as the heartless party vs. the gutless party, but today’s faction-torn GOP looks like poor Rebekah with a heartless twin battling a gutless one in her womb.
What this means is that, unless and until the US government finds a way of dealing with the ongoing insurrection—bringing criminal charges against ringleaders Trump, Cruz and cronies and putting them out of harm's way—no one on earth will be safe. The violent chaos America has sown in the Middle East has come back from Iraq and Somalia to haunt her.
The cowardly too-big-to-fail pretext of 2008 won't wash for a political party in thrall to a murderous psychosis. Straitjackets and padded cells for the psychopaths, the perp walk for the leading mobsters, those who got themselves into Congress via the ballot box then betrayed their country, unleashing on the world the rabble whose minds they’d first poisoned. The 14th amendment for them all.
And, in case anyone tries to stick targets marked “left-wing” or “lib” on me, I’m 81, I am not partisan, I’ve had a civil servant’s ringside seat from which to observe politics throughout my active life, learning to respect those operators who did their job competently, regardless of whether or not I cared for their party; but the world has in the past thirty years tilted so sharply rightward, then further and further, that the boring middle-of-the-road principles I’ve held to for over six decades are bound to shock those who’ve never had a thought of their own but came into the world fully armed with granddad’s solid, unchanging hand-me-down hatreds and prejudices. Zombie ideas from another age promising death and destruction for our children and grandchildren and for life on earth as all human generations have known it.
The responsibility facing us all at this time is probably unprecedented.
AND an 83 year old, who recalls the “Doodlebugs” flying overhead, and omelets made from dried egg powder! I am happy today when I wake to find more “oxygen” in the air, but sad that I am not sanguine for the future of the next generations. Education should require more History!
Haha! No, TG, that I dont recall. But I do remember the joy of visiting cousins, female, late teen, focus on figure, who happily all gave me their sweet (candy US) ration coupons.
I DO remember my FIRST real peach, post war, and also some years later, being introduced by older more sophisticated friends to REAL spaghetti (the kind in the 3 foot long!blue wrapper), wonderful, as opposed to the indescribable “I refuse to disgust the reader” stuff in tins that we had on Wed. evenings. However, when trauma does set in, occasionally, I still resort to UK Heinz Baked Beans on toast washed away by a large ancient single Malt!
Sorry for confusion! In my book TG = Thank (the Lord!) but I’m afraid I still talk about “boots” and “bonnets” . You can turn the Brit into an American, but you cant get the Brit out of the American!!!
Thank you Peter for your reasonable assessment of the American abyss. For those of us outside the fringes, attentive to current affairs and engaged as citizens the response to the country's instability by too many 'sane' Americans is either to be frozen in fear or to wear rose colored glasses. There has not been nearly enough democratic socio-political organization, Black Lives Matter representing an important exception; a lack of substantial local, grassroots organization; effective local and state representation by the Democratic Party or lively and consequential journalism on a local level. Americans have been asleep or deeply angry for much of the last fifty years. The economic safety net created by The New Deal and 'The Great Society'; fairy tales like 'The American Dream'; the goals of civil rights movement and a 'square deal' have been whittled way. All of that and more have led us to this dark and terrible breach. The image of exhausted and at risk nurses, therapists, doctors and healthcare workers comes to mind and so do the deaths and sorrow as a result not only by Covid-19 but also by the lethal ex-president and his allies. The point now is not that it didn't have to be this way, but what are we going to do about the threats to democracy and a civilized society?
Thank you, Fern, I wish to goodness we didn't have to see these things and deal with them, but that's the hard reality. Meanwhile, let's never leave go of our lifeline to the light when night and fog seem to be closing in on us.
Thanks John. It's always good to know that some of us never stopped thinking, never stopped asking questions. And while the situation is dire, it is reassuring to read a blog followed by such a thoughtful comments thread.
Wow, Peter, this is powerfully and elegantly written. Thank you for sharing this. I so appreciate the perspective from someone outside our country and who has a much broader field of vision. I agree with you, wholeheartedly. Thank you for your prayers. We could all spend some time in prayer, intention, visualization; whatever ones spiritual practice consists of. I appreciate the wisdom your years have accumulated. My mother is 90 and she had been warning of Trump’s likeness to Hitler for many years. I didn’t take it seriously.. thought it could never happen here. She was right all along.
Thank you Pamsy, I too wish I'd been wrong, wish I could be less of a Cassandra, want to give encouragement, not warnings. It seems to me that happiness is grossly undervalued in our societies fixated with having, having, having more, then more, and more. Dissatisfaction guaranteed—hence greed's grotesque inflation. Yet if people could only get to see that happiness doesn’t depend on causes and let themselves be infected by the smiles and laughter of small kids, surely they’d never get swept away by the tide of gun-toting hate-filled crazies. True smiles, warm smiles are a small antidote. A contagious virus worth spreading.
Half a lifetime ago, I’d always be struck on returning from countries where people smiled proudly even when they were on the breadline, by the miserable expression on the faces of the well-to-do getting out of their Mercedes…
I used to think of America as the realm of the possible, knowing all that was wrong but always thinking of the country’s vast positive potential, not the bottomless abyss we have just witnessed. Yet… that potential is still there, despite the beggar-my-neighbor dog-eat-dog attitudes of so many, both privileged and underprivileged, despite the mentality of poverty infecting too many of the rich (but not those poor who’ve kept their dignity), despite the oppressive meanness, despite the pervasive racism. It’s great to have a president once again who is a man, a real human being—someone you’d not need a lantern to find in broad daylight. It’s great to have men and especially women who are incarnations of hope for us all, like your strong, sharp-witted Vice-President. Just imagine where we’d be if the world had seen a few more heroic figures like Stacy Abrams during those “mean dishonest decades”, the past thirty years.
Another wonderful bit of writing. I couldn’t agree more. Some of the poorest people, in other countries, look to be the happiest. Happiness, as you say, isn’t about all the extra stuff. How did we become so materialistic and greedy? I hope you will keep sharing your thoughts and observations here.
Dr. Richardson, it is always dark when I start your letter. As I read I watch the back yard emerge as the light arrives. It always does. I hope the light arrives soon to those who still believe in the twice-impeached former president. He and his followers are a cancer that must be excised if we are to keep our democracy.
☺️ Not in this weather. Sitting in my favourite wingback chair, looking out the sliding glass doors to the deck and the backyard. Once it’s warm enough to sit outside with my coffee and “Letters from an American” the sun will be up.
I remember well the warning as a child not to run with scissors. It seems the modern Republican Party is heavily populated with those who either never received that warning or have forgotten it.
I am now watching most of them gleefully running around with open scissors in each hand, eager to use them to cut out from the party all deemed insufficiently loyal to #45. My reaction, when I am able to calmly reflect on this, is to hand out additional pairs of scissors to them all and provide enough candy to keep them on a sugar high.
While we may endure a period chaos and even some degree of violent protests, it seems their anger is directed at least as much against each other than at the smooth functioning of government. Biden and his team are proceeding calmly to return America to stable and sane governance, and are focusing on matters requiring attention and too long ignored or mismanaged by the previous administration. Likewise Pelosi and Schumer are each organizing their caucuses and moving forward on crafting and passing the enabling legislation to enact the Biden administration priorities for the American people.
So while we have the insane inmates of the asylum running through the halls with open scissors threatening each other with violence, the doctors and attendants have retreated to their offices and are attending to business.
Eventually, Republicans may do such damage within their ranks that their numbers will shrink and they will lose yet more control for themselves of governing in a responsible manner leaving Democrats firmly in charge. Yes, the crazy mob running about with scissors is disturbing and threatening. But, perhaps we should stay out of their path, remain in our offices tending to business, and simply let their destructive behavior continue until it burns itself out. Running around trying to take the scissors from their hands or urging them to walk, not run, likely will not reduce their panic or calm their behavior, and only increases our own danger by placing us in the midst of their melee.
I urge all to remain calm and focus on our own task of govening responsibly and to focus our attention and efforts on solving the problems America and the world faces. Allow the inmates of the asylum to continue to run wildly amongst themselves with open scissors. This will eventually pass and there is no reason for us to endanger ourselves in their midst.
This is exactly what Biden is doing, calmly working on his/our agenda. But, someone (Congress & Justice) need to start putting a lid on this. Trump and his enablers aren’t going away on their own.
Corporations. There's a good reason that some people despise corporations. We should be patient and considerate when someone is raging about corporations, rather than turning away.
Why? Why should we refrain from labeling these discontented people silently in our minds as extremists or, to use a word posted here not long ago, outliers?
Heather says, "Those in the business wing of the party are not moderates: they are determined to destroy the government regulation, social welfare legislation, and public infrastructure programs that a majority of Americans like. But they are not openly white supremacists or adherents of the QAnon conspiracy, the way that Trump’s vocal supporters are."
No, they may not be openly white supremacists, but let's just take a quick peek at some corporate history, shall we? The kind of corporate history that doesn't make it into the news very often, not good publicity.
You know those famous numbered tattoos on the forearms of Jews in concentration camps? Those numbers are IBM numbers. That's right, it turns out that keeping track of millions of subhuman people is difficult to do with card index files, so computer software was necessary just to manage the load of information. This is the 1930s and 40s, mind you. It's amazing that any computer technology was available at all.
You know who supplied the Zyklon B cyanide pesticide for those infamous gas chambers? BASF, a big German company equivalent to Dow Chemical or Dupont. Bayerische Anneliden u. Sodafabrik.
Speaking of Dow and Dupont and BASF, who, I wonder, supplied the poison gas used in trench warfare during WW1? Who supplied the gunpowder for the munitions on either side of the Atlantic? Corporations.
In Japan, Mitsubishi manufactured the Zero. In the US, the companies that supplied all the tools of warfare are usually categorized as hero organizations, but I question that argument. War is not an activity that, generally speaking, you want to tout as noble or healthy. Sorry TC.
Who manufactured and supplied napalm?
The list goes on and on. Deutsche Bank, yes our lovely supplier of funds to our dearly departed President, our likely money launderer for some of Putin's millions paid to him, was the bank of choice for Nazi Germany. No exaggeration, Deutsche Bank translated is something like "German National Bank." They took their role seriously, even during the Hitler Administration. [Try out the beginning chapters of "Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump . . . " for reference]
You get my drift.
Corporations, by and large, are amoral. Some of the biggest war crimes in history have been aided and abetted by corporations.
Don't ever call them heroes. Don't listen to the PR about how noble they are. Bull.
Just a reminder: on Jan. 6, my wife watched live on TV. She saw the now-famous guy with the Camp Auschwitz shirt, the shirt which she saw had the word "Staff" printed on the rear.
I’m ashamed to say that in the past I’ve resisted all suggestions to call Trump a Nazi. I thought the analogy disrespected the suffering of those millions who were rounded up, tortured and killed. Now I see beyond that to the early days of the brown shirts when that nightmare began and might have been stopped.
Here we are today actually debating whether or not to arrest, impeach or remove from office people who openly call for violence and the overthrow of our government. I’m heartbroken and very angry. We’re looking down the barrel of fascism right now.
I'll be 70 next month. My parents were die-hard Stevenson/Kennedy Democrats. I was taught from the cradle to loathe Richard Nixon and later that Barry Goldwater was a dangerous, way-out-there radical.
How far we have come.
At the 2020 Republican Convention the GOP decided to abandon the usual God, guns, and tax-cuts platform. There would be only one plank; loyalty to Donald Trump.
Paul Krugman's column in today's NY Times is titled, "The GOP Is in a Doom Loop of Bizarro." The column ends with a statement; "But a party that buys into bizarre conspiracy theories and denies the legitimacy of its opposition isn’t getting saner, and still has a good chance of taking complete power in four years."
How did a major political party fall into the thrall of such a deeply flawed human being? Had the Covid 19 pandemic not come along Donald Trump likely would have been re-elected. I shudder at that thought. Not because it could still happen, but because millions of my fellow citizens seem to want to dance on the grave of American democracy. This leads to the haunting question; was Jan. 6th a wake-up call or a pre-cursor?
Thank you Heather. My heart hurts for you to have to surmise this disintegrating Country.
As many of us thought, at this point we would be looking at a Country trying to unify and start putting people before Party. Instead we are seeing that everything we thought was bad is actually worse. As Nancy Pelosi states "the enemy is from within ", she is correct. I watch Biden doing his best to put the Nation in the proper direction, yet his every move is discounted and challenged by the GOP and the vitrol of the trumpers and most Republicans is overwhelming. This Nation reminds me of a boat with dry rot. Regardless of how presentable you try to make it, it's still a failed vessel.
Simple idea: America is now divided into two camps - those who read widely and critically, those who don’t. Education system, especially civics study, has failed us.
Retired Social Studies teacher here. I'd like to differentiate between an educator's failure on civics and history education versus outside pressures on the education system regarding these subjects. In my experience, beginning with Ronald Reagan's A Nation at Risk, our country was brainwashed into believing that the US was far behind in the teaching of math and science. Next, Americans were told that due to the rapid changes in technology students needed to receive even more education in math and science. I don't disagree that our country had room for improvement in these areas but what I experienced and saw was the severe loss to students in other areas of their education. People were led to believe math and science courses were more important than other subjects. As a result, there was less and less focus on history, civics, art, reading, recess/phy ed. As a high school teacher, I observed students and parents complained because US History, World History, Economics, and Government were required for graduation because these classes wasted their time and because "they will never use this information in real life." In my school district, I worked with exceptional social science teachers - brilliant, dedicated people who constantly updated their teaching pedagogy. Parents often devalued the social science courses their children were in and resented the "waste" of their child's time. In elementary schools, the teaching of history and civics was reduced to 30-40 minutes a week and was superficial at best. It has become very obvious what the cost of these choices has had on the country.
I couldn't agree more! You have pegged the problem. IMO, the subjects around literacy, history, social studies are of primary importance - they provide the tools needed to succeed in other studies, life and society. Basic numeration, of course, and an appreciation of the methods of science and scientific "literacy" are key goals, too. But balance and the liberal education lead us forward in all fields of endeavor. My career was spent in data, computers and modeling - I got there by reading. My career in government was informed by my teachers in history, civics and government studies. America's strengths have always emerged with the breadth of our education leading to innovative thinking and leadership in ideas.
Hello, former history teacher and current graduate student who works on the history of education. it began before Reagan, though A Nation at Risk was certainly a part of the continued assault on liberal arts education. I study the 1940s-1960s and there were substantial calls from conservatives for the Three Rs education. In this, history fell by the wayside. Further, "controversial topics" which had previously been embraced by progressive educators as something necessary to discuss were jettisoned. Instead, conservatives pushed for history education that taught rote memorization and exalted blind acceptance of parental authority. This latter was often a cover for the maintenance of racist ideologies and religious bigotry.
There have been numerous pieces of journalism of late regarding the number of local schools districts that are poisoning their children with distorted history. And that is a huge reason for why so many in our country don’t know historical facts. Most of us have enough trouble keeping up with what’s needed of us in our own little bubbles and are therefore challenged to pay attention to what has happened to the curriculum in some hyper partisan districts out west.
I really am not making a judgment about your statement, however, I don't think it is fair to make broad generalized statements that there have been "numerous pieces of journalism" "regarding local school districts poisoning their children." What pieces of journalism? Which publications? Which journalists? Which school districts? While I would never make a broad statement that such a thing never happens, my original post refers to the fact that most social science teachers are dedicated to truth in teaching. Keep in mind that public school teachers are required to teach content as guided by state-mandated standards and benchmarks. I have worked on those committees so I am familiar with those processes. There truly is a dedication to best teaching practices and exploring well-rounded historical facts. I think well-rounded is the key. In order to provide the best education possible, we need to teach about both the good decisions, experiences, and social movements as well as those areas that had a less positive impact. We need to acknowledge that decision-makers, while perhaps making what they thought were the best decisions may have in fact, have negatively impacted The US and Americans. People aren't perfect. Our nation is not perfect. We seek to create a more perfect union but make mistakes. Just as in life, mistakes and failures are learning opportunities. The best history education helps students to think critically about the past, including the mistakes and failures. To ignore this history is to prevent young people from learning and understanding how past choices created particular results. I value education highly and, to me, that means looking at our past as honestly as we can, warts and all.
Here’s a Cato Institute (Libertarian Institute think tank) Twitter page that highlights various controversies over curriculum. There appears to be much confusion over historical fact and the interpretation of history. Let me be very clear, I’m a strong proponent of government that loves and takes care of all people. I despise the premise of Libertarianism. But the Twitter page gives credence to my assertion on the problem of an accurate curriculum.
LOL. I’m not your “student”. I offered my perspective as someone who reads widely and nonstop. It’s not up to me to provide you with a list of sources and Google couldn’t be much easier to use. I speak of local school boards primarily. My spouse is an educator, I’m not disparaging teachers, I have great respect for the vast majority. As with any profession there can be bad apples, I have experienced history teachers who don’t flinch at teaching propaganda.
Yes, but those of us who read had damn well better figure out how to communicate with those who don't. Perhaps we need to repeat endlessly (in trump's fashion) simple little commonplace phrases like: "Trump is Covid".
I agree that words absolutely matter. But I think it’s far more complicated. Some experts in authoritarianism and propaganda might have some excellent advice. I’m guessing our new POTUS is fully aware and employing such experts
Yes, I see this a lot and is a huge difference between the two parties. Republicans are so loyal they’ll stick with the party even if it takes them over a 400 foot cliff. But, with the Dems, because many are their own experts on every single thing, if the path forward isn’t exactly as they prescribe then they won’t get on board. Sure explains why we can’t have nice things. Calls for Unity always seem to be perceived for anyone but me.
Yeh, but.....books in the home have always been a rather middle class phenomena. Well educated parents tend to make for well educated children....as it is for them an important value as well as being a known means of maintaining their social positioning. Parents were supposed to want their children to do even better than they did. You have to have access to the means...educative and financial.....to sustain this approach to life.
I was raised on a VERY small farm and, in retrospect, mild poverty. While we had a few books in our home, I spent may hours in public libraries (my family attended the LARGE farmers market in a nearby city “back in the day”), checked out books and was encouraged to read. Public libraries have fallen in importance in our communities. Also, a failure in the past 30 years to keep up with technology and access to the wider public. Libraries through history have been a mark of the great civilizations, so what does that say about the U.S.?
Libraries! They saved me from ignorance. They opened the world to me. Later I worked in the children's room at a public library. This was at a time when everyone wanted to get on the Internet but many did not have computers. Before cellphones. Librarians debated how to allow access without allowing harm, and I suppose teachers faced the same problem. That was more than 20 years ago.
I remember in the sixties the Bookmobile used to stop at the park in our neighborhood every week in the summer. Pretty much the highlight of each week.
"I spent may hours in public libraries.... and was encouraged to read." This is the key which is lacking these days. Books are there for the taking if you care to look.....they don't think it necessary as someone is doing their thinking for them.
About 50 years ago, I recall seeing a timeline of the changes in the physical structure of man...starting with the ape and coming down to the present day. It went on to assume that...over the next thousands of years, the body would become less bulky and muscular as we became more sedentary and the brain would enlarge as we used it more. Unfortunately, the trend seems to be going in the opposite direction. We exercise much more now and eat healthier, so our bodies are improving. On the other hand, with the rise of computers, we read less, use our brains less to make calculations, remember dates and events, etc...so ur brains will probably atrophy in time.
Booka are the only way to reverse that ominous outcome. Yes, I too recall hours in both the school and the city library; getting my library card was an important event in my childhood. Perusing through volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia was a joy. Now - just google it. What a shame!
You may enjoy "The Library Book," by Susan Orlean. (She's the one who wrote "The Orchid Thief" a few years ago.) While it's a paean to libraries in general, it's more particularly about the L.A. Public Library and the fire of 1968. 'Good read.
One of my most exciting childhood memories was the day the white books of the World Book Encyclopedia came into our house and were put on the bookshelves.
My father (born 1906) finished the 5th grade, but was one of the most well-read men I've ever met. When he came to live with us in later years he would read the Brittanica every day and started at the front and read straight along. Always had interesting things to say at our dinner table. When he died at 81 he was reading the "M" volume!
That's a wonderful anecdote, MH! He certainly set a fine example of the joys of learning.
For me it started with my paternal grandfather, a tailor from Poland, who came to the U.S. in the early 1900s. A union member and poor, he and my grandmother raised five children (four girls and my dad) and adopted another. You'd have thought there'd be no money for culture, but he had a little bookcase in the foyer, in which were books by Dickens and other authors of note. My father (born 1915) finished high school and was a purchasing agent. He collected books as well as records, starting with Enrico Caruso on 78 rpm's. There were always books and music in my life.
I don't think it's actually an education issue. Instead, it's more about the allure of ideology. I have a lot of relatives who have adopted a rigid pseudo-Christian, right-wing ideology and refer to their self-righteous intolerance as "having values." I don't think their beliefs are values as much as they are defenses against the confusion of reality. After all, the world is big, really big, and if you don't find it confusing, you either aren't paying attention or you are hiding from it.
I like your mention of having to face the confusion of reality. We need to be taught from a young age to think for ourselves and to evaluate information for truthfulness.
And the Fascists have studied authoritarianism and nothing is coincidence. Many more of us should have gotten a lot louder when the first wife told us that the mob boss was studying Hitler’s speeches.
Most of these replies are about education. My question is, how do you explain the well-educated, thoughtful people (I live in a red state and know lots of them) who are ardent Trump supporters and are plugged into some of the conspiracy theories?
It’s so much more complex than that. Child neglect and emotional abuse are rampant in our country. Privileged people don’t see it. Hillary Rodman Clinton knew very well that the only antidote for authoritarianism was to improve the lives of our youngest and that is why she was always the biggest target of the Fascists. Power hungry Fascists know very well that which creates the most vulnerable minds
I agree, but let's start with a simple "To Do" list, which I think Joe Biden is doing. $15/hour minimum wage, support for needy schools, child care, health care (COVID), voting rights, environmental quality/justice, climate crisis . . . . OK, that's enough for right now.
How do you kill a hydra? Starve it to death. Give it no air, do not give its lies voice. Give it no water, do not waste your emotions fighting it. Give it no earth, with your feet firmly on the ground let the illusions fly by. And, give it none of your fire, your sacred light. A rage fuelled by love and truth can discriminate and lead to right actions. One at a time the heads die. While we live in time and space vigilance is all.
This is so deeply frightening. I spent @ 20 of my younger years living in a California cult led by an older, charismatic narcissistic man with many similarities to the now ex-president. I know how exciting and compelling it was to feel like I belonged to a special in-the-know, superior group, and how willing I was for many years to deny obvious facts in order to be in the good graces of the leader and the group — and how hard it was to break from that. There are parts of all of us that want someone else to figure out the hard stuff and shift all responsibility and blame off ourselves or our in-group. What we are witnessing is the growth of a massive cult, but much more along the lines of the burgeoning Hitler/Nazi movement in Germany between the wars than my small group of oddballs in San Francisco in the '70s and '80s. The naked white Christian supremacy that it stands on, and the moves to permanently entrench the unilateral rule of that minority, are terrifying. We have eked out a reprieve, but the clock is still running. What do we do?
Your comment and perspective is important and reflects my own deep concerns. I have been trying to learn about how people get swayed, taken in, even radicalized. I can see this happening to a few people I know and nothing I say makes any difference. I am now trying to keep any comments I make in response to their outrageous delusions and falsehoods to a focus on the importance of media literacy, encouraging them to check the factual basis of their information sources, at a minimum, but I feel as if I am whistling into the wind. It is exhausting and terrifying.
If you study how Germany was mesmerized by Hitler, early on, and witnessed any of his rallies, you would not be able to have missed that Tr**p used the exact same tactics as Hitler in his own campaign, and continued to hold his disinformational brainwashing rallies, as continual booster shots, throughout his so-called "presidency." Hitler used the microphone and rallies, the TT**p Regime used rallies, Twitter, Faux News and cyber warfare propaganda. His cult followers were able to have 24-hour "programming" in their own homes.
It was so fetchingly obvious the first time I heard our grandest of narcissists speak at an early rally and observe how he very cleverly controlled his followers with lies and repetition (repetitive messaging, at least three times per issue). A master cult leader, he then tested his neurolinguistic programming of his sheep by stating he could shoot someone on 5th Ave. and they would still vote for him. And they cheered. Take note: THEY CHEERED. No one spoke against that horrific statement...and obvious test. The press loved him because their rates went up. They ignorantly, in my mind, assisted him in constant headlines and talking heads. I guess not everyone is trained to understand what feeds a narcissist. You must starve their egos. America did exactly the opposite.
With that 5th Ave Moment, he (and many of us who study how masses are controlled) knew his brainwashing strategy was firmly rooted. Mass consciousness control, negative chanting, cruelty of words, behaviors, threats against the press and opposing party (another tactic installing division, fear and paranoia) was so clearly evident, whilst Reason and Logic were buried deeply. He absolutely petrified me and people like Katie Tur way before the November 2016 election. But Teflon Don was allowed to get away with it all with a lot of support by conspiratorial, global oligarchs bent on destroying our democracy.
This is not a movie. This is our reality show under the trumplican regime. Very early on Rachel Maddow did segments on the wicked web of those such as the Mercers, Kochs, Murdoch, Putin and others and their internecine web and their funding of Breitbart, Bannon, Conway, Manafort, (Flynn?) Cambridge Analytica, money laundering and Deutsche Bank. It has taken the radical crazies of the Right ("Reich" is more apt) decades to set this up and place their masked "evangelicals" in significant positions throughout our government systems. I read about their infiltrative intentions 30+ years ago and thought people would be alerted to this and it would never happen.And look at us today.
What is heartening, somewhere in this forum or a link from it, was an observation that
once a country that has fallen siege to a radical dictator, and he is successfully removed from his pulpit and public, many of the cult simmer way down, some fading completely away. This is why it is absolutely critical to remove all the "heads" (metaphorically) of this seditious beast clawing at us. Taking them down and out of sight of the public forum is the only way we can begin to undo their power over their mind-numbed followers.
I am grateful to have discovered this oasis of thoughtful sanity. The comments express a wide range of sentiment, expressing and provoking an enormous amount of nuanced thinking. It gives me optimism to read so many people who are wrestling seriously with these issues.
People have been suggesting books to read to help us understand the landscape.
I would add a podcast. Gaslit Nation has been amazingly prescient for the past four years in predicting the worst excesses of the Trump regime. Sarah Kendzior, author of Hiding in Plain Sight and Andrea Chalupa are magnificent and pull no punches. They are regularly accused of being Cassandras by some who listen to them, but Cassandra’s prophecies were true despite being ignored. I find this to be the case with Gaslit Nation. Sarah and Andrea are sometimes repetitive, occasionally undisciplined in their conversation, but a magnificent listen nonetheless. I strongly recommend Gaslit Nation. Their action guide is very helpful.
I do believe that this beast can be contained. I did think it was “one and done” as a previous commenter noted in regard to January 6. But that was naive. A titanic struggle is shaping up and people must be ready for it. I don’t know if the Democratic Party has the will to act ruthlessly - they have lacked this in the past. I do believe that the Department of Justice must attack this beast head on. The legal system has to be used to send a clear message that if you are going to try to unseat democracy, you will be brought to justice.
This will be a hard struggle. The other side has true believers in spades as well as nauseating opportunists (Cruz, Hawley and McCarthy spring to mind).
*I think one simple thought will be clarifying if doubts arise during this struggle. Marjorie Taylor Greene sits as an elected Republican representative. And she has been appointed to the Education Committee by McCarthy.*
* for emphasis
As a parent of a child with Special Needs, I am horrified by McCarthy's appointment of MTG! She is a horror.
Horror.
This is why Biden is focusing on approval of his appointees, especially for A.G. - so the Judicial General is in place to attck this beast head on.
We must expand SCOTUS. Also, 50 federal judges have resigned making way for Biden to appoint replacements. That is very good news!
I am reading Kendzior’s book right now. It is horrifying how many people are involved in this regime! And yes, the Russians have been grooming Fake45 for decades. Putin programmed Fake45 and his pals by using psychological warfare. The targets were the uneducated and the radicals such as the Proud Boys, KKKers, Oath Keepers, Hell’s Angels, etc. Democrats have to learn this lesson by not bringing plungers to the fight but swords! I want them to poke their eyes out with their resolutions and whatever tool they can and must employ.
I am also a fan of Gaslit Nation podcast. Sarah Kendzior was a guest with Ruth Ben Ghiat on Strange Days podcast Jan 11 episode and had a very powerful conversation about the implications of the near coup attempt of Jan 6 and what needs to be done to stop this slide to autocracy. I recommend it highly!
Yes, the parallel between hitler’s rise to power and trump is all there. The alarm has been sounding for years. That our congress has been infiltrated by people who actually believe it is their job to be loyal to a narcissistic dictator-wanna-be and take down the government is going to make it a really difficult task to neutralize these terrorists. They need to be removed and the oxygen that feeds them (constant media attention) cut off. Simultaneously, their actions (open or clandestine) cannot be ignored. We also need to recognize and come to terms that some people are just plain evil and when they are put in places of power, really bad things happen to the masses.
There is no stronger or more sickening visual than the fact in January 2021 we have RAZOR wire fencing around the Capitol to protect our government from the enemy within. The blame lies completely at the feet of trump, a deranged person who republicans refuse to convict. How far we have fallen.
Maybe instead of studying why people get duped by Hitlers and Trumps, we need to focus on why people (like us) do NOT get duped. Prevention will need to be more than education, economic opportunity and The Fairness Doctrine.
An interesting, and eminently sane, proposition. But I wonder if a certain amount of resistance to or submission to duping is innate. Several of us on this forum have revealed that we are the only ones in our natal families who turned out resistant to the H's and T's.
Trying to understand the minds of the delusional is fascinating, but crazy-making. The less brain time I waste understanding how/why, the better. I am not a trained neuropsychologist, and after reading some Lakoff recently, I don't want to be. Other people's minds can be very frightening.
I agree . . .
Very good analysis. Trump's path to power is extremely troubling. We are at a frightening juncture right now, because if his tactics and goals aren't widely exposed, and rejected, and decisively defeated by the public at large it will show our susceptibility to future horrors of dictatorship and fascism.
Which is why we need our foreign allies so much more now. They can also help us in exposing Fake45’s dealings as well as his minion.
Biden, at least, is starving his (who-shall-not-be-named) ego now.
It is so calming to not have to read that name so often.
Or, hear and see that hideous voice and face!
Thank you Penelope. An apt description of Trumps tactics. His former wife Ivana said he kept a copy of Hitlers book on his bedside table and it looks like he made good use of it to come to power in the Republican Party.
Vanity Fair article from 1990, an ego piece with you-know-who
Brilliant analysis, Penelope. Thanks.
I think we can all agree on this! The question is, how does this happen? So far, it would seem, these malicious forces are growing angrier since 1/6 and are rallying to whip up even more hatred and opposition, causing us to have this country’s first domestic terrorism threat alert. It is, as you say. a Medusa-headed problem that may take years to counteract. In the meantime, what are our options?
Years ago trumps 1st wlfe warned everyone that he read Hilter's. Mein kampf nightly. That was enough to make me fear him rising to power.
I am ❤️ number 87. We need you to get 88 ❤️s. It’s a symbolic antidote to the former 88 million Twitter followers.
How people get taken into QAnon:
https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5
On precarity, a fear that something to which you are entitled will be taken away by Others who do not deserve it:
https://twitter.com/Prof_Kennedy/status/1350937732072300547?s=20
How to talk to MAGA people (which ironically uses a similar stance as QAnon by not confronting head on):
https://youtu.be/jM5uNt7PamQ
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-qanon-followers-are-dangerous-cult-how-save-someone-ncna1239828
Hey, Ellie. Just read the first of your links about QAnon. A very informative piece.
There is a well-known horse trainer who has said for years to "cause your idea to become their idea" as a way to get horses to succumb to what we humans want them to do. So it came as no surprise when I read this: "Guiding people to arrive at YOUR conclusions is a perfect way to get people to accept a new and conflicting ideology."
Thank you for these links, Ellie. Wow. I think we would all need to be trained by a professional in order to maintain the constructive conversation that is recommended in the last link. That might be a very good idea, with role-playing practice. We all have friends and family that instantly trigger us and learning, and practicing, how to interact with them, while having group support in this, would be VERY helpful on every level.
Just read your first link Ellie. My head nearly exploded with recognition. Apophenia is a new word to me and an apt explanation for the QAnon phenomenon. Thank you.
"Apophenia is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. The term was coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the beginning stages of schizophrenia. He defined it as "unmotivated seeing of connections [accompanied by] a specific feeling of abnormal meaningfulness". So QAnon's goal is to subtly drive all its followers crazy?
Q is a mystery to all, including its/his/her followers. But, if you want to undermine democracy what better weapons than confusion, distrust & anarchy? Why do I sense Putin in all this?
Crazyness is a relative concept and is judged in relation to the norms of society. Different norms=different definition of crazyness. In the USSR and elsewhere they locked up people in Psychiatric Institutions because they didn't think, speak and function in a desired way....they opposed the norms being imposed upon society!
Add to these Anne Applebaum’s book Twilight of Democracy, The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, chapter titled Cascades of Falsehood. Did you know Spain’s Vox party used a slogan similar to Trump’s? Hacer Espana Grande Otra Vez? Make Spain Great Again
I was getting ready to recommend The Twilight of Democracy by Pulitzer prize winner, Anne Applebaum. It's a world view of what is taking place today, and shows that Democracies are indeed fragile. Her book is eye opening, not a fun read, but well worth it. She will be a virtual guest on March 7th at the Tucson Festival of Books. Go online for details.
When you think in historical time, Democracy is a very "young" concept....it hasn't actually been around or postulated for very long for other than the city state of ancient Greece. Between 500BC and 1800AD the idea didn't get very far.
Thanks for the info on the festival. Will definitely check it out!
Holy cow. Just read the first link, and it is terrifying.
This is an amazing revelation, a game-changer for me. Thanks for your contribution, Ellie.
Nice Ellie!!
thank you so informative!!!
Ellie, I'm quite unable to find the place where you asked me this, but I received a message about who censored a comment on DT that mentioned Hitler, and when:
NYT thread in 2016. This drew attention to the extraordinary success gained by Hitler in using barrack-room and beer-hall language in a land where political speaking was modeled on the funeral oration… Info gained from my Dad who had it in 1943 from a retired British foreign correspondent who’d covered both the Russian revolution and civil war and Hitler’s coming to power in 1933… I didn’t regard drawing attention to the dangers of such language as being contentious, but thought it might be useful… Stupid me. Yet, among my friends, I was derided for regarding a Trump victory as probable.
I’d be happier if my pessimism was more often mistaken. At the same time, we must remember that light illumines darkness but darkness cannot negate the light.
Yesterday, I was driving home with the radio on and heard a brief piece about the Capitol insurrectionists and QAnon (don't remember what program or other specifics), and I said to myself, "These people play too many ARGs!" Then I read the game designer's analysis of QAnon and, bingo!
Thank you for these links. The first one was mind blowing for me!
Definately mind-blowing. And terrifying. Required Reading.
Thanks for these useful references.
Mediocre people made to feel that they are special by hating in the right way.
And that they are not thereby alone in their misery.......and above others who are not in "the know";
😔
I also, cannot fathom how one gets so enamored with people like these. It is like they are hypnotized.
Hypnotized. Mesmerized. Deluded. Brainwashed. Blotto.
Welcome to Fox News, the new Russia Today, the new Chinese Communist Party news media.
Rupert and the Murdoch family is our new equivalent of the govt. dept. run by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda.
By the way, I just want to say something here.
I do not bring up these references to the Hitler Administration and the NSDAP in order to shock people. I bring them up because they are part of history, and many Americans are not familiar with the history. They only know Hitler and Nazi as evil words, taboo words, to be shunned and turned away from.
(National-sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, the National Socialist German Worker's Party, the "Nazi" Party.
Deutsche = German (that's where the word "Dutch" originated, btw, in the Germany of my grandparents era the Netherlands were sometimes referred to as "low-lying German provinces.")
Arbeiter = Workers
Partei = Party
Nazi = 1st 2 syllables of "National" pronounced in German, the Socialists (Sozialisten) were called "Sozis" for short.
Even the Germans didn't want to say that incredibly long name of the party, so it was "Nazis" and "Sozis."
My attention span after a day of teaching is rather exhausted. I just fall asleep trying to read anything. But Rick Steve’s Fascism in Europe on PBS is really enlightening! He full on calls out what is happening in America is
what happened in Europe pre Nazi. I knew bits and pieces from my school days. But I had not ever been given the full scope and breadth of it all.
Texas just mandated all schools acknowledge Holocaust Remembrance. Everyone seemed shocked that elementary students should be required to learn about this. My art students are doing projects for peace like Picasso’s Dove for Peace and Flowers for Peace. I emphasize this was for a peace conference after WWII. So far, no complaints from parents. When it something remotely controversial, everyone seems to forget knowledge is power.
Rick is an (inter)national treasure: gifted tour guide, humane employer, deep thinker on public affairs. I've watched the Fascism show twice now. Regular episodes inform, entertain and sparkle for 1/2 hr each. The concluding bloopers segment is always a hoot.
I find that heartening. I can't even bring up Hitler's Germany with one of my own sisters, who was raised for part of her childhood in Germany just as I was. She doesn't want to go there. Can't blame her, of course, but it's our family heritage. We have a grandmother who was totally into Hitler, thinking of Hitler of course as Germany's FDR. The Holocaust was not exactly being broadcast in the news, it was the U.S. Army arriving in Germany that publicized the Holocaust.
https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/holocaust-remembrance-day
I noticed Rick Steve's program, haven't had a chance to see it yet.
JUST now mandated that? Well a good thing - especially in Texas. Now if all states did that? Hopefully mine does - dont know.
Wow. Thanks for resource.
Why does Fox even get away with calling their shows ‘news’?
The characteristics of news is:
Accuracy
Balance
Objectivity
Concise and Clear
Current
I believe they are actually labeled as 'entertainment'...except for the actual news shows they have. Someone tried to sue Tucker Carlson for defamation and the judge threw the case out citing that 'no one who watches Tucker Carlson seriously..it's entertainment, not news...!'
Fox's legal designation is an entertainment network because it doesn't meet basic norms of journalism like fact-checking. But freedom of speech allows it to call itself whatever it pleases.
Thanks Marlene for probably the only "like" my corporate war crimes posts will get. I always bring up the popular subjects, don't I? *grin*
Roland, you are insightful and that’s good enough for me!
I think you’re getting quite a few “Likes”
Roland, you may be the most popular "unpopular" commenter around. Write on!
I was talking to my daughter anout what you said. Before I could say a word she said oh yeah the tattoo numbers were an IBM organizing system. But she’s way smarter than me! So there are people who know.
I had absolutely no idea that those numbers were from IBM!
Yes we do need to find better (any?) ways for some kind of dialogue & communication to happen, but it is so hard to make any headway when beliefs are held so dear and are mostly emotionally based. Some folks will likely come out of the fog in their own time, but many die-hards will not. I don't know where to start... but good you are trying!
My dad is completely unmovable. Completely. I have spent 20 years speaking with him weekly, on every social and political subject, since my parents retired here to my town. It's like talking to a brick wall.
It is no consolation to discover, as I was googling to find Hitler's propaganda chief, so see that Heinrich Himmler is from Munich like my dad is. The architect of the Holocaust, no less.
Roland, I am truly sorry to hear about this, which is the painful personal loss which so many people here speak of. I sense you to be a kind, thoughtful person who might have the best shot at reaching a closed mind. This is discouraging to hear. Ugh!
When you say your dad is unmovable, on what issue. Your German heritage and familiarity with Germany history are very interesting, btw. Thanks.
I can't speak for Roland but i can say that I have exactly the same experience with my own dad, and it is on every issue. He is intelligent and highly educated and completely unmovable. People believe what they want to believe, I guess.
Dad is a diehard conservative. Loyal to the Republican party until the day he dies, Fox News in his retirement home most of the time he’s awake. Unmovable and unshakable on subjects of tradition and the old social order, versus the new social order. In other words, there’s no way to scrub the stain of whites come first, males come first, straights come first. Anyone who isn’t white male and straight is inferior, second-class. It will never change.
Did anyone here see this article? Certainly would explain a good deal!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-perfect-target-russia-cultivated-trump-as-asset-for-40-years-%E2%80%93-ex-kgb-spy/ar-BB1dcbwf?ocid=BingNews
Thanks, Maggie. Yes, the KGB has been grooming Fake45 for decades. They knew he was the perfect stool pigeon for the job. If you haven’t read Hiding In Plain Sight by Sarah Kendzior, do! She is an expert on Russian affairs as she lived there off and on for years. She delves into how Russians would lure him into thinking he would get a hotel built there. He never has.
Thanks Marlene - I think you mentioned this book before - will ask for it at my library - I dont buy books anymore - have far too many already! But I can ask for what I want at the library.
Thanks for the link to this article, Maggie.
Thank you Eve. I've been describing Trump's U.S. Capitol riot as America's version of Kristallnacht, the "night of broken glass" when Hitler's brown shirt "storm trooper" (S.A. = Sturm Abteilung, "Storm Division") lackeys trashed looted and burned the German Congress, the Reichstag.
The German people, my grandparents and ancestors, were enthralled by a cult leader, and so are the Trumpsters. Deprogramming and un-brainwashing is needed, sorely needed. Cult extraction and intervention.
That’s how The Arnold described it as well. Our version of the crystal night. My Republican coworkers have suddenly gotten very quiet about all of this. But man they are so anxious to have me give them the link to sign up for the vaccine. Even a friend I thought I’d lost to the Dark Side is now following Heather on Facebook. So maybe the non-cult Republicans are starting to realize voting one issue and supporting dumpty was not the right thing to do. They think I’m extremist radical liberal. I guess cause I helped at the polls? I have always said I would have made a terrible nazi. So sorry for your father! That is hard to stomach!
Denise, in Germany or U.K. you might be right down the center. Believe it or not, you might be just right of center. Bernie is center left. In the U.S., we are called extreme radical liberals by none other than, you guessed it, white supremacists and believers in the suppression of women and libertarian gun arsenal owners who don't even know that they are off. They can't admit it to themselves. And I mean OFF, off balance, off in lots of ways.
Europe is more intellectual, more educated, more informed and, dare I say it, smarter than the U.S. Way smarter. This forum might even be considered conservative in Germany. The U.S. has such a strong conservative minority, and so many extreme conservatives, it makes the rest of us look like wild anarchists in comparison. Think RBG 20 years ago compared to now, when the Supreme Court has migrated so far to the right.
Don't kid yourself, your co-workers are incapable of viewing you clearly or stereotyping you properly, if stereotyping you politically is even a palatable subject on this forum. Simpler words: they have no freaking idea what they're talking about, too ignorant to know reality.
You’re preaching to the choir! These women will flat out tell you they are voting Republican because 1. Abortion, one issue voter. 2. Their minister told them too. Christain submissiveness. 3. Their husband/boyfriend/father told them to. Again submissive to be a good god fearing Christain. It’s mind boggling! They say they are not political! Um you just stated why you vote Republucan and you teach in public schools! Can’t get much more political than that!
Also the husband is afraid the Dems will take away his guns, whether or not he ever actually uses them.
It's his only link with his idealized "heroic" past. A bit pathetic that they should be reduced to that in this life.
They are part of the herd waiting to see which new male bull will beat the old one before raising their rear ends for the winners attentions.
Ick. As much as I like your writing on this forum, that was a very unsavory image. My first thought was Ted Cruz in the acceptance position; my eyes! They're burning! My eyes!
Glad I read this before lunch. The images I get in my mind (Cruz, Hawley, Gaetz, McCarthy, et al) makes me wanna hurl my cookies. I guess we really are big, naked apes after all...
Now there's a disturbing image.
Men & women. They’d choke if they read this.
My sister is one of those women who will walk on hot coals if her husband tells her to.. She quotes all the passages of the bible that speak of women's submission. She's gotten worse since Trump, if that's possible. She's not speaking to me right now because she thinks that I'm naive to think that Biden won fair and square. She also thinks the pandemic is a hoax, and living in Florida, she has not changed her life at all. She still travels, does not wear a mask, etc. She used to be smart - I'm not sure what happened.
Some Friday morning ramblings...to my mind, this type of giving oneself totally over to one's religion stems from a desire, a laziness really, of turning over all responsibility of having to make any decisions to some sort of ideology. It really isn't at all unlike cult behaviour. It is submitting totally to, in the case of evangelical Christianity, a spiritual dictatorship. It then absolves one of having to be responsible for--gadzooks!--individual, independent thought. Thinking freely (observe the root word for "free" is "libera", the basis for "liberal") is anathema to these people because they, and others (the ones wanting to control them), believe their group has all the answers. They don't need to think. It's done for them. It's terrifying, really, because these people are then simply malleable into whatever their "leaders" want them to be. It's one of those features of the human animal I have never understood, the seeming desire to follow some sort of illogical ideology, to the death even.
People wonder then how I, someone who calls himself a Christian, can still even remotely follow something like Christianity. Aren't I somewhat guilty of doing this as well? Umm...no. I don't see what I believe, do, and follow as a cult, mainly because I joined it freely, after having been atheist, agnostic, and I know I could walk away from it tomorrow. My faith, or what my version of Christianity follows, does not rule by fear. We don't bang on about "Now, if you do this, this, and this, you will burn eternally in the fiery pits of hell, etc. etc. etc." No faith should have to scare it adherents into believing, and this is what almost all of these sects eventually end up doing. It's part of what drives them to feel superior to the rest of us "heathens". They're going on to heavenly glory (they think), and the rest of us won't. They feel they have to evangelize and convert everyone they encounter over to their way of thinking. This not only gives them better cred with God (the more souls they "bring to the Lord" the greater their "reward" in heaven), but it gives them a certain sense of satisfaction. A cult is like an organism. The first thing it has to do is replicate/reproduce i.e. find adherents in order to survive. Notice anything familiar? Well, my faith does NOT preach this.
As I've pointed out before, these loud-mouthed zealots have done a pretty shitty PR job for Christianity and have given us ALL a bad name. It is a huge disservice to what can be, in its bare essence, a very beautiful faith and spiritual path to follow. Now, when you take these zealots and combine their zealotry with a political force and a host of other human frailties, it is all a very dangerous mix indeed, as we've seen.
What a shame! She must be quoting the King James Version of the bible. Such a misogynist!
That sort of unheading and unlistening political unilogue that you describe is just as common in Europe.....only we have moved the goalposts over the years......just like the hours we keep. We start the day later than you, eat later and sleep later. We give different labels to political points of view because of where they sit on the "acceptable spectrum".....which is in a different spectrum to the US but ideological conflict is still too often reduced to a 2 bulls crashing heads to see who is strongest and can thus commandeer the herd. It used to be essential for survival of the species but now instead endangers it.
My wife and I read this column out loud daily. Part of the way through the comments I asked her, what do we do if the bastards win? Do we shut up and live or do we stand up and possibly self sacrifice? This is really really scary.
To quote Hamlet, "To be or not to be, that is the question". It all depends what you mean by " be".
We must fight and fight hard. We must do it intelligently and quite frankly, Joe and Kamala are doing just that. Smarter people than us have tools they can use even without having the GOP’s permission. Joe will bypass them if they refuse to comply on this budget. That makes me feel good.
Exactly Roland. I have to just laugh (when I am not curled up in a ball hiding) at people who call President Biden a Socialist and Communist. What??? People no longer understand these terms, and are so extremely to the right they cannot fathom what actual liberals are talking about.
I’m tired of hearing about the “radical left”. We need to start publicizing “the radical right”.
Yes we do = I keep remembering how it galled Fox & others that Obama wouldnt call Islam RADICAL Islam - remember that? Guess its time for the title of radical right to get put where it belongs.
Thanks for this info and I agree with all of it, unfortunately.
Unfortunately.
You know, I am not a huge fan of Arnold. I didn't even watch his video, maybe because I'm one of the few people in American who probably wouldn't have learned anything new from it. But that video wasn't for me. It was for everyone with no Hitler-era German heritage, or in denial (or ignorance) of their Hitler-era German heritage. I heard he mentioned domestic abuse from his dad, etc. All of that is part of my family heritage, my mother and her siblings. Arnold is in my Dad's generation. He is from Austria, the country where Hitler was born. My dad is from Munich, the place Hitler came to power. So Arnold and I have plenty in common re: heritage.
I don't read or listen to everything I see about the subject, it ain't pretty, and I've spent a lifetime having to accept it as my heritage. This from the kid who grew up watching Hogan's Heroes and all that.
Werner Klemperer (Colonel Klink) of HH was vehemently anti-Nazi and insisted that every episode end with the Germans, especially Klink, defeated and humiliated. He was a far more serious person than one imagines from his bumbling character; some of that comes through in Judgment at Nuremburg. The whole Klemperer family has a fascinating history in that period, documented in several memoirs and biographies.
Werner Klemperer IS Hogan's Heroes. All the uniforms and military artifacts in that series are part of his personal collection, I understand. Thank you so much for mentioning his biographies and memoirs, I imagine he and I have much in common. Going to look into that.
Interesting that you bring up Hogan’s Heros. My father was a Private 1st Class Infantryman in WWII, liberating one of the Nazi work camps. He despised that TV show. He told us it minimized the horrors of the war and the death and destruction it caused. As I write this, I hold him in my heart...my Dad, who witnessed the evidence of Hitler’s control, power, and hatred of all who were not pure and loyal.
I read the letters he sent to my mother, his then Dearest Darling, during the time of his deployment in Europe and I weep. We cannot let this happen, ever again!
I highly recommend the memoir "I Will Bear Witness" by Viktor Klemperer. A detailed account of living under the Nazis as a Jew married to a Gentile, then surviving the bombing of Dresden.
The Dresden "fire storm" was a non-atomic Hiroshima.
Paradoxically, the actor playing a German camp commandant was a more admirable person than Bob Crane (Hogan), whose ties to organized crime led to his still-unsolved gangland slaying. Col. Klink was German but not a Nazi; he frequently clashed with them, e.g. Gestapo Major Hochstetter.
Leon Askin, the actor portraying Gen. Burkhalter, was an Austrian refugee whose family suffered greatly during the Holocaust. His politics are not as well-known as the Klemperer family's, but a glance at Wikipedia shows that he too fought the good fight in his own way.
When I hear that name, I must say that the first thought that comes to my mind is Otto and not......
Read Victor Klemperer's "I will bear witness". An excellent first-person eye-witness history of the period
Roland, you clearly managed to distance yourself from your heritage. Obviously, you made a decision to reject the stain of your father's experiences and deeds. Congratulations. You are not him, and that's what counts.
Immigrants get the job done!
In an nation of immigrants, what else? I seem to recollect a study some years ago about the economic contribution of different "waves" of immigration...looking specifically at California...and the impact of growth was appreciable and high, coming with a time lag of 4 years. I think they looked particularly at the influx of Vietnamese after the war.
Here in Central Florida ,through Catholic Charities, each parish sponsored a Vietnamese family. Within an amazingly short period of time these families (with the initial church support (atonement????) and, more critically, by the way they pulled together to help one another) became industrious social and economic contributors and remain so today.
May I draw attention to Caste, by Wilkerson? working my way through her discussion of how we came to be where we are in terms of 'racial' identity. Using the single quotes because so many of us are blends - collateral member of my family was identified only as "he came up the Mississippi on a river boat". Never could figure out exactly where he fit in - family apocrypha.
Thank you. I'll look at it. I have already read Nancy Isenberg's White Trash which covers perhaps similar ground.
Excellent book, as was her ‘Warmth of Other Suns’!
Another cyclical trend running through American history.
Welcome to MAGA.
Renew the media Fairness Doctrine for cable and internet. It’s not freedom to shout lies in the public sphere
The name Fairness Doctrine is somewhat misleading, implying that balance is its essence. The requirement to produce verifiable, fact-based reporting is at least as important.
Exactly... thank you!
Hello Ronald, it's astute to compare the Trump Insurrection to the rise of Nazism. However, it probably conflates different events in German history. Kristallnacht occurred in 1938; the Reichstag fire was in 1933, and blamed on a lone individual. Though he may have been framed, it was arson at night, not an open mass assault on the German legislature while in session.
Still, any comparison along these lines is deeply disturbing and should be a call to action against the worst angels of our nature.
Thanks for pointing that out, let me look into it. *working, working . . . *
Hi TPJ, take a look at this article. I know Hitler ordered that fire, so Wiki is just parroting Hitler's disinformation even 80 years later.
https://time.com/3717003/reichstag-fire-1933/
You are correct, I am conflating events. However, Hitler is personally responsible for both events. In the case of the 1933 Reichstag fire, he managed to pull a disinformation stunt so that he could blame the Communist Party for his own political ends. His attacks on the German Congress are several, and each is comparable to Trump's attack on our Capitol, our Congress.
So I wanted to add to your list of companies and people who supported Hitler. Porsche, Ford, and Volkswagen. Henry Ford was in love with Adolf. His vans as well as the ones from Volkswagen were used to gas Jews and non-Jews. That’s how my grandparents died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Germany#:~:text=Use%20of%20forced%20labor%20during%20World%20War%20II,-Main%20article%3A%20Forced&text=During%20the%20Second%20World%20War,not%20yet%20entered%20the%20War.
"During the Second World War, Ford Werke employed slave laborers although not required by the Nazi regime.[10] The deployment of slave labor began before the Ford-Werke was separated from the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan, while America had not yet entered the War.
Robert Hans Schmidt presided over Ford-Werke during the Second World War, and engaged slave labor and the illegal manufacture of munitions, including such manufacturing during the period before the U.S. entry into the War. Once the War was over, "notwithstanding all his carefully publicized efforts to erase the stain of the company's past, no evidence emerged that either Henry Ford II or any other top-level Ford Motor Company executive ever raised any moral objects to rehiring [Schmidt], who had presided over one of the company's darkest chapters.[11]
In 1942, German soldiers swept into the city of Rostov in the Soviet Union, moving among the homes of Rostov families, forcing them to register at a labor registration center. Elsa Iwanowa, who was 16 years old at the time, and many other Russians were transported in cattle cars to Wuppertal in the western part of Germany, where they were exhibited to visiting businessmen. From there Elsa Iwanowa and others were forced to become slave laborers for Ford-Werke. "On March 4, 1998, fifty-three years after she was liberated from the German Ford plant, Elsa Iwanowa demanded justice, filing a class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Ford Motor Company."[12] In court, Ford acknowledged that Elsa Iwanowa and many others like her were "forced to endure a sad and terrible experience" at Ford-Werke; Ford, however, maintained that cases like that of Elsa Iwanowa are best redressed on "a nation-to-nation, government-to-government" basis.[9] In 1999, the court dismissed Elsa Iwanowa's suit; however, a number of German companies, including GM subsidiary Opel, agreed to contribute $5.1 billion to a fund that would compensate the surviving slave laborers.[9] After being the subject of much adverse publicity, Ford, in March 2000, reversed direction, and agreed to contribute $13 million to the compensation fund.[citation needed"
Stuart, I always appreciate the knowledge you bring to this site as a result of your extensive reading!
Thank you, Stuart...as always!
Many Americans and British supported Hitler. I believe Lindbergh was also a big supporter. Social Darwinism swept the world in the early 20th C. It's so important to read history and the consequences of movements.
Thanks for this! Please remember that JFKs father, Joe Sr. was against the US entering the war and acceptance of the immigrants trying to escape persecution by the Nazis.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ss-st-louis-jewish-refugees-turned-away-holocaust
I was shocked to learn that at Lindbergh. This is terrible to say, but I feel for certain things, supporters of influence should be permanently and prominently branded as such so it is never forgotten.
Yech. I knew about using engine exhaust fumes, but not which vehicles. Disturbing. Didn't know about Ford, either, but I can't say I am surprised. A lot of industrialists were racist and sexist as hell.
Not "were," "are."
Horrific! I’m so sorry:(
Oh my! I’m so sorry Marlene! This brings tears to my eyes. I have to wonder if living in these times feels even more frightening to someone such as yourself, given your family’s history. Never in a million years would I have thought America would be at such a similarly dark precipice.
Neither did I... it’s so frightening. And such cognitive dissonance! But is the confusion based in some horrible change that seems to have evolved under our noses without our awareness...or, is it that things were always this way, and likely always will be, and we just weren’t aware? Ignoring the man behind the curtain?!
Marlene, I’m so sad and sorry for the loss of you grandparents.
So many atrocities can be blamed on the rise of Hitler and all of his enablers. As he rose to power, I’m wondering if his loyalists and those who “went along to get along” became numb to his despicable acts and no longer reacted with shock and awe at his actions.
Makes me wonder, what if Trumps army of insurgents stormed the Capitol in early 2017? Do you think that all Americans, including those in the Republican Party, would be as accommodating as they are today...after being numbed to his behavior?
Europe has a long history of using Jews as scapegoats.
Good question. We have indeed become numb and terrifyingly accepting of this aberrant behavior.
There's a disturbing article in Slate concerning just how numb we Americans have become to suffering, thanks to the Trump years: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/trump-what-we-learned-suffering-death.html
I really cannot say. I do believe that people are very attracted to Fake45’s overall “I don’t give a shit” demeanor and rhetoric. He bucked the system for 4 years and he mucked things up big time! These followers are like Mary’s little lambs except, they are dangerous. Fake45 appeals to these people because he speaks their lingo. If things are said repetitively, people listening become programmed to believing in what they hear.
Thank you, Kari.
Wow. Thank you for sharing this piece of history, and, family. condolences to you and your family.
Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. Your comment illustrates succinctly and vividly the immediacy of your connection to the Holocaust. I cannot even imagine.
I am so sorry....
😔
Let's stay with the facts. Volkswagen only produced the beetle and German jeep during the war. The VW transporter/van/bus was created by a Dutch businessman named Ben Pon after the war in 1947. Please leave the revisionist history with the wacknut Republican fascists.
Easy there, Big Guy, we're all learning from each other here. You're bringing good information into the discussion, thank you very much. No one is engaging in revisionist history here, not that I've seen. Personally I do not know what types of engines and/or engine-driven vehicles were used during the Holocaust, so I appreciate very much Marlene and you, Craig, informing me. Take a look at Marlene's final line. "That's how my grandparents died." We are delving into painful subjects, personally very painful subjects, this is not history from afar, this is history up close and personal, way too personal. Both my parents grew up in that period in Germany. All of us are trying to learn about that period of history, we are students trying to heal painful family heritage, no one is engaging in revisionism or misinformation, from what I have seen there are no attempts here to engage in altering facts. We are just trying to get to the bottom of events that are disturbing to look at.
Unfortunately, VW was founded by the Nazi Party Government's German labour Front and was heavily implicated in the use of slave labour and concentration camp victims to produce the "jeep" based on the beetle chassis.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/volkswagen-halts-production-during-world-war-ii
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/volkswagen-1
Hah, you are right. There's no limit to the blame to be heaped on Hitler and Trumpsky alike.
Here's a couple of refs, none very recent, that are valuable. If they differ from what I wrote, they're correct.
B Hett, Burning the Reichstag
I Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris & Nemesis
W Shirer, Rise & Fall of the 3rd Reich
" There's no limit to the blame to be heaped on Hitler and Trumpsky alike."
No shit.
Think about this:
There are no nicknames for Hitler. We use his name to identify him in an attempt to never diminish or forget who and what he was and what he symbolizes today.
Using a nickname for Trump may be personally satisfying, even humorous, but it takes the edge off of his criminality and fails to accurately reflect who he is and what he stands for.
I mean no disrespect but if we are going to be successful in making Trump accountable for his crimes, now and in the years to come, we must identify and call him by his name in the same way we call Hitler by his name.
It’s hard for me, Daria, it really is. I call him Fake45 for a reason. I cannot say his name as it sends chills.
I think you may be right about that... what a mess this all is...
If you can get through Shirer, you are a better person than me.
Thank you, TPJ. Adding to my list:
B Hett, Burning the Reichstag
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-reichstag-fire-and-nazis-rise-power-180962240/
https://bookshop.org/books/burning-the-reichstag-an-investigation-into-the-third-reich-s-enduring-mystery/9781522665267
I Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93996.Hitler
I Kershaw, Hitler: Nemesis
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64719.Hitler
W Shirer, Rise & Fall of the 3rd Reich
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/767171.The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Third_Reich
Sorry, Ronald. I endorse your point about deprogramming and un-brainwashing (i.e. denazification) -- one hell of a challenge for America and the world after nearly 30 years of getting steeped to the point of drowning in "virtual reality"... But I didn't notice the confusion that came before it.
I tried to draw attention to the Nazi precedents before Trump was elected, but all such references, however factual, were censored.
You said you tried to draw attention to Nazi precedents before Trump but such references were censored: By whom? When?
Found at last! I've answered you elsewhere...
I'll add that, however horrified they were by candidate DT, most of the supporters of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party whom I know couldn't take the threat seriously enough and didn't want to be seen making comparisons with prewar dictators. Likewise, too many people in Germany just couldn't take Hitler seriously before 1933.
Read Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen's Diary of a Man in Despair...
Two ❤️❤️, 3 ❤️❤️❤️, 4 ❤️s. Not a soul in this country, certainly not any established media source, would touch the subject of comparing trump to Hitler. My how that has changed. Because the subject of Hitler’s tactics is so relevant to understanding 🍊 greaseball, *especially* since he studied Hitler, and *especially* in January 2021.
Thanks, Roland.
I don't have time for a detailed reply to your message, but I do want to point out that the affinities between these two run far deeper than tactics, and the danger DT still poses is consequently far greater than if he was just a streetwise mobster with mastery of diversion and confusion.
Try reading C.G. Jung on the German dictator and his Voice. Jung said of Hitler “There is nobody there”...
It's not the man himself, it's the combination between him and a voiceless mass whose hidden thoughts and feelings he voices.
Roland--I appreciate your repeatedly bringing attention to lessons to be learned from German (and other European) history and development. As you have indicated, there isn't direct repetition of the patterns of authoritarian takeover, but there are lots of things that stand as warning signs. Historical analogies are flexible, and are at times stretched too far. No, Trump ≠ Hitler, and the current GOP ≠ fascism. But the old saying that history does give us rhymes remains a useful guide. I'll take advantage of your admirably expressed willingness to look further ("working, working")--which we should all emulate--to suggest another reference. On the issues involved in corporate support for Naziism I have found Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" to be enlightening. It's long and detailed, something of a slog if read straight through. But with the help of chapter titles and the index you can pursue the shifts and dodges undertaken by leaders of large corporations--both in and outside of Germany--to keep their companies and profits healthy while adapting to Hitler's economically unsustainable demands. A few were either enthusiastic supporters or opponents from early on; lots hedged their bets as long as possible. All compromised to varying degrees good sense--both business and human. Many readers of these letters have commented on the links between Hitler and Trump's authoritarian appeals angry, alienated or dispossessed [see Tooze on Hitler's needs to focus on the German peasantry]. But I found myself hearing rhymes of how plutocrats, pursuing their own interests, potentiated political and human disaster.
Thank you Tom for this thoughtful and exceedingly well written piece. I’m on the job tonight with only my iPhone, so that precludes the thorough response your excellent treatment deserves. I am pleased at what you’ve written, because it indicates clearly that I am being well heard. Also thank you for the word plutocrat, I had to look it up even though I’ve seen it before of course, and now I finally have a word for a concept I’ve been trying to express but doing so poorly. America is a plutocracy. Bernie talks about the billionaires, and I guess if even I didn’t know the word plutocracy, clearer and simpler languaging is necy to amplify visibility of that odious reality here in our beloved nation. Among other pleasing statements you observe that Hitler does not equal Trump. That there are rhymes, resonances, echoes. That is the message I’ve been trying to express, that there are parallels, and that Trump actually studied Hitler. People have been listening because I have found my words being echoed throughout this entire day’s discussion. Your insightful and beautiful contribution is that the American plutocracy, which Heather called the business side of the Republican party, is not to be trusted and actually wants to tear the democratic system down. And of course that is in keeping with the amorality of business and corporations. I use IBM Holocaust tattoos, + now we know Ford was complicit in the Holocaust, indirectly if not directly, you bring up that detailed study, and similarly the big businesses of today like perhaps Facebook and Twitter are complicit in the attacks on the US Capitol, which is our Congress, which is *US*, We the People.
Roland, thanks for your kind words. I'm glad you enjoyed my comment. Your thoughts about the appropriateness of "plutocracy" to describe our current situation are spot on. I would add another possible source to your reading pile if you are so inclined. Political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have written several books about the winner-take-all society. I highly recommend heir latest (2020), "Let Them Eat Tweets." Like Prof. Richardson they analyze the take-over of the country's economy and politics since 1980 (gee, what happened then?).Their term for it is "plutocratic populism": the toxic mix of reactionary economic priorities with right-wing cultural and racial appeals. The book is an easy, if infuriating, read, but if your to-be-read pile is stacked as high as mine, Hacker has written a number of op-ed pieces that should be easily available on line.
Cheers.
Were there any comparisons regarding those peasants and let's say, white supremacists or POC?
I don't recall any mention of studies about the racial attitudes of peasants and small farmers. Tooze, as a political economist, focuses on they're being at the bottom of the economic barrel as the German economy began its slow climb out of the multiple shocks of the '20s-'30s. What does seem to be a rhyme is that they were a substantial minority of the population whose ability to profit off their absolutely necessary support for the industrial drive was strictly curtailed by the government's need to keep food prices low for the urban workers. What the farmers got was lavished propaganda attention, featuring them nationally as the heart of the heartland. All of the pervasive racial suprematist slogans and images prominently featured the hardworking bauer, and bounties were given to the bauerin who produced large numbers of children.
Btw TPJ my first name is Roland, not Ronald. 😘
I think the Kristallnacht and Reichstag fire comparison only goes so far and we should be wary of considering Trump times as a leitmotif. It should also be accurately reported.
Kristallnacht was a minor (by comparison to the Holocaust) explosion against the Jews in 1838. It had nothing to do with the Reichstag Fire five years earlier.
For one thing, German democracy was fledgling. It was imposed after World War I and the German people had precious little experience with it. In theory, at least, American democracy should be far more durable.
The Reichstag fire was an attempt to demonize the Communists in Germany who had been engaged in a running battle with Hitler’s Fascists. Hitler, by then in power, used it to consolidate his position and mortally wound the Communists.
In America Trump was on his way out and the acts of January 6 were a wild attempt to prevent this. America’s angry underbelly was prepared to be guided into such an attack. It failed ultimately, partly due to luck, but more because the rioters cannot neatly be packaged into a coherent whole. There are in that group, MAGA onlookers, hate-filled white supremacists, and strands of organized militias who are truly dangerous.
In truth there was only some planning. The enterprise for the most part was as stupid and half-baked as most of Trump’s ideas. That it was somewhat successful was due to the fecklessness of Capitol Police, a general belief that it couldn’t happen here, and the machinations of a few politicians.
Hitler was impossible to stop because he was always a step ahead in his planning, and because the German population was quiescent. Goethe had described them, “so estimable in the individual, so wretched in the mass”. And this latter vice prevailed in the Thirties.
Decisive action now will further fragment Trump’s supporters. He’s out of power and unable to help them. The justice system must shed its pro-white bias and flatten the movement with legal, but brutally efficient resolve.
The comparisons with Nazi Germany will become instructive, rather than convenient and overblown, should the importance of American democracy not be upheld by swift action. If that not be the case, then we will have sown the wind and the whirlwind will be reaped.
"The fecklessness of Capitol Police" was seemingly on display in the first days after Trumpsky's vile insurrection. Now that more details and more video are available, we can see that approval or collusion may have marked the first minutes in storming the Capitol, but most CP quickly regrouped and performed heroically. The number and extent of injuries testifies to their dedication.
Carla's superb, heart-rending comment from yesterday, detailing her connections to the late Officer Howard Liebengood, provides essential insight into the CP. Any failure of theirs should be blamed on the few abettors who welcomed the mob, and still more on superiors who wittingly or unwittingly deprived the Capitol's defenders of critical resources. The latter aspect is especially disturbing and should be a major priority as investigations and prosecutions proceed.
This is an excellent point. My comment was ill-considered. It seems that “fecklessness” lies much more with leadership on that day.
Thank you for raising this. 100+ injuries plus two suicides more than compensates for the few who did not serve with distinction on that day.
Well stated ...Thank you!
Very nicely expressed. The German monarchy ended around about World War I, so absolutely it was a fledgling democracy, hence Hitler‘s success in damaging it. At that time in history, are the 20s and 30s and 40s, the US democratic experiment was already 140+ years old. Now in 2021 our democracy is close to a quarter millennium. So we have to presume some durability, some strength, and sure enough, damage was done this month but it was not severe. At least I don’t think so.
And how does this happen? What can we/ should we do ?
What can/what should we do? At first I thought of writing to every Republican Senator and Representative who voted against Trump's impeachment and telling them off. LOL - like they would even see that letter! Then I got real. So here's my plan. I realized that I can't vote all Trump legislators out, but I can contribute to their Democratic opponents. I also can and do contribute to the Lincoln Project. Of course, I can't contribute millions, but if we all send what we can afford to the opponents of those folks who are particularly heinous, we could make a difference. And if that's not feasible for some folks, well, letter writing to those companies who pledged not to support any one involved in the Capital riot and pressuring them to honor their word may well be productive.
Your idea has merit. Last year I contributed to Matt Gaetz’s opponent, Phil Ehr, but Phil lost. Next time I will publicize his opponent more broadly, especially here, to get a concerted effort to get Gaetz out.
Thanks for this effort, Annette! We need that madman out! My concern is about the gerrymandering and how much of an obstacle that poses to these efforts in some of these far-right areas. And we could really use a Stacey Abrams here in FL. I would imagine she is working on replicating her efforts in other states, which I will look into.
Hello fellow Floridians. It’s so good to know you’re out there. We have our work cut out for us. St Pete here.
Hi Diane, good to meet another sane Floridian. We need each other!
I too sent money to Phil Ehr (I live down in Tampa so not from his county) and although he didn't win - his numbers were very good and I truly hope he runs against Gaetz again in 2 years because I think he may well win next time -- those retired military may not approve of all of his shennigans).
I live just north of Tampa, in Pasco County, so we’re close. If you hear of any local efforts in the future please let me know.
I'm trying to make the suggestion in as many places as I can. Unfortunately, we can no longer think locally or statewide. We have to work where the crazies are - or they will end up making decisions that affect us all. Thank-you for your reply.
I think the solution is in your last 3 words: Get Gaetz outed. Will he still have the support of his followers when it is revealed that he is gay?
(in my humble opinion, I hasten to add before I get sued.)
As another long-term action, postcard campaigns are ongoing. I just sent out 50 postcards via Flip the West to voters in California about voting out the complicit Devin Nunes in 2022.
Yay! Thank you.
That has been my approach as well. I also contribute to Emily's List when I can. Sometimes my candidate wins and sometimes not, but at least I feel that my little bit might count for something in the bigger scheme of things. I also share HCR with friends on FB and Twitter and in emails. I have been successful in changing a few minds through HER reasoned accounts of the events of the day.
I did this too, sent contributions to those running against Graham and McConnell. Money talks!
Me too. And contributions to Ossoff and Warnock. But Regrettably I missed Georgia's Van Ausdal. Greene is a disgrace.
Pressure legislation. Freedom requires responsibility and rules
I am hearing people use the words “ personal responsibility “ to mean “do whatever you want to do or you personally think is best for you”. It is so disheartening that we don’t have common agreement on what words mean. This is fascism, correct?
I am committed to not succumbing to cynicism. We have got to pull together and move away from the cliff to which fascism has taken our country. Cynicism and division plays right into the fascism.
Google and read anything you can from Dr Lee. It’s been linked here before. And the book ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump’ by the community of respected psychiatrists. Dr Lee lays out cult behavior and exactly what our nation must do. Biden is mirroring a lot of what she suggests.
Yes, I read that the day it came out! Thanks for reminding me!
Ellie Kona posted some good links on this as well.
Who's Dr. Lee. Send me a link.
She did a good interview with Bill Moyers recently. You can google his website.
He’s the author of the book in Tricia’s comment above.
Whoa. I'm reading too fast. Thank you for pointing that out, Cynthia. I ordered it and will start reading on Sunday.
Dr. Bandy Lee is female. This is the website of her organization: https://worldmhc.org/
I ordered her book as a result of the recommendation here. Thanks for this link, Christy.
I have skimmed thru this book. I found it repetitive and short on practical advice. We can generate some practical advice on our own. Have a look at
https://cogitamus.substack.com/p/interviews-with-trump-supporters
https://bandylee.com/
How exciting it must be to be a QAnon/Trump believer! It must be like living inside a Tom Cruise movie. Dashing heroes, evil villains, amazingly unlikely and convoluted conspiracies; so much more interesting than the boring reality of bills, committee meetings, infrastructure maintenance, and an uncertain future.
what a pathetic group they are...
There’s the dopamine hit, the brain neurotransmitter, that gives a sense of “aliveness.” It’s a very real thing and children raised in traumatic or neglectful families are predisposed to this due to how the brain is wired in those years. The brain is “plastic” and it can be remodeled at any time in our lives. But there has to be awareness of the problem and a conscious effort to address it.
Terror is one emotion. Was it terror, another emotion or a combination of emotions, that moved you into waking up to the authentic nature of the leader and the cult - and most importantly, yourself? You possess a precious knowledge of the process of liberation and maturation that can teach us what is required in moving from a lonely, dependent fragility into self-responsibility as a woman strengthened by wisdom. If it feels right, please share your insights. Thank you.
Thanks for your response. My transition out of the cult was gradual, aided not by outsiders but by other insiders who also grew out of it over time. A complicated story. There are some parallels to the trump cult but in other ways it was different. I am trying to sort out my own experience to see what if anything can be extracted that might useful now. So far it is helpful mostly in my own ability to understand some of the mindset of cultists... but not on how to penetrate it. Still searching for answers!
What a mystery that experience must be! To have managed to release it thanks to your friends also traveling the path with whom you could sort things through, and find it still an enigma on this side of it emphasizes how complicated emotionally and psychologically indeed it must have been. I've lived outside the US for a time in a place where there's more connection among people, celebrations, strangers invite you to supper, classmates readily befriend you, lots of religious commemorations, lots of art made by regular people. When I come back home, I feel depressed for a month or so. People aren't on the streets, if they are, they don't look at you; people seem more distant, individual, separate,into their own lives, less into community.
I really appreciate this observation and hearing your experience of being in another country and returning here. I have had a similar experience and you have described it so well. It’s as if there is a kind of deadening of the spirit, here. And people feel closed off and even walled off in their homes. I agree.. I don’t feel the sense of community here that I would like to.
That sense of community is a big part of it I think. We were young idealistic hippies at the start of my cult life (I didnʻt think of it as a cult til way later... before, we were supposedly an egalitarian commune!), trying to escape the alienation & social fragmentation of modern american life. But the belong-to-a-tribe impulse can turn into an even more intense us vs. them alienation. That link someone posted in this thread about how people get strung out on QAnon & the likes is pretty interesting, and fits with this.
Now that we have a huge thread, and my note to you might get lost in the avalanche, I just want to say I think your last name is particularly noteworthy considering the subject. Grüss Gott and Fürch Gott are expressions I grew up with in the Germany of my teens.
Yes. My ancestors emigrated to the US in the late 1800s from German-speaking parts of eastern Europe. All Jewish; considering history, I would call my origins Ashkenazi, not German, and this adds an additional shudder when I contemplate our current crazy political/cultural situation.
I am of Ashkenazi descent too, 100% according to my background. My mother was from Berlin and my dad, Poland.
I realized when filling out the census form last year that nothing in their lists really described my ethnic or national origins. Caucasian, yes, but German? No way! Czech? Polish? Maybe our families were there for many generations but ultimately so many were chased or frightened out of all those places. It was then I thought that for American Jews, the census ought to have Ashkenazi & Sephardic as choices.
Maybe but not all Jews are aware of their origins. And not all Jews are white. The Spanish Insurrection displaced Jews from Spain and they ended up all over Europe and Jerusalem. Others were in Ethiopia and they were black.
Eve, I am sure that you bear scars from the experience you had. Those of us who have also lived in the thrall of narcissists hear you and share your alarm and distress. You're an exceptionally brave person to break free of the syndrome.
I have something concrete you can do. Join a national community of citizen volunteers who are working strategically and ethically to build an inclusive democracy by countering voter suppression in key geographies around the country. We are all volunteer and you and can look up “Walk the Walk 2020.” This is all truly terrifying but much less so when you can connect the historical dots (via Professor Richardson’s summaries and analyses) and the pragmatic dots (via Walk the Walk’s informed research and strategic interventions.
I am Totally Ashamed of these republicans!!! We HAVE TO get them out!!!
Omgosh, they are ACTUALLY visiting that sick sonofa....., Still???
The World is Watching!!!!😮😠😡
I've been wondering if people with expertise in extracting people from cults might be useful here, but the scope of the problem is daunting. Should there be programs to train family members? Is there anything that can be done on a mass scale? Countering with facts is apparently ineffective.
I think about "re-education" as it's been carried out in other, non-democratic countries. It's anti-American in my view. Technically, public schools exist (or used to exist) to turn out good citizens. Obviously they haven't been doing a good job.
Eve, beautifully spoken by someone who has been on the inside and managed get free. Thank you.
There is some sharing of written works under this comment that have been on my reading list, and prompts me to move them up a notch. Thank you. When speaking of the path towards healing generations of colonialism and oppression, here is a book that should not be missed, from a perspective that has long been dismissed. And that has been to our world’s great disadvantage: https://sacredinstructions.life/
Hi Eve, I echo your concerns and experience. I was in NY & FL and the cult leader a woman.
The presentation of evidence at the Senate trial is vitally important for the American public to witness, whether seditious Republican Senators turn a blind eye or not. Everything and everyone that contributed to The Big Lie and the Capitol insurrection, whether specific individuals were physically present or not, needs to be revealed in graphic detail. At a minimum, this travesty needs to be detailed and documented for history.
Moreover, I think we need to be demanding every day for all of this to be taken deadly seriously by our Senators, as well as our Representatives, and the loudest voices need to be from anyone who has a Republican Senator representing their State. We cannot assume that the trial is for naught, because 45 Senators have already tried to weasel out of their Constitutional duty by claiming that the impeachment is unconstitutional. Talk about gaslighting! Impeachment is a political process. Make it so. What can we make the cost be to them if they don’t convict? Do anything you can to get their attention. Call their offices, write letters, repeatedly, and get everyone you know to commit to making calls and writing letters. We have to keep the heat on. The staff in the legislators’ offices keep a record of constituents’ calls and report the data to the Senators and Reps. It has made a difference before... Remember the outcry when the ACA was threatened a few years ago? American voters’ voices - incessant, loud and clear - made a difference then. Our voices could make a difference now.
It is insane that these right-wing extremists have gotten away with as much as they have already. I didn’t think it was possible for me to be more outraged than I was every day that Trump was in office, but the events in January and the Republican response to the insurrection have sent my outrage into the stratosphere and it is coupled with a deep, profound sadness. I know that I am not alone. We need to use our outrage as fuel to raise our voices to demand justice and accountability from our legislative representatives.
I’ll admit I wasn’t one to use my voice to express my concerns with my legislative representatives until recently. I’ve always recognized the importance of my vote, my voice, in determining the outcomes of elections. But I failed to make the connection that my legislative representatives are my voice in ACTION. That I have an ongoing obligation to communicate my concerns to them so that they can actually “represent” me. They are legislators. They will cast votes as representatives of their constituency. How they decide to cast those votes is directly influenced by the voices of the people they represent. Duh. So now that I “get” this, I have begun communicating my thoughts, concerns, and opinions. At first, I did this through emails (a lot less scary than a phone call!). But now I have contact info for all my representatives saved on my phone and use a sample script to help me articulate what I want to say when I call. Yes, it’s still a bit scary for me, but it gets easier with each call I make.
For those interested, here’s a helpful link with a script to get started.
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2017/01/138465/how-to-call-senator
Excellent point, Lena. The silent majority must break its silence with its legislators, and continue to use its voice.
Agreed, but if you have hopeless right wing extremists as your elected officials, it feels pretty ineffective, though I still do it.
Unlike when Spiro (Nolo Contendere) Agnew coined the term, the current silent majority really is a majority of Americans. Decent Americans.
Me, too. Thank you, Lena. Going to follow your action points and good example. 😘❤️🤍💙
Saw in another comment you are also in New York, so we have the same Senators! As for the House, I’m in Katko territory.
“ the events in January and the Republican response to the insurrection have sent my outrage into the stratosphere and it is coupled with a deep, profound sadness.”
This clearly and succinctly states how I feel, every damn day.
Write on, Mary Anne.
I said to my wife last night that this trial in the US Senate will be THE evidence to move our Sen Susan Collins to convict. Currently, Collins states she believes in a censure. We must move her. We must apply pressure.
This pressure can happen through other means, such as the business community, specific businesses and their owners, our local newspapers, and radio call-in programs.
We all could vigil at our local city hall during the trial. With a unified message. “Democracy Demands Conviction.” Regardless of where one lives, there is a local Democratic Party, and we each can encourage our party to take leadership.
Now is the time to be visible, persuasive, and to fly ‘Old Glory.'
I hope she will do the right thing, but she has proven too often to lead us all to believe one thing and she then does the other. I find her the most infuriating as she poses herself to be so righteous.
I concur Margaret. I almost threw the TV during her defense of Kavanaugh! I’m trusting that the evidence will so clearly be heard on tape and seen on video that she has NO other choice but to convict. Perhaps, she could rise to the occasion, as did her supposed mentor in the 1950s, Margaret Chase Chase?
"Democracy Demand Conviction." Bumper stickers?
yeah, we’ll have to fix the subject/verb thingie
Always those thingies. I skipped an "s": Democracy Demands Conviction".
Move the "s" to the end of Conviction.
NB, I too am plagued by thingies, not all of them literary.
Well, today’s Letter sums up a rather starkly, the challenge we are all facing. I’ve got nothing to add to Professor Richardson’s analysis, but I would like to share a thought.
Those of us who played sports (or the younger among us who still do) know that preparation/training is key. For the battle ahead, my first step is doing such much needed homework.
Here’s the short list of what is on my nightstand:
Caste: The Lies That Divide Us, by Isabel Wilkerson
How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Fixing our Democracy
I want to thank the people in this space for these suggestions and look forward to hearing more.
Each of those books and resources is brilliant in its own right. It’s a weighty amount of reading, so you might want to also consider an Audible subscription or checking the audible versions out of the library, so you can listen to one, while reading another. Now that I suggested that, I’d like to recommend one more to add to your list: Stamped From the Beginning , also by Ibram Kendi. I read How to Be an Antiracist first, then Stamped, which was fine, but in hindsight, I wished I had read them in the opposite order: Stamped first, then How to Be an Antiracist, because the first book sets the stage for the second. In any order, however, they are eye-opening and packed with information and insights. Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste is also phenomenal, and the quality of her writing is exceptional. When you finish all of those, The New Jim Crow and The Color of Law are also excellent.
I already have the books, and I don't listen to books anymore because I don't drive here. And - I love to read. I'll add the others to the list. Thank you so much for the suggestions!
I don’t drive much anymore, either, which does reduce opportunities to listen to audio books. During the spring and summer months, I had an enormous amount of work to do in my yard for months on end, so I listened while I was working. It’s harder to find opportunities to listen during these isolated, pandemic winter months. I have actually been listening to Heather’s video chats while I exercise or do necessary housecleaning, which makes the time pass more quickly and enjoyably.
Listening while gardening - I hadn't considered that. My only concern is that it might hinder my conversations with the small robins that follow me around from bed to bed, waiting for the insects, seeds and worms I unearth while planting or weeding.
And the chipmunks, finding the seeds. Chatty critters they are.
We don't have chipmunks here ... and I rarely see squirrels. Love chipmunks!
That’s a wonderful image R. Dooley.
I do the same thing! btw, that’s an impressive reading list that you and R. Dooley are tackling.
You talk with the small birds in your garden? Isn't it fun. One of the beds I care for is a mature rose bed with 30+ bushes, and in summer, you have to crawl around under the thorny branches to weed. We have a small community of European Robins (Rotkehlchen, in German) and inevitably one of them will become curious and visit me while I’m digging. They come quite close, and I can’t resist talking with them. It’s mostly a one-way conversation, but the more one talks to them, the more comfortable they seem to become.
There is a book coming out in Feb you might want to check out: The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, by Heather McGhee
Ms. McGhee is a bright, thoughtful thinker - thanks for the suggestion.
Book is due out on 2/16. I also enjoyed listening to her conversation with Bill Moyers.
White a Trash: The 400-Year Old Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg
Hiding in Plain Sight by Sarah Kendzior
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho
How Democracies Die by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky
And a novel dealing with white supremacy - Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
I was impressed by “Hiding in Plain Sight” by Sarah Kendzior. I’d like to add “Strongmen” by Ruth Bem-Ghiat, and “How Fascism Works” by Jason Stanley. I feel that these books show that Trump’s behavior was pretty predictable and they provide context.
Thank you, Lena!
You might also look at "Thinking Like a Terrorist: Insights of a Former FBI Undercover Agent" by Mike German.
That sounds like a very interesting read - thanks.
German infiltrated white supremacy groups, and was able to prevent a church bombing. If I recall this was in the 80s. The briefing and training materials he submitted to FBI supervisors was rejected. Basically, if they are not accepted as official documents, then they are not official "federal records".
One of German's observations was that as long as the various hate groups keep focusing on their difference, they are not a big threat. If they get over their difference and band together, then they are a very serious threat... this is where we are now.
Is he still alive, and if so, would he be listened to now?
Too many typos: Just searched his name and Mother Jones did an interview about him a few weeks ago. Journalists are making their way to him.
Thanks for the info! I will go look for the article.
Whoa.
Oh!
Caste is good but IMO , me and white supremacy is better. This book will force you to look at yourself. Caste is unnecessarily over-intellectual and somewhat repetitive. I did not finish her book with a clear understanding of the concept of caste. A friend of mine who is a more avid reader than I suggested that I read the book review instead. That was smart suggestion that I did not follow. I may look for Ms. Wilkerson’s first book, however.
Thanks for the perspective. I have Caste and will see how it goes.
Here's three older books that show, in different ways, how current issues and crises are firmly grounded in the past.
E Foner, The Story of American Freedom
V Harding, There is a River
P Linebaugh, The Magna Carta Manifesto
These look terrific - thanks!
You're very welcome.
I would add "Hitler's American Model." Jim Crow gave him a blueprint for his treatment of the Jews.
Thanks for that suggestion. I read a thoughtful review of the book in the Atlantic.
I just did a catch-up viewing of the film “Harriett” last night. Most of my film viewing happens in the winter. After seeing that rousing story, I thought about those long lines of folks back in November, braving disease and weather to “vote the bum out”. That’s the kind of passion this piece of history demands — the passion for justice. The rage to break things and threaten people does not compare in any way to the passion for justice.
Thank you, R. Dooley. I just posted these 3 books on fb with orders to "get crackin'."
I find it interesting that Republicans base their actions on what is wrong with Democrats, not what is right with their own party. Yelling loudly enough about how bad the "libs" are shows how little Republicans themselves have to offer. When you have no game, attack, suppress votes and point fingers. But when you point at someone three fingers are pointing back at yourself.
It's amazing to me that Republicans are putting party first, not the good of the nation. If when a president incites insurrection is not an impeachable offense, then what is? Unfortunately, politicians have fallen back into survival mode, which requires them to gingerly remove their own spines. The notion of doing the right thing for the country disappears, which opens the door for a real, well-organized coup in the future.
Randy I sympathize, but this spinelessness, love of autocracy, and the whole racist/sexist/homophobic program has been the platform of the GOP for at least 4 decades. What the EX-"president" did was simply reveal the monster underneath the dark grey suit. The fact that there are plenty of people in the USA who seem to think that totalitarianism is a good replacement for democracy--many of them in elected office all over the country--has more to do with human nature and the difficulties of becoming self-aware and maintaining that self-awareness than it does, I think, with the all-too-predictable gormlessness and jingoism of the GOP. As has been revealed all over the world at numerous times--especially the 20th century--blind obedience to a dictator or demagogue is the go-to option for all the people for whom rational, informed thought is a frightening concept.
It is hard to develop the skills to become a humane and rational person. It requires time, maturity, and the ability to look inside and say "crap: I was wrong about that." In my experience, remarkably few people, even highly "educated" people, are willing to engage that very hard work. And so it makes them easy prey for cynical opportunists like Hawley and Cruz and total crazies like Greene.
To be found all around the world as you say. In France we have a similar situation where radical Islamic integrism (often in association with the local "caïde" controlling the drug traffic) is being used to control significant parts of the Muslim community in many suburbs of major cities and towns forming areas that have effectively seceded from the Republic where their "particular" interpretation of the Koran holds sway and not the police or more generally the law; women are chattel and must submit to their men, cover themselves from head to foot, are not allowed in cafés and can be married off as adolescents etc. Of course the government denounces it "on the tip of their tongues" but does too little too late....even when teachers are beheaded in the street....because they are afraid of being labeled "racist" or restrictive of "individual freedoms", guarrantteed by the European Court of Human Rights no less, by the very "caring, politicized associations" that they have themselves funded from tax monies.....with the best of intentions, of course.
And in the meantime, the French people moan and mumble, say they will vote for the extreme right wing while getting on with their daily lives! Not much growing up here either.
This is fascinating to learn about France, however unpleasant. It is easy to have an idealized notion of a place and not be aware of real life conditions.
Thanks for you comments, Linda. One would think that we as a species would have progressed to the point where at least a few of us would understand the concept of Being. Unfortunately, social media sites like Facebook (the ANTI-social network) have made us morally lazy. Keyboard courage abounds. I can imagine that one day we will have a Moral Computer to guide us.
Excellent, Linda.
Formlessness and jingoism — good on you!
I'm impressed by your eloquence. Thank you for the "finger pointing image". I'll use this speaking to my conservative friends and relatives.
“...gingerly remove their spines”!!!😂 thanks for the imagery and a little chuckle😊
Yes, lots of articulate phrasings to draw on.
Thank you Prof. Richardson for reminding us that Trump isn't off playing golf in La-La Land. He's meeting with the House Minority Leader to plan a Republican takeover of the House. We have an overwhelming wish to believe that he's not just out of sight and mind, but out of our world. He is not. And his violent lackies, who supported the execution of the Speaker and the Squad (hardly allies), have vowed on a Bible to be loyal to the Constitution and are skirting the metal detectors on their way into the People's House, armed, to legislate. In the words of W. Shakespeare: "Clarence, we are not safe."
All good points here, Mary Baine. I would, however, take the comma out to read "armed to legislate."
Especially without his hourly/daily tweets, it is easy not to think he is still such a danger to our country.
I write from Europe.
Professor Richardson, first thing this morning I read your urgent, sharply focused snapshot of where-we-stand-today—the reality of this moment in America. I knew this reality, but once you’d summed it up so clearly I scrolled down and read the first few comments, coming to one that read “Lord, deliver us from evil”. At which point I could take no more and retired for hours to pray for the strength to face up to the foul reality show the New York hoodlum has unleashed on our suffering world.
At the weekend, mass demonstrations in over a hundred Russian cities from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok against Trump’s model for America, his mentor Putin’s bandit oligarchy, met with lies, jail and the knout. Worse will likely follow. Covid-19 mutated and spread.
Question: does the United States possess the means to deal with the armed insurgency fomented by the racketeer who made it to president, and who, having struck once, is following time-honored mafia tactics and threatening more of the same until he has his way? I'd long seen America’s politics as the heartless party vs. the gutless party, but today’s faction-torn GOP looks like poor Rebekah with a heartless twin battling a gutless one in her womb.
What this means is that, unless and until the US government finds a way of dealing with the ongoing insurrection—bringing criminal charges against ringleaders Trump, Cruz and cronies and putting them out of harm's way—no one on earth will be safe. The violent chaos America has sown in the Middle East has come back from Iraq and Somalia to haunt her.
The cowardly too-big-to-fail pretext of 2008 won't wash for a political party in thrall to a murderous psychosis. Straitjackets and padded cells for the psychopaths, the perp walk for the leading mobsters, those who got themselves into Congress via the ballot box then betrayed their country, unleashing on the world the rabble whose minds they’d first poisoned. The 14th amendment for them all.
And, in case anyone tries to stick targets marked “left-wing” or “lib” on me, I’m 81, I am not partisan, I’ve had a civil servant’s ringside seat from which to observe politics throughout my active life, learning to respect those operators who did their job competently, regardless of whether or not I cared for their party; but the world has in the past thirty years tilted so sharply rightward, then further and further, that the boring middle-of-the-road principles I’ve held to for over six decades are bound to shock those who’ve never had a thought of their own but came into the world fully armed with granddad’s solid, unchanging hand-me-down hatreds and prejudices. Zombie ideas from another age promising death and destruction for our children and grandchildren and for life on earth as all human generations have known it.
The responsibility facing us all at this time is probably unprecedented.
AND an 83 year old, who recalls the “Doodlebugs” flying overhead, and omelets made from dried egg powder! I am happy today when I wake to find more “oxygen” in the air, but sad that I am not sanguine for the future of the next generations. Education should require more History!
And the bags of "margarine" with the red pill? inside that you had to squeeze to mix?
Oh yes, I well remember them!!
Haha! No, TG, that I dont recall. But I do remember the joy of visiting cousins, female, late teen, focus on figure, who happily all gave me their sweet (candy US) ration coupons.
Not TG, Maggie. How lucky you were with the candy - my cousins ate theirs!
I DO remember my FIRST real peach, post war, and also some years later, being introduced by older more sophisticated friends to REAL spaghetti (the kind in the 3 foot long!blue wrapper), wonderful, as opposed to the indescribable “I refuse to disgust the reader” stuff in tins that we had on Wed. evenings. However, when trauma does set in, occasionally, I still resort to UK Heinz Baked Beans on toast washed away by a large ancient single Malt!
I thought TG stands for "Thanks, Goddess!" Is that wrong?
Well I was way off - thought Mary got my name wrong! Does that show how behind the time I am??
Sorry for confusion! In my book TG = Thank (the Lord!) but I’m afraid I still talk about “boots” and “bonnets” . You can turn the Brit into an American, but you cant get the Brit out of the American!!!
Thank you Peter for your reasonable assessment of the American abyss. For those of us outside the fringes, attentive to current affairs and engaged as citizens the response to the country's instability by too many 'sane' Americans is either to be frozen in fear or to wear rose colored glasses. There has not been nearly enough democratic socio-political organization, Black Lives Matter representing an important exception; a lack of substantial local, grassroots organization; effective local and state representation by the Democratic Party or lively and consequential journalism on a local level. Americans have been asleep or deeply angry for much of the last fifty years. The economic safety net created by The New Deal and 'The Great Society'; fairy tales like 'The American Dream'; the goals of civil rights movement and a 'square deal' have been whittled way. All of that and more have led us to this dark and terrible breach. The image of exhausted and at risk nurses, therapists, doctors and healthcare workers comes to mind and so do the deaths and sorrow as a result not only by Covid-19 but also by the lethal ex-president and his allies. The point now is not that it didn't have to be this way, but what are we going to do about the threats to democracy and a civilized society?
Thank you, Fern, I wish to goodness we didn't have to see these things and deal with them, but that's the hard reality. Meanwhile, let's never leave go of our lifeline to the light when night and fog seem to be closing in on us.
this piece is well written and reasoned. thank you from a 82 yr old that followed your thinking very personally.
Thanks John. It's always good to know that some of us never stopped thinking, never stopped asking questions. And while the situation is dire, it is reassuring to read a blog followed by such a thoughtful comments thread.
Yes! I love to see that we can age and still think, wonder, ask questions, care, and stay engaged. You are a wonderful model of that.
Wow, Peter, this is powerfully and elegantly written. Thank you for sharing this. I so appreciate the perspective from someone outside our country and who has a much broader field of vision. I agree with you, wholeheartedly. Thank you for your prayers. We could all spend some time in prayer, intention, visualization; whatever ones spiritual practice consists of. I appreciate the wisdom your years have accumulated. My mother is 90 and she had been warning of Trump’s likeness to Hitler for many years. I didn’t take it seriously.. thought it could never happen here. She was right all along.
Thank you Pamsy, I too wish I'd been wrong, wish I could be less of a Cassandra, want to give encouragement, not warnings. It seems to me that happiness is grossly undervalued in our societies fixated with having, having, having more, then more, and more. Dissatisfaction guaranteed—hence greed's grotesque inflation. Yet if people could only get to see that happiness doesn’t depend on causes and let themselves be infected by the smiles and laughter of small kids, surely they’d never get swept away by the tide of gun-toting hate-filled crazies. True smiles, warm smiles are a small antidote. A contagious virus worth spreading.
Half a lifetime ago, I’d always be struck on returning from countries where people smiled proudly even when they were on the breadline, by the miserable expression on the faces of the well-to-do getting out of their Mercedes…
I used to think of America as the realm of the possible, knowing all that was wrong but always thinking of the country’s vast positive potential, not the bottomless abyss we have just witnessed. Yet… that potential is still there, despite the beggar-my-neighbor dog-eat-dog attitudes of so many, both privileged and underprivileged, despite the mentality of poverty infecting too many of the rich (but not those poor who’ve kept their dignity), despite the oppressive meanness, despite the pervasive racism. It’s great to have a president once again who is a man, a real human being—someone you’d not need a lantern to find in broad daylight. It’s great to have men and especially women who are incarnations of hope for us all, like your strong, sharp-witted Vice-President. Just imagine where we’d be if the world had seen a few more heroic figures like Stacy Abrams during those “mean dishonest decades”, the past thirty years.
Another wonderful bit of writing. I couldn’t agree more. Some of the poorest people, in other countries, look to be the happiest. Happiness, as you say, isn’t about all the extra stuff. How did we become so materialistic and greedy? I hope you will keep sharing your thoughts and observations here.
Thank you, sir, for your thoughtful and insightful response.
Comment not response! Oy!
Dr. Richardson, it is always dark when I start your letter. As I read I watch the back yard emerge as the light arrives. It always does. I hope the light arrives soon to those who still believe in the twice-impeached former president. He and his followers are a cancer that must be excised if we are to keep our democracy.
A great image forms in my mind of you sitting on the back stoop as sun comes up.
☺️ Not in this weather. Sitting in my favourite wingback chair, looking out the sliding glass doors to the deck and the backyard. Once it’s warm enough to sit outside with my coffee and “Letters from an American” the sun will be up.
I remember well the warning as a child not to run with scissors. It seems the modern Republican Party is heavily populated with those who either never received that warning or have forgotten it.
I am now watching most of them gleefully running around with open scissors in each hand, eager to use them to cut out from the party all deemed insufficiently loyal to #45. My reaction, when I am able to calmly reflect on this, is to hand out additional pairs of scissors to them all and provide enough candy to keep them on a sugar high.
While we may endure a period chaos and even some degree of violent protests, it seems their anger is directed at least as much against each other than at the smooth functioning of government. Biden and his team are proceeding calmly to return America to stable and sane governance, and are focusing on matters requiring attention and too long ignored or mismanaged by the previous administration. Likewise Pelosi and Schumer are each organizing their caucuses and moving forward on crafting and passing the enabling legislation to enact the Biden administration priorities for the American people.
So while we have the insane inmates of the asylum running through the halls with open scissors threatening each other with violence, the doctors and attendants have retreated to their offices and are attending to business.
Eventually, Republicans may do such damage within their ranks that their numbers will shrink and they will lose yet more control for themselves of governing in a responsible manner leaving Democrats firmly in charge. Yes, the crazy mob running about with scissors is disturbing and threatening. But, perhaps we should stay out of their path, remain in our offices tending to business, and simply let their destructive behavior continue until it burns itself out. Running around trying to take the scissors from their hands or urging them to walk, not run, likely will not reduce their panic or calm their behavior, and only increases our own danger by placing us in the midst of their melee.
I urge all to remain calm and focus on our own task of govening responsibly and to focus our attention and efforts on solving the problems America and the world faces. Allow the inmates of the asylum to continue to run wildly amongst themselves with open scissors. This will eventually pass and there is no reason for us to endanger ourselves in their midst.
EVERYBODY: Read what Bruce Carpenter said. EVERYBODY: Read what Candace has said.
"enough candy to keep them on a sugar high."
Before they run with scissors, they should drink Red Bull by the case. Make it so!
This is exactly what Biden is doing, calmly working on his/our agenda. But, someone (Congress & Justice) need to start putting a lid on this. Trump and his enablers aren’t going away on their own.
Thank you for this calming post. I REALLY need it!
A failed attempt at insurrection becomes a training exercise. All those involved must be apprehended, tried and punished.
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, as it turns out.
https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/holocaust-remembrance-day
Corporations. There's a good reason that some people despise corporations. We should be patient and considerate when someone is raging about corporations, rather than turning away.
Why? Why should we refrain from labeling these discontented people silently in our minds as extremists or, to use a word posted here not long ago, outliers?
Heather says, "Those in the business wing of the party are not moderates: they are determined to destroy the government regulation, social welfare legislation, and public infrastructure programs that a majority of Americans like. But they are not openly white supremacists or adherents of the QAnon conspiracy, the way that Trump’s vocal supporters are."
No, they may not be openly white supremacists, but let's just take a quick peek at some corporate history, shall we? The kind of corporate history that doesn't make it into the news very often, not good publicity.
You know those famous numbered tattoos on the forearms of Jews in concentration camps? Those numbers are IBM numbers. That's right, it turns out that keeping track of millions of subhuman people is difficult to do with card index files, so computer software was necessary just to manage the load of information. This is the 1930s and 40s, mind you. It's amazing that any computer technology was available at all.
You know who supplied the Zyklon B cyanide pesticide for those infamous gas chambers? BASF, a big German company equivalent to Dow Chemical or Dupont. Bayerische Anneliden u. Sodafabrik.
Speaking of Dow and Dupont and BASF, who, I wonder, supplied the poison gas used in trench warfare during WW1? Who supplied the gunpowder for the munitions on either side of the Atlantic? Corporations.
In Japan, Mitsubishi manufactured the Zero. In the US, the companies that supplied all the tools of warfare are usually categorized as hero organizations, but I question that argument. War is not an activity that, generally speaking, you want to tout as noble or healthy. Sorry TC.
Who manufactured and supplied napalm?
The list goes on and on. Deutsche Bank, yes our lovely supplier of funds to our dearly departed President, our likely money launderer for some of Putin's millions paid to him, was the bank of choice for Nazi Germany. No exaggeration, Deutsche Bank translated is something like "German National Bank." They took their role seriously, even during the Hitler Administration. [Try out the beginning chapters of "Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump . . . " for reference]
You get my drift.
Corporations, by and large, are amoral. Some of the biggest war crimes in history have been aided and abetted by corporations.
Don't ever call them heroes. Don't listen to the PR about how noble they are. Bull.
Just a reminder: on Jan. 6, my wife watched live on TV. She saw the now-famous guy with the Camp Auschwitz shirt, the shirt which she saw had the word "Staff" printed on the rear.
Camp Auschwitz Staff.
Disgusting!
There were also insurgents wearing shirts with 6MWE (6 million wasn't enough).
Wow... what they all said below.
Stomach turning. It is 2021...
Corporations have no conscience or soul, and definately should lose their "person" status in the law.
I’m ashamed to say that in the past I’ve resisted all suggestions to call Trump a Nazi. I thought the analogy disrespected the suffering of those millions who were rounded up, tortured and killed. Now I see beyond that to the early days of the brown shirts when that nightmare began and might have been stopped.
Here we are today actually debating whether or not to arrest, impeach or remove from office people who openly call for violence and the overthrow of our government. I’m heartbroken and very angry. We’re looking down the barrel of fascism right now.
War is big business.
"War is a Racket," by Gen. Smedley D Butler
Time to watch Catch-22 again.
The GOP is no longer a political party, they've morphed into a seditious mob.
I'll be 70 next month. My parents were die-hard Stevenson/Kennedy Democrats. I was taught from the cradle to loathe Richard Nixon and later that Barry Goldwater was a dangerous, way-out-there radical.
How far we have come.
At the 2020 Republican Convention the GOP decided to abandon the usual God, guns, and tax-cuts platform. There would be only one plank; loyalty to Donald Trump.
Paul Krugman's column in today's NY Times is titled, "The GOP Is in a Doom Loop of Bizarro." The column ends with a statement; "But a party that buys into bizarre conspiracy theories and denies the legitimacy of its opposition isn’t getting saner, and still has a good chance of taking complete power in four years."
How did a major political party fall into the thrall of such a deeply flawed human being? Had the Covid 19 pandemic not come along Donald Trump likely would have been re-elected. I shudder at that thought. Not because it could still happen, but because millions of my fellow citizens seem to want to dance on the grave of American democracy. This leads to the haunting question; was Jan. 6th a wake-up call or a pre-cursor?
Dear Ralph, your first paragraph is like reading an autobiography. My parents proudly voted twice for the candidate with a hole in his shoe.
It was quite damning that the 2020 Repug convention rejected any platform. It signals that they officially stand for nothing. Bah.
Well-said and mind-blowing.
Thank you Heather. My heart hurts for you to have to surmise this disintegrating Country.
As many of us thought, at this point we would be looking at a Country trying to unify and start putting people before Party. Instead we are seeing that everything we thought was bad is actually worse. As Nancy Pelosi states "the enemy is from within ", she is correct. I watch Biden doing his best to put the Nation in the proper direction, yet his every move is discounted and challenged by the GOP and the vitrol of the trumpers and most Republicans is overwhelming. This Nation reminds me of a boat with dry rot. Regardless of how presentable you try to make it, it's still a failed vessel.
Stay safe, stay well.
Simple idea: America is now divided into two camps - those who read widely and critically, those who don’t. Education system, especially civics study, has failed us.
Retired Social Studies teacher here. I'd like to differentiate between an educator's failure on civics and history education versus outside pressures on the education system regarding these subjects. In my experience, beginning with Ronald Reagan's A Nation at Risk, our country was brainwashed into believing that the US was far behind in the teaching of math and science. Next, Americans were told that due to the rapid changes in technology students needed to receive even more education in math and science. I don't disagree that our country had room for improvement in these areas but what I experienced and saw was the severe loss to students in other areas of their education. People were led to believe math and science courses were more important than other subjects. As a result, there was less and less focus on history, civics, art, reading, recess/phy ed. As a high school teacher, I observed students and parents complained because US History, World History, Economics, and Government were required for graduation because these classes wasted their time and because "they will never use this information in real life." In my school district, I worked with exceptional social science teachers - brilliant, dedicated people who constantly updated their teaching pedagogy. Parents often devalued the social science courses their children were in and resented the "waste" of their child's time. In elementary schools, the teaching of history and civics was reduced to 30-40 minutes a week and was superficial at best. It has become very obvious what the cost of these choices has had on the country.
I couldn't agree more! You have pegged the problem. IMO, the subjects around literacy, history, social studies are of primary importance - they provide the tools needed to succeed in other studies, life and society. Basic numeration, of course, and an appreciation of the methods of science and scientific "literacy" are key goals, too. But balance and the liberal education lead us forward in all fields of endeavor. My career was spent in data, computers and modeling - I got there by reading. My career in government was informed by my teachers in history, civics and government studies. America's strengths have always emerged with the breadth of our education leading to innovative thinking and leadership in ideas.
Hello, former history teacher and current graduate student who works on the history of education. it began before Reagan, though A Nation at Risk was certainly a part of the continued assault on liberal arts education. I study the 1940s-1960s and there were substantial calls from conservatives for the Three Rs education. In this, history fell by the wayside. Further, "controversial topics" which had previously been embraced by progressive educators as something necessary to discuss were jettisoned. Instead, conservatives pushed for history education that taught rote memorization and exalted blind acceptance of parental authority. This latter was often a cover for the maintenance of racist ideologies and religious bigotry.
There have been numerous pieces of journalism of late regarding the number of local schools districts that are poisoning their children with distorted history. And that is a huge reason for why so many in our country don’t know historical facts. Most of us have enough trouble keeping up with what’s needed of us in our own little bubbles and are therefore challenged to pay attention to what has happened to the curriculum in some hyper partisan districts out west.
I really am not making a judgment about your statement, however, I don't think it is fair to make broad generalized statements that there have been "numerous pieces of journalism" "regarding local school districts poisoning their children." What pieces of journalism? Which publications? Which journalists? Which school districts? While I would never make a broad statement that such a thing never happens, my original post refers to the fact that most social science teachers are dedicated to truth in teaching. Keep in mind that public school teachers are required to teach content as guided by state-mandated standards and benchmarks. I have worked on those committees so I am familiar with those processes. There truly is a dedication to best teaching practices and exploring well-rounded historical facts. I think well-rounded is the key. In order to provide the best education possible, we need to teach about both the good decisions, experiences, and social movements as well as those areas that had a less positive impact. We need to acknowledge that decision-makers, while perhaps making what they thought were the best decisions may have in fact, have negatively impacted The US and Americans. People aren't perfect. Our nation is not perfect. We seek to create a more perfect union but make mistakes. Just as in life, mistakes and failures are learning opportunities. The best history education helps students to think critically about the past, including the mistakes and failures. To ignore this history is to prevent young people from learning and understanding how past choices created particular results. I value education highly and, to me, that means looking at our past as honestly as we can, warts and all.
Here’s a Cato Institute (Libertarian Institute think tank) Twitter page that highlights various controversies over curriculum. There appears to be much confusion over historical fact and the interpretation of history. Let me be very clear, I’m a strong proponent of government that loves and takes care of all people. I despise the premise of Libertarianism. But the Twitter page gives credence to my assertion on the problem of an accurate curriculum.
LOL. I’m not your “student”. I offered my perspective as someone who reads widely and nonstop. It’s not up to me to provide you with a list of sources and Google couldn’t be much easier to use. I speak of local school boards primarily. My spouse is an educator, I’m not disparaging teachers, I have great respect for the vast majority. As with any profession there can be bad apples, I have experienced history teachers who don’t flinch at teaching propaganda.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_6000bce3c5b62c0057bb711f?fbclid=IwAR3SIF2NtfUnfB9pO6YHUvs5NH_zJpwaqObtc8Ybv5HHVT5PeD8aMYTDX24
Yes, but those of us who read had damn well better figure out how to communicate with those who don't. Perhaps we need to repeat endlessly (in trump's fashion) simple little commonplace phrases like: "Trump is Covid".
I agree that words absolutely matter. But I think it’s far more complicated. Some experts in authoritarianism and propaganda might have some excellent advice. I’m guessing our new POTUS is fully aware and employing such experts
I agree it is much more complicated. I am not convinced that the Democratic leadership has a viable plan yet.
Yes, I see this a lot and is a huge difference between the two parties. Republicans are so loyal they’ll stick with the party even if it takes them over a 400 foot cliff. But, with the Dems, because many are their own experts on every single thing, if the path forward isn’t exactly as they prescribe then they won’t get on board. Sure explains why we can’t have nice things. Calls for Unity always seem to be perceived for anyone but me.
Yeh, but.....books in the home have always been a rather middle class phenomena. Well educated parents tend to make for well educated children....as it is for them an important value as well as being a known means of maintaining their social positioning. Parents were supposed to want their children to do even better than they did. You have to have access to the means...educative and financial.....to sustain this approach to life.
I was raised on a VERY small farm and, in retrospect, mild poverty. While we had a few books in our home, I spent may hours in public libraries (my family attended the LARGE farmers market in a nearby city “back in the day”), checked out books and was encouraged to read. Public libraries have fallen in importance in our communities. Also, a failure in the past 30 years to keep up with technology and access to the wider public. Libraries through history have been a mark of the great civilizations, so what does that say about the U.S.?
Libraries! They saved me from ignorance. They opened the world to me. Later I worked in the children's room at a public library. This was at a time when everyone wanted to get on the Internet but many did not have computers. Before cellphones. Librarians debated how to allow access without allowing harm, and I suppose teachers faced the same problem. That was more than 20 years ago.
I just saw a FB post from a library, don't remember where, that let children "pay off" late fees by reading books! Brilliant idea.
I remember in the sixties the Bookmobile used to stop at the park in our neighborhood every week in the summer. Pretty much the highlight of each week.
There were no video games or social media then.
Books have been my lifeline since childhood.
My lifeline too.
"I spent may hours in public libraries.... and was encouraged to read." This is the key which is lacking these days. Books are there for the taking if you care to look.....they don't think it necessary as someone is doing their thinking for them.
About 50 years ago, I recall seeing a timeline of the changes in the physical structure of man...starting with the ape and coming down to the present day. It went on to assume that...over the next thousands of years, the body would become less bulky and muscular as we became more sedentary and the brain would enlarge as we used it more. Unfortunately, the trend seems to be going in the opposite direction. We exercise much more now and eat healthier, so our bodies are improving. On the other hand, with the rise of computers, we read less, use our brains less to make calculations, remember dates and events, etc...so ur brains will probably atrophy in time.
Booka are the only way to reverse that ominous outcome. Yes, I too recall hours in both the school and the city library; getting my library card was an important event in my childhood. Perusing through volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia was a joy. Now - just google it. What a shame!
You may enjoy "The Library Book," by Susan Orlean. (She's the one who wrote "The Orchid Thief" a few years ago.) While it's a paean to libraries in general, it's more particularly about the L.A. Public Library and the fire of 1968. 'Good read.
Dan, I thought I might like this book when you mentioned it, and I do! Thank you.
Will look that up!
One of my most exciting childhood memories was the day the white books of the World Book Encyclopedia came into our house and were put on the bookshelves.
My father (born 1906) finished the 5th grade, but was one of the most well-read men I've ever met. When he came to live with us in later years he would read the Brittanica every day and started at the front and read straight along. Always had interesting things to say at our dinner table. When he died at 81 he was reading the "M" volume!
That's a wonderful anecdote, MH! He certainly set a fine example of the joys of learning.
For me it started with my paternal grandfather, a tailor from Poland, who came to the U.S. in the early 1900s. A union member and poor, he and my grandmother raised five children (four girls and my dad) and adopted another. You'd have thought there'd be no money for culture, but he had a little bookcase in the foyer, in which were books by Dickens and other authors of note. My father (born 1915) finished high school and was a purchasing agent. He collected books as well as records, starting with Enrico Caruso on 78 rpm's. There were always books and music in my life.
That you as a child were so excited about the set of encyclopedias is so sweet!
It was like I was getting a new puppy. This was the version we had:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/160845040/1950s-the-world-book-encyclopedia-set?show_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details
They are beautiful! I’m really touched that you felt this gift was like getting a new puppy!🧡
I don't think it's actually an education issue. Instead, it's more about the allure of ideology. I have a lot of relatives who have adopted a rigid pseudo-Christian, right-wing ideology and refer to their self-righteous intolerance as "having values." I don't think their beliefs are values as much as they are defenses against the confusion of reality. After all, the world is big, really big, and if you don't find it confusing, you either aren't paying attention or you are hiding from it.
I like your mention of having to face the confusion of reality. We need to be taught from a young age to think for ourselves and to evaluate information for truthfulness.
Critical thinking.
And the Fascists have studied authoritarianism and nothing is coincidence. Many more of us should have gotten a lot louder when the first wife told us that the mob boss was studying Hitler’s speeches.
Boy, did I start something! Well, it made my day . . . for I am not alone.
You are definitely not alone!
I have to agree with that. Schooling taught me mainly to stand in line quietly and succeed at tests. The library is what rescued me!
Most of these replies are about education. My question is, how do you explain the well-educated, thoughtful people (I live in a red state and know lots of them) who are ardent Trump supporters and are plugged into some of the conspiracy theories?
It’s so much more complex than that. Child neglect and emotional abuse are rampant in our country. Privileged people don’t see it. Hillary Rodman Clinton knew very well that the only antidote for authoritarianism was to improve the lives of our youngest and that is why she was always the biggest target of the Fascists. Power hungry Fascists know very well that which creates the most vulnerable minds
I agree, but let's start with a simple "To Do" list, which I think Joe Biden is doing. $15/hour minimum wage, support for needy schools, child care, health care (COVID), voting rights, environmental quality/justice, climate crisis . . . . OK, that's enough for right now.
I 💯 agree!!! I couldn’t be happier with what President Biden is doing. And nothing in my comment should be interpreted to indicate the opposite!
It just doesn’t stop! And anyone sitting back thinking they can breathe again isn’t paying attention.
Lord, deliver us from evil
How do you kill a hydra? Starve it to death. Give it no air, do not give its lies voice. Give it no water, do not waste your emotions fighting it. Give it no earth, with your feet firmly on the ground let the illusions fly by. And, give it none of your fire, your sacred light. A rage fuelled by love and truth can discriminate and lead to right actions. One at a time the heads die. While we live in time and space vigilance is all.