There was a far more successful fascist than Hitler and Mussolini. Generalissimo Francisco Franco came to power because of those two in 1939, as they supplied him with the air power in his rebellion against the Spanish Republic. He remained in power until his death in 1975. Millions of Spaniards were tortured, imprisoned, and murdered during those years. Spain today still carries with it the scars of that awful repression, and yet continues to nurse a resurgent right wing (Vox). Totalitarianism, whether coming from left or right, is the scourge of humanity, and America was founded to oppose it. That we have a lunatic cult hoping to crown a monarch in the 21st century is beyond my ability to fathom.
I went on holiday to Spain as a teenager in 1970. I can still remember how shocked I was by the reaction of some Spanish teenagers I met in Barcelona, when I said what a horrible little man Franco seemed to be. They immediately said "Shush! Shush! Someone might hear you - and WE'D be in big trouble!"
As a (Swiss) German American on my mother's side, one thing I learned was that people -- from local tradesmen and home-makers to politicians and pontiffs --, can not turn away from fascism, no matter how great the society is; and Germany was great in 1900. That and the Milgram experiments taught me that "it can happen here."
As a former Republican, I ask y'all to help me send candidate Trump to jail by voting this year.
I agree. I made a similar statement on a different HCR post a few days ago. Fascists can fly under the radar because our Constitution allows it. What they cannot do is act on their fascist behavior in an injurious way to others. It is for this reason that I am perplexed as to why Trump is not yet in jail. He has on multiple occasions incited others to do harm to those who disagree with him. And this was even before his presidency, so, the SC ruling has little to no bearing.
I can’t believe I watched the whole thing. It’s eerily familiar (Trump) and Third Reich, but for all that, Monty Pythonly hilarious. Thank you, Bob Tenaglio.
JUST THINK if every time Harris supporters saw Trump they began laughing hysterically like this!!! (Better happen soon, though. If -- GOD FORBID -- he becomes the dictator of the U.S., heads will roll if so much as a chuckle is heard.)
Authority is a potent part of the social chassis. Don't kid yourself. It's an essential ingredient for any ordered society. It can also, all to easily, run over overload.
They keep walking down very quiet streets, but every time the one asks "Here?" his friend shakes his head. "No, not here..."
They come to the edge of town, dirt roads and a few tumbledown houses.
"Not here..."
They keep walking into the country, across open fields.
At last, they stop in the middle of nowhere and scan the horizon. No one in sight. The discreet fellow turns to his friend and murmurs in his ear...
"Actually, I like him..."
*
I loved Spain then, more than ever. I did find ways of speaking freely with people. But... you just can't imagine the opening, the sense of freedom on crossing the border back into France.
Portugal was much tighter. They didn't need to kill as many, but Salazar's PIDE, the secret police were everywhere and kept files on everyone. Any unusual activity was suspect. My friend who translated for the Dutch foreign ministry took a quiet holiday in the back of beyond, Tras Os Montes. A keen photographer, he took pictures of the countryside and things seen in villages. The PIDE took him in for questioning and read his file to him. All details, down to private address and phone numbers, name and profession of spouse. Because he was interested in people and used his eyes, took artistic pictures of cows and farm machinery, he was suspected of... spying.
Peter, I have quite a few medievalist friends who are younger than I by at least a decade who have been the beneficiaries of the deaths of Franco and Salazar, which resulted in the opening of archives previously sealed off. The relief expressed by archivists and librarians who can now open their doors to these younger medieval historians is palpable. And the work they are doing is completely upending views of the past in centuries of great change (from the 8th century to the 16th) in what became Spain and Portugal. Fascism in Iberia tried to bury the real history of the region in favor of a white, male, "Christian," pseudo-Roman Imperial narrative that is being shown to be anything but accurate by historians working in the last 20 years. And more and more "stuff" is coming out of archives all the time to demonstrate that the fascist-approved view of the past is completely wrong. When I was a grad student trying to figure out what was happening in Iberia, I was hampered by the extremely limited material medieval historians like Father O'Callaghan were able to access. That is not the case now.
Thanks, all of you for this information. A student of medieval French and Goya lover, I wanted to go to Spain, but not while the last king was alive. It would have felt like treason. The words “auto-da-fe” still burt.
I don't quite get it. Juan Carlos is still alive, he abdicated. Besides, for those of us who were around when Franco died, he made an excellent job of the transition to democracy -- despite all the training he'd received from Franco. Scandal upon scandal came much later.
Peter, I visited China in 2005 and saw Tiananmen Square, with its huge portrait of Mao. Our guide reminded us sotto voce not to talk about anything political because there were always government spies eavesdropping. Sometimes they would just be wanting to practice English comprehension but sometimes they were looking for spies. Sure enough, we were followed by several Chinese men in business suits. I saw a group of older men standing in a circle singing. I thought it was nice but our guide hustled me away, saying he knew those men and they were part of Mao’s Red Guard.
Forty years after Mao’s reign of terror. Still gives me chills.
My father taught at a major university. According to the best estimates, one out of every 5 Chinese grad students in the United States was spying on the other 4, and would pass along information to Chinese authorities. The reported student's family would have their lives threatened, and the "disloyal" student would return to China with no further education allowed. A young Chinese PhD candidate enrolled at Omega, a holistic center, for a week with Ram Dass at the same time as my husband and I were there. "X" was a lovely person. [I wrote his first name. Then I deleted it. Is it possible that to this day, 32 years later, he wouldn't be safe if this story was known to the Chinese government??] My husband is Tibetan. One day at lunch, I asked what he thought about the Chinese invasion of Tibet. He said with great enthusiasm, "It was wonderful!! The Tibetan people were so thankful to be freed from the rule of their leader. Now they have education and machinery!" It just so happened that Mickey Lemle was at that same course. I had just seen his film, "Compassion in Exile". I asked Mickey if he would be able to show the film to a group of us. He did so. The film showed the catastrophic results of the Chinese invasion, and the slaughter of the monks and nuns. Our friend sat in between my husband and me. As the film rolled, he grew quieter and quieter. At the end, he prostrated himself on the floor, weeping, and said, "I didn't know! I didn't know! I'm so sorry!!" We said, "X, you have nothing to apologize for. But now you know. It may not be safe for you to tell any other Chinese students the truth. If you think someone can be trusted, however, perhaps you could quietly tell them the truth." I understood for the first time exactly what life is, in a fascist dictatorship.
Thank you for recounting this very pertinent event in your life. I've read that one of the first things Hitler did ,within months of taking office, was to make it a crime to criticize his government.
That was also true at the University of Minnesota in the early-mid 70s. Think of how many spies this must have required! Did the spies enroll? Did they attend classes? Take tests? Receive diplomas? I suppose it’s hard to study and write papers when you have to constantly follow and eavesdrop the target student!
Yes, they did. Professors had no idea which were regular full-time students, and which students were also there to spy. None of the students knew who was a spy and who was not. Since most were not fluent in English, they all hung around each other. Their "spying" was listening to their fellow Chinese students to hear if they were saying anything negative about the Communist Chinese leaders and/or if they were getting too chummy with Americans. Same as in any fascist government. The only difference was that these people were IN THE UNITED STATES.
It was 1977 and my student rail pass took me into Spain. I observed those tricorne police hats. Ah yes, the Guardia Civilia. Perhaps the Italian version was The Vigili Urbani.
Concierges, city police, night watchmen were all useful. And the Nazis had their Blockwart snoopers on every block but in Italy the main Fascist surveillance unit was OVRA, the secret police.
The Civil Guards were a national force, men recruited at one end of Spain and sent to the far end to terrorize the locals...
Peter, my husband and I were discussing the series World on Fire which among other things had a bit about a Jewish family living in an apartment building. Just down the hall was the Nazi rat, an elderly woman, who turned them in. I mentioned then one of our neighbors who would be that person. Besides the official groups there was and would be here, people who would report people to the authorities. It must create a terrible tension among neighbors and workplaces, not knowing whom to trust. One of our friends, now living in Michigan, posted about being shot by the local MAGAs should death star prevail. That occurred to me too as death star advocates for violence.
Live in Michigan, have a rural neighbor here who, if he can talk someone into giving him bullets (or will President Trump dispense them to his faithful brownshirts?), will shoot me for supporting Pres. Biden who kills babies. Very pro-life.
I was also in Spain in 1977, using my Eurail pass to see the sights. I decided to take a train from France to Madrid to see the Prado. We stopped in the middle of nowhere and the conductors came around extracting bribes to get the train moving again. That's fascism for you. That kind of thing just didn't happen in any of the other countries I visited (I did not go to Portugal, though).
Actually, that's typical of Central and South American societies which were invaded and colonized by the Spanish. I remember a trip I took with friends to Costa Rica. On our way to the airport we were pulled over by police. They insisted that we had broken the speed limit. (We had not.) They refused to let us go. We had no idea what to do. Then one member of our group asked, "Ah! Do you need some money?" "Si! Si!" So she began pulling out bills. When she'd pulled out everything she had, we were free to go.
Haven’t run into that sort of funny business here in Panamá. My son has gotten stopped for minor offenses, gotten a ticket then were on our way. Hope it stays that way too.
Bribes, yes, the kind you describe, Steve. We Americans have not been used to paying bribes to make things work in our daily lives. Yes, that’s fascism for you.
That story is funny in context of the claim that Mussolini made the trains run on time.
Thank you for reminding us of Lorca. I always feel a wave of grief at the mention of his name. Edna Saint Vincent Millay’s poem “Lidice,” “Guernica” are mixed up in my childhood rear vision. Later Lorca became part of that dark mixture.
Check out the Wikipedia article on Salazar, please. It's remarkably...benign? Especially after the tumult of the First Republic, which seems depressingly similar to the chaos that too many are trying to foment here. Just as interesting is that the entire article is categorized in Wikipedia under "Conservatism."
Thanks again to all of you reporting your experiences in countries where oppression still reigns or is very much alive. To brighten the record: I walked the medieval ramparts of Diderot’s hometown, Langres, in honor of his contribution to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That has already begun in the U.S. So many people are afraid to post "Harris/Walz" signs in their yards. And in certain places, if you speak negatively about the orange sadist, you better have some sort of protection with you. A friend went door to door canvassing for Harris. She said that one woman told her, "You should stay away from here. Someone might shoot you." (She said this helpfully, not in a threatening way.) My friend was shocked, and left immediately.
A neighbor had a Harris/Walz sing on their lawn. It lasted 48 hours. Next, the neighbor hand wrote a sign. ‘You can take my sign, but you can’t stop me from voting!” The people next store to me have a trump shrine. Flag, sign, vote no on Amendment 4, (abortion, now law is not after 6 weeks) and so on. All is well on their lawn.
If it were not for my only remaining child, who is a teacher in the lowest “#50”paying state in the union, and my grandchildren, I would leave. For the record, it is not cheaper to live here. Please, if you are considering a move to Florida, check out the car, house, and flood insurance that will become mandatory in 2026. My flood insurance in a non flood zone was 1000.00 this year. The state is so badly gerrymandered that the politicians do what they want. The heat is unbearable in June, July, August, September and October. We are finally getting a break.
I vote, but in this state, I wonder if it matters.
Thank You for the rant time. I won’t journal today.
Thank you. I have written many postcards to FL Democrats reminding them to call their county number to ask for a mail-in ballot. Hoping you get relief.
I don't feel safe posting a Harris sign here in rural Michigan. So I have a U.S. flag hung on my porch railing, and, really gutsy of me, it is right side up.
Understand - I look for Harris signs in Livingston Cty. Howell - there are some. And there are less Trump signs.
The house in Milford Mi that had HUGE Trump signs for several years now has none. I think that might be because someone there has been indicted as one of the “false electors”.
Rural central Texas here. I wouldn't put out a Democratic sign of any sort on my home or vehicle. That's a good way to invite a drive by shooting or getting your vehicle damaged.
In town - in Waco, I am beginning to see a few Harris/Walz signs around town. I applaud their bravery.
Until last year, when my health went downhilll I was an election poll worker and judge here for years. I was always scheduled in the "difficult" polling locations because I didn't take guff off of anyone, and made everyone follow the rules. It was simply amazing how fast and loose the Republican election poll workers and judges were with their much-vaunted ID rules etc.
The good news is Texas is moving left a tiny step at a time.
When I went to Europe in '68 I didn't go to Spain or Germany, because I didn't want to give one single American dollar to either of those countries. I did go to Italy, though, and I have no regrets, because I met an international group of people my age, one of whom had just escaped from Czechoslovakia. I was also in Paris when the students and factory workers struck. They pulled up the cobblestones on the left bank to throw at police, and the government responded by paving over the old streets. On one occasion when I was running away from les fliqs (cops in French), I hid in a doorway; a young man stuck his head out the window and asked if I wanted to hide out in his apartment, where the popular Einstein poster was on his living room wall. He had gone to Berkeley for his study abroad year. Europeans had not forgotten Vichy France or fascist Italy and Spain or Nazi Germany 23 years after the axis had been defeated. We should not forget either, even though 79 years have elapsed.
At the exit from Dachau concentration camp (1973) a quotation from Santayana (please forgive if I do not quote exactly): “Those who do not remember the mistakes of history are condemned to repeat them.”
Egg zackly, Virginia, and I didn't know the exact quote either, but I just looked it up: "Those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
I was also in Spain as a teenager in 1966. I was in love with those black patent leather hats worn by the Guardia Civil, not really knowing what they were, I wanted to take a picture of those hats. My Spanish friend just kept telling me no, I couldn’t do that. Now I know why…
MAGA thinks they embody the spirit of 1776 with their snake flags and use of "We the people...". when what they want to do is go back to a King imposing tariffs....and telling us how to live, using martial law to impose his "divine" will. They have this upside down.
The biggest driver of the colonies uniting for American Revolution was King George’s plan to turn the running of the over to the East India Company. The colonists were aware of the depredations the East India Company monopoly inflicted on its subjugated colonies… the Boston Tea Party was a rejection of the EIC monopoly. The EIC had its own army and used it to install its political appointees, who then made sure the EIC was able to control the colonies and take what it wanted at maximum profit to the monopoly.
Strange that the party constantly referring to the “don’t tread on me” slogan of 1776 is the party wanting to give the authoritarians Musk and Thiel power in the government. The Trump campaign all about divvying up the world among political and economic monarchs. And that peope who demand freedom still vote for Trump and his minions is astonishing. We won’t be getting a New World Order but rather the Old World Order of kings and cardinals and barons.
Thanks for that EIC detail. Every time I see MAGA use the snake flag it just boggles my mind...they have no idea they are the Tories...not the revolutionaries who read Common Sense and agreed with it and acted on it.If Trump wins he will attempt to align with Putin and company. 250 years had better not be the end of our grand experiment...
I like the Tea image...Maryland had it's own tea party in Annapolis and our "radicals" burned the ship to the waterline...with the Captain begging for mercy. The Tea parties would be a good film with the EIC backstory
Hey Mike, I can’t find anything that says the flag was used by the Tories, only that it was first flown by the Continental Navy. I’d love more background.
Sorry Gail, I did not mean that the Tories used it...I meant that MAGA is now what the Tories were...supporting the King....and that flag was only used by Naval patriots fighting the king. The original graphic was published by Ben Franklin as "Join or Die". So it was encouraging the colonies to come together in common defense...and eventually became the yellow and black don't tread on me flag when they united and had a Navy. I think the 1812 privateers also used it.
Having read a lot of medieval history, life was short and brutal for most people. People at all levels were expendable. Politics was a deadly game. When a new leader came to power, opposition heads rolled—literally. Basically this situation is what the far right wants for our country.
JennSH, i read a lot of history from all eras and many different places. What I see is an elite always depending on peasants, but treating them as so many widgets. Also peasants were often burdened with paying some form of tax while the elite reaped the benefits of their labor. This was often backed up by religious institutions. I look upon the power elite in this country as behaving in the same way. So many of them can never have enough. It is said that numbers of people vote for these types.
Michele, I've often posted on here about what level is "enough"--you can't take it with you, and in Trump (and other wealthy person's cases) you can leave it for your kids/grandkids.
While not of the billionaire league, I was close friends with someone for nearly 30 years before I learned of the enormous wealth they inherited. Funny, the patriarch started a business, then another and another, and raised the kids in a middle class area AS middle class people. It wasn't until the 8 figure inheritance came around, that the Trumpian attitudes came out. Also, not so funny, the third generation of this family has serious problems, I think from being indulged by this money pouring in during their teen years.
There is truly value in waiting for AND working for something be it tangible or not! I will never forget this person telling me that after THREE HOURS of opening Christmas gifts, the kids didn't want to open any more! Even they had reached their "enough" stage.
Oh my. Unfortunately for a lot of people, money corrupts. I grew up with several of the town's wealthier kids. Some were snobs; others were not. The kids for the most part went to public school until high school. Then the females were sent east to a variety of prep schools in NY and New England. The boys went to Cranbrook near Detroit, where I think Mittens went. One family sent one of their sons to Howe Military School because he couldn't behave. I am still in contact with one of them who has never been snobby. I had to end email conversations with one who was a snob and was absolutely beside herself when Obama won. She did love all caps and I was very amused when she cited KBOO radio in Portland in one of her argument with me. I took great delight in telling her it was far left radio which one of my friends here listened to religiously.
You did not want to be born a peasant or into any servitude. It was a VERY serious power game at or near the top. At least we're not totally in the Medieval phase...Monty Python dealt well with it. Maybe one day we can make a funny historical musical about all of this.
we're going to need to be a few years down the road...it took over 200 to create Hamilton. I am working with a playwright who is putting together a musical called "The return of John Brown" that is set today with Brown's spirit coming back. I'll have to write about in my substack soon.
Our far right might be surprised to learn fascism is not just fun violence and retribution against your enemies. Expect petty corruption, not just the big stuff. For instance, Steve Abbot, above, told about his experience on a train that stopped mid-journey until the conductor collected enough bribes to get it going again.
In France trains are traditionally brought to a stop by strike action at the beginning of public holidays. Citizens are just hostages in this game, pawns used to pressure the Government...
We the people, as long as they were propertied white males. The American revolution was as much about maintaining and growing slavery westward as anything else. Chesapeake supplied the south with more slaves than ever after independence.
We had to start somewhere and that was the break...who else was going to do it ? They had the power. I don't agree that the Revolution was as much about maintaining slavery as it was about getting out from under the crown. It took all 13 colonies and most of the war was north of VA. It's true that we had to keep the slavery compromise to make it work out...and it festered for 70 years. It's also true that Maryland had more free black folks than any other state. The 2 leaders, Douglass and Tubman came from our Eastern Shore and the Black regiment from the shore outnumbered all Confederates and White Troops together from the shore. There's a lot to be proud of here.
Will check it out. I'm much better versed on the Civil War and WW II than the Rev War....and right now we need to understand the reality of that MUCH better...it's being co-opted by folks who don't want freedom...they want this horrible dictator/monarch wannabe.
For sure. American democracy didnt crash out of the gate, it evolved, gradually. Remember women only got the vote in 1920 or so, and expansion of civil and economic rights later in the 20th eg credit card carrying rights, divorce laws. Blacks most didnt vote until the Civil Rights era of the 60s, which split up both the Democratic and Republican parties in a mutual migration. A lot of what the civics books etc teach American is to project our current sense of democratic rights back to the beginning. One of the big points of Taylor's American Revolutions, which is not just all about America. Otherwise, i agree wholeheartedly, god help America if Trump and Maga attain federal power.
And it was the white men who saw themselves entitled enough to simply take over indigenous Indians’ territories. I am still incensed that in grade school I was fed their crap that these peace-loving people were killed because they were “savages.”
I get the public education whitewash. It might not help much, but this approach is common throughout the world where there is, by today's standards, a history of conquest, even genocide committed by your ancestors, and some not so distant. There has been a lot of owning up in many places, but at one time conquest was just the "name of the game". A good dose of history won't make you happier, but it can throw a lot of light on what happens when technologically unequal societies meet and there is wealth to be made. Alan Taylor's American Revolution is one helpful source, but wikipedia abounds with imperial and colonial history and the attending violence. Of course the indigenous began to be called "savages" as they attempted to organize and fight back on European/American encroachments. For example google the history of the Ohio River Valley. This continued after the Civil War as western expansion and railroads pushed west. The "Indians" had to be moved out of the way, one way or the other. You might do well to remember women were as involved as men. Peace-loving btw isn't as simple as it sounds. Slavery was rife among the indigenous, and power struggles abounded for hunting grounds etc. In short, historical life is "complicated".
I don’t need to study anymore history about eons-old land grabs and subsequent coverups. And I get to express my aversion to it. Nothing gets my blood boiling more than Israeli settlers stealing Palestinian land in broad daylight….
That's Taylor's point. His book keeps weaving the slavery side of things into the narrative, so you don't forget. The racial side of American history is long and tortuous, progress comes around, at huge costs.
Thank you Kerry for reminding us of Franco. Because Spain and Portugal were "neutral" countries during WW2 we tend to overlook them. But they gave refuge to the Nazis then. As you pointed out Spain is still recovering from those 36 years of terror.
Regarding the "success" of Franco's regime - people tend to forget that the beginnings of the huge tourist industry in Spain was based on three things:
1) Cheaper flights
2) The sunshine
3) The fact that 20 years after the war, Spain was still a very impoverished country. When I first visited, I bought a good quality dress for a dollar, which would at that time have cost me ten dollars at home. And I got it shortened by a dressmaker for 50 cents! That was an indelible memory for me - I couldn't understand how people could survive being so poor.
They survive because that's all they can do. You can see it here in America, today. Visit some of the southwest Indigenous People's town in the deserts - they too, survive.
And, looking further back, remember Spain developed a successful empire of conquest and subjugation of indigenous peoples, Portugal in Brazil developed the world's largest centre of enslaved peoples to run its plantations. The English, French followed suite.
Yes, more on the religion side of things, European empires were economically and politically motivated. religion came along for the ride, sometimes rudely knocked aside if humanitarian concerns ever arose. And they did.
We have visited both Spain and Portugal. We were staying in Avila and went out from there to several different places including the huge mountain hall whose name I have forgotten which was a monument to Franco. We also saw Picasso's Guernica which filled the wall of one room. Portugal was delightful and we were not reminded there so much about Salazar.
Yes, the Valley of the Fallen. I thought it was hideous and ugly. El Escorial is the huge monastery where Phillip II lived later in life and it contains the burial of many Spanish royals. We may have seen them on the same day, so they may be near to each other.
I worked on the Navy AirBase at Rota, Spain in 1974. The Guardia Civil, Franco's heavily armed cops, drove around on big noisy Triumph motorcycles, and bullied people. You couldn't be on the beaches after dark, because they would shoot anyone they saw on the beach as a possible drug runner.
Notes, I was in the Navy and stationed at the base in Rota from July of 1974 to July of 1976 and remember those times. I worked at the back of the base inside the huge circular antenna array, the Wullenweber, and we were forbidden to drive our personal vehicles out there because of the Guardia, and others, taking potshots through the fence, and we had to be transported to the site in fortified vans. I also remember the entire base being on major alert in 1975 when Franco died because our command thought there was going to be riots and major civil unrest with the country going from a dictatorship to a monarchy. But there was no unrest at all, and it was a very peaceful and apparently seamless transition. I lived off base in Fuentebravia and also remember there being joyous parades the week of his death that I watched from the roof of my apartment. People seemed to be very, very happy and relieved at his death; I remember no mourning whatsoever.
Interesting question. I’d be surprised if there’s a federal law requiring a state funeral for a former president. Or maybe there is? But certainly that’s the tradition. As far as I know the Germans didn’t have a state funeral for Hitler. After he offed himself, a couple of his toadies cremated him in the backyard and then the Russians took care of the cleanup. Hmm…maybe they could do so again if we just ship the body over there.
As long as Lindsey Graham is tasked with throwing the carcass in a carton and the FedEx charge is billed to Mike Johnson. U.S. taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for that trash removal.
I've wondered the same thing. My respiratory fogged brain is searching to not promote misinformation--I hope astute readers here can help out--but I believe that there was huge memorials for Robert E. Lee when he died. I recall reading about this and being astounded.
Well, of one thing we can be certain and that is that Trump will want the royal treatment for his funeral. Probably sell out of gold spray paint in Manhattan. Maybe the proud boys could hop on a few horses and give him a proper sendoff. With some skinheads holding Nazi flags at stiff attention along the curb. That would be proper and fitting I should say.
Ah, yes. I was staying with friends in Puerto de Santa Maria, and drove to the base where I was a contract worker for Boeing, moving the boys on and off the planes flying them to Vietnam. I left in October of 1974, so I missed the transition when Franco died. It was a weird time, seemingly so calm in the little communities around the base, but always that edge of caution.
My dad was DoD/NATO fuels from 1966 - 74. We spent many weeks over those years in Spain with him on TDY. (Note: DoD schools in the UK were great about “remote” homework - I got to travel all over Western Europe with my homework & give class reports when we got home.). I remember one time my dad was driving the rent car (seemed tinier than a Beetle), and we were flagged over by a Guardia, complete with machine gun & crossed bandeleros. Of course, we pulled over & cautiously addressed the man. He just smiled & asked for a ride back to his station. He & my dad chatted quite lively for the 15 - 20 minute drive. But as soon as we pulled up at the station, his demeanor changed to a brusque, almost shouting, tone. He got out & stormed off, but did give a small wave to me in the back seat.
We have governments right now both purely fascist and theocratic in nature that exists in the world. We can look at these as examples of what it’s like to live under these regimes today. I’m getting as tired of hearing the name Hitler as I am Trump. We need to look at the countries that are imprisoned by these regimes and fundamentalist right now.
My Spanish neighbor grew up under Franco and is terrified about the election.Last week his wife asked where we had gotten our (lonely) Harris/Walz signs even though they are somewhat fearful to display in their yard.We live in a neighborhood dominated by Trump flags/signs.This week their Harris/Walz sign went up…NOT GOING BACK!
I live in a fairly well-off neighborhood in a very liberal town. On our loop street containing probably 35 homes, there are two yard signs. Our Harris/Walz sign (a cat knocking a r/w/b elephant with an orange toupee) off a table, and the sign across the street and down one that says "Black Lives Matter". That's it. Our main feeder street has one Harris/Walz sign. It was the first one up, and was defaced in about two days. They replaced it, and it's been fine for the 10 days or so that it has been up.
In 2016, I took a trip north out of my town, and all I saw were Trump signs to the Canadian border (about a 3 hour drive - he still lost the state by 0.3%). I repeated that trip about 3 weeks ago, and took an informal tally: Harris ~55% of signs, Trump ~45%. This is truly amazing, and very good news.
I live in a ruby-red county of the state where Trump's former press liar occupies the governor's mansion ... a county where Trump flags have been proudly flown from porch roofs and flagpoles for years. Recently, many of those flags have disappeared, and to my shock and amazement, Harris/Walz signs have cropped up in numerous yards. I don't delude myself that this red state will return to its former violet hue, but I am encouraged.
Ally, I live in a middle class Chicago suburb. There are nearly no presidential signs, but plenty for the local politics. The few signs I've seen (about 5?) have been Trump, in actuality, two of them are flags that have been flying for nearly a year. Yesterday, for the first time, I saw a Harris sign, but it was nearly hidden among their Halloween decorations.
I early voted two days ago. As I fed my ballot into the bin, a former coworker/friend spotted me. I ran over to give her a hug and whispered Vote Harris in her ear, to which she laughed. I later texted that if she voted Trump, I'd still like her--though being an intelligent, single dog-lady, scientist, black woman, I found it unlikely. She answered saying nooooo...she voted for the sane candidate and hoped enough people vote against hate. I answered that there are a lot of closeted white bigots in our very diverse area and she agreed. She said she heard a lot of nasty remarks while she was in line to vote.
I saw all the Trump signs on EVERY SINGLE lawn in a Pennsylvania town in 2016. It DID look like fascism, as the rare one house on the blocks without one stood out.
I want to believe patriotism outweighs hate, but I'm not sure at all.
I live in a redder area in a battleground state and there seems to be fewer signs for the orange fascist, but the "true believer" down the way displays his signs and flags proudly. He also has many signs for state and local races displayed. I view him posting these signs as a public service. I see who he supports and know I don't have to spend too much time researching those candidates. Thanks, neighbor.
I admire your Spanish neighbor's courage and faith. I travelled through Spain in 1973, a naive young American. The Guardia Civil were terrifying, and my then husband and I changed our plans and left Spain after one day.
Yes. And like it or not, the pot has finally really boiled over. The scum has really risen to the top. We are able to see the "scum" as they articulate their mean nature.... right smack in our face. The faux-news stockyards are full of those creatures. This show would not have taken place under Hillary. This "show" needed to be 'on-the-air', big time. Be glad your vote is confidential. The absence of a sign on ones lawn tells me more than one might care to think. But, VOTE. We'll deal with that electoral college insanity soon.., I would hope. Dump it.
And after November 5, we’ll have a precise measurement of the quantity of scum in our country. As far as I’m concerned, anybody who votes for Donald Trump President on November 5, 2024 is scum. Unpatriotic, dangerously stupid scum.
My brother, though highly intelligent, is an extreme racist -- though he calls it "racialist". (Sounds better.) I sent him a list of quotes from the 7 top Trump staff who have called him a fascist. My brother, unlike most maggots, knows what that word means. I didn't write anything, except at the bottom I wrote, "Anyone who votes for Trump is a traitor." I haven't heard back.
Recall that white Europeans set up their homesteads on land belonging to darker-skinned, indigenous people long before the Civil War and you will realize that hatred, patriarchy, and discrimination were in the very DNA of the white European colonies.
Pardon the copy/paste, I just commented above and think you'd enjoy this book..
Miselle
just now
Someone here on the "LFAA Bookclub" recommended this book at least two years ago (can't recall who, but thank you!) and I've given it to a number of people. I suggest you read it, it is FASCINATING that TODAY'S elections are rooted in perhaps 200 settlers from 300 years ago!!
"America's Nations: A HIstory of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" by Colin Woodard. You will NOT be bored.
Thank you for the recommendation, Miselle. Interesting that it was published in 2011, long before Trump appeared on the political stage.
I have lived in four of those original cultures and spent considerable time in two others. I can attest to their being like different countries. I have had to learn their respective vocabularies, dialects and cultural customs, which in many cases, are opposite their counterparts in other regions.
I think we might have had a better outcome if European colonists had followed the examples of their homelands and divided the continent into separate cooperative nations. States aren't distinct enough.
This still wouldn't address the problem that they forcibly confiscated land from its original owners. I suspect that if the original tribes had foreseen what would happen in the future, they would have handled the invaders differently.
I disagree. While it is true that Nature has hard-wired an attraction to like creatures in all animals, including the human ones, attraction to one's own kind is NOT the same as actively hating those who are not similar. Hate is a learned attitude that utilizes the transformation of fear to hate. Only humans can accomplish that. Likewise, patriarchy is an acquired worldview, learned from one's cultural superiors.
Note: I used the reference to DNA figuratively, not literally.
Someone here on the "LFAA Bookclub" recommended this book at least two years ago (can't recall who, but thank you!) and I've given it to a number of people. I suggest you read it, it is FASCINATING that TODAY'S elections are rooted in perhaps 200 settlers from 300 years ago!!
"America's Nations: A HIstory of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" by Colin Woodard. You will NOT be bored.
Let's not forget that, in terms of efficiency, no form of government rivals a dictatorship. The challenge in a democracy is that the people expect the government to provide essential services, and the wealthy understand that they'll be the ones footing the bill. With their resources, they attempt—and in the U.S., have succeeded—in gaining power to protect their fortunes. Their greed blinds them to the fact that it's the very people seeking these services who helped them amass their billions in the first place."
Yes, Harvey. I wonder, do high school history teachers still mention the Social Contract? It is a concept that has been interpreted to almost everyone's liking at one time or another, but it should scare the oligarchs. When the struggle for average citizens to survive gets hard enough and it becomes clear who is accumulating all the wealth, there will be nowhere to hide and plenty of lampposts to go around. Representative Democracy based on equal rights is the best way I know to organize society and far safer for the richest among us than dictatorships.
Yes, and only a few of the richest people thrive under the protection of a strongman dictator. The rest of the rich, not so much, not to mention the non-wealthy.
The lesson if Franco- stay in your own borders. He was able to remain in power, i believe, because he did not engage in expansion. Putin could learn from that.
Resources? Kathy, are you referring to the 'prison labor' from the prison camps hidden out in the country-side? They'e still got em. We even have a number of Americans buried away in them. I wouldn't travel over there on a bet. I can see all I need to see of Red Square, right from here, in the USA.
Whereas the Ukrainians view Russia as the upstart colony that got away from them in about 1600, and should just act like the poor cousins that they are. LOL. All a matter of perspective
Not to mention the Baltic states and even Finland. When stationed in East Germany, rather than displaying the mandatory picture of the current Soviet leader (Brezhnev if I recall correctly), Putin had one of the expansionist Peter the Great.
Are indigenous peoples whose land and ways of life were forcibly stolen stuck in the past? Are all historic wrongs to be summarily dismissed if they have not since been properly addressed?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
I can't tell if you sincerely misunderstood me, or if you are just trying to change the subject. Leaders,like Putin, who seek to restore the "glory" of a 17th century Russian czar, killing a hundred thousand ill trained Russian conscripts, invading a sovereign nation in the face of all modern conventions of war, and wrecking the Russian economy in the process. "Leaders" like candidate Trump, who keeps a copy of "Mein Kampf" by his bed, and seeks absolute power by the distortion and destruction of the democratic principles that makes the United States, as flawed as it may be, the economic envy of the world, a bastion of safety and freedom that cause refugees from around the world to seek entry to the US by any means possible. Leaders like religious clerics who attach more importance to the words of holly books of prophets long dead, than the facts of what is happening to this world, here and now.
In a different thread, I would be willing to discuss what the US needs to do about the black marks in our own history. But to approach that question successfully the US needs leaders who have a broad view of the past and the present, don't we?
It seems authoritarian regimes have staying power if they don't blow it on overextended military campaigns. Half the world lives thus. One good thing about Franco's regime, Spain took a turn back toward democracy after his death. I think Greece played the authoritarian game when the Generals took control, but that fell through before too long. Not so for Turkey or Egypt these days. Then, Egypt has been ruled autocratically since Pharaoh's pyramids. I'm not entirely sure America was originally founded to oppose "totalitarianism". The last thing the founding fathers wanted was to create a cross the board democracy, and without huge compromises to maintain slavery owning states, it would never have happened, to wit, the Civil War, to wit Jim Crow. Recently the Supreme Court has undermined the Civil Rights Act, upon which Republican states acted with alacrity. Heather has a good read with How the South won the Civil war, my most recent was American Revolutions by Alan Taylor. A key finding about democracies is how populations can become polarized and gridlocked. That's where USA is today! VOTE
I’m glad you mentioned Franco. He supported the founder of Opus Dei and enabled them to grow in Spain before spreading worldwide. Opus Dei members are now in prominent positions in the Republican Party and Heritage Foundation. I don’t think Vance is a member, but he’s influenced by their philosophy.
The Opus Dei movement was born in Spain with fealty to Franco. I find it appalling that this movement is so entrenched in this nation. Leonard Leo is best known for his affiliation with OD, whose tentacles run through the Heritage Foundation, the Supreme Court, and among men who want to protect their wealth and power. Opus Dei's eighty-year-old racist, misogynistic ideals are resurrecting in the Christian Nationalist movement, in flagrant opposition to democracy and separation of church and state. We ought to be incensed!
William Barr, Larry Kudlow, and others cooperate with Opus Dei. Members were important in the regimes of Pinochet and Berlusconi, and of course Franco. Another was FBI agent Robert Hanssen who spied for the Soviets.
Thank you for these revelations. When I used the word 'tentacle,' I wasn't kidding! Similarly, in Russia, elements of the Orthodox religion are also in bed with Putin and oppression.
O.M.G.!!!!! I did not know the history of Opus Dei and it's connection to Franco! So THIS is the root of the frightening ideas which have taken hold in American, thanks to the awful Leonard Leo!!! I'm going to spread this information. I'm pretty aware politically, but I had no knowledge whatsoever of Opus Dei's connection with Franco. Thank you!
There is a powerful young adult/adult novel about life under Franco. It is a novel, but has been extremely well-researched. The title is “Fountains of Silence”. The author, Ruta Septetys (Lithuanian), has written several historical novels about life under fascist dictatorship. I found the one about life under the ghastly Ceausescu in Romania to be particularly chilling. (Her family is Lithuanian. Some of her family escaped from the Russian takeover of Lithuania, but she tells the story of many, many Lithuanians under Stalin in her novel “Between Shades of Grey”.) I can’t recommend her work highly enough.
She also wrote "Salt of the Sea," about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German cruise liner that carried thousands of refugees in 1945. Although her novels are listed as "young adult," they don't pull any punches and are well-written.
I've read "Salt of the Sea" and became fascinated by the fact that the worst maritime disaster in history (9,000 dead) has never been made public. I am now reading Gunter Grass's novel, "Crabwalk", which is also a story about the sinking of that ship. Lots of interesting background history in this book.
GUERNICA REMEMBERS! It is living history......many artists (Picasso of course, but sculptors too) celebrated, the Basque town in Spain, bombed by the Nazis . This town is a living monument to the perils of Fascism.
I grew up in Franco Spain after my father went to work as the protocol officer at the newly opened Torrejon Air Force base. Even as kids, my siblings and I were very aware of what you could and couldn’t say in public. My parents had a number of friends who had been on the side of the Republic. We heard many interesting stories! The poverty was horrific. People lived in caves outside Madrid.
I was in Spain on temporary duty in the ‘60’s., with the USAF. Franco’s cops carried automatic weapons as they patrolled Seville. We crossed the street when we saw them coming.
''...recent Federal Election Commission filings showed one significant difference in the expenditures of the two presidential campaigns. The Harris campaign spent $34,550.02 on sign language interpreting services. The Trump campaign spent $0.00.''
(Note: Hitler's regime targeted disabled individuals as part of its eugenics policies, leading to forced sterilizations and mass murders under the *T4 program, aiming to eliminate those deemed "unfit" in the pursuit of racial purity.)
*The T4 Program, officially known as Aktion T4, was a Nazi euthanasia program initiated in 1939 to systematically kill disabled and mentally ill individuals. The regime believed these people were "life unworthy of life" and a burden on society. Victims included children and adults with physical and mental disabilities, who were murdered through lethal injections, starvation, and gas chambers. The program was an early precursor to the broader Holocaust, with the same methods later used in extermination camps. Over 200,000 disabled people were killed under this program.
Once again we can turn to American history to see that “extermination” has happened here too. Eugenics was a widespread practice in the U.S especially aimed at sterilizing women to achieve “selective breeding”.
These programs were well funded by prominent Americans who targeted poor, disabled, mentally ill and Black people in particular.
In North Carolina the program lasted from 1929-1973. Over 7,000 women were sterilized with the slogan that “no child should be born to subnormal parents”.
The “American Breeders Association” wanted to be sure that only those babies with “superior” blood and genes would live.
Does this sound familiar? We have an American running for president now who is talking about people with the best genes and those who are “poisoning our blood”. If we truly examine our history we’ll understand why half of the nation is supporting a white supremacist who wants America to be a fascist nation. It’s not just the experiences of foreign countries-it’s a thread running through the fabric of America too.
Elizabeth Catte writes about the practice of eugenics in Virginia in her book Pure America:Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia.She is also the author of What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia in which she offers a different perspective on the region from that in JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy.
In the 1970s an estimated 25-42 percent of indigenous women of childbearing age were forcibly sterilized by doctors. This was subsidized by the federal government. Read Brianna Theobald's book Reproduction on the Reservation:Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century.
Aktion T-4 was beyond horrific as is what has happened in our own country. Let's acknowledge it and make a vow never again. Never again.We can't go back.We won't go back.
It was only under Governor George Allen (1994-98) that elder members of my husband’s tribe were allowed new birth certificates denoting them as Indigenous rather than black after Plecker declared all natives black under law in the 1940’s.
Thank You, Kamila. I just ordered Catte's book on your recommendation. I worked as a nurse for the good people in Appalacia for 3 years in the late 70's. I HATED Hillbilly Elegy.
Good Lordy, doing genealogy, I ran across some info re Melungeons, in husband’s nephews wife’s family. I didn’t pay much attention to it. Damn, they had a tinge of racism. Be careful who you disparage (or sterilize). May be somebody you love…
Jeri, at retirement, my husband discovered a great-aunt died from a botched back alley abortion via inheriting a bunch of very old family letters. Funny, his uncle who would be this woman's nephew is a huge MAGA supporter. I am unsure if he is aware of it (I cut communication with him after I had a Bernie sticker on my car and he started sending personal emails about the state of my soul for being a Democrat. Although not a word to me in person when he was in town and saw me and my car!) Said uncle also divorced his wife of decades and lived "in sin" with a series of women. No hypocrisy there, right.
My friend's little sister got pregnant at 16 and had to deliver at L.A. County Hospital. This was 1974. When she came home she told me they had sterilized her without her even knowing what that meant. Just told her after the fact. She's Navajo. I as a young Caucasian woman had no idea this even happened. I explained to her what this meant.
They started with children by taking them from their parents, and then reporting them as having died in institutions where they were supposedly cared for, but really they were killing them. Then went to adults who were institutionalized, and started killing them, that raised a hue and cry in the population. My understanding is that is why Hitler decided to remove the death camps from Germany, because out of sight out of mind.
And neither will the hue and cry raised by the American people when inflation rockets, the labour force disappears, as will Medicare and SS, FEMA etc etc etc.
And sadly, the worst hit will be the most vulnerable - many of whom vote "Trump!"
This was a very powerful experience. Her class visited 3 concentration camps, and stayed in the Jewish community in Krakow where they had a tour, and met a survivor at Auschwitz who talked to them about his experiences.
On the morning that she went on the Walk of the Living she had not slept much or eaten, and felt somewhat ill, and she said later on it felt appropriate somehow for the memories she was paying witness to in the march and hearing the talks. It is this history that worries me for us now.
Thank you, Linda. Yeah, my sister and my cousins were robbed. My mother and siblings couldn’t forgive themselves for not trying hard enough to get them out. But they did try extremely hard and it was to no avail. My father lost family members also, in the oil fields of Boryslav Poland.
So sorry to hear of your loss. My father’s side, Ukrainian and Lithuanian, immigrated around 1905. Although I have extensively lived among my mother’s people in Italy, I have always wanted to visit Lithuania and the Polish death camps. Maybe next year.
Hard to "like" your post, Marlene. Knowing that there are people in our political realm today that would do the same thing to many of us makes me absolutely flummoxed.
Oh, Marlene! So sorry to read this! What a loss for your family! I have small grandchildren and I know how much my parents would have loved to live to see all their now dozen grandkids! The special love that spans generations is a blessing.
"was a German SS officer and head of technical disinfection services of the Hygiene-Institut der Waffen-SS (Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS). In 1942, after witnessing mass murders in the Belzec and Treblinka Nazi extermination camps, Gerstein gave a detailed report to Swedish diplomat Göran von Otter, as well as to Swiss diplomats, members of the Roman Catholic Church with contacts to Pope Pius XII, and to the Dutch government-in-exile, in an effort to inform the international community about the Holocaust as it was happening. In 1945, following his surrender, he wrote the Gerstein Report covering his experience of the Holocaust. He died of an alleged suicide while in French custody."
My husband has ALS, which is what Hawking had - he would have been toast too. Frightens me just to think of it. ALS, in itself, does not dim a brilliant mind.
Anyone without the perfect Aryan body would get “demerits.” Guess brains didn’t count. Wipe out about 80% likely. Just insanity. No excuses for nonsense
The list of disqualifying actions that would have ended any other politician’s career is staggering, yet tRump has managed to escape unscathed. His crimes, indictments, convictions, and outrageous statements—any one of which would have been career-ending in the past—haven't diminished his support. Instead, we’re left with a demagogue whose cult-like following not only overlooks his history but revels in how much he outrages his political opponents. It seems they care more about provoking a reaction from their adversaries than about the policies he offers.
Michael....I did a search but could not find the sign language services information. Can you direct me to the article. Sadly, even $35 K is a very small amount...but better than $0...plus I thought certain events required that be available by law. Sorry I am not more aware of things like that. Thank you.
Finally! The media is doing what they should have been doing since Charlottesville. They’ve been afraid to use the “f” word despite his admiration of Hitler, his use of words like “vermin” and “the enemy within”.
Call it like it is. Trump is a fascist. Trump is America’s Hitler. He must be defeated… now! Democracy cannot stand by, waiting for the actuarial table to solve our problem.
"Vice President Harris told [Anderson] Cooper that . . . when a four-star Marine general comes out two weeks before an election to warn Americans that one of the candidates is a fascist, we should see this as 'a 911 call to the American people.'”
Thank you Vice President Harris for speaking the truth; thank you, General Kelly, for taking your oath to Constitution seriously.
What was Heather saying about "whether the U.S. government should work for everyone or for the very wealthy and corporations?" The Los Angeles Times was part of the media calling out that the emperor has no clothes--until now when its billionaire owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, vetoed its editorial board's endorsement of Kamala Harris. One of the board members resigned in protest. We can write a Letter to the Editor (I did, even though I cancelled my subscription earlier this year):
2. Please repeatedly post "not suckers or losers" comments in social media. According to Facebook, there are 4 million veterans and active duty members on Facebook, as well as 12.5 million family members and 242 million friends with veterans or active duty members. Military sites, veterans; organizations, historical sites.
Vote vets has already flipped many 2016 and 2020 Trump voters.
Though I suspect that some are bots, I have been countering misinformation posts I find on Yahoo, and reporting them to the Yahoo Administrators. Does it do anything, who knows, but I do like to post corrections under the comment before I report them. Just so others see it.
Thanks for making this easy for me. Shared with my folks, who are (hopefully, soon, "were") subscribers. The comment I left to LAT: "How can you leave out the Presidential Election when the paper itself says: The editorial board endorses selectively, choosing the most consequential races in which to make recommendations."...not endorsing for the top slot means ALL the other endorsements are untrustworthy."
Herb, I share your frustration with how the media have treated Trump differently than either Biden or Harris. They question the Democratic candidates in relentless, minute detail and let Trump rant without interruption, fact-checking, or follow-up questions. I agree that they have failed to challenge his obvious fascism. It’s been unbelievably frustrating and is responsible for the equally frustrating fact that Trump is anywhere close to Harris in the polls. It’s only now, with less than two weeks to go before the election, that they are starting to wake up from the trance they’ve been in and that’s tragic.
Herb, very good. This needs to be said. Americans fought the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and two World Wars to preserve the ideals of a government of the people, by the people and for the people. It is mind boggling to imagine that we might now vote to voluntarily give up those freedoms for a leader who says he will establish a fascist dictatorship based on those of Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler.
It was Mussolini's rise to power in the 1920's that led my grandfather to gather his large family to immigrate to the United States. Before leaving Italy, family lore tells it, when asked to pledge his fealty to the dictator, he spat on the ground, refusing to comply. Sad to say, my MAGA sister does not follow in her grandfather's footsteps.
Morning, Lynell! That is an excellent "family history" to have. So sorry you've lost your sister to that cult. I thank the powers that be that my family has not succumbed to the cult.
Morning, Ally! Alas, my sister - politics aside - has always leaned toward authoritarian leadership in the sense that she prefers one person (preferably her!) having absolute authority and control over everything. The guardrails that a democracy provides does not fit into her world view. Seeing as how we don't talk politics, we're still on speaking terms.
I pray that between Republican defectors, Swifties and Billie Eilish fans, that we’ll be okay but, dang… really would feel better if it didn’t look like a nailbiter right now.
That's definitely my take, Anne-Louise. The media is to blame. The media corporations have abandoned journalistic ethics; they are first and foremost to blame for our entire baneful state of affairs. "The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal. Together, the "big six" absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States." The CEOs and other leaders are ruled by greed and their own deisre for power rather than disseminating the truth. Unless ethical journalism is restored, the companies will continue to feed the people with lies, conspiracies, and other sh*t.
Miranda, I agree with Anne-Louise below, but also, if the nailbiting causes US to not be complacent and GET OUT AND VOTE, it's worth it, I guess. Although I'm going to have an ulcer .
Heather, many of your subscribers know the meaning of ‘fascist,’ but I strongly doubt that a great majority of Americans do. Some may have heard of Hitler, but for very few does Mussolini ring a bell.
They may recognize Putin, but have scant knowledge of his authoritarianism.
I read carefully the NYT’s Editorial Board’s listing of dozens of individuals who had worked in the Trump administration and underscored why he was an ignorant, egotistical, and wrong-headed president.
When distinguished four-star generals publicly characterize Trump as a ‘fascist’ and a national danger as president, I had imagined that the military and millions of veterans would take note.
Bone Spur Donald, who called soldiers ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’ denigrated combat-hardened POWs who were tortured (John McCain), and didn’t want injured soldiers ‘spoiling’ his military parades, is projected to win a large majority of the military vote. HUH?
I am gobsmacked that perhaps half of American voters will support the figure head of Project 2025 on November 5th.
Regarding ‘fascist’ (or ‘authoritarian,’) I am reminded of the saying “if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, most likely it is a duck.”
A recent review of books on Hitler’s rise to dictatorship could be describing Trump:
1) “He was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the differences between lies and truth.”
2) “But his followers craved ‘authenticity’ and ‘facts didn’t matter at all.’”
3) For Hitler his message “had to be simple and emotional, not intellectual.”
4) Among other traits of Hitler were “insecurity. Intolerance of criticism, bombastic claims about his own achievements, and scorn for intellectuals and experts.”
I AM GOBSMACKED (AND FEARFUL) THAT THE NOVEMBER 5TH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IS A NAIL BITER.
Apparently military base canteens play Fox all day - no wonder members of the military think that Trump is worth voting for. They have no contrary information.
Because a lot of them hate the ranking officers above them, and strong, tough guy worship is also big in the military. It can be heavy on might makes right sometimes. Trump embodies that sense of machismo and fragile masculinity very well. There are also a non insignificant number of people in who are in the military or former military who like the idea of being looked at as better or more special than their fellow citizens so I cant say I'm surprised.
That includes a lot of retirees who fought who ought to know better as well. As retired military, they had choices of where to get their news, but apparently were already in the T Camp.
My brother-in-law, draftee in 1948(?) was a Fox devotee. One of his sons, likewise. The other, a lawyer and a friend I am weighing whether to write that I have written 199 GOTV postcards to his (and my husband’s) state. Thinking not.
I have an intelligent, caring relative who took a job that required a one hour commute to and from work each day, so he turned his car radio on FOX News. Within a month he became a trumper. No dissuading him.
I'm with you, Keith. Stunned that so many of my former cop friends who are behind fpotus 100% and do not acknowledge that he is a criminal, insisting that it is "judicial persecution" and a "weaponized justice system" and not his conduct. They give equal weight to Biden's possession of classified documents which he returned and to fpotus's theft of classified information that he stored in a bathroom. Flummoxed. Gobsmacked. Dismayed.
I don’t get it either Keith, we know that there will always be a certain number of people who are not paying attention, distraction can happen to any of us, but usually focus returns. The fact that so many remain unfocused is cause for concern, especially among the military where focus is what the job is all about. I’m a combat vet, I could tell in an instant who had my back and who didn’t. The insipid orange turd with his “bone spurs”, would have never had anyone’s back not even his own family’s, much less that of our nation. Why he enjoys support among our military makes absolutely no sense, add to that his support among police departments all over the country which is a known case, we have very good reason to worry. My father and his two brothers who fought fascism during WWII would be appalled that anyone running for president would embrace fascism like we are witnessing and that millions of fellow Americans are in agreement with him. You would think that the news of the last few days, would be a bone crushing deal breaker among a nation of patriots, but apparently not among members of the repugnantkin party, to them it’s like rain hitting a duck’s back. In less than two weeks we will know whether we have a nation we want to live in or not, I never in my lifetime thought I would ever write this sentence. 🙏
At 90, remembering the bombing of Warsaw (Polish background, even after 3 generations did not die in my father whose great grandfather had come to America and signed up in Philadelphia with other Poles to fight for the Blue) and Pearl Harbor, knowing “the War Effort” (I can still sing the songs as we did in assembly in my country school, having a piano player-teacher in the small community near Richmond, VA), I am both horrified at what has happened to JFK’s speech in the ‘60’s and the continuing racism which, with 1890’s style economics, divides US.
For those who don’t know JFK’s speech: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
Excellent, Keith! But it’s far beyond them too. For all who look at billionaires while they’re being ripped off and lied to, sadly they’ve joined the billionaires.
As a retired Fed (Deep State), I cringe when I think of my current Fed colleagues having to take a loyalty oath to Generalissimo Trump. The oath I took was to the Constitution and the laws of the USA.
Ah, yes, the loyalty oath. We should have seen it coming in the spring of 2017 when Trump fired James Comey (the individual most likely to have brought about Hilary's defeat) because he refused to pledge loyalty to a man instead of to the country. The stories told in today's comments give us a picture of how loyalty is enforced.
Doesn't seem to matter so many top U.S. military and national security vets warn he's a fascist.
U. S. tens of millions still cheer their fat, fascist, orange felon.
How does this U.S. cult fit the global one where similar autocrats ride nationalism, racism, closure of dissent, and sectarian hatreds of “others”?
Russia’s Putin. India’s Modi. Hungary’s Orban. Egypt’s Sisi. N. Korea’s Kim. Turkey’s Erdogan. Syria’s Assad. Saudi’s Mohammed bin Salman. The Israeli far-right’s Netanyahu. The Iranian mullahs. Chinese cadres.
They all enforce group thinking. By stressing state murder, fawning oligarchs, crackdown on independent judiciary and free press, they also stress life-as-units-only: units of money, people as units in falling-in-line conformity.
What is it in western schools, in the democracies of U.S. allies, that differ from the autocracies? Do western schools essay ways to see and celebrate individuals? Do they key humanities?
We know how U.S. post-Powell-memo standardized testing kills individual, critical thinking. We know how far-right billionaire thinking abstracts the categorical, the group, and the linear stewing all the world’s autocracies.
Do we know how the U.S. tens of millions’ tilt to cult-leader similarly succor all his oligarch, dictator, and murderous nationalist peers worldwide?
Part of this cult is the cult of Christian Nationalists, which sees Trump as a means to an end, and they don't give a damn about our Constitution, they only care what they believe God wants them to do, as told by their fascist pastors. Another part of this cult is the White Power Movement Militias who also see Trump as a means to achieve their goals of getting rid of all non-White people and then world domination. They also don't give a damn about the constitution. They overlap with the first group. Then, we have the super rich people who see Trump as a means to their ends of low to no taxation and no government interference with their business practices. They are the ones bankrolling this. They are members of the cult of the super rich, who also think they are better than everyone else. Some of them may overlap with the other two groups as well. It seems these numbers of people are either being inflated, or there are really a lot of people in these groups. There is also a substantial number of people who just don't believe their lives will be bad either way. The Millennial men I worked with were like that. They did not vote. They spent a lot of time on YouTube, their jobs, and their kids, but do not see the elections as changing the daily details of their lives. Their wives vote though. I am hoping for a Blue Wave of Women to come out in this election.
I'm hoping for that blue wave of women "to come out in this election" as do you, Linda.
The younger guys? -- maybe mostly all self-marginalized anyway. Though as Scott Galloway reports, there may be serious repercussions in the U.S. for so many superfluous guys now in the U.S. (as in Japan, and other countries, too).
I like how you say early on, about "Christian" nationalists: "they don't give a damn about our Constitution." And then shortly after, about the white power militias: "They also don't give a damn about the [C]onstitution."
I was waiting for you to get to the Clarence court, too, after you mentioned the rich, with a similar phrase about neither group caring about the Constitution, either.
Phil, I am including the Republican members of the Court under Christian Nationalists. Here is Andra Watkins defining them in her Substack in which she discusses the CN elements of Project 2025 and some other things. She defines both CNs and the charismatic Christian branch which is more recent known as The New Apostolic Reformation. I suspect that Mike Johnson is an NAR.
Note the difference in the End-of-Days beliefs of the NAR. They feel personally mandated to force everyone on the planet to follow their narrow set of beliefs and lifestyle, and Trump is more likely to hand that to them.
Exactly! This is what we got when taxing religious schools even got considered. Of course they should be and all these crooked churches that don't follow the law and tell their congregations both how to vote, and to prepare to take arms against the government. They should be registered as hostile political organizations.
Were it not so obvious that wealthy plutocrats can openly buy much of what they want in terms of governmental outcomes, we might have many much more engaged and enthusiastic voters. The more voters feel marginalized the more cynical many of them become; and the more voters disengage, or vote as a protest rather than to build, the more power plutocrats can capture. Voters need to take a look around and stand together, to break the vicious cycle.
I felt my body wince as I read, "superfluous guys" that I took literally. I'm commenting only to say that my view of the problem is that these men FEEL superfluous, not that they ARE superfluous. In the NY Times Daily Podcast yesterday, interviewer dug down to root causes for an apparent trend that males see Trump/Vance ticket more likely to help them to be providers and that the roots of that is insecurity based on their early education when males lagged behind females in intellectual readiness and limiting attitudes then began to harden. So sad and I know you care about education. "The Gender Election", https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/podcasts/the-daily/gender-election.html
Unfortunately women, and others have had to work harder than White men just to get less. Doing well in school does not guarantee success in the workforce. I taught in a school where when a White male was called out for totally inappropriate behavior, it was the complaining woman that got let go. Who do you think was the more effective teacher?
They all want to go to Heaven. If I met a fat man with dyed hair at the Pearly Gates, holding a basket of fries pinched from MacDonalds, I'd about turn and jump off.
Phil, I had a long Facebook "conversation" with some of my fpotus supporting former work cohort. What it boils down to is that, in their minds, "it isn't that bad". When I compare (as the Professor has done here) the language of the Nazi's with what fpotus is saying, and note how similar they are, they essentially tell me not to worry my pretty little head about it because they don't really mean me. Their only response to "then who do they mean" was "immigrants and illegals". I cannot engage with these idiots any longer.
That is so telling... I've had this same conversation with some former friends or family members and I tell them that as a human it shouldn't matter who it is we are talking about. Either we are all treated equally and we are equal in the eyes of the law or we aren't. If we can do it to one group of people or citizens it will inevitably happen to someone that you know and then when you are personally affected you will care about and have a shocked Pikachu face. Then of course the goals posts move and they say, well that's not what Trump or MAGA people really mean.
I've come to realize that MAGA Republicans don't engage in debates about politics faithfully, it is as simple as that. They look at it as winning and losing, there is literally no politician that is too shameful or insane that they won't follow. Politics is way more of a team sport or partisan for them. These are the same party that want "freedoms", "small government", and "responsible fiscal policy" but have no issue with a President who talks about taking away the free press, putting people in concentration camps, would explode the deficit and is frankly a corrupt criminal. They have no intention of faithfully engaging in debate or the truth. They don't objectively view Democrats and Republicans through the same lenses, these just aren't honest or serious people.
It seems to me that a core function of government is to deter any substantial form of abuse. "Abuse" can get fuzzy at the margin, but at some point it's pretty clear. Threatening someone with a weapon to take their money as an example. Law defines the boundaries of what is considered harmful behavior, and the function of law enforcement is to minimize harms so far as is practical. Also to minimize situations which create unacceptable risks of harms, such as DUI enforcement or intervening if someone threatens (with or without obvious means) to blow up the school. I don't relate to those (and there are many) who say that Trump will not carry out his most extreme threats. He has already demonstrated his contempt for rule of law, and his hand picked judges have substantially exonerated him for doing so. Other than to pull off a coup for the thrill of unaccountable power, I can't quite grasp what these Trump supporters think they are getting for their votes. Anyone has a duty to the law. Elected officials and public servants even more so. Real liberty cannot be maintained any other way.
We all have an "ego", literally the sense of "I". We all lead an internal, sentient life. We also experience, in encounters and though our nervous system., a rich and extended exterior reality, which includes individuals similar to ourselves. We are a highly social species.
Liberty and human rights are always two-fold; they apply to both the individual and also the social dimensions; and both are interdependent. Neglecting the social context of individual rights in an exclusively narcissistic interpretation "freedom" produces sociopathy. Neglecting individual rights and potential in tunnel-vision concept of social harmony produces the individual soul killing conformity of a bee hive. Disintegrated, both are components of a totalitarian nightmare.
Our laws will fail to deliver or may even harm liberty and justice for all unless we we can grasp the internal and external, extended interconnections and dependencies the dynamics of human freedom and shared prosperity entails.
Like especially what you say, J L, about "Neglecting the social context of individual rights."
Any essay writing program schools may embrace can honor social context of "others" by teaching all how to discern, prize, and quote social context as "others" put that forward themselves.
I see that becoming available by 1) food, 2) clothing, 3) shelter.
That is, early in any essaying program, all participating can first write self-intros by highlighting each's individual, personal, specific choices in styles of food, in clothing fashions, with the last, shelter, expanding to designs and comfort details of building interiors, richness of landscape exteriors, and transport each best likes in those landscapes.
Everyone reads all the others' intros. Discuss so all can volunteer good items others have raised which one might touch on in some way oneself (crediting the other, too). Then revise the intro essays, fuller with more crediting of others, more appreciation of larger social contexts, complications they have raised.
We could have such great essaying, J L -- human, humane (and appreciative of nature, too).
Important questions, Phil. Thanks for raising these. I see what you did with Israel though. Not so fast. Netanyahu is irretrievably corrupt and would obviously prefer an absolute dictatorship—but especially since Israel is a democracy, his actions are a reflection on every Israeli, not just the far right. Similarly, the American people are accountable (not just AIPAC) for the atrocities that Israel commits (in “response” to Hamas’ atrocities) because of the unconditional support we continue to provide as a nation.
Likewise, if Americans elect Donald Trump to a second term, despite the monumental actions of so many individuals, we are collectively responsible for the consequences at home and abroad.
Trump’s very competitive candidacy is a reflection of the profound rot and dysfunction that grips not only the GOP but also of American society and institutions as a whole.
When the only people advocating for the convicted felon are either billionaires who stand to gain additional billions through GOP-driven mechanisms to add to the already dangerous and extreme concentration of wealth, or are foreign enemies of the United States and democracy, a simple question becomes -are you a proxy vote for Putin, Orban, Musk, and Netanyahu to do whatever they want? Or do you embrace the fundamental concepts of the rule of law, democracy, and equality.
re: the CNN Town Hall, how is it possible that a questioner, identified as a *professor of political science*, said she was still undecided? A poli-sci prof?!? (Waiter approaches table and asks "Have we decided, ma'am?" To which she answers "Not quite. I'm leaning towards the Democracy, but the Nazi sounds appealing.")
For myself, I am fed up hearing from 'undecided' voters. If at this point in the election cycle you haven't heard enough hate and vitriol spewed by agent orange, and wonder if he might be the 'leader' you are seeking, there is no hope for you. What more do you need to hear?
Agreed, Kathleen. I suspect at least some of the questioners last night had already made up their minds, but offered themselves as undecided so they could ask a question. (Nothing wrong with that.) Example: the young man who (identified as a Rep) who asked Harris about how she would handle undocumented people in the US, what they should receive in govt assistance, and will the US taxpayers by funding this. The way the question was framed seemed like he's not voting for her.
I hope a lot of the "undecideds" are life-long Republicans who previously voted for Trump "by default", who just can't say out loud they will vote for a Democrat. Let's hope they can do so in the privacy of the voting booth.
At this point, the undecided are simply coins that have not yet been flipped. What the polls are doing in this election is flipping 100 (or 1000) coins to predict how a coin to be tossed on Nov. 5 will land.
Towards the end of Wednesday’s CNN Town Hall, Harris underscored a stark contrast between Trump, on one hand, creating an enemies list and herself, on the other, having a “to-do list.” I would hope, over and over, that Harris would frame her closing message around that contrast.
John Kelly is now being diminished by Trump allies. It is so obvious that their criticisms are a fake reaction just to please the emperor. Will enough voters see this the way readers of Dr. Richardson will?
Phil, I hope that enough voters make this a freaking landslide for common sense and democracy rather than giving in to the promises of fascism (which only promises to destroy all, not just the ones that they don't like at the moment, a fact that eludes most of them.)
Rowshan, I will try to answer with what I see in my former work cohort: They see/perceive that abortion is only used as "birth control" and is a sin against their god. They believe that a Christian religion is the "one, true way" and that anything else is a threat. They believe that any one seeking asylum or a better life for their family in this country is a threat to them. They buy into everything that Faux Noise tells them, including "on demand" gender reassignment surgery in schools. In my opinion, they have been brainwashed, and willingly so.
The matter is that they are living in a society that is not giving them the information or the education to make sound decisions about who to trust. What society has given them is an economic dead-end, and a culture of hate for people they see favored by the system. This prepares them to act based on emotion rather than reason to hurt those people.
Your mention of Governor Sununu's comment makes my skin crawl. Even more so because I live near Boston, and the battle for governor between Kelly Ayotte and Joyce Craig has generated some nasty TV commercials, one of which is Sununu endorsing Ayotte. It's disgusting to see. As is his continued support for T****.
That jumped out at me as well, James. I also live in NH, have all my life, and despise all the Sununus. When I read that I found myself thinking that someone needs to be cataloging all these things Chris Sununu says in support of Trump to trot out when he makes his run for POTUS in 2028 as I'm sure he's planning to do!
I'm sure the Democratic Party in NH will have that list... but him running for president is something I don't want to see. Let's hope the stench of T**** remains: future generations need to be reminded.
As I watched the unfolding rise if Trump and his behavior after he became POTUS, i came to the realization that the Orange Felon is FASCIST and so pointed out in FB. This is not new information this is critical information that the Professor has place at our feet and in our hands. Today I completed my ballot and I didn’t vote for the Orange Buffon! I voted for MVP. We must not allow the rise of a fascist government on the US. That this race is so close baffles me. That people are gullible enough to swallow the poison the Orange Con Don serves is beyond logic.
There was a far more successful fascist than Hitler and Mussolini. Generalissimo Francisco Franco came to power because of those two in 1939, as they supplied him with the air power in his rebellion against the Spanish Republic. He remained in power until his death in 1975. Millions of Spaniards were tortured, imprisoned, and murdered during those years. Spain today still carries with it the scars of that awful repression, and yet continues to nurse a resurgent right wing (Vox). Totalitarianism, whether coming from left or right, is the scourge of humanity, and America was founded to oppose it. That we have a lunatic cult hoping to crown a monarch in the 21st century is beyond my ability to fathom.
I went on holiday to Spain as a teenager in 1970. I can still remember how shocked I was by the reaction of some Spanish teenagers I met in Barcelona, when I said what a horrible little man Franco seemed to be. They immediately said "Shush! Shush! Someone might hear you - and WE'D be in big trouble!"
As a (Swiss) German American on my mother's side, one thing I learned was that people -- from local tradesmen and home-makers to politicians and pontiffs --, can not turn away from fascism, no matter how great the society is; and Germany was great in 1900. That and the Milgram experiments taught me that "it can happen here."
As a former Republican, I ask y'all to help me send candidate Trump to jail by voting this year.
Thnx for invoking Milgram. Very important….
Fascists love hiding under the radar
like Mr Hilter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDJEgg-7L-Y
Why isn't this viral?
Well, nobody's stopping you! - I'd do it myself, but I've no idea how. . . you could put it on TicToc as "Trump's Grandad at Home. . ."
I agree. I made a similar statement on a different HCR post a few days ago. Fascists can fly under the radar because our Constitution allows it. What they cannot do is act on their fascist behavior in an injurious way to others. It is for this reason that I am perplexed as to why Trump is not yet in jail. He has on multiple occasions incited others to do harm to those who disagree with him. And this was even before his presidency, so, the SC ruling has little to no bearing.
Trump has helpers in quarters and this iteration of fascism has been in the making for a while.
I can’t believe I watched the whole thing. It’s eerily familiar (Trump) and Third Reich, but for all that, Monty Pythonly hilarious. Thank you, Bob Tenaglio.
You are welcome, Susan.
Funniest starting at 1:25
6:24 "He's right, you know that?"
Hillarity unchained. Another Monty Python skit I use as a sure-fire way to drive candidate Trump underground. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2qgifi
JUST THINK if every time Harris supporters saw Trump they began laughing hysterically like this!!! (Better happen soon, though. If -- GOD FORBID -- he becomes the dictator of the U.S., heads will roll if so much as a chuckle is heard.)
Much as I love Monty Python, had missed “Hilter” (did I spell it correctly?). Thank you, Ned McDoodle.
Authority is a potent part of the social chassis. Don't kid yourself. It's an essential ingredient for any ordered society. It can also, all to easily, run over overload.
“The consent of the governed” is the authority of democracy, Frank
Trump should be jailed & his followers watched for the rest of their lives.
Welcome aboard!
From the Franquista period:
Two men meet on the street...
"What do you think of the Caudillo?"
"Shhhh... Not here. Come with me."
They keep walking down very quiet streets, but every time the one asks "Here?" his friend shakes his head. "No, not here..."
They come to the edge of town, dirt roads and a few tumbledown houses.
"Not here..."
They keep walking into the country, across open fields.
At last, they stop in the middle of nowhere and scan the horizon. No one in sight. The discreet fellow turns to his friend and murmurs in his ear...
"Actually, I like him..."
*
I loved Spain then, more than ever. I did find ways of speaking freely with people. But... you just can't imagine the opening, the sense of freedom on crossing the border back into France.
Portugal was much tighter. They didn't need to kill as many, but Salazar's PIDE, the secret police were everywhere and kept files on everyone. Any unusual activity was suspect. My friend who translated for the Dutch foreign ministry took a quiet holiday in the back of beyond, Tras Os Montes. A keen photographer, he took pictures of the countryside and things seen in villages. The PIDE took him in for questioning and read his file to him. All details, down to private address and phone numbers, name and profession of spouse. Because he was interested in people and used his eyes, took artistic pictures of cows and farm machinery, he was suspected of... spying.
Peter, I have quite a few medievalist friends who are younger than I by at least a decade who have been the beneficiaries of the deaths of Franco and Salazar, which resulted in the opening of archives previously sealed off. The relief expressed by archivists and librarians who can now open their doors to these younger medieval historians is palpable. And the work they are doing is completely upending views of the past in centuries of great change (from the 8th century to the 16th) in what became Spain and Portugal. Fascism in Iberia tried to bury the real history of the region in favor of a white, male, "Christian," pseudo-Roman Imperial narrative that is being shown to be anything but accurate by historians working in the last 20 years. And more and more "stuff" is coming out of archives all the time to demonstrate that the fascist-approved view of the past is completely wrong. When I was a grad student trying to figure out what was happening in Iberia, I was hampered by the extremely limited material medieval historians like Father O'Callaghan were able to access. That is not the case now.
Thanks, all of you for this information. A student of medieval French and Goya lover, I wanted to go to Spain, but not while the last king was alive. It would have felt like treason. The words “auto-da-fe” still burt.
I don't quite get it. Juan Carlos is still alive, he abdicated. Besides, for those of us who were around when Franco died, he made an excellent job of the transition to democracy -- despite all the training he'd received from Franco. Scandal upon scandal came much later.
Thank you, Peter. I missed that.
That's very interesting. I've learned a fair bit about Spain under Franco, but not any history since then. I'll read up on it.
So glad you mentioned Salazar. He could have founded the East German Stasi in another time and place.
Fascinated by Salazar and his metaphysical politics, hermetically sealing the country from contact with the world, with the century.
Peter, I visited China in 2005 and saw Tiananmen Square, with its huge portrait of Mao. Our guide reminded us sotto voce not to talk about anything political because there were always government spies eavesdropping. Sometimes they would just be wanting to practice English comprehension but sometimes they were looking for spies. Sure enough, we were followed by several Chinese men in business suits. I saw a group of older men standing in a circle singing. I thought it was nice but our guide hustled me away, saying he knew those men and they were part of Mao’s Red Guard.
Forty years after Mao’s reign of terror. Still gives me chills.
My father taught at a major university. According to the best estimates, one out of every 5 Chinese grad students in the United States was spying on the other 4, and would pass along information to Chinese authorities. The reported student's family would have their lives threatened, and the "disloyal" student would return to China with no further education allowed. A young Chinese PhD candidate enrolled at Omega, a holistic center, for a week with Ram Dass at the same time as my husband and I were there. "X" was a lovely person. [I wrote his first name. Then I deleted it. Is it possible that to this day, 32 years later, he wouldn't be safe if this story was known to the Chinese government??] My husband is Tibetan. One day at lunch, I asked what he thought about the Chinese invasion of Tibet. He said with great enthusiasm, "It was wonderful!! The Tibetan people were so thankful to be freed from the rule of their leader. Now they have education and machinery!" It just so happened that Mickey Lemle was at that same course. I had just seen his film, "Compassion in Exile". I asked Mickey if he would be able to show the film to a group of us. He did so. The film showed the catastrophic results of the Chinese invasion, and the slaughter of the monks and nuns. Our friend sat in between my husband and me. As the film rolled, he grew quieter and quieter. At the end, he prostrated himself on the floor, weeping, and said, "I didn't know! I didn't know! I'm so sorry!!" We said, "X, you have nothing to apologize for. But now you know. It may not be safe for you to tell any other Chinese students the truth. If you think someone can be trusted, however, perhaps you could quietly tell them the truth." I understood for the first time exactly what life is, in a fascist dictatorship.
Thank you for recounting this very pertinent event in your life. I've read that one of the first things Hitler did ,within months of taking office, was to make it a crime to criticize his government.
That was also true at the University of Minnesota in the early-mid 70s. Think of how many spies this must have required! Did the spies enroll? Did they attend classes? Take tests? Receive diplomas? I suppose it’s hard to study and write papers when you have to constantly follow and eavesdrop the target student!
Yes, they did. Professors had no idea which were regular full-time students, and which students were also there to spy. None of the students knew who was a spy and who was not. Since most were not fluent in English, they all hung around each other. Their "spying" was listening to their fellow Chinese students to hear if they were saying anything negative about the Communist Chinese leaders and/or if they were getting too chummy with Americans. Same as in any fascist government. The only difference was that these people were IN THE UNITED STATES.
It was 1977 and my student rail pass took me into Spain. I observed those tricorne police hats. Ah yes, the Guardia Civilia. Perhaps the Italian version was The Vigili Urbani.
No no no...
Concierges, city police, night watchmen were all useful. And the Nazis had their Blockwart snoopers on every block but in Italy the main Fascist surveillance unit was OVRA, the secret police.
The Civil Guards were a national force, men recruited at one end of Spain and sent to the far end to terrorize the locals...
Peter, my husband and I were discussing the series World on Fire which among other things had a bit about a Jewish family living in an apartment building. Just down the hall was the Nazi rat, an elderly woman, who turned them in. I mentioned then one of our neighbors who would be that person. Besides the official groups there was and would be here, people who would report people to the authorities. It must create a terrible tension among neighbors and workplaces, not knowing whom to trust. One of our friends, now living in Michigan, posted about being shot by the local MAGAs should death star prevail. That occurred to me too as death star advocates for violence.
To be re-created during Trump’s “migrant” program? I can picture lots of spies down the hall. Sadly.
Live in Michigan, have a rural neighbor here who, if he can talk someone into giving him bullets (or will President Trump dispense them to his faithful brownshirts?), will shoot me for supporting Pres. Biden who kills babies. Very pro-life.
Ruta Sepetys's historical novel, "I Must Betray You", shows vividly what occurred during Franco's reign.
I was also in Spain in 1977, using my Eurail pass to see the sights. I decided to take a train from France to Madrid to see the Prado. We stopped in the middle of nowhere and the conductors came around extracting bribes to get the train moving again. That's fascism for you. That kind of thing just didn't happen in any of the other countries I visited (I did not go to Portugal, though).
Actually, that's typical of Central and South American societies which were invaded and colonized by the Spanish. I remember a trip I took with friends to Costa Rica. On our way to the airport we were pulled over by police. They insisted that we had broken the speed limit. (We had not.) They refused to let us go. We had no idea what to do. Then one member of our group asked, "Ah! Do you need some money?" "Si! Si!" So she began pulling out bills. When she'd pulled out everything she had, we were free to go.
Haven’t run into that sort of funny business here in Panamá. My son has gotten stopped for minor offenses, gotten a ticket then were on our way. Hope it stays that way too.
Bribes, yes, the kind you describe, Steve. We Americans have not been used to paying bribes to make things work in our daily lives. Yes, that’s fascism for you.
That story is funny in context of the claim that Mussolini made the trains run on time.
Or is that tradition in some cultures? Costa Rica in 1989 was certainly NOT a fascist country.
Thanks. I had forgotten they were called, the Guardia Civilila
Guardia Civil.
Even in translation Lorca's Romance de la guardia civil española must come across. Such a poem!
Thank you for reminding us of Lorca. I always feel a wave of grief at the mention of his name. Edna Saint Vincent Millay’s poem “Lidice,” “Guernica” are mixed up in my childhood rear vision. Later Lorca became part of that dark mixture.
Or “Guardia Civil”
"If Trump is really a fascist, then call me a fool!"
Alexandra Petri, WaPo satirist
Gift link
https://wapo.st/3NzUGBE
To read the “gift” article, you need to create an account. Thank you, no.
I just discovered that, too!
Check out the Wikipedia article on Salazar, please. It's remarkably...benign? Especially after the tumult of the First Republic, which seems depressingly similar to the chaos that too many are trying to foment here. Just as interesting is that the entire article is categorized in Wikipedia under "Conservatism."
More like "preservatism"...
I recall meeting a young nuclear physicist from Portugal living in exile in London in the early 1960s.
Her offense? Drawing a caricature of the Rector of Coimbra University.
It's only because she was a marquesa that her punishment was exile, not prison.
Thanks again to all of you reporting your experiences in countries where oppression still reigns or is very much alive. To brighten the record: I walked the medieval ramparts of Diderot’s hometown, Langres, in honor of his contribution to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Just now? Lovely!
Whoa! THAT'S not good news!
Thank you for this.
😳
I experienced that same thing in Chile in 1988. Adults warned not to say ANYTHING about Pinochet
That has already begun in the U.S. So many people are afraid to post "Harris/Walz" signs in their yards. And in certain places, if you speak negatively about the orange sadist, you better have some sort of protection with you. A friend went door to door canvassing for Harris. She said that one woman told her, "You should stay away from here. Someone might shoot you." (She said this helpfully, not in a threatening way.) My friend was shocked, and left immediately.
A neighbor had a Harris/Walz sing on their lawn. It lasted 48 hours. Next, the neighbor hand wrote a sign. ‘You can take my sign, but you can’t stop me from voting!” The people next store to me have a trump shrine. Flag, sign, vote no on Amendment 4, (abortion, now law is not after 6 weeks) and so on. All is well on their lawn.
If it were not for my only remaining child, who is a teacher in the lowest “#50”paying state in the union, and my grandchildren, I would leave. For the record, it is not cheaper to live here. Please, if you are considering a move to Florida, check out the car, house, and flood insurance that will become mandatory in 2026. My flood insurance in a non flood zone was 1000.00 this year. The state is so badly gerrymandered that the politicians do what they want. The heat is unbearable in June, July, August, September and October. We are finally getting a break.
I vote, but in this state, I wonder if it matters.
Thank You for the rant time. I won’t journal today.
Thank you. I have written many postcards to FL Democrats reminding them to call their county number to ask for a mail-in ballot. Hoping you get relief.
I don't feel safe posting a Harris sign here in rural Michigan. So I have a U.S. flag hung on my porch railing, and, really gutsy of me, it is right side up.
What a sad, sad -- and terrifying -- commentary on the state of our nation today...
Understand - I look for Harris signs in Livingston Cty. Howell - there are some. And there are less Trump signs.
The house in Milford Mi that had HUGE Trump signs for several years now has none. I think that might be because someone there has been indicted as one of the “false electors”.
Fascinating!
Rural central Texas here. I wouldn't put out a Democratic sign of any sort on my home or vehicle. That's a good way to invite a drive by shooting or getting your vehicle damaged.
In town - in Waco, I am beginning to see a few Harris/Walz signs around town. I applaud their bravery.
Until last year, when my health went downhilll I was an election poll worker and judge here for years. I was always scheduled in the "difficult" polling locations because I didn't take guff off of anyone, and made everyone follow the rules. It was simply amazing how fast and loose the Republican election poll workers and judges were with their much-vaunted ID rules etc.
The good news is Texas is moving left a tiny step at a time.
I was in Chile for three months in 1976. I had the same experience. Many, ‘Shushings’!
I highly recommend that you read "Fountains of Silence", an excellent historical novel about life under Franco. The author is Ruta Sepetys.
When I went to Europe in '68 I didn't go to Spain or Germany, because I didn't want to give one single American dollar to either of those countries. I did go to Italy, though, and I have no regrets, because I met an international group of people my age, one of whom had just escaped from Czechoslovakia. I was also in Paris when the students and factory workers struck. They pulled up the cobblestones on the left bank to throw at police, and the government responded by paving over the old streets. On one occasion when I was running away from les fliqs (cops in French), I hid in a doorway; a young man stuck his head out the window and asked if I wanted to hide out in his apartment, where the popular Einstein poster was on his living room wall. He had gone to Berkeley for his study abroad year. Europeans had not forgotten Vichy France or fascist Italy and Spain or Nazi Germany 23 years after the axis had been defeated. We should not forget either, even though 79 years have elapsed.
At the exit from Dachau concentration camp (1973) a quotation from Santayana (please forgive if I do not quote exactly): “Those who do not remember the mistakes of history are condemned to repeat them.”
Egg zackly, Virginia, and I didn't know the exact quote either, but I just looked it up: "Those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
and a lot of others would have adored him!
The maggots of Chile.
I was also in Spain as a teenager in 1966. I was in love with those black patent leather hats worn by the Guardia Civil, not really knowing what they were, I wanted to take a picture of those hats. My Spanish friend just kept telling me no, I couldn’t do that. Now I know why…
MAGA thinks they embody the spirit of 1776 with their snake flags and use of "We the people...". when what they want to do is go back to a King imposing tariffs....and telling us how to live, using martial law to impose his "divine" will. They have this upside down.
The biggest driver of the colonies uniting for American Revolution was King George’s plan to turn the running of the over to the East India Company. The colonists were aware of the depredations the East India Company monopoly inflicted on its subjugated colonies… the Boston Tea Party was a rejection of the EIC monopoly. The EIC had its own army and used it to install its political appointees, who then made sure the EIC was able to control the colonies and take what it wanted at maximum profit to the monopoly.
Strange that the party constantly referring to the “don’t tread on me” slogan of 1776 is the party wanting to give the authoritarians Musk and Thiel power in the government. The Trump campaign all about divvying up the world among political and economic monarchs. And that peope who demand freedom still vote for Trump and his minions is astonishing. We won’t be getting a New World Order but rather the Old World Order of kings and cardinals and barons.
Thanks for that EIC detail. Every time I see MAGA use the snake flag it just boggles my mind...they have no idea they are the Tories...not the revolutionaries who read Common Sense and agreed with it and acted on it.If Trump wins he will attempt to align with Putin and company. 250 years had better not be the end of our grand experiment...
EIC was, among other awfulnesses, a major drug pusher (opium). What is the newest drug being pushed by our tech monopolies to control and weaken us?
This election is our chance to throw the monopolists’s “tea” into the harbor and reclaim our freedom.
I like the Tea image...Maryland had it's own tea party in Annapolis and our "radicals" burned the ship to the waterline...with the Captain begging for mercy. The Tea parties would be a good film with the EIC backstory
Thanks for info of Annapolis’s tea party … and a big yes to a movie that connected the EIC with the revolution.
Hey Mike, I can’t find anything that says the flag was used by the Tories, only that it was first flown by the Continental Navy. I’d love more background.
Sorry Gail, I did not mean that the Tories used it...I meant that MAGA is now what the Tories were...supporting the King....and that flag was only used by Naval patriots fighting the king. The original graphic was published by Ben Franklin as "Join or Die". So it was encouraging the colonies to come together in common defense...and eventually became the yellow and black don't tread on me flag when they united and had a Navy. I think the 1812 privateers also used it.
Thanks Mike! I reread your post, I get it! And I’ll use it!
Having read a lot of medieval history, life was short and brutal for most people. People at all levels were expendable. Politics was a deadly game. When a new leader came to power, opposition heads rolled—literally. Basically this situation is what the far right wants for our country.
JennSH, i read a lot of history from all eras and many different places. What I see is an elite always depending on peasants, but treating them as so many widgets. Also peasants were often burdened with paying some form of tax while the elite reaped the benefits of their labor. This was often backed up by religious institutions. I look upon the power elite in this country as behaving in the same way. So many of them can never have enough. It is said that numbers of people vote for these types.
Michele, I've often posted on here about what level is "enough"--you can't take it with you, and in Trump (and other wealthy person's cases) you can leave it for your kids/grandkids.
While not of the billionaire league, I was close friends with someone for nearly 30 years before I learned of the enormous wealth they inherited. Funny, the patriarch started a business, then another and another, and raised the kids in a middle class area AS middle class people. It wasn't until the 8 figure inheritance came around, that the Trumpian attitudes came out. Also, not so funny, the third generation of this family has serious problems, I think from being indulged by this money pouring in during their teen years.
There is truly value in waiting for AND working for something be it tangible or not! I will never forget this person telling me that after THREE HOURS of opening Christmas gifts, the kids didn't want to open any more! Even they had reached their "enough" stage.
Oh my. Unfortunately for a lot of people, money corrupts. I grew up with several of the town's wealthier kids. Some were snobs; others were not. The kids for the most part went to public school until high school. Then the females were sent east to a variety of prep schools in NY and New England. The boys went to Cranbrook near Detroit, where I think Mittens went. One family sent one of their sons to Howe Military School because he couldn't behave. I am still in contact with one of them who has never been snobby. I had to end email conversations with one who was a snob and was absolutely beside herself when Obama won. She did love all caps and I was very amused when she cited KBOO radio in Portland in one of her argument with me. I took great delight in telling her it was far left radio which one of my friends here listened to religiously.
Now it's feudalism, but without even a hint of reciprocity.
You did not want to be born a peasant or into any servitude. It was a VERY serious power game at or near the top. At least we're not totally in the Medieval phase...Monty Python dealt well with it. Maybe one day we can make a funny historical musical about all of this.
Mike, that would take a creative genius!
we're going to need to be a few years down the road...it took over 200 to create Hamilton. I am working with a playwright who is putting together a musical called "The return of John Brown" that is set today with Brown's spirit coming back. I'll have to write about in my substack soon.
Have you ever communicated with eminent American composer Kirke Mechem in San Francisco? Mechem composed an opera on the life of John Brown. https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/work/30589/John-Brown--Kirke-Mechem/
Our far right might be surprised to learn fascism is not just fun violence and retribution against your enemies. Expect petty corruption, not just the big stuff. For instance, Steve Abbot, above, told about his experience on a train that stopped mid-journey until the conductor collected enough bribes to get it going again.
In France trains are traditionally brought to a stop by strike action at the beginning of public holidays. Citizens are just hostages in this game, pawns used to pressure the Government...
Agree - that is exactly what Project 2025 has planned out - basically a feudal system
We the people, as long as they were propertied white males. The American revolution was as much about maintaining and growing slavery westward as anything else. Chesapeake supplied the south with more slaves than ever after independence.
We had to start somewhere and that was the break...who else was going to do it ? They had the power. I don't agree that the Revolution was as much about maintaining slavery as it was about getting out from under the crown. It took all 13 colonies and most of the war was north of VA. It's true that we had to keep the slavery compromise to make it work out...and it festered for 70 years. It's also true that Maryland had more free black folks than any other state. The 2 leaders, Douglass and Tubman came from our Eastern Shore and the Black regiment from the shore outnumbered all Confederates and White Troops together from the shore. There's a lot to be proud of here.
Perhaps "as much as" is too strong, I'm not sure. You might find Taylor's American Revolution a very interesting read.
Will check it out. I'm much better versed on the Civil War and WW II than the Rev War....and right now we need to understand the reality of that MUCH better...it's being co-opted by folks who don't want freedom...they want this horrible dictator/monarch wannabe.
For sure. American democracy didnt crash out of the gate, it evolved, gradually. Remember women only got the vote in 1920 or so, and expansion of civil and economic rights later in the 20th eg credit card carrying rights, divorce laws. Blacks most didnt vote until the Civil Rights era of the 60s, which split up both the Democratic and Republican parties in a mutual migration. A lot of what the civics books etc teach American is to project our current sense of democratic rights back to the beginning. One of the big points of Taylor's American Revolutions, which is not just all about America. Otherwise, i agree wholeheartedly, god help America if Trump and Maga attain federal power.
And it was the white men who saw themselves entitled enough to simply take over indigenous Indians’ territories. I am still incensed that in grade school I was fed their crap that these peace-loving people were killed because they were “savages.”
I get the public education whitewash. It might not help much, but this approach is common throughout the world where there is, by today's standards, a history of conquest, even genocide committed by your ancestors, and some not so distant. There has been a lot of owning up in many places, but at one time conquest was just the "name of the game". A good dose of history won't make you happier, but it can throw a lot of light on what happens when technologically unequal societies meet and there is wealth to be made. Alan Taylor's American Revolution is one helpful source, but wikipedia abounds with imperial and colonial history and the attending violence. Of course the indigenous began to be called "savages" as they attempted to organize and fight back on European/American encroachments. For example google the history of the Ohio River Valley. This continued after the Civil War as western expansion and railroads pushed west. The "Indians" had to be moved out of the way, one way or the other. You might do well to remember women were as involved as men. Peace-loving btw isn't as simple as it sounds. Slavery was rife among the indigenous, and power struggles abounded for hunting grounds etc. In short, historical life is "complicated".
I don’t need to study anymore history about eons-old land grabs and subsequent coverups. And I get to express my aversion to it. Nothing gets my blood boiling more than Israeli settlers stealing Palestinian land in broad daylight….
The slave issue was a *compromise*, to ensure the Southern colonies would join in the forming of the new nation.
That's Taylor's point. His book keeps weaving the slavery side of things into the narrative, so you don't forget. The racial side of American history is long and tortuous, progress comes around, at huge costs.
Thank you Kerry for reminding us of Franco. Because Spain and Portugal were "neutral" countries during WW2 we tend to overlook them. But they gave refuge to the Nazis then. As you pointed out Spain is still recovering from those 36 years of terror.
Regarding the "success" of Franco's regime - people tend to forget that the beginnings of the huge tourist industry in Spain was based on three things:
1) Cheaper flights
2) The sunshine
3) The fact that 20 years after the war, Spain was still a very impoverished country. When I first visited, I bought a good quality dress for a dollar, which would at that time have cost me ten dollars at home. And I got it shortened by a dressmaker for 50 cents! That was an indelible memory for me - I couldn't understand how people could survive being so poor.
They survive because that's all they can do. You can see it here in America, today. Visit some of the southwest Indigenous People's town in the deserts - they too, survive.
And, looking further back, remember Spain developed a successful empire of conquest and subjugation of indigenous peoples, Portugal in Brazil developed the world's largest centre of enslaved peoples to run its plantations. The English, French followed suite.
Not to mention, the Spanish Inquisition - which was also practiced in Portugal for a time.
Yes, more on the religion side of things, European empires were economically and politically motivated. religion came along for the ride, sometimes rudely knocked aside if humanitarian concerns ever arose. And they did.
We have visited both Spain and Portugal. We were staying in Avila and went out from there to several different places including the huge mountain hall whose name I have forgotten which was a monument to Franco. We also saw Picasso's Guernica which filled the wall of one room. Portugal was delightful and we were not reminded there so much about Salazar.
If I remember correctly, that huge mountain hall was called Valley of the Fallen, in El Escorial.
Yes, the Valley of the Fallen. I thought it was hideous and ugly. El Escorial is the huge monastery where Phillip II lived later in life and it contains the burial of many Spanish royals. We may have seen them on the same day, so they may be near to each other.
I worked on the Navy AirBase at Rota, Spain in 1974. The Guardia Civil, Franco's heavily armed cops, drove around on big noisy Triumph motorcycles, and bullied people. You couldn't be on the beaches after dark, because they would shoot anyone they saw on the beach as a possible drug runner.
Notes, I was in the Navy and stationed at the base in Rota from July of 1974 to July of 1976 and remember those times. I worked at the back of the base inside the huge circular antenna array, the Wullenweber, and we were forbidden to drive our personal vehicles out there because of the Guardia, and others, taking potshots through the fence, and we had to be transported to the site in fortified vans. I also remember the entire base being on major alert in 1975 when Franco died because our command thought there was going to be riots and major civil unrest with the country going from a dictatorship to a monarchy. But there was no unrest at all, and it was a very peaceful and apparently seamless transition. I lived off base in Fuentebravia and also remember there being joyous parades the week of his death that I watched from the roof of my apartment. People seemed to be very, very happy and relieved at his death; I remember no mourning whatsoever.
I don’t expect a whole lot of mourning when Trump keels over. Melania might even wear her “I don’t care do you?” jacket to his funeral.
Especially when you consider all she’ll get from Trump’s estate are his debts.
William, brilliant!
Post was for the Melania jacket comment, William, but this one is good also.
Would there have to be a state funeral for CFDT?
Interesting question. I’d be surprised if there’s a federal law requiring a state funeral for a former president. Or maybe there is? But certainly that’s the tradition. As far as I know the Germans didn’t have a state funeral for Hitler. After he offed himself, a couple of his toadies cremated him in the backyard and then the Russians took care of the cleanup. Hmm…maybe they could do so again if we just ship the body over there.
As long as Lindsey Graham is tasked with throwing the carcass in a carton and the FedEx charge is billed to Mike Johnson. U.S. taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for that trash removal.
I doubt his body will be carried across the continent on a train with thousands waiting at every train stop. . .
I've wondered the same thing. My respiratory fogged brain is searching to not promote misinformation--I hope astute readers here can help out--but I believe that there was huge memorials for Robert E. Lee when he died. I recall reading about this and being astounded.
Well, of one thing we can be certain and that is that Trump will want the royal treatment for his funeral. Probably sell out of gold spray paint in Manhattan. Maybe the proud boys could hop on a few horses and give him a proper sendoff. With some skinheads holding Nazi flags at stiff attention along the curb. That would be proper and fitting I should say.
Ah, yes. I was staying with friends in Puerto de Santa Maria, and drove to the base where I was a contract worker for Boeing, moving the boys on and off the planes flying them to Vietnam. I left in October of 1974, so I missed the transition when Franco died. It was a weird time, seemingly so calm in the little communities around the base, but always that edge of caution.
Free at last, free at last, the monster is dead, free at last.
Why didn’t the monster have a designee, thought he would live forever, huh. Surprise.
My dad was DoD/NATO fuels from 1966 - 74. We spent many weeks over those years in Spain with him on TDY. (Note: DoD schools in the UK were great about “remote” homework - I got to travel all over Western Europe with my homework & give class reports when we got home.). I remember one time my dad was driving the rent car (seemed tinier than a Beetle), and we were flagged over by a Guardia, complete with machine gun & crossed bandeleros. Of course, we pulled over & cautiously addressed the man. He just smiled & asked for a ride back to his station. He & my dad chatted quite lively for the 15 - 20 minute drive. But as soon as we pulled up at the station, his demeanor changed to a brusque, almost shouting, tone. He got out & stormed off, but did give a small wave to me in the back seat.
We have governments right now both purely fascist and theocratic in nature that exists in the world. We can look at these as examples of what it’s like to live under these regimes today. I’m getting as tired of hearing the name Hitler as I am Trump. We need to look at the countries that are imprisoned by these regimes and fundamentalist right now.
My Spanish neighbor grew up under Franco and is terrified about the election.Last week his wife asked where we had gotten our (lonely) Harris/Walz signs even though they are somewhat fearful to display in their yard.We live in a neighborhood dominated by Trump flags/signs.This week their Harris/Walz sign went up…NOT GOING BACK!
🪧🇺🇸
I live in a fairly well-off neighborhood in a very liberal town. On our loop street containing probably 35 homes, there are two yard signs. Our Harris/Walz sign (a cat knocking a r/w/b elephant with an orange toupee) off a table, and the sign across the street and down one that says "Black Lives Matter". That's it. Our main feeder street has one Harris/Walz sign. It was the first one up, and was defaced in about two days. They replaced it, and it's been fine for the 10 days or so that it has been up.
In 2016, I took a trip north out of my town, and all I saw were Trump signs to the Canadian border (about a 3 hour drive - he still lost the state by 0.3%). I repeated that trip about 3 weeks ago, and took an informal tally: Harris ~55% of signs, Trump ~45%. This is truly amazing, and very good news.
Thank You for this news, Steve!
I live in a ruby-red county of the state where Trump's former press liar occupies the governor's mansion ... a county where Trump flags have been proudly flown from porch roofs and flagpoles for years. Recently, many of those flags have disappeared, and to my shock and amazement, Harris/Walz signs have cropped up in numerous yards. I don't delude myself that this red state will return to its former violet hue, but I am encouraged.
Dale, “former press liar” is wonderful!
Ally, I live in a middle class Chicago suburb. There are nearly no presidential signs, but plenty for the local politics. The few signs I've seen (about 5?) have been Trump, in actuality, two of them are flags that have been flying for nearly a year. Yesterday, for the first time, I saw a Harris sign, but it was nearly hidden among their Halloween decorations.
I early voted two days ago. As I fed my ballot into the bin, a former coworker/friend spotted me. I ran over to give her a hug and whispered Vote Harris in her ear, to which she laughed. I later texted that if she voted Trump, I'd still like her--though being an intelligent, single dog-lady, scientist, black woman, I found it unlikely. She answered saying nooooo...she voted for the sane candidate and hoped enough people vote against hate. I answered that there are a lot of closeted white bigots in our very diverse area and she agreed. She said she heard a lot of nasty remarks while she was in line to vote.
I saw all the Trump signs on EVERY SINGLE lawn in a Pennsylvania town in 2016. It DID look like fascism, as the rare one house on the blocks without one stood out.
I want to believe patriotism outweighs hate, but I'm not sure at all.
I live in a redder area in a battleground state and there seems to be fewer signs for the orange fascist, but the "true believer" down the way displays his signs and flags proudly. He also has many signs for state and local races displayed. I view him posting these signs as a public service. I see who he supports and know I don't have to spend too much time researching those candidates. Thanks, neighbor.
The signs. Sigh.....
I admire your Spanish neighbor's courage and faith. I travelled through Spain in 1973, a naive young American. The Guardia Civil were terrifying, and my then husband and I changed our plans and left Spain after one day.
I think it speaks to the hatred, patriarchy, and discrimination that has been bubbling under the surface in our country since the Civil War.
You are correct, Susan. It’s all, all based upon racism.
Yes. And like it or not, the pot has finally really boiled over. The scum has really risen to the top. We are able to see the "scum" as they articulate their mean nature.... right smack in our face. The faux-news stockyards are full of those creatures. This show would not have taken place under Hillary. This "show" needed to be 'on-the-air', big time. Be glad your vote is confidential. The absence of a sign on ones lawn tells me more than one might care to think. But, VOTE. We'll deal with that electoral college insanity soon.., I would hope. Dump it.
And after November 5, we’ll have a precise measurement of the quantity of scum in our country. As far as I’m concerned, anybody who votes for Donald Trump President on November 5, 2024 is scum. Unpatriotic, dangerously stupid scum.
My brother, though highly intelligent, is an extreme racist -- though he calls it "racialist". (Sounds better.) I sent him a list of quotes from the 7 top Trump staff who have called him a fascist. My brother, unlike most maggots, knows what that word means. I didn't write anything, except at the bottom I wrote, "Anyone who votes for Trump is a traitor." I haven't heard back.
The percentage of registered voters who didn’t vote will be interesting, too. And their reasons.
Yeah William, I second that emotion! Thanks for your note.
Recall that white Europeans set up their homesteads on land belonging to darker-skinned, indigenous people long before the Civil War and you will realize that hatred, patriarchy, and discrimination were in the very DNA of the white European colonies.
Pardon the copy/paste, I just commented above and think you'd enjoy this book..
Miselle
just now
Someone here on the "LFAA Bookclub" recommended this book at least two years ago (can't recall who, but thank you!) and I've given it to a number of people. I suggest you read it, it is FASCINATING that TODAY'S elections are rooted in perhaps 200 settlers from 300 years ago!!
"America's Nations: A HIstory of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" by Colin Woodard. You will NOT be bored.
Thank you for the recommendation, Miselle. Interesting that it was published in 2011, long before Trump appeared on the political stage.
I have lived in four of those original cultures and spent considerable time in two others. I can attest to their being like different countries. I have had to learn their respective vocabularies, dialects and cultural customs, which in many cases, are opposite their counterparts in other regions.
I think we might have had a better outcome if European colonists had followed the examples of their homelands and divided the continent into separate cooperative nations. States aren't distinct enough.
This still wouldn't address the problem that they forcibly confiscated land from its original owners. I suspect that if the original tribes had foreseen what would happen in the future, they would have handled the invaders differently.
I just read a summary. It sounds fascinating -- and so accurate. I'm going to order it. Thanks!
Overly simplistic. Surely you know as well as I do that those attitudes are in the DNA of all human beings, like it or not.
I disagree. While it is true that Nature has hard-wired an attraction to like creatures in all animals, including the human ones, attraction to one's own kind is NOT the same as actively hating those who are not similar. Hate is a learned attitude that utilizes the transformation of fear to hate. Only humans can accomplish that. Likewise, patriarchy is an acquired worldview, learned from one's cultural superiors.
Note: I used the reference to DNA figuratively, not literally.
I used DNA literally. Thank you for clarifying.
Oh, how I love those polite Bulwark posts!
Someone here on the "LFAA Bookclub" recommended this book at least two years ago (can't recall who, but thank you!) and I've given it to a number of people. I suggest you read it, it is FASCINATING that TODAY'S elections are rooted in perhaps 200 settlers from 300 years ago!!
"America's Nations: A HIstory of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" by Colin Woodard. You will NOT be bored.
Let's not forget that, in terms of efficiency, no form of government rivals a dictatorship. The challenge in a democracy is that the people expect the government to provide essential services, and the wealthy understand that they'll be the ones footing the bill. With their resources, they attempt—and in the U.S., have succeeded—in gaining power to protect their fortunes. Their greed blinds them to the fact that it's the very people seeking these services who helped them amass their billions in the first place."
As we should be able to see, thanks to our boy E-Lon, a million a day is no big deal when one has billions of them.
Yes, Harvey. I wonder, do high school history teachers still mention the Social Contract? It is a concept that has been interpreted to almost everyone's liking at one time or another, but it should scare the oligarchs. When the struggle for average citizens to survive gets hard enough and it becomes clear who is accumulating all the wealth, there will be nowhere to hide and plenty of lampposts to go around. Representative Democracy based on equal rights is the best way I know to organize society and far safer for the richest among us than dictatorships.
Yes, and only a few of the richest people thrive under the protection of a strongman dictator. The rest of the rich, not so much, not to mention the non-wealthy.
There is also the
“Consent of the Governed”
That is in our Constitution after first being in the Declaration of Independence
We the people have the right to Consent or Not to a Government.
This is part of Trump’s schtick by complaining about election fraud when in fact he is attempting to steal the election.
Don’t consent.
To hell with the corrupted Supreme Court and all the courts - where were they when it counted to get to the bottom of January 6.
Don’t consent to losing our democracy.
I seem to remember China had problems with their efficient management of COVID, once it broke out. It worked for a while.
We must ask, “Efficient at what?” when someone claims superior efficiency for something.
The lesson if Franco- stay in your own borders. He was able to remain in power, i believe, because he did not engage in expansion. Putin could learn from that.
except that Putin considers Ukraine to be within his own borders...
Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet empire on the cheap, without many of the resources the Soviets once had.
Resources? Kathy, are you referring to the 'prison labor' from the prison camps hidden out in the country-side? They'e still got em. We even have a number of Americans buried away in them. I wouldn't travel over there on a bet. I can see all I need to see of Red Square, right from here, in the USA.
Whereas the Ukrainians view Russia as the upstart colony that got away from them in about 1600, and should just act like the poor cousins that they are. LOL. All a matter of perspective
Not to mention the Baltic states and even Finland. When stationed in East Germany, rather than displaying the mandatory picture of the current Soviet leader (Brezhnev if I recall correctly), Putin had one of the expansionist Peter the Great.
Leaders who are stuck in the past will not make good decisions for their people in the present.
Please define what you mean by stuck in the past.
Are indigenous peoples whose land and ways of life were forcibly stolen stuck in the past? Are all historic wrongs to be summarily dismissed if they have not since been properly addressed?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Winston Churchill.
I can't tell if you sincerely misunderstood me, or if you are just trying to change the subject. Leaders,like Putin, who seek to restore the "glory" of a 17th century Russian czar, killing a hundred thousand ill trained Russian conscripts, invading a sovereign nation in the face of all modern conventions of war, and wrecking the Russian economy in the process. "Leaders" like candidate Trump, who keeps a copy of "Mein Kampf" by his bed, and seeks absolute power by the distortion and destruction of the democratic principles that makes the United States, as flawed as it may be, the economic envy of the world, a bastion of safety and freedom that cause refugees from around the world to seek entry to the US by any means possible. Leaders like religious clerics who attach more importance to the words of holly books of prophets long dead, than the facts of what is happening to this world, here and now.
In a different thread, I would be willing to discuss what the US needs to do about the black marks in our own history. But to approach that question successfully the US needs leaders who have a broad view of the past and the present, don't we?
It seems authoritarian regimes have staying power if they don't blow it on overextended military campaigns. Half the world lives thus. One good thing about Franco's regime, Spain took a turn back toward democracy after his death. I think Greece played the authoritarian game when the Generals took control, but that fell through before too long. Not so for Turkey or Egypt these days. Then, Egypt has been ruled autocratically since Pharaoh's pyramids. I'm not entirely sure America was originally founded to oppose "totalitarianism". The last thing the founding fathers wanted was to create a cross the board democracy, and without huge compromises to maintain slavery owning states, it would never have happened, to wit, the Civil War, to wit Jim Crow. Recently the Supreme Court has undermined the Civil Rights Act, upon which Republican states acted with alacrity. Heather has a good read with How the South won the Civil war, my most recent was American Revolutions by Alan Taylor. A key finding about democracies is how populations can become polarized and gridlocked. That's where USA is today! VOTE
I’m glad you mentioned Franco. He supported the founder of Opus Dei and enabled them to grow in Spain before spreading worldwide. Opus Dei members are now in prominent positions in the Republican Party and Heritage Foundation. I don’t think Vance is a member, but he’s influenced by their philosophy.
The Opus Dei movement was born in Spain with fealty to Franco. I find it appalling that this movement is so entrenched in this nation. Leonard Leo is best known for his affiliation with OD, whose tentacles run through the Heritage Foundation, the Supreme Court, and among men who want to protect their wealth and power. Opus Dei's eighty-year-old racist, misogynistic ideals are resurrecting in the Christian Nationalist movement, in flagrant opposition to democracy and separation of church and state. We ought to be incensed!
I am incensed, horrified, and ashamed of my countrymen.
William Barr, Larry Kudlow, and others cooperate with Opus Dei. Members were important in the regimes of Pinochet and Berlusconi, and of course Franco. Another was FBI agent Robert Hanssen who spied for the Soviets.
Thank you for these revelations. When I used the word 'tentacle,' I wasn't kidding! Similarly, in Russia, elements of the Orthodox religion are also in bed with Putin and oppression.
Everything possible has been done to turn the Church into a subsidiary of the FSB. Good priests are lying low or in exile.
FSB=? Federalist Society?
O.M.G.!!!!! I did not know the history of Opus Dei and it's connection to Franco! So THIS is the root of the frightening ideas which have taken hold in American, thanks to the awful Leonard Leo!!! I'm going to spread this information. I'm pretty aware politically, but I had no knowledge whatsoever of Opus Dei's connection with Franco. Thank you!
You are welcome! Thank you.
OCTOPUS DEI...
Good one!
There is a powerful young adult/adult novel about life under Franco. It is a novel, but has been extremely well-researched. The title is “Fountains of Silence”. The author, Ruta Septetys (Lithuanian), has written several historical novels about life under fascist dictatorship. I found the one about life under the ghastly Ceausescu in Romania to be particularly chilling. (Her family is Lithuanian. Some of her family escaped from the Russian takeover of Lithuania, but she tells the story of many, many Lithuanians under Stalin in her novel “Between Shades of Grey”.) I can’t recommend her work highly enough.
She also wrote "Salt of the Sea," about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German cruise liner that carried thousands of refugees in 1945. Although her novels are listed as "young adult," they don't pull any punches and are well-written.
I've read "Salt of the Sea" and became fascinated by the fact that the worst maritime disaster in history (9,000 dead) has never been made public. I am now reading Gunter Grass's novel, "Crabwalk", which is also a story about the sinking of that ship. Lots of interesting background history in this book.
Taking note of your recommendation. Thank you.
GUERNICA REMEMBERS! It is living history......many artists (Picasso of course, but sculptors too) celebrated, the Basque town in Spain, bombed by the Nazis . This town is a living monument to the perils of Fascism.
I grew up in Franco Spain after my father went to work as the protocol officer at the newly opened Torrejon Air Force base. Even as kids, my siblings and I were very aware of what you could and couldn’t say in public. My parents had a number of friends who had been on the side of the Republic. We heard many interesting stories! The poverty was horrific. People lived in caves outside Madrid.
And meanwhile, Franco lived like a king, as fascist dictators tend to do.
I was in Spain on temporary duty in the ‘60’s., with the USAF. Franco’s cops carried automatic weapons as they patrolled Seville. We crossed the street when we saw them coming.
Kerry, I’m with you. So hard to fathom and from many so called smart people😖
- Pulled Quote -
''...recent Federal Election Commission filings showed one significant difference in the expenditures of the two presidential campaigns. The Harris campaign spent $34,550.02 on sign language interpreting services. The Trump campaign spent $0.00.''
(Note: Hitler's regime targeted disabled individuals as part of its eugenics policies, leading to forced sterilizations and mass murders under the *T4 program, aiming to eliminate those deemed "unfit" in the pursuit of racial purity.)
This is really all you need to know. VOTE!
*The T4 Program, officially known as Aktion T4, was a Nazi euthanasia program initiated in 1939 to systematically kill disabled and mentally ill individuals. The regime believed these people were "life unworthy of life" and a burden on society. Victims included children and adults with physical and mental disabilities, who were murdered through lethal injections, starvation, and gas chambers. The program was an early precursor to the broader Holocaust, with the same methods later used in extermination camps. Over 200,000 disabled people were killed under this program.
Once again we can turn to American history to see that “extermination” has happened here too. Eugenics was a widespread practice in the U.S especially aimed at sterilizing women to achieve “selective breeding”.
These programs were well funded by prominent Americans who targeted poor, disabled, mentally ill and Black people in particular.
In North Carolina the program lasted from 1929-1973. Over 7,000 women were sterilized with the slogan that “no child should be born to subnormal parents”.
The “American Breeders Association” wanted to be sure that only those babies with “superior” blood and genes would live.
Does this sound familiar? We have an American running for president now who is talking about people with the best genes and those who are “poisoning our blood”. If we truly examine our history we’ll understand why half of the nation is supporting a white supremacist who wants America to be a fascist nation. It’s not just the experiences of foreign countries-it’s a thread running through the fabric of America too.
Elizabeth Catte writes about the practice of eugenics in Virginia in her book Pure America:Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia.She is also the author of What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia in which she offers a different perspective on the region from that in JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy.
In the 1970s an estimated 25-42 percent of indigenous women of childbearing age were forcibly sterilized by doctors. This was subsidized by the federal government. Read Brianna Theobald's book Reproduction on the Reservation:Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century.
Aktion T-4 was beyond horrific as is what has happened in our own country. Let's acknowledge it and make a vow never again. Never again.We can't go back.We won't go back.
It was only under Governor George Allen (1994-98) that elder members of my husband’s tribe were allowed new birth certificates denoting them as Indigenous rather than black after Plecker declared all natives black under law in the 1940’s.
Thank You, Kamila. I just ordered Catte's book on your recommendation. I worked as a nurse for the good people in Appalacia for 3 years in the late 70's. I HATED Hillbilly Elegy.
Hello, MaryPat. I hated Hillbilly Elegy too. It made my blood boil.
It seems to run through the fabric of white Europeans, doesn't it. Absolutely disgusting.
Chinese have done it in a big way with their " lesser breeds". A cross between bureaucracy and pure sadism.
I hadn't considered that; thanks.
Good lord, never heard of that in NC
In NC you had Melungeons, Lumbee that the government sterilized. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melungeon#:~:text=Despite%20non%2DEuropean%20DNA%20being,governments%2C%20most%20notably%20in%20Virginia.
Good Lordy, doing genealogy, I ran across some info re Melungeons, in husband’s nephews wife’s family. I didn’t pay much attention to it. Damn, they had a tinge of racism. Be careful who you disparage (or sterilize). May be somebody you love…
Jeri, at retirement, my husband discovered a great-aunt died from a botched back alley abortion via inheriting a bunch of very old family letters. Funny, his uncle who would be this woman's nephew is a huge MAGA supporter. I am unsure if he is aware of it (I cut communication with him after I had a Bernie sticker on my car and he started sending personal emails about the state of my soul for being a Democrat. Although not a word to me in person when he was in town and saw me and my car!) Said uncle also divorced his wife of decades and lived "in sin" with a series of women. No hypocrisy there, right.
My friend's little sister got pregnant at 16 and had to deliver at L.A. County Hospital. This was 1974. When she came home she told me they had sterilized her without her even knowing what that meant. Just told her after the fact. She's Navajo. I as a young Caucasian woman had no idea this even happened. I explained to her what this meant.
There have been news articles about the victims of sterilization being awarded damages for their involuntary sterilization. It was a quiet program.
Gina, that is horrifying. And until 1973? I never knew.
Will we ever learn?
When he said there were "good people on both sides" was he talking about "good genes?"
They started with children by taking them from their parents, and then reporting them as having died in institutions where they were supposedly cared for, but really they were killing them. Then went to adults who were institutionalized, and started killing them, that raised a hue and cry in the population. My understanding is that is why Hitler decided to remove the death camps from Germany, because out of sight out of mind.
"That raised a hue and cry in the population."
And by that time, it did no good at all.
And neither will the hue and cry raised by the American people when inflation rockets, the labour force disappears, as will Medicare and SS, FEMA etc etc etc.
And sadly, the worst hit will be the most vulnerable - many of whom vote "Trump!"
But they will die praising him, betcha
You are SO right😱
I really don’t think they understand or even see that trump’s policies will effect them, too!!!
Yes, many camps were in Poland. That’s where my maternal grandparents were gassed in 1942. Chelmno was the camp.
Marlene, I am so sorry about your grandparents.
My daughter went on a class trip to Poland for the March of the Living, when she was on exchange in Vienna in eleventh grade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_the_Living
This was a very powerful experience. Her class visited 3 concentration camps, and stayed in the Jewish community in Krakow where they had a tour, and met a survivor at Auschwitz who talked to them about his experiences.
On the morning that she went on the Walk of the Living she had not slept much or eaten, and felt somewhat ill, and she said later on it felt appropriate somehow for the memories she was paying witness to in the march and hearing the talks. It is this history that worries me for us now.
Thank you, Linda. Yeah, my sister and my cousins were robbed. My mother and siblings couldn’t forgive themselves for not trying hard enough to get them out. But they did try extremely hard and it was to no avail. My father lost family members also, in the oil fields of Boryslav Poland.
Marlene, How awful for all of you. Never again MUST mean something! We MUST make sure of it.
So sorry to hear of your loss. My father’s side, Ukrainian and Lithuanian, immigrated around 1905. Although I have extensively lived among my mother’s people in Italy, I have always wanted to visit Lithuania and the Polish death camps. Maybe next year.
Dachau was the first. Short drive from Munich.
Marlene, You having to live with that personal history just breaks my heart. I am sorry.
Hard to "like" your post, Marlene. Knowing that there are people in our political realm today that would do the same thing to many of us makes me absolutely flummoxed.
Oh, Marlene! So sorry to read this! What a loss for your family! I have small grandchildren and I know how much my parents would have loved to live to see all their now dozen grandkids! The special love that spans generations is a blessing.
People should read up the case of Kurt Gerstein, maybe in the Holocaust Encyclopedia.
"was a German SS officer and head of technical disinfection services of the Hygiene-Institut der Waffen-SS (Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS). In 1942, after witnessing mass murders in the Belzec and Treblinka Nazi extermination camps, Gerstein gave a detailed report to Swedish diplomat Göran von Otter, as well as to Swiss diplomats, members of the Roman Catholic Church with contacts to Pope Pius XII, and to the Dutch government-in-exile, in an effort to inform the international community about the Holocaust as it was happening. In 1945, following his surrender, he wrote the Gerstein Report covering his experience of the Holocaust. He died of an alleged suicide while in French custody."
Wikipedia
And here Trump’s nephew was advised by Trump to let his disabled son die and move to Florida…
He doesn't like to be seen with disabled or injured people. He has a phobia.
Stephen Hawking would have been toast
My husband has ALS, which is what Hawking had - he would have been toast too. Frightens me just to think of it. ALS, in itself, does not dim a brilliant mind.
Anyone without the perfect Aryan body would get “demerits.” Guess brains didn’t count. Wipe out about 80% likely. Just insanity. No excuses for nonsense
My great granddaughter has Down Syndrome. It breaks my heart to even think about it!
They have told us what they will do. And are ignored. Worse than Germany
“Useless eaters” was another term.
Good lord
T4 was also used against the elderly, euthanizing them so they wouldn't be a burden to their family or country.
And that worries me at the age of 77!!!
All you need to know.
The list of disqualifying actions that would have ended any other politician’s career is staggering, yet tRump has managed to escape unscathed. His crimes, indictments, convictions, and outrageous statements—any one of which would have been career-ending in the past—haven't diminished his support. Instead, we’re left with a demagogue whose cult-like following not only overlooks his history but revels in how much he outrages his political opponents. It seems they care more about provoking a reaction from their adversaries than about the policies he offers.
Michael....I did a search but could not find the sign language services information. Can you direct me to the article. Sadly, even $35 K is a very small amount...but better than $0...plus I thought certain events required that be available by law. Sorry I am not more aware of things like that. Thank you.
Finally! The media is doing what they should have been doing since Charlottesville. They’ve been afraid to use the “f” word despite his admiration of Hitler, his use of words like “vermin” and “the enemy within”.
Call it like it is. Trump is a fascist. Trump is America’s Hitler. He must be defeated… now! Democracy cannot stand by, waiting for the actuarial table to solve our problem.
"Vice President Harris told [Anderson] Cooper that . . . when a four-star Marine general comes out two weeks before an election to warn Americans that one of the candidates is a fascist, we should see this as 'a 911 call to the American people.'”
Thank you Vice President Harris for speaking the truth; thank you, General Kelly, for taking your oath to Constitution seriously.
What was Heather saying about "whether the U.S. government should work for everyone or for the very wealthy and corporations?" The Los Angeles Times was part of the media calling out that the emperor has no clothes--until now when its billionaire owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, vetoed its editorial board's endorsement of Kamala Harris. One of the board members resigned in protest. We can write a Letter to the Editor (I did, even though I cancelled my subscription earlier this year):
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/submit-letter-to-the-editor
You can cite the link to their published endorsements:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-09-10/los-angeles-times-elections-endorsements-2024-november
Jessica Craven posts this link to complain online, using the same article link above:
https://form.jotform.com/93047569731162
Dr. Soon-Shiong is a naturalized citizen who emigrated from South Africa and is friends with Elon Musk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Soon-Shiong
https://www.semafor.com/article/10/22/2024/los-angeles-times-wont-endorse-for-president
READER ENGAGEMENT
1. Uncle Sam needs you! https://www.mobilize.us/ (And me.)
2. Please repeatedly post "not suckers or losers" comments in social media. According to Facebook, there are 4 million veterans and active duty members on Facebook, as well as 12.5 million family members and 242 million friends with veterans or active duty members. Military sites, veterans; organizations, historical sites.
Vote vets has already flipped many 2016 and 2020 Trump voters.
Though I suspect that some are bots, I have been countering misinformation posts I find on Yahoo, and reporting them to the Yahoo Administrators. Does it do anything, who knows, but I do like to post corrections under the comment before I report them. Just so others see it.
Thanks for making this easy for me. Shared with my folks, who are (hopefully, soon, "were") subscribers. The comment I left to LAT: "How can you leave out the Presidential Election when the paper itself says: The editorial board endorses selectively, choosing the most consequential races in which to make recommendations."...not endorsing for the top slot means ALL the other endorsements are untrustworthy."
Thank you for the links. Done.
Thanks, Ellie. Done.
Thanks, Ellie.
How did we end up with so many South African cast-offs?
Herb, I share your frustration with how the media have treated Trump differently than either Biden or Harris. They question the Democratic candidates in relentless, minute detail and let Trump rant without interruption, fact-checking, or follow-up questions. I agree that they have failed to challenge his obvious fascism. It’s been unbelievably frustrating and is responsible for the equally frustrating fact that Trump is anywhere close to Harris in the polls. It’s only now, with less than two weeks to go before the election, that they are starting to wake up from the trance they’ve been in and that’s tragic.
An important essay by Joyce Vance that complements the concerns raised by the good professor. https://joycevance.substack.com/p/is-doj-doing-enough-to-protect-the
NO THEY ARE NOT. Should be HEADLINES on every paper. Not even mentioned in most media.
Herb, very good. This needs to be said. Americans fought the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and two World Wars to preserve the ideals of a government of the people, by the people and for the people. It is mind boggling to imagine that we might now vote to voluntarily give up those freedoms for a leader who says he will establish a fascist dictatorship based on those of Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler.
David, the thought turns my stomach
But what if he’s not? Right now he’s likely to win according to Nate Silver.
It was Mussolini's rise to power in the 1920's that led my grandfather to gather his large family to immigrate to the United States. Before leaving Italy, family lore tells it, when asked to pledge his fealty to the dictator, he spat on the ground, refusing to comply. Sad to say, my MAGA sister does not follow in her grandfather's footsteps.
Bravo for your grandfather, Lynell! Very sorry about your sister, however.
My two sisters snapped to, my bros not so much. Does she have a MAGAt husband?
How sad that lessons are lost after one generation. Same with my bros.
He's a MAGAt, too, JD; though, she is the dominant one in the family...and a childless cat lady to boot. Go figure!
Lordy, JD would have a word with her. My youngest bro’s wife tells him what to do. The dynamics keep my head spinning.
Morning, Marlene! Thanks for your sympathy.
Morning, Lynell! That is an excellent "family history" to have. So sorry you've lost your sister to that cult. I thank the powers that be that my family has not succumbed to the cult.
Morning, Ally! Alas, my sister - politics aside - has always leaned toward authoritarian leadership in the sense that she prefers one person (preferably her!) having absolute authority and control over everything. The guardrails that a democracy provides does not fit into her world view. Seeing as how we don't talk politics, we're still on speaking terms.
I pray that between Republican defectors, Swifties and Billie Eilish fans, that we’ll be okay but, dang… really would feel better if it didn’t look like a nailbiter right now.
Wise voices are saying that the Press is keeping our nails bitten, not the facts. Polls sell papers.
That's definitely my take, Anne-Louise. The media is to blame. The media corporations have abandoned journalistic ethics; they are first and foremost to blame for our entire baneful state of affairs. "The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal. Together, the "big six" absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States." The CEOs and other leaders are ruled by greed and their own deisre for power rather than disseminating the truth. Unless ethical journalism is restored, the companies will continue to feed the people with lies, conspiracies, and other sh*t.
Miranda, I agree with Anne-Louise below, but also, if the nailbiting causes US to not be complacent and GET OUT AND VOTE, it's worth it, I guess. Although I'm going to have an ulcer .
Ugh the ulcer… I am with you
HARRIS VS TRUMP: AN EXISTENTIAL NAIL BITER
Heather, many of your subscribers know the meaning of ‘fascist,’ but I strongly doubt that a great majority of Americans do. Some may have heard of Hitler, but for very few does Mussolini ring a bell.
They may recognize Putin, but have scant knowledge of his authoritarianism.
I read carefully the NYT’s Editorial Board’s listing of dozens of individuals who had worked in the Trump administration and underscored why he was an ignorant, egotistical, and wrong-headed president.
When distinguished four-star generals publicly characterize Trump as a ‘fascist’ and a national danger as president, I had imagined that the military and millions of veterans would take note.
Bone Spur Donald, who called soldiers ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’ denigrated combat-hardened POWs who were tortured (John McCain), and didn’t want injured soldiers ‘spoiling’ his military parades, is projected to win a large majority of the military vote. HUH?
I am gobsmacked that perhaps half of American voters will support the figure head of Project 2025 on November 5th.
Regarding ‘fascist’ (or ‘authoritarian,’) I am reminded of the saying “if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, most likely it is a duck.”
A recent review of books on Hitler’s rise to dictatorship could be describing Trump:
1) “He was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the differences between lies and truth.”
2) “But his followers craved ‘authenticity’ and ‘facts didn’t matter at all.’”
3) For Hitler his message “had to be simple and emotional, not intellectual.”
4) Among other traits of Hitler were “insecurity. Intolerance of criticism, bombastic claims about his own achievements, and scorn for intellectuals and experts.”
I AM GOBSMACKED (AND FEARFUL) THAT THE NOVEMBER 5TH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IS A NAIL BITER.
Apparently military base canteens play Fox all day - no wonder members of the military think that Trump is worth voting for. They have no contrary information.
I just heard over 60% of the military are for Trump. WTF!
Because a lot of them hate the ranking officers above them, and strong, tough guy worship is also big in the military. It can be heavy on might makes right sometimes. Trump embodies that sense of machismo and fragile masculinity very well. There are also a non insignificant number of people in who are in the military or former military who like the idea of being looked at as better or more special than their fellow citizens so I cant say I'm surprised.
That includes a lot of retirees who fought who ought to know better as well. As retired military, they had choices of where to get their news, but apparently were already in the T Camp.
My brother-in-law, draftee in 1948(?) was a Fox devotee. One of his sons, likewise. The other, a lawyer and a friend I am weighing whether to write that I have written 199 GOTV postcards to his (and my husband’s) state. Thinking not.
I have an intelligent, caring relative who took a job that required a one hour commute to and from work each day, so he turned his car radio on FOX News. Within a month he became a trumper. No dissuading him.
1
I'm with you, Keith. Stunned that so many of my former cop friends who are behind fpotus 100% and do not acknowledge that he is a criminal, insisting that it is "judicial persecution" and a "weaponized justice system" and not his conduct. They give equal weight to Biden's possession of classified documents which he returned and to fpotus's theft of classified information that he stored in a bathroom. Flummoxed. Gobsmacked. Dismayed.
Perfectly describes a megalomaniac/sociopath also.
I don’t get it either Keith, we know that there will always be a certain number of people who are not paying attention, distraction can happen to any of us, but usually focus returns. The fact that so many remain unfocused is cause for concern, especially among the military where focus is what the job is all about. I’m a combat vet, I could tell in an instant who had my back and who didn’t. The insipid orange turd with his “bone spurs”, would have never had anyone’s back not even his own family’s, much less that of our nation. Why he enjoys support among our military makes absolutely no sense, add to that his support among police departments all over the country which is a known case, we have very good reason to worry. My father and his two brothers who fought fascism during WWII would be appalled that anyone running for president would embrace fascism like we are witnessing and that millions of fellow Americans are in agreement with him. You would think that the news of the last few days, would be a bone crushing deal breaker among a nation of patriots, but apparently not among members of the repugnantkin party, to them it’s like rain hitting a duck’s back. In less than two weeks we will know whether we have a nation we want to live in or not, I never in my lifetime thought I would ever write this sentence. 🙏
At 90, remembering the bombing of Warsaw (Polish background, even after 3 generations did not die in my father whose great grandfather had come to America and signed up in Philadelphia with other Poles to fight for the Blue) and Pearl Harbor, knowing “the War Effort” (I can still sing the songs as we did in assembly in my country school, having a piano player-teacher in the small community near Richmond, VA), I am both horrified at what has happened to JFK’s speech in the ‘60’s and the continuing racism which, with 1890’s style economics, divides US.
For those who don’t know JFK’s speech: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
Virginia Trump: “ASK NOT WHAT CAN I DO FOR MY COUNTRY, BUT WHAT MY COUNTRY CAN DO FOR ME, DON JR. ERIC, IVANKA, AND JARED.”
Spot on, Keith!
Excellent, Keith! But it’s far beyond them too. For all who look at billionaires while they’re being ripped off and lied to, sadly they’ve joined the billionaires.
Keith, I checked uut NY Review Of Books'"Hitler's Enablers":
* 'The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power ...". Author: Ben Carter Hett, ($18.99 paper).
** 'Takeover: Hitler's Rise to Power', Author: Tim W. Ryback, 386 pp, Knopf cost $32.00.
*** 'Hitler's 1st 100 Days: When Germans Embraced the 3rd Reich, by Peter Fritzche, Publisher is Basic Books, $32 Hardcover or $19 Paper Back.
Alternative IF you are in DC Region: The 3rd Floor of the DC Holocaust Museum. Original documents & historical photographs that you will never forget.
OR ... Go & see the Kate Winslett movie: "LEE".
Voted, my vote was received & CA Secretary of State confirms my vote has been counted.
As a retired Fed (Deep State), I cringe when I think of my current Fed colleagues having to take a loyalty oath to Generalissimo Trump. The oath I took was to the Constitution and the laws of the USA.
As for Trump: LOCK. HIM. UP.
Ah, yes, the loyalty oath. We should have seen it coming in the spring of 2017 when Trump fired James Comey (the individual most likely to have brought about Hilary's defeat) because he refused to pledge loyalty to a man instead of to the country. The stories told in today's comments give us a picture of how loyalty is enforced.
Doesn't seem to matter so many top U.S. military and national security vets warn he's a fascist.
U. S. tens of millions still cheer their fat, fascist, orange felon.
How does this U.S. cult fit the global one where similar autocrats ride nationalism, racism, closure of dissent, and sectarian hatreds of “others”?
Russia’s Putin. India’s Modi. Hungary’s Orban. Egypt’s Sisi. N. Korea’s Kim. Turkey’s Erdogan. Syria’s Assad. Saudi’s Mohammed bin Salman. The Israeli far-right’s Netanyahu. The Iranian mullahs. Chinese cadres.
They all enforce group thinking. By stressing state murder, fawning oligarchs, crackdown on independent judiciary and free press, they also stress life-as-units-only: units of money, people as units in falling-in-line conformity.
What is it in western schools, in the democracies of U.S. allies, that differ from the autocracies? Do western schools essay ways to see and celebrate individuals? Do they key humanities?
We know how U.S. post-Powell-memo standardized testing kills individual, critical thinking. We know how far-right billionaire thinking abstracts the categorical, the group, and the linear stewing all the world’s autocracies.
Do we know how the U.S. tens of millions’ tilt to cult-leader similarly succor all his oligarch, dictator, and murderous nationalist peers worldwide?
Part of this cult is the cult of Christian Nationalists, which sees Trump as a means to an end, and they don't give a damn about our Constitution, they only care what they believe God wants them to do, as told by their fascist pastors. Another part of this cult is the White Power Movement Militias who also see Trump as a means to achieve their goals of getting rid of all non-White people and then world domination. They also don't give a damn about the constitution. They overlap with the first group. Then, we have the super rich people who see Trump as a means to their ends of low to no taxation and no government interference with their business practices. They are the ones bankrolling this. They are members of the cult of the super rich, who also think they are better than everyone else. Some of them may overlap with the other two groups as well. It seems these numbers of people are either being inflated, or there are really a lot of people in these groups. There is also a substantial number of people who just don't believe their lives will be bad either way. The Millennial men I worked with were like that. They did not vote. They spent a lot of time on YouTube, their jobs, and their kids, but do not see the elections as changing the daily details of their lives. Their wives vote though. I am hoping for a Blue Wave of Women to come out in this election.
I'm hoping for that blue wave of women "to come out in this election" as do you, Linda.
The younger guys? -- maybe mostly all self-marginalized anyway. Though as Scott Galloway reports, there may be serious repercussions in the U.S. for so many superfluous guys now in the U.S. (as in Japan, and other countries, too).
I like how you say early on, about "Christian" nationalists: "they don't give a damn about our Constitution." And then shortly after, about the white power militias: "They also don't give a damn about the [C]onstitution."
I was waiting for you to get to the Clarence court, too, after you mentioned the rich, with a similar phrase about neither group caring about the Constitution, either.
Phil, I am including the Republican members of the Court under Christian Nationalists. Here is Andra Watkins defining them in her Substack in which she discusses the CN elements of Project 2025 and some other things. She defines both CNs and the charismatic Christian branch which is more recent known as The New Apostolic Reformation. I suspect that Mike Johnson is an NAR.
https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/what-is-a-christian-nationalist
https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/what-is-the-new-apostolic-reformation
Note the difference in the End-of-Days beliefs of the NAR. They feel personally mandated to force everyone on the planet to follow their narrow set of beliefs and lifestyle, and Trump is more likely to hand that to them.
Good heavens... What followed when failed far-right politicians discovered religion, cushy tax-free jobs and obedient congregations...!
It's not only the Constitution they despise... Abuse of the Gospel is limitless. Replacing liberation by enslavement. Total domination.
Exactly! This is what we got when taxing religious schools even got considered. Of course they should be and all these crooked churches that don't follow the law and tell their congregations both how to vote, and to prepare to take arms against the government. They should be registered as hostile political organizations.
Were it not so obvious that wealthy plutocrats can openly buy much of what they want in terms of governmental outcomes, we might have many much more engaged and enthusiastic voters. The more voters feel marginalized the more cynical many of them become; and the more voters disengage, or vote as a protest rather than to build, the more power plutocrats can capture. Voters need to take a look around and stand together, to break the vicious cycle.
I felt my body wince as I read, "superfluous guys" that I took literally. I'm commenting only to say that my view of the problem is that these men FEEL superfluous, not that they ARE superfluous. In the NY Times Daily Podcast yesterday, interviewer dug down to root causes for an apparent trend that males see Trump/Vance ticket more likely to help them to be providers and that the roots of that is insecurity based on their early education when males lagged behind females in intellectual readiness and limiting attitudes then began to harden. So sad and I know you care about education. "The Gender Election", https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/podcasts/the-daily/gender-election.html
Unfortunately women, and others have had to work harder than White men just to get less. Doing well in school does not guarantee success in the workforce. I taught in a school where when a White male was called out for totally inappropriate behavior, it was the complaining woman that got let go. Who do you think was the more effective teacher?
They all want to go to Heaven. If I met a fat man with dyed hair at the Pearly Gates, holding a basket of fries pinched from MacDonalds, I'd about turn and jump off.
Some surprises in store there, although I have a hard time believing that these “smart” guys believe their own bull Schitt.
Ah well. Thoughts and prayers, you know.
Anne-Louise, I think you’d realize that you hadn’t made it to heaven after all!
Nah. I memorised Omar Khayyam in my youth..."I myself am Heav'n and Hell".
Most all of the women I know, are part of that blue wave!
Phil, I had a long Facebook "conversation" with some of my fpotus supporting former work cohort. What it boils down to is that, in their minds, "it isn't that bad". When I compare (as the Professor has done here) the language of the Nazi's with what fpotus is saying, and note how similar they are, they essentially tell me not to worry my pretty little head about it because they don't really mean me. Their only response to "then who do they mean" was "immigrants and illegals". I cannot engage with these idiots any longer.
That is so telling... I've had this same conversation with some former friends or family members and I tell them that as a human it shouldn't matter who it is we are talking about. Either we are all treated equally and we are equal in the eyes of the law or we aren't. If we can do it to one group of people or citizens it will inevitably happen to someone that you know and then when you are personally affected you will care about and have a shocked Pikachu face. Then of course the goals posts move and they say, well that's not what Trump or MAGA people really mean.
I've come to realize that MAGA Republicans don't engage in debates about politics faithfully, it is as simple as that. They look at it as winning and losing, there is literally no politician that is too shameful or insane that they won't follow. Politics is way more of a team sport or partisan for them. These are the same party that want "freedoms", "small government", and "responsible fiscal policy" but have no issue with a President who talks about taking away the free press, putting people in concentration camps, would explode the deficit and is frankly a corrupt criminal. They have no intention of faithfully engaging in debate or the truth. They don't objectively view Democrats and Republicans through the same lenses, these just aren't honest or serious people.
Words have consequences. No critical thinking.
It seems to me that a core function of government is to deter any substantial form of abuse. "Abuse" can get fuzzy at the margin, but at some point it's pretty clear. Threatening someone with a weapon to take their money as an example. Law defines the boundaries of what is considered harmful behavior, and the function of law enforcement is to minimize harms so far as is practical. Also to minimize situations which create unacceptable risks of harms, such as DUI enforcement or intervening if someone threatens (with or without obvious means) to blow up the school. I don't relate to those (and there are many) who say that Trump will not carry out his most extreme threats. He has already demonstrated his contempt for rule of law, and his hand picked judges have substantially exonerated him for doing so. Other than to pull off a coup for the thrill of unaccountable power, I can't quite grasp what these Trump supporters think they are getting for their votes. Anyone has a duty to the law. Elected officials and public servants even more so. Real liberty cannot be maintained any other way.
They are like an ostrich with its head in the sand
We all have an "ego", literally the sense of "I". We all lead an internal, sentient life. We also experience, in encounters and though our nervous system., a rich and extended exterior reality, which includes individuals similar to ourselves. We are a highly social species.
Liberty and human rights are always two-fold; they apply to both the individual and also the social dimensions; and both are interdependent. Neglecting the social context of individual rights in an exclusively narcissistic interpretation "freedom" produces sociopathy. Neglecting individual rights and potential in tunnel-vision concept of social harmony produces the individual soul killing conformity of a bee hive. Disintegrated, both are components of a totalitarian nightmare.
Our laws will fail to deliver or may even harm liberty and justice for all unless we we can grasp the internal and external, extended interconnections and dependencies the dynamics of human freedom and shared prosperity entails.
Like especially what you say, J L, about "Neglecting the social context of individual rights."
Any essay writing program schools may embrace can honor social context of "others" by teaching all how to discern, prize, and quote social context as "others" put that forward themselves.
I see that becoming available by 1) food, 2) clothing, 3) shelter.
That is, early in any essaying program, all participating can first write self-intros by highlighting each's individual, personal, specific choices in styles of food, in clothing fashions, with the last, shelter, expanding to designs and comfort details of building interiors, richness of landscape exteriors, and transport each best likes in those landscapes.
Everyone reads all the others' intros. Discuss so all can volunteer good items others have raised which one might touch on in some way oneself (crediting the other, too). Then revise the intro essays, fuller with more crediting of others, more appreciation of larger social contexts, complications they have raised.
We could have such great essaying, J L -- human, humane (and appreciative of nature, too).
Important questions, Phil. Thanks for raising these. I see what you did with Israel though. Not so fast. Netanyahu is irretrievably corrupt and would obviously prefer an absolute dictatorship—but especially since Israel is a democracy, his actions are a reflection on every Israeli, not just the far right. Similarly, the American people are accountable (not just AIPAC) for the atrocities that Israel commits (in “response” to Hamas’ atrocities) because of the unconditional support we continue to provide as a nation.
Likewise, if Americans elect Donald Trump to a second term, despite the monumental actions of so many individuals, we are collectively responsible for the consequences at home and abroad.
Trump’s very competitive candidacy is a reflection of the profound rot and dysfunction that grips not only the GOP but also of American society and institutions as a whole.
Thank you Professor Richardson.
When the only people advocating for the convicted felon are either billionaires who stand to gain additional billions through GOP-driven mechanisms to add to the already dangerous and extreme concentration of wealth, or are foreign enemies of the United States and democracy, a simple question becomes -are you a proxy vote for Putin, Orban, Musk, and Netanyahu to do whatever they want? Or do you embrace the fundamental concepts of the rule of law, democracy, and equality.
It's really that simple.
Putin is the winner. My s-I-l says he’s not on the ballot, but he is.
re: the CNN Town Hall, how is it possible that a questioner, identified as a *professor of political science*, said she was still undecided? A poli-sci prof?!? (Waiter approaches table and asks "Have we decided, ma'am?" To which she answers "Not quite. I'm leaning towards the Democracy, but the Nazi sounds appealing.")
I just don't get it.
Unf**kingbelievable
I've always used my Dad's "UnbeF***inglevable" same message, different emphasis.
Exact same message. My young self would be shocked. My old, ragged self, not so much. Bet your Dad was a corker…
Indeed he was.
For myself, I am fed up hearing from 'undecided' voters. If at this point in the election cycle you haven't heard enough hate and vitriol spewed by agent orange, and wonder if he might be the 'leader' you are seeking, there is no hope for you. What more do you need to hear?
Agreed, Kathleen. I suspect at least some of the questioners last night had already made up their minds, but offered themselves as undecided so they could ask a question. (Nothing wrong with that.) Example: the young man who (identified as a Rep) who asked Harris about how she would handle undocumented people in the US, what they should receive in govt assistance, and will the US taxpayers by funding this. The way the question was framed seemed like he's not voting for her.
I hope a lot of the "undecideds" are life-long Republicans who previously voted for Trump "by default", who just can't say out loud they will vote for a Democrat. Let's hope they can do so in the privacy of the voting booth.
I wondered that, too.
At this point, the undecided are simply coins that have not yet been flipped. What the polls are doing in this election is flipping 100 (or 1000) coins to predict how a coin to be tossed on Nov. 5 will land.
Towards the end of Wednesday’s CNN Town Hall, Harris underscored a stark contrast between Trump, on one hand, creating an enemies list and herself, on the other, having a “to-do list.” I would hope, over and over, that Harris would frame her closing message around that contrast.
Billboards everywhere!
Good to know, given I live in a very blue section of a very blue state where, aside from yard signs, I encounter very little advertising.
John Kelly is now being diminished by Trump allies. It is so obvious that their criticisms are a fake reaction just to please the emperor. Will enough voters see this the way readers of Dr. Richardson will?
Phil, I hope that enough voters make this a freaking landslide for common sense and democracy rather than giving in to the promises of fascism (which only promises to destroy all, not just the ones that they don't like at the moment, a fact that eludes most of them.)
Another day to rememer how right Harry Truman was back in 1948, when he observed that "The only 'good Republicans' are pushing up daisies."
What is the matter with those who refuse to recognize the danger that Trump brings to the US as a country, a people and a culture?
Rowshan, I will try to answer with what I see in my former work cohort: They see/perceive that abortion is only used as "birth control" and is a sin against their god. They believe that a Christian religion is the "one, true way" and that anything else is a threat. They believe that any one seeking asylum or a better life for their family in this country is a threat to them. They buy into everything that Faux Noise tells them, including "on demand" gender reassignment surgery in schools. In my opinion, they have been brainwashed, and willingly so.
But he’s amusing with his word salad, “dancing,” and “weaving.” Only to a cult devotee, of which we have many. You’ve done one hell of a job, Rupert…
The matter is that they are living in a society that is not giving them the information or the education to make sound decisions about who to trust. What society has given them is an economic dead-end, and a culture of hate for people they see favored by the system. This prepares them to act based on emotion rather than reason to hurt those people.
Your mention of Governor Sununu's comment makes my skin crawl. Even more so because I live near Boston, and the battle for governor between Kelly Ayotte and Joyce Craig has generated some nasty TV commercials, one of which is Sununu endorsing Ayotte. It's disgusting to see. As is his continued support for T****.
Sununu has always been what he is today. A slimy republican rat
That jumped out at me as well, James. I also live in NH, have all my life, and despise all the Sununus. When I read that I found myself thinking that someone needs to be cataloging all these things Chris Sununu says in support of Trump to trot out when he makes his run for POTUS in 2028 as I'm sure he's planning to do!
I'm sure the Democratic Party in NH will have that list... but him running for president is something I don't want to see. Let's hope the stench of T**** remains: future generations need to be reminded.
As I watched the unfolding rise if Trump and his behavior after he became POTUS, i came to the realization that the Orange Felon is FASCIST and so pointed out in FB. This is not new information this is critical information that the Professor has place at our feet and in our hands. Today I completed my ballot and I didn’t vote for the Orange Buffon! I voted for MVP. We must not allow the rise of a fascist government on the US. That this race is so close baffles me. That people are gullible enough to swallow the poison the Orange Con Don serves is beyond logic.